Divine Sugar Sticks for June 2000

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Psa 102:24, “I said Oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days, thy years are throughout all generations.”

Joshua 14:7, “Forty years old was I when Moses the servant sent me.”

Jer 17:11, “He that getteth riches, shall leave them in the midst of his days.”

Joshua 14:10, “The Lord hath kept me alive these forty and five years.”

P. S. If I told you how many years he has kept me alive you would be shocked.

Acts 2:22, “The man was about forty years old on whom this miracle of healing was shewed.”

Acts 7:23, “When he was full forty years old it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel.”

1 Pet 4:2, 3, “The rest of His time, the time past of our lives.”

For hope shall brighten days to come. And memory gild the past.

Types of Suffering and Sickness

1. Organic and hereditary
Timothy’s frequent inflictions and his continual weakness illustrates this group. 1 Tim 5:23

2. Retribution, penal and judicial
Paul refers to one was visited with sickness for special sins, 1 Cor 11:30. Also in John 8:14 and 11:25

3. Corrective paternal and disciplinary
The case James contemplates can be placed in this category. James 5

4. Educational and prepatory
Psa 35:13, Isa 38:12-16, Matt 25:36, James 5:14

5. Voluntary and vicarious
Epaphroditus and Trophimus were sick, but their sickness was not of a disciplinary character calling for confession. Phil 2:25-30, 2 Cor 12:7-10

As the Lord is the Creator of the human body with all its organs, faculties and members, He is able also to re-create it.

The Uniqueness of Christ’s Healing Ministry

1. It was miraculous intervention. Luke 4:39, 40, 5:17-22
2. It was gradual. “He began to amend.” John 4:52
3. It was instantaneous, “immediately.” Luke 5:25
4. It was permanent, “enter no more.” Mark 9:25
5. It was complete, “made whole from that hour.” Matt 15:22-28

Christ’s Two-Fold Purpose in Healing

1. Godward
It proved His Deity. Luke 5:24
Fulfilled prophecy. Matt 8:16-17
Satisfied His compassion. Matt 14:14
Obtained the glory of His Father. John 9:2-3

2. Manward
To draw attention to His Word
To set the infirm free
To empower and ennoble life
To add to life qualitatively
To reorganize life creatively
To reveal God’s love in practical ways

Promises Found for the Deliverance From Death in Scripture are Impressive

Deut 32:29, 1 Sam 2:6, “I kill and I make alive.”

Job 33:28, “He will deliver his soul from going down into the pit.”

Psa 37:37, “Mark the perfect man  ... The end of that man is peace.”

Psa 48:14, “But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave.”

Psa 102:20, 26, “To loose them that are appointed unto death.”

Prov 14:32, “The righteous hath hope in His death.”

Isa 25:8, 1 Cor 15:54, “He will swallow up death in victory.”

Hosea 13:14, “I will redeem them from death, O death, I will be thy plague.”

Rom 8:38-39, “Neither death shall be able to separate us from the love of God.”

Phil 1:21, 23, “To die is gain” ... A desire to depart

2 Tim 1:10, Heb 2:14, 15, “Christ, who hath abolished death.”

Rev 1:18, “I have the keys of hell and death.”

… and many more.

The Unique Honesty the Bible

There are manifold promises in the Bible for married life. The Bible is a bold book. It hides nothing of sham. The Bible conceals nothing or “moral cripples” or infirmities or weaknesses or evil.

An illustration of the absolute honesty of the Bible can be found in the chapter dealing with Jacob’s progeny and policy. There is no attempt to hush things up. No paint is used to obscure the pallor of the sickly face of that ancient family. Think of this ugly list.

Genesis 30

1. Envy – 30:1, “And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.”

2. Anger  – 30:2, “And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?”

3. Impatience – 30:4, “And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her.”

4. Human devices for forestalling God’s purposes – 30:14, 15, “And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son’s mandrakes. And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son’s mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son’s mandrakes.”

5. Deceptive scheming –30:32, “I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire.”

6. The most absolute selfishness – 30:41-43, “And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstreaked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and asses.”

And the same frankness in presenting an unvarnished record is found in Judah’s sons, Er and Onan. Genesis 38

Promises for Marriage

In these days of extreme laxity in marriage ties, it is imperative to go back to the Bible in order to find out how God views such a solemn ordinance.

It was Divinely instituted.
Gen 2:24-25, “They shall be one flesh. The man and his wife.”

It was designed for mutual happiness.
Gen 1:18, Ecc 4:9, 10, “It is not good that man should be alone.”

It was meant to produce a Godly seed.
Malachi 2:15, Gen 1:18, 3:15, 4:1, “That he might have a Godly seed.”

It is a lawful and honorable institution.
1 Cor 7:2, 28, “Let every man have his own wife.”
Heb 13:4, “Marriage is honorable in all,” 1 Tim 5:14

It should only be in the Lord who instituted it.
1 Cor 7:39, “She be at liberty to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord.”

It is a partnership death alone can sever.
Rom 7:2-3, “An husband is bound by the law to her so long as he liveth.” Matt 19:6

It carries a benediction of promise when rightly contracted.
”They blessed Rebekah and said, Be thou the mother of thousands of millions.”
Gen 24:60, Ruth 4:11-12

It should be the source of constant joy and satisfaction.
Prov 5:18, “Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.”

It is sacred because it is symbolic of the union between God and His wife.
Isa 54:5, “Thy Maker is thy Husband,” Jer 3:14, Hosea 2:19-20
Eph 5:23, “One flesh even as the Lord and His Church.”
Eph 5:25, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it.”

God’s Eternity is the Date of His Happiness

God’s unchangeableness – the rock of His rest.
God’s omnipotence – the constant guard of His life.
God’s faithfulness – the security of each new day.
God’s mercy – the unfailing overflowing store.
God’s omniscience – the careful Overseer to guide.
God’s holiness – the fountain of sanctifying Grace.
God’s all sufficiency – the lot of His inheritance.
God’s infinity – the extent of His glorious portion.

and it all yours for the taking.

Those Who Put Their Trust and Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ Have This at Their Disposal

His Grace – to be saved by
His power – to be kept by
His providence – to be fed by
His Word – to be ruled by
His care – to be preserved by
His arms – to be safely landed in glory

Prophesy From 1 and 2 Timothy!

These two epistles contain two prophesies of coming peril to the professing Church.

1. 1 Tim 4:1-5 – bearing a close resemblance to the errors of the church at Rome.

2. 2 Tim 3:1-5 – probably relating to the great apostasy of the last days before the coming of our Lord and giving a photographic picture of the evils of our own day.

The 2nd epistle to Timothy is of special interest as being the last that Paul wrote, written from the dungeon in Rome in the near expectation of his execution. His zeal and faith are unabated. He is able to say, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

Timothy’s Emphasis on the Person and the Work of the Lord Jesus Christ

1. Christ is our Saviour. 1 Tim 1:15, 1 Tim 2:3, 1 Tim 4:10
2. Christ is our Mediator. 1 Tim 2:5
3. Christ is our Ransom. 1 Tim 2:6
4. Christ is our Teacher. 1 Tim 6:3
5. Christ is our King. 1 Tim 6:15
6. Christ is our Captain. 2 Tim 2:3

Not a bad study for young Timothy!

In July 1918, when the youngest Roosevelt son, Quentin, an aviator in France, was reported to have been shot down and unaccounted for, Teddy Roosevelt inserted the following remarks in an address to the Republican state convention in Saratoga, New York.

”The finest, the bravest, the best of our young men have sprung eagerly forward to face death for the sake of a high ideal, and thereby they have brought home to us the great truth that life consists of more than easygoing pleasure. And more than hard, conscienceless, brutal striving after purely material success, that while we must rightly care for the body and the things of the body, yet that such care leads nowhere unless we also have thought that for our own souls and for the souls of our brothers.

”When these gallant boys, on the golden crest of life, gladly face death for the sake of an ideal, shall not we, who stay behind who have not been found worthy of the great adventure, shall we not in turn try to shape our lives, so as to make in this country a better place to live in for these men, and for the women who sent these men to battle and for the children who are to come after them?”

After Quentin was found dead and was buried where his plane had gone down, Teddy Roosevelt wrote to his son Archie,

”Well, it is very dreadful, but, after all, he died as the heroes of old died; as brave and fearless men must die when a great cause calls. If our country did not contain such men it would not be our country.”

The Lord Will Not Ask the Same Extraordinary Things of Us That He Asked of Ezekiel

But the line of following him who was despised and rejected of men is certain to lie across the will of nature, right through the course of this world.

Does the Lord find in us, those who are absolutely pliant in His hands, as Ezekiel was? He is seeking such.

Ezek 22:30, “I sought for a man to stand in the gap before Me, for the land that I should not destroy it. But I found none.”

Ezek 13:5, “Ye have not gone up into the gaps neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel, to stand in the battle in the Day of the Lord.”

He was looking for a man. Maybe it is you. One man with the Lord is a majority.

Why Did Ezekiel Never Weep, As Did Jeremiah and Our Lord???

The Lord sent Ezekiel to be a sign. Ezek 24:24, 6:3, 12:11, “Ezekiel is unto you a sign.”

The portrayal of the imaginary siege of Jerusalem was no doubt exactly calculated to make the men of those times think. For God fits His signs to the times. “Behold I give you a sign. A virgin shall conceive …”

To be God’s sign to the people, Ezekiel willingly sacrificed all his private interests. He was willing to lie in any position God told him, to smite with his hand or strike with his foot, to go forth into the plain or shut himself up within his house, to sacrifice his personal appearance, verse 1, to eat his food by weight or move his house at a day’s notice.

The severest test of all was when God took away the desire of his eyes and commanded him not to weep.

He who wept by the grave of Lazarus understands the sorrow of our human souls and does not rebuke us for it. But He needed Ezekiel as a sign. And so He commanded him not to weep for his own private grief, but to weep bitterly for the sins of his people.

Ezek 24:15-16, “And the Word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, Behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke. Yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shalt thy tears run down.”

I know you thought I made that up. But, I didn’t. Though I have been accused of doing so. Read it and weep because Ezekiel could not.

A Missionary Doesn’t Have to Cross a Body of Water to be a Missionary

Ezekiel was a prophet and a missionary and he didn’t cross a body of water. Ezekiel was sent to his own people.

It may be easier for some to go as a missionary to India or China, than to speak the Lord’s message in their own relations, or the members of their own church. But perhaps He is saying as He said to Ezekiel about missionaries,

”Thou art not sent to many people of a hard language whose words thou canst not understand. Go, get thee unto the children of thy people and speak to them,” Ezekiel  3:5, 11.

Ezekiel had to give the Lord’s message to very difficult people, to the prophets, the elders, the shepherds, the princes, to Jerusalem, and the land of Israel.

Now this would be a good missionary call – a call to your own. You don’t have to cross a body of water to be a missionary.

Charity begins at home. Lead your family to the Lord – your mother and your father and your sister and your brother and aunts and uncles, etc. What a mission field.

But you will never appear in Christianity Today!

Ezekiel – a Man at God’s Disposal

The Lord sent Ezekiel to be a prophet. Whether they accepted him or rejected him, they could not but know, “Know that there had been a prophet among them.”

Often we read in Ezekiel, “The hand of the Lord was upon me.” And often such words as
”The Spirit took me up.”

Do we as believers know what it is to have the Lord’s hand so strong upon us that the Holy Spirit can take us up and wield us as He wills?

Ezekiel was a faithful and obedient prophet. He spoke when the Lord opened his mouth and was willing to be dumb when the Lord closed it. And therefore, “They knew that it was the Word of the Lord.”

Ezekiel stands out as a man entirely abandoned to God’s use. To prepare him for service, the Lord granted him a vision. In the vision of the cherubim, Ezekiel saw four living creatures that were absolutely at God’s disposal.
”They went every one straight forward, whither the Spirit was to go. They went, and they turned not when they went,” chapter 1:12

The application of this verse to our very experience: Such unswerving following of the Lord expected from the prophet and such He expects from us.

Ezekiel’s Vision – Part Two

The lion, the strongest animal
The ox, the most enduring
The eagle, the highest soaring
Man made in the image of God

These four bring before us the highest forms of natural life. These four living ones, with their wings and their wheels full of eyes, moving with the symmetry of one organism and  the rapidity of lightning in the midst of the “enfolding fire.”

Application of this vision:
Give us a picture of God’s will perfectly executed, as His redeemed saints will be enabled to fulfill it when they see Him as He is and as they should aim at fulfilling it here below.

The Uniqueness of the Book of Lamentations

Throughout the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah points out the judgment that has come upon the city is on account of her sin. The keynote of the book is destruction.

It contains five lamentations. Corresponding with the five chapters. Each lamentation is arranged in “acrostic” form, every verse beginning with one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

In the third or middle lamentation, the climax of the poem, each initial letter is repeated three times. And each letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a meaning all its own. For example, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet is BETH, which means a house. 

An example is “BETH” “LAHEM” meaning house of bread. BETH is house and LAHEM is bread - where the Bread of Life was born.

The 5 Lamentations in the Book of Lamentations

Lament 1
In the first part of the laments, the prophet Jeremiah speaks and describes the city as a woman bereft of her husband and children.
In the second, Zion speaks and bewails her misery. She acknowledges that the punishment is from the Lord and confesses, “The Lord is righteous. I have rebelled.”

Lament 2
Is spoken by the prophet Jeremiah and it is a remarkable description of the ruin of Jerusalem.

Lament 3–5 will follow. All of them are speaking about the fifth cycle of discipline to Israel and of them being scattered and dispersed, as prophesied in Leviticus chapter 26– Their condition at this present time.

They are not “back in the land in belief” as many teach, simply because the Lord Himself will put them back in the land in belief at His Second Coming to Earth – seven years after we are gone with the Rapture.

Laments 3 to 5 in the Book of Lamentations

Lament 3
The prophet Jeremiah speaks, but makes the miseries of the people his own. Out of the midst of the misery he stays himself upon the Lord’s faithfulness and His unfailing compassion and asserts unhesitatingly that “He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men,” chapter 3:33.

Lament 4
The prophet again describes the fearful judgments which have befallen Jerusalem.

Lament 5
The Jewish people speak and make confession, and appeal to God for forgiveness and deliverance.

As the Nation Israel Goes, So Goes the Individual Soul

“No rest”

In chapter one of the book of Lamentations, we have a description of desolation.
”No rest,” “No pasture,” “No comforter,” verses 3, 6, 9

Such is the desolation of every soul with out Christ, without hope, without life.
No rest for the soul.

Lamentations Without Christ

Without Christ: Lamentations 1:3 – No rest.
With Christ: Matt 11:28 – I will give you rest.

Without Christ: Lamentations 1:6 – No pasture.
With Christ: Psa 23:2 – Green pastures.

Without Christ: Lamentations 1:9 – No comforter.
With Christ: John 14:16 – Another Comforter.

”Christ is all in all and in you all and you are complete in Him.”

Lamentation – Jeremiah the Weeping Prophet

Jeremiah weeping over the city reminds us of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are several verses moreover which seem to be a forehadowment of Calvary.

Lam 1:2, “It is nothing to you all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow.”
Lam 2:15-16, “All that pass by clap their hands at Thee, they hiss and wag their head.”
Matt 27:39, “All Thine enemies have opened their mouth against Thee.”
Lam 3:8, Psa 22:13, “He shutteth out my prayer.”
Lam 3:14, Matt 27:46, “I was a derision to all My people and their song every day.”
Lam 3:30, “He giveth His cheek to him that smiteth Him. He is filled with reproach.” Isa 1:6, Psa 49:20
Lam 3:19, Psa 49:21, “The wormwood and the gall.”

In the verse “for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests they have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,” we are reminded of our Lord’s own word: ”O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee.”

And of Peter’s words of accusation to the people of Jerusalem, “Ye denied the Holy One and the Just and killed the Prince of Life.”

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, and Jesus Christ, the weeping Saviour.

Wednesday, June 28, 2000

Israel!

Without a doubt, the preservation of the Jews through the centuries is the miracle of history. Now, such a history called His-tory, that is the Lord's story of choice, love, patience, Grace, and blessing is likewise loaded with His promises as these following passages prove:

1. As the seed of Abraham, Romans 4
2. As the family under Jacob, Genesis 49
3. As the nation under Moses, Exodus 12-14
4. As the kingdom under Saul, 1 Sam 10
5. As captives
A. Under Shalmaneser, 10 tribes, 2 Kings 17
   B. Under Nebuchadnezzar, 2 tribes, 2 Kings 25
6. As a restored remnant under Cyrus, Ezra 2
7. As a nation dispersed under Titus, Luke 21:24
This is their present condition. They are not restored back to the land, but dispersed.
8. As a nation regathered, Isa 11:12
At the Second Advent of Christ, He restores them.
9. As a nation full of blessing, Ezekiel
The history of Israel – the His-tory of Israel.

The Bible is Called Many Things and Each Title Has its Own Important Meaning and Effect

The Bible is called a seed:

Luke 8:11, “The seed is the Word of God.”
1 Pet 1:23, “Incorruptible by the Word of God.”
Isa 55:10, “That He may give seed to the sower.”
2 Cor 9:10, “He that ministereth seed to the sower.”

The symbol of the Bible as seed carried with it the promise of fruitfulness and reproduction. Seed sown in good soil multiplies itself. At times we are discouraged for the seed seems to fall on uncongenial soil. Sometimes we are guilty of the folly of scattering the seed indiscriminately.

“Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters,” Isa 32:20
“In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening withhold not thine hand for thou knowest not whether shall prosper either this or that or whether they both shall   be alike good,” Ecc 11:6
“I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase,” 1 Cor 3:6

The Bible is Called a Hammer!

Jer 29:29, “Is not My Word like a hammer that breaketh in pieces?”
Jer 10:4, “They fasten it with nails and hammers that it moves not.”
Isa 41:7, “He that smootheth with the hammer.”
Isa 44:13, “The smith fashioneth it with hammers.”
Psa 74:6, “Break down with axes and hammers.”

The above references reveal the dual, yet opposite, functions of a hammer.   It makes and breaks.

Does not the Bible in God's hands exercise unifying influences? Where you have a group of people loving the Bible and intent on studying it, and above all, applying it to the daily life, then you have not merely several individuals, but a united body who are one in Christ.

The other functions of the Bible which Jeremiah illustrates is that of breaking hard substances into pieces. Hearts are indeed hard – Gospel and Truth hardened. And endeavors to break them are sometimes slow and discouraging, yet in the end, regular blows tell.

Our task is to keep on wielding the Divine hammer, praying that God will use it to break rock-like hearts.

It was thus that the Word acted in the conversion of the jailer, Acts 16:25, 34

The Bible is a Laver

Eph 5:26, “The washing of the water, laver, by the Word.”
John 15:3, “Now ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you.”
John 17:17, “Sanctify them through Thy Word.”
Psa 119:9, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word.”
Psa 119:17, “Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.”

How full of promised cleansing is the laver of the Word! The very Book which as the mirror reveals our sin is likewise the laver showing us how every stain can be cleansed.

In the outer court of the tabernacle there stood the brazen altar and the laver. After serving at the first, the priest having dealt with the sacrifice had to wash his hands, (his work) and his feet (his walk) and thereby remove all defilement as he sought to enter the Holy Place to worship.

“Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord,” Isa 52:11 

The Bible is the medium of cleansing in that it leads us to the only fount of cleansing, namely,
1 John 1:7, “The blood of Christ keeps on cleansing from all sin.”
1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The Bible is Called Fire!

Jer 23:29, “Is not My Word like a fire?”
Jer 20:9, “His Word was in my heart as a burning fire.”
Luke 24:32, “Did not our hearts burn within us, while He opened to us the Scriptures?”
Psa 39:3, “While I was musing the fire burned, then spoke I with my tongue.”

Fire being a symbol of Divine holiness, Divine hatred of sin, Divine empowerment, holds much promise of blessing for our cold hearts.

Fire destroys and the Bible, when believed and obeyed, destroys everything alien in your life and mine.

Fire purges, fire refines, and cleanses, and the Bible is the medium of purification.

Fire energizes. What is the power producing the steam so necessary for the loaded train, traveling over miles of track? It is the fire around the boiler.

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples as fire, empowering them to turn the world upside down.

Tongues of fire burned their way into the cold hearts of the multitudes.

The Bible is a Lamp!

Psa 119:105, “Thy Word is as a Lamp unto my feet and a Light unto my path.”
Psa 119:130, “The entrance of Thy Words giveth light.”
Prov 6:23, “The commandment is a Lamp and the Law is light.”
2 Pet 1:19, “The more sure word of prophecy … A Light that shineth in a dark place.”

Promises of illumination and guidance are associated with this expressive symbol of Scripture. It will be noted that the psalmist uses the double figure of lamp and light. While we look upon these as one, yet there is a distinction.

What is the use of a lamp, costly and ornamental though it may be, is there is no light within it to radiate forth? The internal life is necessary to the external lamp.

The Bible as a whole is the external Lamp, but without the Spirit, the Divine Light, illuminating Scripture and shining through it, it remains dark.

The darkness of the heart is likened to the chaos that existed before there was light and life and order were established. But God, in 2 Cor 4:6 said,  “Who commanded the Light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts.”

The Bible is Called a Mirror!

2 Cor 3:18, “Beholding as in a glass of glory of the Lord.”
James 1:22-25, “A hearer of the Word … is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.”

A mirror reveals and reflects. Standing before a mirror we see ourselves as we are.

People shrink from the Word of God because it tells them the Truth about their sins and reveals to them not what they think they are, but what the Lord declares them to be: Guilty before Him, Rom 3:19.

Are there not those who would destroy the Bible because of the revelation it provides of their own sinful lives? You have to love the Bible because it found us.

The Bible is Gold and Silver

Psa 119:17, “The Law of Thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.”
Psa 19:10, “The Statutes of the Lord are... More to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold.”
Psa 12:6, “The Words of the Lord are pure Words as silver is tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” Psa 119:140, Prov 30:5

As gold is the most costly metal, we have the reference to the Bible as gold, indicating the promise of preciousness. Peter speaks of it in 2 Pet 1:4, “Exceeding great and precious promises.”

The believers at Smyrna who loved and kept God's Word were poor, materially, but rich spiritually. Rev 2:9, “I know thy poverty. But thou art rich.”  

What real and lasting wealth God has provided for us in the Scriptures. Within it are riches in which the “treasures” of earth are as trash.

The tragedy is that with so much gold at our disposal, we yet live as spiritual paupers. Heirs of such wealth as the Word contains, we live as children cut off without a penny to our name.

We need a gold rush! No need for panning.  

The Bible is as a Word!

Words are the garments of thoughts. The Bible is the expression of the inner thought. Scripture is the revelation of the Divine mind.

Because of the widespread use of the emblem “the Word,” if you trace passages where “My Word,” “the Word of God,” “His Word,” “Thy Word,” “this Word,” you will light upon an abundance of promises revealing the Grace of God.

Heb 4:12, “The Word of God is alive and powerful.”
Psa 130:5, “In His Word do I hope.”
Isa 66:2, “To him that trembleth at My Word.”
Jer 26:1, “The Word that came from the Lord.”
Psa 119:11, “Thy Word have I hid in my heart.”

We have noted the mystic union between Jesus Christ and the Word of God, the Bible, the Written Word. Rev 19:13, “His Name is called the Word of God.”

The Bible, then, and Christ, through the Bible both reveal and express the mind and purpose of God. Having and knowing the mind of God, Christ was able to declare in language men could not fail to understand the deep things of God.

The Bible is Tender Grass!

Deut 32:2, “My Doctrine shall drop as the rain, My Speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.”

2 Sam 23:2, 4, “His Word was in my tongue ... As the tender grass springing out of the Earth in clear shining after rain.”

Here we have a striking symbol drawn from nature of the refreshing and reviving influences of the Scriptures. What a promise of spiritual quickening there is in the Truths of the Bible being able to revive and quicken our parched hearts and the dry, barren condition of the Church – just as the continuous rain brings new life to fields and lawns.

Isa 55:10-11, “As the rain cometh down … watered the Earth, So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My Mouth.”

God has declared that His life-giving Word would not return unto Him void. What authority there is in that declaration!

“It shall accomplish that which I please and shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it.”

The Bible is a Critic!

Heb 4:12, “The Word of God is alive and powerful ... is a Critic of the thoughts and intents of the mind.”

While the word “discern” frequently occurs in the Bible, this is the only reference in which the peculiar Greek word KRITIKOS, from which is derived our English word “critic,” is used. The adjective used signifies that which relates to judging, fit for, or skilled in. Judging, hence, critical.

The Bible is critical of our thoughts and intents, meaning its authority to discriminate and pass judgment on our thoughts and feelings.

Presumptuous men call themselves critics of the Bible and sit in judgment upon It.
They forget that the Bible is the infallible Critic of their actions.

The Bible is the only thing that discerns between the human spirit and the soul, which very few make the distinction. Hardly any.

The Word of God is a Sword!

Eph 6:17, “The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”
Heb 4:12, “The Word of God … sharper than any two-edged sword.”
Judges 7:18, “The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon.”
Isa 34:5, “My Sword shall be bathed in Heaven.”

In this militant metaphor we have the promise of conquest, victory, and

The Bible as our Sword is the weapon we use as soldiers against spiritual foes. It was like this that Jesus Christ used the Scriptures in His contest with Satan in the wilderness temptation.

In three different ways Satan assailed the Lord Jesus Christ. But all that Christ did was to give the enemy three thrusts of His bayonet. The three, “It is writtens” were sufficient to defeat Satan.
Matt 4:4, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Matt 4:7, “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”
Matt 4:10, “Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”

The Word of God as a sharp Sword in the hand of good soldiers of Jesus Christ can accomplish mighty victories. 

It is a sharp two-edged Sword, meaning it cuts both ways. If the Bible does not save and if it fails to convert, than it condemns.

John 3:36, “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.”

Quote of the Day

“All kinds of other qualities, moral and physical, enter into being a good hunter, and especially a good hunter after dangerous game, just as all kinds of other qualities in addition to skill with the rifle enters into the being of a good soldier.”

–Theodore Roosevelt

Thought for Today – My Lifetime Verse of all Verses

1 Chr 26:18, I know you know it by heart and it is on your refrigerator door, and you have committed to memory and you can pass the entrance into Heaven with it. Right!

1 Chr 26:18, “At Parbar westward, four at the causeway, and two at Parbar.”

Claim it!

Can You Name the Gates of Jerusalem? And Their Meaning and Purpose? 

Sheep gate, Fish gate, Old gate, Valley gate, the Dung gate, the Gate of the Fountain, the Water Gate, the Horse Gate, the East Gate, the Miphhad Gate.

Ask your pastor!

Tuesday, June 27, 2000

Malachi and the Importance of One Little Word

When believers are negative to the Word of God, they make all kinds of excuses and blame other people for their negative volition. Some even blame God, and that is the case in the book of Malachi. “Wherein” is the little word which is emphasized in Malachi.

Malachi's message is to the priests who ought to have been the leaders in righteousness and also to the people who followed their lead in neglecting and dishonoring the Lord. His book is marked by straightforwardness and plain words of rebuke by which he brings home their sins to a self-satisfying people who had a form of godliness but denied the power thereof.

Each rebuke of the prophet was disputed by the people with the question “Wherein?” There are seven of them in the book.

1. Wherein hast Thou loved us? Mal 1:2, “I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob.”

2. Wherein have we despised Thy Name? Mal 1:6, “A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a Father, where is Mine honour? and if I be a Master, where is My fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise My Name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised Thy Name?”

3. Wherein have we polluted Thee? Mal 1:7, ”Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible.”

4. Wherein have we wearied Him? Mal 2:17,”Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied Him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?”

5. Wherein shall we return? Mal 3:7, “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from Mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?”

6. Wherein have we robbed Thee? Mal 3:8, ”Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings.”

7. Wherein have we spoken so much against Thee? Mal 3:13, “Your words have been stout against Me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against Thee?”

And then for good measure they throw in two “Whats.”

8. What profit is it that we have kept His ordinance? Mal 3:14, “Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?”

9. “For what” or “wherefore,” referring to what Malachi said in verse 13.

I think there is a message here.

What Was Malachi's Message and Burden?

“I have loved you, saith the Lord.”

What a message to a people who were disappointing God's love! It is always so. Malachi rebuked the very same sins that Nehemiah dealt with.

1. The corruption of the priesthood, Neh 13:29, Malachi 2:8
2. The alliance with idolatrous wives, Neh 13:23-27, Malachi 2:10-16
3. The neglect of the tithe, Neh 13:10-12, Malachi 3:10

These are all the results of negative volition to the Word of God.

“Wherein?????”        “Therein!!!”

The Old Testament Closes with the Word “Curse”

But it is the expressive of God's great desire of God's love to avert it. For He says, “Lest I come quickly and smite the Earth with a curse.”

The New Testament closes with blessing. Cursing turned to blessing! “The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”

A silence of 400 years lay between the voice of Malachi and the voice of the one crying in the wilderness. “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” But there is a remarkable link between the two testaments. The last figure on the inspired page of Malachi and the first on the inspired page of Matthew are the Angel of the covenant and His forerunner.

Zechariah and the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ!

“Thy King cometh unto thee.”

More than any other of the minor prophets, Zechariah foretells the Saviour. Twice He is announced as the Branch. God speaks of Him as My servant, the Branch. Zech 3:8

We have the prediction of His entry into Jerusalem riding upon an ass's colt. Zech 9:9

In contrast to the false shepherds, we see Him as the Good Shepherd saving His flock and caring for the poor of the flock. Zech 9:16, 11:11

We see Him as the Smitten Shepherd with the sheep scattered, Zech 13:7, in the words “Awake O sword, against My Shepherd and against the man that is My Fellow, saith the Lord of hosts.”

We have a specially clear revelation of Christ, both in His Divine and human nature, the man, the Smitten Shepherd, is spoken of by God   as His Fellow on equality with Him and yet distinct in His personality.

Zechariah speaks of “The blood of the covenant, Zech 9:11, which our Lord applied to His own blood. Matt 26:28, “This is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many unto remission of sins.”

We have the prophecy of His betrayal by Judas for 30 pieces of silver, even to the fact that “The money was cast to the potter in the house of the Lord,” Zech 11:12-13

Zechariah and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Thought for the Day!

“To bear the name of American is to bear the most honorable of titles, and whoever does not so believe, has no business to bear the name at all.”

–Theodore Roosevelt, April 1894

The Keynote in the Book of Deuteronomy!

 Obedience is the keynote in the book of Deuteronomy, as it is also the keystone of blessing in the Christian way of life. This book brings out more than any other book in the Bible the blessedness of obedience. 

Listen to this verse, “Oh that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always that it might be well with them and with their children for ever,” Deut 5:29.

This is the Lord's yearning over His people amidst the terrors of Sinai. Again and again they were told that these laws and this demand of obedience are “for our good always,” Deut 6:24.

Moreover, it is made clear that this obedience is not in order to purchase the favor of God, but it is demanded because they already enjoy His favor. This is to believers.

Deuteronomy – a dull book???

When the Lord Jesus Christ Used the Book of Deuteronomy!

When He was confronting Satan, He said, Matt 4:4 and Luke 4:4, “Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Where did He get that verse?

Deut 8:3, “And He humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee With manna, which thou knowest not, that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.”

Christ took a passage of Scripture and applied it to His life. Get the point???? Try it! You will like it!

Again and again the Jews were told that the Lord chose them because He loved them, and He had redeemed them out of bondage with a mighty hand. And that therefore, they are an holy people unto the Lord, a special people unto Himself. And for that reason they are called to keep His Word with all their heart and to serve Him with joyfulness.

What a message that contains for us today!

How many still think that they have to earn the Lord's salvation by their obedience instead of seeing that they first must accept His

It is summed up for us in Titus 2:13-14, “Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

The Climax of the Book of Deuteronomy!

Is the majesty of the coming Messiah bursting upon the lips of Moses? Deut 18:15, “The Lord, Thy God, will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto Him shall ye hearken.”

Here again the necessity for the incarnation is brought out. As it is in each part of Christ's three-fold office of Prophet, Priest, and King Even under the old dispensation, each office had to be fulfilled by a “brother,” one of the same flesh and blood. The Messiah had to become a man in order to be Prophet, Priest, and King.

“And the Word took on flesh.”

“Weasel Words”

“One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called “weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs, the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a ‘weasel word’ after another, there is nothing left of the other.”

 –Theodore Roosevelt, St. Louis, Missouri, May 31, 1916

Moses and Messiah!

In many points, even in his outward history, Moses was a type of Christ.

1. In his deliverance from violent death in infancy.
2. In his years of silent training.
3. In his willingness to leave the palace of the king to deliver his people from bondage.
4. In his meekness, in his faithfulness, in his finishing his work God gave him to do. Exodus 11:33, John 17:4, John 19:30
5. In his work as a mediator between God and the people.
6. In his communion with God face-to-face.

In all these, he was a picture of the Son of Man who was to come. But in how much this picture falls short!

“Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, but Christ as a Son over His own house.”

Moses sinner under provocation. Christ was without sin.

Moses was not able to bear the people alone. Christ has borne the burden of our sins in His own body on the tree.
And He invites us to, “Cast all our cares on Him because He keeps on caring for us.”

“The Law came by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Foolishness!

1. The foolishness of the message.
Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness.

2. The power of the message.
Christ, the power of God to them that are saved.

3. The foolishness of the Messenger.
His weakness from the human side.

4. The power of the Messenger.
The all-sufficiency of Christ.

It is not the man, it is the message.
But Christ is the Man and the Message.

Promises and the Fulfillment of the Promises

Christ would be rejected.

1. By His brethren

Promise:
“I am become a stranger unto My brethren and an alien to My mother's children,” Psalm 69, Isa 63:3, 5

Performance:
“He came unto His own and His own received Him not,” John 1:11
“His brethren therefore said unto Him depart hence,” John 7:3
“Neither did His brethren believe in Him,” John 7:5

2. “As a stone of stumbling unto the Jews”

Promise:
“He shall be a Stone of Stumbling and for a Rock of Offence to both the House of Israel,” Isa 8:14

Performance:
“They stumbled at that Stumbling Stone,” Rom 89:32-33
“A Stone of Stumbling and a Rock of Offence,” 1 Pet 2:8

3. Rejection by the Jewish rulers

Promise:
“The Stone which the builders refused to become the Headstone of the corner,” Psalm 118:22

Performance:
“Jesus said unto them the Stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the Head of the corner,” Matt 21:42, John 7:48

4. His rejection by Jews and Gentiles

Promise:
“The kings of the Earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and His anointed.”

Performance:
“Pilate and Herod were made friends together for before they were at enmity between themselves,” Luke 23:12
“The Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together,” Acts 4:25-29

“He came into His own, and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him, to them gave He the authority and power to become the sons of God.”  

Say, ahmen. 

A Promise of an Eternal Refuge

1. “The eternal God is our Refuge,” Deut 33:27
2. “My High Tower and Refuge,” 2 Sam 22:3
3. “I will be a Refuge for the oppressed,” Psa 9:9
4. “Because the Lord is my refuge,” Psa 14:5, 46:1, 48:3
5. “In Thy wings will I make my refuge,” Psa 57:1, 59:16, 62:7
6. “O Lord, my refuge in affliction,” Jer 16:19
7. “The Lord is my Fortress,” Psa 18:2, 31:3, 91:2, 144:2

Here are a couple out of the 7,000 promises that you can claim.

The Unselfishness of the Lord Jesus Christ

“Even Christ pleased not Himself,” Rom 15:3

“I do those things which please My Father,” John 8:29

“He saved others, Himself He cannot save,” Matt 27:42

“Let him take up His Cross and follow Me, whosoever shall lose his life shall find it,” Matt 28:24, 26

The life of self is death.
The death of self is life.

He could have come down from the Cross and with a Word destroyed His enemies. But had He saved Himself from those final agonies there would have been no salvation for a sinning race.

Christ the Seed!

The Seed of the Woman
Promise: Gen 3:15, “And 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.”
Fulfilled: Gal 4:4, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”
Matt 1:18, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with Child of the Holy Spirit.”

The Seed of Abraham
Promise: Gen 17:7, “And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.”
Gen 22:18, “And in thy Seed shall all the nations of the Earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice.”
Fulfilled: Gal 3:16, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”
Matt 1:1, “The Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”

The Seed of Isaac
Promise: Gen 21:12, 13, “And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy Seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.”
Fulfilled: Heb 11:16-19, “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

The Seed of David
Promise: Psa 132:11, “The LORD hath sworn in truth unto David; He will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.”

Fulfilled: Matt 1:1, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
See also Jer 23:5, Act 13:23, Rom 1:3

God keeps His Word.

Christ is the Word That We Can Handle

“Handle Me and see,” Luke 24:39

“Nor handling the Word of God deceitfully,” 2 Cor 4:2

“Our hands have handled the Word of life,” 1 John 1:1

“Howbeit there is a Kinsman nearer than I,” Ruth 3:12

Put your hand in My side Thomas!

The Words of Christ

“I have esteemed the Words of His mouth more than my necessary food,” Job 23:12  

“The Words of the pure are pleasant words,” Prov 15:26

“The Words that I speak unto you, they are life,” John 6:63

“The Words of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Tim 6:3

“The Words of a man's mouth are as deep waters,” Prov 18:4  

“I have magnified My Word above My Name,” Psa 138:4

“Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee.”

Put these up in your shower – That is where you do your best singing

“The Lord is my Song,” Ex 15:1, Psa 118:14, Rev 12:2

“He hath put a song in my mouth,” Psa 40:3, 96:1, Rev 4:3

Remember it is not the tune or the melody, it is the words.

“I will praise the Lord with a song,” Psa 69:30

“Ye shall have a song in the night,” Isa 30:29

“God will give songs in the night,” Job 35:10. Job should know.

“At midnight Paul and Silas sang praises unto God,” Acts 16:25

“Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with Grace in your hearts unto the Lord,” Col 3:16

“When they had sung a hymn,” Matt 26:30

Now you have something to sing about. You only have the words of the Psalms – no melody. The emphasis is on the Word of God.

We celebrate Memorial Day, Flag Day, D-Day, July 4th, Armistice Day, Veterans Day

When I become president, here is the day or daily celebration I will make:
Remembrance Day!!!!

“Remember the Lord which is great and terrible,” Neh 4:14

“Remember that thou magnify His work which men behold,” Job 36:24

“We will remember the Name of the Lord,” Psa 20:7

“Remember the Lord Jesus Christ was raised,” 2 Tim 2:8

“Remember the Words spoken of Jesus,” Jude 17

“If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,” Psa 137:6

“He shall bring all things to your remembrance,” John 14:26

“This do in remembrance of Me,” 1 Cor 11:25

Lest we forget!!!!!

Monday, June 26, 2000

Isaiah and Salvation

A clear vision of Christ and His salvation and His ultimate universal dominion are found in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah's own name means, “Salvation is of the Lord,” and it forms the subject of the book. Starting with the invitation in chapter one.

“Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

And similar promises which are found Isa 43:25 and 44:22, “I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins return unto Me for I have redeemed thee.”

Peace is Also Found in the Book of Isaiah

Peace, the effect of righteousness, the result of salvation, in like manner runs as a silver thread through the chapters in Isaiah.

Starting with the “Prince of Peace” in Isa 9:6-7, to the proclamation of peace in Isa 57:19 and “peace as a river,” 48:18 and 61:12.

Salvation brings peace with God and the peace of God. Peace always follow Grace. “Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Dominion Also Revealed

Isaiah not only brings out the salvation of the Lord, and the peace of the Lord, but the universal spread of the Messiah's kingdom

It is foreshadowed in the vision in the words of the seraphim, “The whole Earth is full of His glory.”

This Truth finds expression throughout Isaiah. In 2:2, “All nations shall flow to the mountain of the house of the Lord which is to be established in the top of the mountains.” In Isa 11:9, “The Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

And in the last chapter we have the declaring of His glory among the Gentiles. Isaiah brings out salvation, peace, and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Isaiah and the Messiah

The glorious salvation in the book of Isaiah centers around a Person, the Coming One, the personal Messiah. There is something very remarkable in the way in which he fills the vision of the prophet Isaiah. There is a certain abruptness with which the prophesies about Him are introduced, as if to attract our attention.

It is so in the sign which God promises to give in the birth of the Divine Person from a human virgin. The promise in chapter 7 is blended with the promise in chapter 9 and in the two prophesies we get a picture of the Child which was to be.

He is identified with our race for He is: “A Child born” and “A Son given.” He is to be of the family of David, but He is much more. His birth is to be supernatural. He is to be Divine.

“God with us,” Immanuel.
“Wonderful,” the name by which God revealed Himself to Manoah and his wife.
“Counsellor,” corresponding with the “wisdom” of Proverbs.
“He who of God is made unto us wisdom.”
“The mighty God.” The word for “God” is EL, which links this verse to the Name “Immanuel.”
“The everlasting Father,” or the Father of eternity, which is equivalent to the “Author of everlasting salvation” of Hebrews 5:7.
“The Prince of Peace,” the name foreshadowed in the priestly king of Salem and in Solomon, the peaceful one.

All these predictions have met and been fulfilled only in one event – the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour of whom the angel said to Mary, “That Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

Here is Christmas in June. Every day is Christmas with Christ!

The New Testament destroys the theory of the theologians who teach that there are two Isaiahs. One, the first half of the book referring to

Judgment, and the second half of the book starting with chapter 40, which speaks of comfort. They call it Deutero-Isaiah.

Isaiah is mentioned by name in the New Testament 21 times. Of these 21 times, 10 of them are connected with passages contained in the first part of the prophecy and 11 with passages from the second part. The whole book of Isaiah is quoted or referred to more than 210 times and chapters 40 to 61 more than 100 times.

With the New Testament writers, the book of Isaiah is “The Word of the prophet Isaiah spoken by the Holy Spirit.” 

Matthew declares that the writer of chapter 42 was Isaiah, Matt 12:17, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying.”

Luke testified that chapter 53 was written by Isaiah, 4:17, “And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written.”

John in the same breath ascribes chapters 53 and 65 to the same prophet, John 12:38-41, “That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the Arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Esaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of Him.”

Paul ascribes chapter 53 and 65 to the same prophet, Rom 10:16, 20, “But they have not all obeyed the Gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?” “But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after Me.”

In every possible way the New Testament writers attribute the entire book to one writer, Isaiah, distinguishing between the “Book of Isaiah” and the “prophet Isaiah,” who wrote the book. Luke 4:17 and 3:4, etc.

Jeremiah’s Testimony

God chooses unlikely instruments to do His work. He chose the sensitive, shrinking Jeremiah for what seemed like a hopeless mission, with these words, “Say not I am a child, for whatsoever errand I shall send thee, thou shalt go and whatsoever I shall command thee, thou shalt speak be not afraid, I am with thee to deliver thee,” Jer 1:7-9.

And Jeremiah proved worthy of the Lord's trust. Though his heart was wrung with the severe denunciations he had to give and with the stubborn rejections of them by his people; Though he often poured out his complaints to God and even went so far as to say that he would not speak any more in His Name; Yet we never once find him turning back from the path of his duty.

Imprisoned again and again and put in stocks, Jer 20:21
Lowered by ropes into a miry dungeon, Jer 38:6, probably an empty cistern
Mocked and derided, Jer 20:7
A man of strife and contention to the whole world, Jer 15:10
Accused of treachery to his country. Jer 38:4
Opposed by false prophets, Jer 23, Jer 28
Confronted by angry people who clamored for his life, Jer 26
Carried against his will by his country men into Egypt, Jer 43:1-7 

Under all these circumstances, Jeremiah went steadily on delivering his message with unswerving fidelity for over 40 years.

The Courage of Jeremiah!

Jeremiah's fearlessness in the face of danger is shown most conspicuously in chapter 26 where the Lord made him to give the Lord's message in the temple court and admonished him not to diminish a Word.

So incensed were the priests and the people that they took him saying, “Thou shall surely die.”

“As for me” replied Jeremiah, “Behold I am in your hand. Do with me what seemeth good and meet unto you. But know ye for certain, that, if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves for of a Truth the Lord hath sent me unto you to speak all these words In your ears.”

“Meditate in the Word of God day and night, neither turning to the left or to the right, and thou shalt prosper withersoever thou goest.”

Jeremiah was a Mason!

When Johanan and the chief of the captains refused to hear the voice of the Lord by Jeremiah, and persisted in going down to Egypt with all the remnant of Judah, men, women, and children, including the king's daughters. They came and dwelt at Tahpanhes.

At the commandment of the Lord, Jeremiah took great stones and hid them under the large platform or pavement of brickwork at the entry of Pharoah's house in Tahpanhes. There he prophesied that over these stones Nebuchadnezzar should one day set his throne and spread his royal pavilion.

You didn’t know Jeremiah was a mason. Tell your pastor.

Jeremiah's ministry was one of admonition and antagonism. Against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes, against the priests, against the prophets was he to stand. He was to gird up his loins and arise, and speak all that God commanded him. He was to be the solitary fortress, the column of iron, the wall of brass, fearless, undismayed in any presence.

The one, grand immoveable figure, who pursued the apostatizing people and rulers, delivering his message in the temple court or the royal chamber or the street, whether they would hear or whether they would forbear.

In consequence, he was the prophet of unwelcomed Truths, hated of all, but feared as well by all. It was a mission requiring courage, faith, strength, will – a mission no weakling could fill, no coward would undertake. Jeremiah is one of the great men of this world.

To Jeremiah was committed the hopeless task of trying to bring back his people at the 11th hour. He prophesied as certain the restoration of his people and the unalterable love of God to them.

At the very time of the siege of Jerusalem and from his prison cell, Jeremiah, at the bidding of the Lord, purchased a field from his cousin

We have missed the testimony of Jeremiah in these similar days.

Jeremiah as a Type of Jesus Christ

Jeremiah was a true foreshadowing of Christ.

Jeremiah wept over his people as Jesus Christ wept over them. Matt 9:1

Jeremiah's fearless rebuking of sin brought him reproach and rejection and suffering as it brought our Lord and Saviour.

He compares himself to a lamb or an ox brought to the slaughter. Jer 11:19

Jeremiah, next to the Lord Jesus Christ, was probably the greatest of all antagonists.

Every one hated the both of them. “If they don’t hate you, then you are none of mine. Because they hated Me.” If the world loves you, look out.  

Jeremiah and the Messiah

Jeremiah does not unfold for us as much of the coming Messiah as does Isaiah. But we do have glimpses of Christ in Jeremiah.

The Fountain of Living Waters, Jer 2:13
The Great Physician, Jer 8:22
The Good Shepherd, Jer 31:10, Jer 23:4
The Righteous Branch, Jer 23:5
As David the King, Jer 30:9
As the Redeemer, Jer 50:34
As the Lord our Righteousness, Jer 23:6

At the very time that David's throne was imperiled and justice and equity almost unknown, Jeremiah announced the coming of a King of the house of David and a Righteous Branch who would reign and prosper and execute judgment and justice in the Earth. “In his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is His Name whereby He shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness.” JEHOVAH TSIDKENU

In this majestic name, the Godhead of our Saviour is predicted, and as a descendant of David, His humanity. The God-man.

Subjects and Titles for Gospel Messages Found in Jeremiah

What wilt thou say when He shall punish thee? Jer 13:21

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Jer 17:9

Flee, save your lives and be like the heath in the wilderness. Jer 48:6

My Word is like a fire and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces. Jer 23:29

Break up your fallow ground. Jer 4:3

Her sun is gone down while it is yet day. Jer 15:9

I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil. Jer 29:11

I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee, Jer 31:3

Ye shall seek Me and find Me when ye shall search for Me with all your heart. Jer 29:13

Ask for the old paths and ye shall find rest for your souls. Jer 6:16

My people have been lost sheep. They have forgotten their resting places. Jer 50:6

The harvest is past. The summer is ended and ye are not saved. Jer 8:20

There is nothing too hard for Thee. Jer 32:17

Lamentations!

In chapter one we have the description of desolation. “No rest, no pasture, no Comforter,”  verses 3, 6, 9. Such is the desolation of every soul that is without Christ.

We come into this world without Christ, without hope, and without life.

A Beautiful Illustration of Putting Your Problems in the Lord’s Hands

This is found in 2 Kings. “Is thine heart right,” said Jehu to Jehonadab, the son of Rechab. “Is thine heart right as my heart with thy heart?” And Jehonadab answered “It is.” “If it be, give me thine hand, and he gave him his hand and he took him with him into the chariot.”

Our King sees us toiling along life's journey and He puts to us this question, “Is thy heart right towards Me?”

“Lovest thou Me more than these?” If we can reply, “It is,” “Thou knowest that I love Thee.” Then our King, as it were, stretches out His hand and draws us up with Himself to heavenly places, and makes us to ride in His chariot of power.

We have the same thought in the book of Chronicles. “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole Earth, to show Himself strong on the behalf of those heart is perfect toward Him.” “What think ye of Christ?”

The “heart” here is the mind. It is always the mental attitude. 
“With the mind man believeth unto salvation.”
“I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Me.”
“As a man thinketh in his mind, so is he.”
“Guard your mind with all diligence, from out it comes all the issues of life.”

Ruth

After about ten years, Naomi heard “That the Lord had visited His people giving them bread and she arose to return to her own land.” And then follows the memorable choice of Ruth to cleave unto her mother-in-law in following her to an unknown land, and what seemed a life of privation and toil.

When Naomi saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, she left speaking to her. There must have been something very beautiful in Naomi's life, thus to win the devotion and love of Ruth, first to herself and then to her God. And it has been well to keep her name that means “pleasant,” instead of substituting her suggested name of “Mara.”

They arrived at “Bethlehem,” the house of bread, at the beginning of barley harvest and proved it to be “the house of bread” once more.

The calm poetry of those harvest fields of Bethlehem, the eager gleaners among the maidens, the reapers, the lord of the harvest, have all lived in golden sunshine in our imaginations from our childhood. Notice, “Her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz.”

Behind our lives there is a Guiding Hand which causes even insignificant things to be fraught with mighty issues. “Her hap” was God's design in bringing her to her Right-Man, Boaz.

He brought Eve to Adam also. No need to go on a search for Mr. Goodbar. You won’t find him in a bar. Good bad or indifferent. Don’t believe all the beer commercials.

A beautiful story never seen on Broadway and one that Shakespeare missed. But the Lord didn’t. He had you in mind.

We know that the book of Ecclesiastes is all about “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity and vexation of spirit,” a frantic search for happiness apart from the Lord.

But in studying the book of Ecclesiastes verb by verb, I learned something I never learned in school. You know school in my days you had to walk miles back and forth from school and carry your own lunch, which I ate before lunch. So I got tired of walking to school so I joined the Army and really found out what walking was!

  But here is what I learned in the book of Ecclesiastes. I think you can go to school in the Bible.

Ecc 1:7, “All the rivers run into the sea. Yet the sea is not full unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”  
I never learned that in school. What an accurate description of the facts of the absorption and condensation of water from the sea into the clouds and then into rain by which the equilibrium of the sea and land is maintained.

And I found a similar description in Psalm 104:8-9 where we read of the waters going up by the mountains as well as down by the valleys.

And the facts are still further explained in Psalm 135:7, “He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the Earth, He maketh lightnings for the rain, He bringeth the wind out of His treasuries.” The “watery vapour “is rising from the ocean's breast in such volume as no pumps ever imagined by man could produce.

The Psalmist inspired by God the Holy Spirit describes in simple language what science today is revealing. It stands to reason a Creator has to be a scientist, too.

Sunday, June 25, 2000

Thought for the Day!

Most Christian men wear their hair longer than God. 1 Cor 11:14, “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?”

Get a crew cut you will even look younger.

“The one thing abhorrent to the powers above the earth and under them is the hyphenated -American, the German-American, the Irish-American or the Native-American.” “Be Americans pure and simple.”

“There is no place for the hyphen in our citizenship. We are a nation, not a hodge-podge of foreign nationalities. We are a people and not a polyglot boarding house.”

Theodore Roosevelt on Not Forsaking of the Assembling of Yourselves Together

“On Sunday, go to church. Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator and dedicate oneself to good living in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in one's own house, just as well as in Church.

“But I also know as a matter of cold fact that the average man does not thus worship or thus himself. If he stays away from Church, he does not spend his time in good works or lofty meditation.

“He looks over the colored supplement of the newspaper, he yawns, and he finally seeks relief from the mental vacuity of isolation by going where the combined mental vacuity of many partially relieves the mental vacuity of each particular individual.”

–Theodore Roosevelt, The Ladies Home Journal, Oct 1913

“The Holy One of Israel”

This term is used almost exclusively in the book of Isaiah – 23 times. It is used also in the Psalms – Psa 71, 77. Twice in Jeremiah 1 and 11, and in 2 Kings 19:22, where Isaiah is the speaker.

23 three times Isaiah uses it in his Book as if it were the reflection of his soul of the vision he saw when he heard the seraphim say one to another “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts.” The name is stamped upon the Book throughout from chapter 1 to chapter 60 as if it were Isaiah's prophetic signature.

Saturday, June 24, 2000

A Love Affair!

Did you know that I am having a love affair? Well, Christianity is not a religion it is a relationship. Salvation and Christianity are a “love affair” — a love affair between the Bridegroom and the bride.

The bride of the Lamb. It is no human love story. It is the romance of the Son of God, the unbreathed love secret kept hidden from the foundation of the world.

God the Father sent God the Holy Spirit into a far country, a very hostile country, for one purpose only. He didn’t come to restore any authority in the world. He had no appointment or mission or permission to attempt to overthrow the reigning world prince or to dismantle the existing order of government. That is not what God the Father sent God the Holy Spirit into this Godless country to do.

He came to get a bride for God the Son and to take her out of here. In that land He was busy exclusively in persuading the bride to be willing to follow Him to His home in Heaven. The only thing He got out of this world He had to take. He got nothing out of this world but a bride. That was all He expected to get there and that is what He went there for.

And He accomplished this by strong persuasion and against much opposition. He engaged in no great work there not in any undertaking suggested by the citizens of that country, which would conflict with preparing the bride for her departure. Not perfect environment, not to stop wars and poverty. But a love affair to get a bride for the Son of God.

“I have espoused you to the Lord as a chaste bride.”

The bride wore white and the Father gave the bride away. But they didn’t throw rice. They threw manna!

Thought for the Day

“No words can paint the scorn and contempt which must be felt by all right-thinking men. Not only for the brutal husband, but the husband who fails to show full loyalty and consideration for his wife. The partnership should be of equal rights, one of love, of self-respect and unselfishness, above all a partnership for the performance of the most of all duties.”

–Theodore Roosevelt 

The Body of Christ

The book of Ephesians deals with the body of Christ.
The book of Colossians deals with the Head of the body, Christ.

Christ is the image of the invisible God, the Son of His love – 1:13
The abode of His fulness – 1:5, 19, 2:3, 9

Christ is the sovereign Creator of the universe – 1:16, 17

He is from all eternity and has the preeminence – 1:17

He is the Reconciler of the universe through the sacrifice on the Cross – 1:20-22, 14, 2:14

He is the Head of all principalities and power – 2:10, 15

He is the Head of the body, the Church – 1:18, 24,  2:19, 3:4

He is all in all – 3:11, “and in you-all.”

The Church – An Assembly of Believers Only

The Church's position is united in Christ, complete in Him – dead, buried, risen with Him. Therefore, she is to put off the old and to put on the new.
Col 1:27, 2:10, 12, 3:1-10

Like Paul's other epistles, the doctrinal section is followed by practical rules for daily life. As if he said, here is the principle now see how it works out.

Wisdom is the application of the Word of God to your daily life.

In the Book of Ephesians We Have the Love Affair Displayed

The length and breadth and depth and height of the love of God in Christ comes out in every chapter.

Found in 1:4, 6; 2:4, 7; 3:17-19; 4:2-6, 15, 32; 5:2, 25; 6:23, 24

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:”  1:6, “To the praise of the glory of His Grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”  

Eph 2:4, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us,”  2:7, “That in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His Grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

Eph 3:17-19, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 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, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

Eph 4:2-6, “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”  4:15, “But speaking the Truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ:”  4:32, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”

Eph 5:2, “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”  5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it;”

Eph 6:23-24, “Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.”

Who loves you???

A Great Bible Study for Saturday to Get You Ready for Sunday
The Cross of Christ

The error which had crept into the Galatian Church was vital, affecting the foundation of faith. Judaizers had come, introducing legalism and ritual, adding the works of the law to the Gospel of justification through the free Grace of God, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

On account of this, Paul first asserts his apostleship, as derived directly from Christ, and then sets forth the power of the Cross of Christ, in its various aspects, as the only ground of our so great salvation.

1. The power of Christ's Cross to deliver from sin. 
Gal 1:4, 2:21, 3:22
“Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:”
“I do not frustrate the Grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”
“But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”

2. The power of Christ's Cross to deliver from the curse of the Law. 
Gal 3:13
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:”

3. The power of Christ's Cross to deliver from the self-life. 
Gal 2:20, 5:24
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
“And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”

4. The power of Christ's Cross to deliver from the world. 
Gal 6:14
“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

5. The power of Christ's Cross in the new birth. 
Gal 4:4-7
“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

6. The power of Christ's Cross in receiving the Spirit. 
Gal 3:14
“That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

7.   The power of Christ's Cross in bringing forth the Spirit's fruit. 
Gal 5:22-25
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

“I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Boring Bible Books

While I was looking for a church that taught the Word of God, I was told by some pastors that certain books were boring so they never taught them. One of the books they mentioned was the book of Judges. When I explained to my wife, who was dying of cancer at that time, my apparent dilemma, she said if you can’t find what you are looking for, why don’t you do it yourself. And she said sure you can if you put your mind to it. Well on her advice I looked into the book of Judges for about a year and it took me another year to teach it by teaching five classes a week.

Not to bore you any further, this is example of one of my findings in the book of Judges.

We have a picture of man's continued sin and failure and God's continuous patience and Grace.

We read of seven distinct departures from the Lord and seven distinct deliverances by the Lord through Othneil, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson.

The Lord's promise in Isaiah is “He shall send them a Saviour and a Great One,” Isa 19:20

God had mercy upon man in his sin and hard bondage and sent the Lord Jesus Christ to be our Saviour.

1. A Saviour. Luke 2:11, “A Saviour which is Christ the Lord.”
2. The Saviour. John 4:42, “The Saviour of the world.”
3. My Saviour. Luke 1:47, “My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”

A Saviour. The Saviour. My Saviour ... And Mary said that!

If you look for the Grace of God, you will find it in every book of the Bible.

Saviour!

It is not enough to know him as a Saviour.
Or even as the Saviour of the world.

We need for each one of us to be able to say, 
“He is my Saviour!!!” Is He your Saviour or only a Saviour?

The Steps in the Decline of Israel as a Nation

Israel sinned in not driving out the Canaanites, but allowed them to dwell among them. Compromise instead of obedience.

The next step was that they intermarried with them. And the next, they were drawn into their idolatries. The result was that all the land became corrupt.

The book of Judges contains the blackest picture of the condition of God's people. Chapters 17-21 gives us the illustration of the gross wickedness of the people during this period.

In the song of Deborah, we have another glimpse of the lawless state of the country. “The highways were unoccupied and the travelers walked through byways. The inhabitants of the villages ceased.” Chapter 5:6-7, “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways.  The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.”

“In those days there was no king in Israel.”

And the keynote of the whole book is “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

Those are only a couple of lessons that I learned from such a boring book. The book isn’t boring, but people are bored ... and boring. 

The Bible You Hold in Your Hand!

The Testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Bible You Hold in Your Hand!

“Abraham rejoiced to see My day.”
“Moses wrote of Me.”
“David called Me Lord.”

We have in these words of our Saviour abundant authority of the Truth of Scriptures themselves. To those of us who believe in Christ as truly God as well as truly man, His Word on these matters is authoritative.

He would not have said, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day” if Abraham had been a mythological character. He would not have said, “Moses wrote of Me,” if the books of Moses had been written hundreds of years later. Nor would He have quoted from Psalm 110 to prove that David called Him Lord if that Psalm had not been written until the time of the Macabees.

We have to realize what this Book is that we hold in our hands, and for no other reason than the Lord Jesus Christ “has magnified His Word above His Name.”

Friday, June 23, 2000

Timothy and Christ

1. Christ our Saviour 

2. Christ our Mediator

3. Christ our Ransom

4. Christ our Teacher

5. Christ our King

6. Christ our Captain

There are enough doctrines and teaching in these verses to last you a lifetime.

Timothy and the Importance of the Word of God

The Importance and the Authority of the Word of God

1 Tim 6:3, “If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the Words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to godliness.”

2 Tim 3:15-17, “And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith   which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

2 Tim 4:1-4, “I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom. Preach the Word. Be instant in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and Doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the Truth and shall be turned into fables.”

 Notice it is the teachers who have the itching ears.

Titus and the Deity of Christ

The words “God our Saviour” and “Christ our Saviour” both occur in the same order in each of the three chapters of Titus – which emphasizes the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Book of Titus Embodies Two Rich and Comprehensive Outlines

1. Salvation by Grace – Titus 2:11-14, Titus 3:4-8

Chapter 2:11-14, God's Grace brings salvation, verse 11
Past: Christ gave Himself to redeem us from all iniquity, verse 14
Present: To purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works, verses 12 and 14
Future: Looking for the appearance of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Christ's personal pre-millennial coming of which Paul wrote to the Thessalonians about 13 years before was still his blessed hope as he neared the close of his life.

See 1 Tim 6:14, 2 Tim 4:8 – almost his last words.

The Bonds of Christ in Philemon

This beautiful personal letter from God's aged servant in bonds for the Gospel foreshadows the time when the bonds of Christ's love should break the bonds of slavery. The story it contains is the exquisite picture of what the Lord Jesus Christ does. He not only intercedes for us with Him from whom we have departed and against whom we have sinned, but knowing to the full how much we have wronged God and how much we owe Him He says, “Put that on My account.”

Christ is Better ... The Book of Hebrews

Chapters 1 and 2:
Christ is better than the angels both in His Deity and in His humanity.

Chapter 3:
Christ is better than Moses.

Chapter 4:
Christ is better than Joshua.

Chapters 5, 6, 7:
Christ is better than Aaron.

Chapter 8:
A better covenant.

Chapter 9:
A better tabernacle.

Chapter 10
A better sacrifice.

Chapter 11:
Examples of faith's better choice.

Chapter 12:
A call to follow this glorious company and the great Captain Himself in the path of outward loss for eternal gain.

Chapter 13:
Call to go forth unto Him without the camp bearing His reproach.

Christ's Two-Fold Nature

Perhaps no other short space in the Bible so emphasizes both our Lord's Deity and humanity as found in Hebrews chapters one and two.

Hebrews dwells upon the supreme importance and power of the blood of Christ in obtaining eternal redemption for sin, in purging the conscience in opening unto us the heavenly sanctuary.

Throughout the book of Hebrews we notice that whatever Christ touches, He makes eternal. Trace the word “eternal” throughout.

Also the words “perfect,” “once,” “blood,” “without,” “better.” And the expression “we have” and “therefore let us.”

Revelation and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ

Rev 13:8 – The Lamb’s book of life
“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

Rev 14:1-4 – The faithful followers of the Lamb
“And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's Name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from Heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the Earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.”

Rev 17:14 – The victory of the Lamb over His enemies
“These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful.”

Rev 19:13, 16 – The Lamb is identified with the Word of God in the Gospel, the God of John's Gospel
“And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His Name is called The Word of God.” “And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a Name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

Rev 19: 7, 9 – The bride of the Lamb and the marriage supper of the Lamb identified with the Bridegroom of the Gospel
“Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.” “And He saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And He saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.”

Rev 21:22 – The Lamb and the Lord God Almighty are the temple of the new Jerusalem
“And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.”

Rev 21:23 – The Lord is the light of the heavenly city identifying Him with the Light of the world in the Gospel
“And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”

Thought for Today

“No qualities called out by a purely peaceful life stand to a level with those stern and virile virtues which move the men of stern heart and strong hand who uphold the honor of their flag in battle.”

–Theodore Roosevelt, June 1897

The Similarity Between Gen 24 and John 4

Between the servant and Rebekah and 
the Lord Jesus Christ and the Samaritan woman

Genesis: He made his camels kneel by the well.
John: Christ wearied and sat down at a well.

Genesis: It was evening when Rebekah got to draw water.
John: It was evening when the Samaritan woman came to draw water.

Genesis: Rebekah – and the servant said “Let me drink.”
John: The woman came and Christ said “Give Me to drink.”

Genesis: Rebekah set down her pitcher and ran and told these things to her household.
John: The Samaritan woman left her waterpots and went and told the men in Samaria.

Coincidence, or mutual principles of doctrine???

Thursday, June 22, 2000

The Day of Atonement

The deepest thought in the book of Leviticus centers around the great Day of Atonement. Leviticus chapter 16
It was a day of humiliation. The sense of sin was to be deepened to its utmost intensity in the national mind. It occurred but once a year.

Heb 9:28, “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of the many.” There is no repetition of His sacrificial work. In the whole year of time there is but one atoning day. With his golden censor of incense and the blood of the bullock for a sin offering, the high priest entered into the Holy of Holies and made atonement for himself and his family.

God Cares for You

Many people think that the book of Leviticus is a dry and boring book. But many of the chapters in Leviticus are occupied with laws for the daily life of God's people. And they show how great is God's concern for the well-being of His people in spirit, soul, and body.

“Ye shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy” is repeated three times in this book.

The words “cleanse,” “purify,” and “holiness” occur constantly. No detail of daily life whether it be in food or clothing or person in family and national life, in agriculture or merchandise is too small to be regarded by the will of God.

1 Cor 10:31, “Whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

2 Cor 7:1, “Having therefore these promises dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

God's Grace Law on Giving

The seventh chapter of Numbers gives us the offerings of the princes. They each brought exactly the same, but instead of massing the offerings together, each is repeated in detail.

God delights to honour the gifts of his children.

How carefully Jesus Christ noted the gift of the poor widow who cast into the treasury all that she had. And He said that the anointing of His feet by Mary of Bethany should be told wheresoever the Gospel should be preached, there are some who say, “the Jews gave a tithe but I give much more than a tithe of my income.” And yet if they really examined their accounts, they would be surprised to find that they are giving less than a tenth.

Besides, the tithe was only a small part of what the Israelites gave. The various other tributes probably brought the amount up to about one-fourth or even one-third of their income. And yet it was only after this had been paid that their “free-will offerings” began.

If we as Christians were to give in like proportions, there would be no lack for any part of the work that the Lord has entrusted to our care.

The Water of Separation

In Numbers chapter 19, we have the account of the water of separation. God's beautiful provision for cleansing from the defilement contracted in daily life. The cleansing efficacy of the water consisted in the ashes of a red heifer offered as a sin offering with which it was mingled. Thus it was a cleansing based upon atonement – a foreshadowment of the blood of Christ which cleanseth, keeps on cleansing from all sin. 1 John 1:7 based on 1 John 1:9.

How much of the teaching of the New Testament we Christians miss through our neglect of the study of biblical types.

Moses' Greatest Day

Of all the Old Testament characters, Moses stands out as the greatest. He was prophet, legislator, ruler all in one. And in the world's history no name has ever stirred the heart of a nation as his has done.

He laid the foundation of its literature and no appeal has ever been made by the Jews from his laws or from any word that he wrote. Nowhere does the character of Moses shine out with greater dignity than in the book of Deuteronomy. We see him at the close of his long life with still unabated vigor about to take leave of his people with whom he had borne patiently through all their provocations. With the one exception, for which he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land.

The Word of the Lord came to Moses. Deut 32:49-50, “Get thee up into Mt. Nebo behold the land and die.” And with meekness he showed the same obedience in death as he had in life.

Deut 34:5, “So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab according to the Word of the Lord.”

But a greater honor awaited God's faithful servant than even the honor of leading the chosen people into the land. A day came when he stood with Elijah beside the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour on the Mount of Transfiguration, within the land, and communed with his Lord on the greatest of all themes. His decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.

The Uniqueness of the Book of Deuteronomy

This book is unique in a lot of ways, but obedience is the key-note as it is also the key-stone of blessing in the Christian way of life. This book brings out more than any other in the Bible the blessedness of obedience.

Notice this outstanding verse – one for your refrigerator:
Deut 6:29, “Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments that it might be well with them and with their children for ever.”

This is God's yearning over His people amidst the terrors of Sinai. Again and again they were told that these laws and this demand of obedience are “for our good always,” Deut 6:24, etc.

Moses' Word

Moses' word was the Law because it was God's Word. He said, 
Deut 4:2, “Ye shall not add unto the Word which I commanded you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it. That ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”

If the word spoken by the servant was authoritative, how can we question the word spoken by the Son?

Deut 18:18-19, “I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee and I will put My Words into his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I have commanded him and it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto My Words which he shall speak in My Name, I will require it of him.”

How exactly was this fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ?

“He that rejecteth Me and receiveth not My Words hath one that judgeth him; the Word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in that day,” John 12:48-50 

The Present State of the State of Israel Today – 2000 A.D.

When you read the newspaper, watch TV, or if you make a trip to Israel with some church group, you never seen the real condition of Israel. You see the tourist guides and the antagonism between the Palestinians and the Jews, but they are only the surface conditions.

For the present state of Israel we turn to Hosea 3:2, “Without a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice without an ephod.” Because they have rejected their King, their true Priest, and are still rejecting the sacrifices He offered.

But they have a future and that is mentioned in Hosea 6:2-3, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One Saviour

Hosea 11:4, “I will draw them with cords of a man, with bands of love.”

Christ draws us with cords of a man when He for us became man and died for us. “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.”
Hosea 13:4, “There is no Saviour besides Me.”

“Thou shalt call His Name Jesus, Saviour, for He shall save His people from their sins.”

“Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other Name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.”

Hosea 13:4, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death.” 

The Hebrew word for “ransom” signifies rescued them, by payment of a price. The Hebrew word for “redeem” relates to the one who as the nearest of kin had the right to acquire anything as his own, by paying the price.

Both words in their most exact sense describe what Jesus Christ did for us – ransomed and redeemed us.

What the Lord Prepares: We Know That He Has Prepared a Home for Us, But ...

“The Lord prepared a great fish.” The Hebrew word is MANAH, which means to appoint or arrange. Jonah uses this word several times. “Prepared a gourd,” “prepared a worm,” “prepared a vehement east wind.” And, in like manner “prepared a great fish” to swallow Jonah.

Those who smile over the story of Jonah would do well to remember not only did our Lord Himself refer to it, but in what connection. He used it as a most solemn sign regarding the most solemn event of His life on Earth.

And He has expressly told us that in the great judgment day, the men of Nineveh shall rise up and condemn the men of this generation because they received the Gospel.

Thought for the Day – Fighting

“Don’t hit at all if you can help it. Don’t hit a man if you can possibly avoid it. But if you do hit him, put him to sleep.”

–Theodore Roosevelt – New York City, February 17, 1899

Prepared a Great Fish

The words translated a “great fish” in the Old Testament and a “whale” in the New Testament is in both cases a great sea monster. The term includes whales and sharks and other variations.

Some believe it was the CARCHARIAS, or white shark – constantly found in the Mediterranean, often 30 feet long and more.

In 1758 a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean and was swallowed by a shark. The captain had a gun fixed at it. And the creature cast the man out of his throat and he was taken up alive and but little injured. The fish was harpooned and dried and presented to the sailor who went around Europe exhibiting it. It was 20 feet long.

The Lord prepared a great fish. Jonah was “down in the mouth.”

The President of the United States of America!

“Any man who has been honored by being made President of the United States is thereby forever after rendered the debtor of the American people, and is in honor bound throughout his life to remember this as his prime obligation, and in private life as much as in public life. So to carry himself that the American people may never have cause to feel regret that once they placed him at their head.”

 –Theodore Roosevelt, New York City, June 18, 1910  

Do You Believe in the Rapture and the Second Advent of Christ?

Well, the believers in Thessalonica did. Notice this:
1 Thes 2:19, “For what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not ye even in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?

1 Thes 3:13, “To the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in Holiness before God, even our Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus .”

1 Thes 4:15, “For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not .”

1 Thes 5:23, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

2 Thes 2:1, “Now we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him.”

2 Thes 2:8, “And then shall that wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.”

Rapture and Second Advent of Christ

Greek Grace Gems!

These two small little Greek words will change your whole life and your whole perspective of life. Here they are: EGO    EIMI

These two words identify our Lord with the covenant name of Jehovah in the Old Testament. The Jews recognized He claimed Deity in applying it thus emphatically to Himself. For He was when He said, “Before Abraham was I am.”

And they took up stones to stone Him, considering it blasphemy, which by the Law was punishable by death.

  John wrote His Gospel that John 20:31, “Men might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing, they might have life through His Name.”

Accordingly, we find the word “believe “ occurring a 100 times through his Gospel and the word “witness” nearly 50 times.

For beginning with the Baptist, John 1:6-7, John called in one witness after another to give evidence in proving the case. See especially John 5:31-40

EGO EIMI to follow. Important!

Two Greek Grace Gems That Will Change Your Life

EGO   EIMI   is the “I am” in the Gospel of John in order to show how perfectly Christ meets the world's need.

“I am He,” the Christ, 4:26. Meets the need of a Divine Saviour who is also human.

“I am,” the Bread of life, 6:35, meets our soul's hunger.

“I am” the Light of the world, 7:12, meets and expels our darkness.

“I am” the Door of the sheep, 10:7, meets our homelessness.

“I am”  the good Shepherd, 10:11, meets our helplessness.

 “I am” the Resurrection and the Life, 11:25, meets our death.

“I am” your Master and Lord, 13:13, meets our dependence.

“I am” the Way, the Truth, the Life, 14:6, meets our need of salvation.

 “I am”   the True Vine, 15:1, meets our need of union with Himself.

 “I am” Jesus of Nazareth, 17:5, meets our need of a human Saviour who is also Divine.

 Two great Greek Grace Gems: EGO    EIMI 

Wednesday, June 21, 2000

Typology!

When we say a certain thing is a “type,” we should be perfectly clear of our ground. For a “type” is something that is used as a symbol for God, to foreshadow the thing or person stated.

Types are divided into seven divisions: Persons, institutions, events, things, offices, places, actions. 

Person:
Adam – the life-giving Lord, 1 Cor 15:45
Isaac – the offered One, Gen 22:13, Rom 8:32
Jacob – the working Shepherd, Gen 31:38, John 10:11
Joseph – the rejected Brother, Gen 37:24, Isa 53:3
Melchisedek – the kingly Priest, Gen 14:18, Heb 7:7-10
Jonah – the incarcerated Prophet, Jonah 1:17, Matt 12:40
Eliakim – the mighty Opener, Isa 22:20-22, Rev 3:7

God Gave His People a Three-Fold Encouragement to Go Forward and Possess the Land

 1. The gift of the land
“Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you.”

2. The command
“Arise and go, have not I commanded thee?”

3. The promise of His Person
“As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee.”

“And the Lord commanded them to observe to do according to all the Law which Moses commanded and to meditate therein day and night.”

Joshua chapter one
Joshua means “the Lord is salvation,” i.e., Jesus Christ

A Slain Lamb!

In the Passover, we have a picture of the redemption which is in Christ.

Christ told us the meaning of the Passover.

1 Cor 5:7, 10, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us therefore let us keep the feast.”

It was a slain Lamb, not a living lamb that availed the Israelites in the hour of judgment, Exodus 12:6

1 Cor 2:2, “I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus and Him crucified.”

A slain Lamb – Not a living Lamb.

All the first born, those who had been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, were to be sanctified, set apart, unto the Lord. Exodus 13:2

1 Cor 6:19-20, “Ye are not your own. Ye are bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.”

The First Born, or the Lamb

Exodus 12:3, 20, “In every home that night there was one dead. Either the first born or the Lamb in the stead of the first born.”

Rom 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.”

Rom 5:8, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

“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

A Hebrew Honey of a Gem!

Deut 6:4-5, “Hear O Israel, the Lord, our God, is one Lord.”

The literal translation is:  “The Lord, our Gods, the Lord is one.”

Here the name of God is mentioned three times.

And the word translated “one” is ACHAD which expresses a compound unity as in the expression “one cluster of grapes.”

The congregation was assembled as “one man.” “All the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man.”

The Promised Land Has Many Lessons for Us in Christ!

1. It is a land of rest, Deut 6:10-11

2. It is a land of plenty, Deut 8:8-9

3. It is a land of living water, Deut 8:7

4. It is a land of promised victory, Deut 11:25

A picture of our present inheritance in Christ.

Faith is the Victory!

“By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down.”

That is the simple record in the New Testament of the taking of the city.

“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.”

Those who are living in the spirit have ceased to fight with carnal weapons. They have learned to wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God and quenched the fiery darts of the wicked one by the shield of faith.”

The saint wins his victories beforehand on his knees, and then stands still and sees the salvation of the Lord.

“Shout for the Lord hath given you the city.”

“By faith Rahab perished not with them that believed not when she received the spies in peace.”

The token for her salvation was the scarlet cord with which she had let down the spies tied to her window. It was like the token of the blood on the door posts in the Passover.

In the former days in the Royal Navy, every rope and cord was marked with a scarlet thread running right through the entire length so that wherever you cut the rope you found the scarlet thread.

The scarlet line of redemption through the blood of Christ runs through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

Wherever you open it you cannot miss the scarlet line.

Thought for the Day – The Home

December 3, 1906, sixth message to Congress

“When home ties are loosened, when men and women cease to regard a worthy family life, with all its duties fully performed, and all its responsibilities lived up to, as the life best worth living, then evil days for the commonwealth are at hand.”

–Theodore Roosevelt

Dishonesty in Politics

Washington, D.C., October 15, 1903

“We can as little afford to tolerate a dishonest man in the public service as a coward in the army.”

–Theodore Roosevelt

Abel Was Cain'd

Abel brought a slain animal and put it on the altar and it was accepted, showing the need of a Saviour. Cain brought a squash, showing no death and no need of a Saviour – the work of his own hands.

Cain slew Abel. The word “slew” means he slaughtered him with a sacrificial knife. He saw Abel slaying an animal for a sacrifice.

But Cain wouldn’t slay an animal. He slew his brother instead. Religion kills.

There was atonement for Able but not for Cain.

“At-  one-  ment”

Leadership!

“Unless a man believes in applied morality, he is certain to be merely a noxious public servant.”

“No man can lead a public career really worth leading, no man can act with rugged independence in serious crises, nor strike at great abuses nor afford to make powerful and unscrupulous foes, if he is himself vulnerable in his private character.”

–Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography 1913 

Satan in the Book of Esther

Behind the personal enmity of Haman was the deeper malignity of Satan seeking to make void the promises of God through the destruction of the whole Jewish race.

Xerxes was king over all the Jews in Palestine, as well as over those in Persia and Babylon.

Satan knew that the great Deliverer who was to arise out of the house of David was to destroy his power. And we can trace his hand behind such events in history as Saul throwing his javelin at the youthful David.

And Queen Athaliah's attempt to destroy all the royal seed. But God turned aside the blow in the one case. And nourished the infant Joash in the temple courts in the other.

The same enmity of the devil prompted Herod to slay the   babes in Bethlehem. But God delivered His Son by sending Him to Egypt.

The great enemy succeeded in bruising His heel when he gathered together Herod and Pontius Pilate with the gentiles and the people of Israel against the Holy Child Jesus. But God raised Him up from the dead.

Uniqueness of the Bible

Though the object of the Bible is not to teach science, its language is always abreast of the latest discoveries. And this is no where more noticeable than in the book of Job.

“He hangeth the Earth upon nothing,” Job 16:7
What could more accurately describe the poise of our world in space?

“Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?" Job 38:31
One of the brightest of these seven stars is actually, so far as is known, the pivot around which our whole solar system revolves.
How mighty and at once how sweet must be the influences to hold these worlds in place at such a distance and to swing them around so smoothly?

“The morning stars sang together,” Job 38:7
Only modern science has discovered that the rays of light are vocal. And that if our ears were more finely tuned, we should hear them, Psa 19:1-3

“By what way is the light parted,” Job 38:24
Could language more exact be employed even after the discoveries of the spectrum analysis?

Had Bildad been taught the chemical absorption of chlorophyll by plants from light, he could have used no exacter term than this.
”He is green, or is full of juice, before the sun,” Job 8:16

The Bible Does Not Cloak Sin

… Least of all in God's own children. It does not spare God's saints.

There were steps leading up to David's sin … His multiplying of wives ... His tarrying still at Jerusalem when he should have been at the front in war.

It is always the case where there is a believer out of fellowship, before it is seen outwardly.

David sinned grievously but he acknowledged his sin and God indeed blotted out his sin according to the multitude of His tender mercies. But He did not remove the consequences of the sin. He chastened David through sore trials in his own family.

The Queen of Sheba!

The Lord Himself draws the contrast between the Queen of Sheba who “came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon,” and the men of his generation who were so indifferent, though “a Greater than Solomon was among them.”

Following the same line of thought, the visit of this queen is a beautiful picture of a soul coming to the Saviour and finding full satisfaction in Him. She came from afar off and we “were sometimes afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”

She brought all her hard questions to Solomon and communed with him of all that was in her heart. We may bring all our difficulties to the Lord and we shall find as she did, “that there is not anything hid from the King,” which He cannot solve for us.

We too shall find that “He is made unto us wisdom.”

Solomon's Failure

Again we see failure written upon every human life. Solomon failed in exactly those things against which the Word of God had warned the future king of his people.

Deut 17:16-17, “He shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end that he should multiply horses. Neither shall he multiply to himself silver and gold. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself that his heart turn not away.” Solomon did all three.

The multitude of wives were taken from heathen nations which God had expressly commanded them not to marry, lest they should turn away the heart of the people to other gods. And this is exactly what came to pass.

1 Kings 11:4, “When Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God as was the heart of David his father.”

Tuesday, June 20, 2000

A King With a Shepherd's Heart!

The shepherd and the king were blended in David, and in David's Son. A true king must always have the heart of a shepherd.

When David saw the Angel of the Lord about to destroy Jerusalem, he said, 1 Chr 21:17, “I it is that have sinned, and done evil indeed, but as for these sheep what have they done? Let Thine hand be on me, but not on Thy people.”

A King with a Shepherd's heart ...  The Lord Jesus Christ.

One Shepherd

Ezek 34:23, “I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My Servant David, and He shall be their Shepherd.”

David means “beloved,” and our Beloved Shepherd is:
The Good Shepherd in death – John 10:11, See Psalm 22
The Great Shepherd in resurrection – Heb 13:20, See Psalm 23
The Chief Shepherd in glory – 1 Pet 5:4, See Psalm 24 

When Job Answered His Own Question!

Job's vision of the future life had been obscure at first, for we find him asking the question, Job 19:14, “If a man die shall he live again?”

But with his affliction, his faith grows. And he answers his own question. “I know that my Redeemer liveth and that He shall stand at the latter end upon the dust. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself and on my side.” “Mine eyes shall behold Him and not a stranger.” 

What a vision of the future life we have here! What a prophecy of the coming Saviour sounding forth in the earliest ages.

Job sees him as the GOEL – the Kinsman Redeemer. He’s not a stranger, the one because He is the next of kin who has the right to redeem.

Ecc 9:14-15, “There was a little city and few men in it and there came a great king against it and besieged and built great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city.”

We have here a picture of the earth which the Lord had given to the children of men a speck in His great universe. Yet He is mindful of man.

“The prince of this world cometh,” Christ said, “and the god of this world has blinded the minds of men lest the light of the glorious Gospel should shine unto them.” So successfully has He laid siege to the city.

But we know the Grace of God, “Who though He was rich for our sakes became poor and was found in fashion as a man and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross.”

“The preaching of the Cross is unto them that perish but unto us who are saved, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Ecc 9:15, “Now there was found in it a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city. And no man remembered that same poor man.”

“My people have forgotten Me days without number.”

“Forgotten that they were purged from their old sins.”

“Of the ten cleansed, there were not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger.”

Redeemed Christians, forget not all His benefits to us!

Questions Found in Jeremiah – and Answered by Christ

1. How shall I pardon thee? Jer 5:7, Eph 1:7

2. How shall I put thee among the children? Jer 3:12, John 1:12

3. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Jer 8:22, Matt 9:12

4. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Jer 13:23, Acts 8:27, 2 Pet 3:14

5. How wilt thou do in the swelling of the Jordan? Jer 12:5, 1 Cor 15:55-57

6. Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock? Jer 13:20, Col 1:28, Heb 13:17

Here are Some Questions in Jeremiah That Contain Truths Which Would Make Good Bible Studies

What wilt thou say when He shall punish thee? Jer 13:24

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, Jer 17:9

Flee, save your lives and be like the heath, juniper, in the wilderness, Jer 48:6

My Word is like a fire and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces, Jer 23:29

Break up your fallow ground, Jer 4:3

Her sun is gone down while it is yet day, Jer 15:9

I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, Jer 29:11

I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee, Jer 31:3

And there are many more which would make for great Bible Studies.

The Picture That Jeremiah Gives of the Lord Jesus Christ

The Fountain of Living Waters, Jer 2:13

The Great Physician, Jer 8:22

The Good Shepherd, Jer 31:10, Jer 23:4

The Righteous Branch, Jer 23:5

As David the King, Jer 30:9

As the Redeemer, Jer 50:34

As the Lord our Righteousness, Jer 23:6

The Lord Our Righteousness

At the very time that David's throne was imperiled and justice and equity almost unknown, the prophet Jeremiah announced the coming of a King of the house of David, a Righteous Branch, who should reign and prosper and execute judgment and justice in the Earth.

“In his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is His Name whereby He shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness.”

JEHOVAH TSIDKENU – Jer 23:6

In this majestic name, the Godhead of our Saviour is predicted and as a descendant of David, His humanity.

Inspiration!

The book of Jeremiah throws much light on the subject of inspiration. It is a helpful study to take your Bible and beginning with the first verse, to mark all the expressions which assert or imply that God spake by Jeremiah, such as

“Thus saith the Lord.”
“The Lord said unto me.”
“The Word of the Lord came.”

Such expressions occur sometimes a dozen times in one chapter, and in them Jeremiah unhesitatingly claims inspiration.

Faith is a Paradox. Faith Sings in Prison – Paul, Silas, John, and Jeremiah

There is a beautiful scene of faith singing in prison. Jeremiah is in prison. The rulers have bound him that they may no longer be troubled by the Word of the Lord.

“And Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the Words of the Lord which He had spoken unto him upon a roll of a book.”

And Jeremiah commanded Baruch saying, “I am shut up. I cannot go into the house of the Lord, therefore go thou, and read in the roll which thou hast written from my mouth the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the Lord's house upon the fasting day.”

The Word of God lives and abides for ever. Faith sings in a prison.

Worship

Have you ever noticed that when God the Holy Spirit wants to illustrate the power and the philosophy and triumph of faith whom He starts with?

In Hebrews chapter eleven, the Holy Spirit, when illustrating the victory of faith, doesn’t start with Adam or Eve. But He starts with a man who is a member of the fallen race. And the man isn’t working or witnessing or even praying. But he is doing one of the most honorable things that any member of the human race can do.

When God the Holy Spirit wants to illustrate the triumph of faith and the power of faith and the philosophy of faith, He starts with a man, a member of a fallen race “at worship.” Worship is the highest function for all mankind.

Heb 11:4, “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” “Offered” is the word which means to bare in your hand. He bore it into the presence of the Lord.

Worship is the highest of all functions for man.

Faith – a man at worship.

Thought for the Day – Theodore Roosevelt

“The Lord's Work”

“It is very essential that a man should have in him the capacity to defy his fellows if he thinks that they are doing the work of the devil and not the work of the Lord. But it is even more essential for him to remember that he be most cautious about the mistaking his own views for those of the Lord.”

Thought for the Day – Theodore Roosevelt, Chicago, IL, June 17, 1912

“We fight in honorable fashion for the good of mankind, fearless of the future, unheeding of our individual fates. With unflinching hearts and undiminished eyes, we stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.”

Patriotism – Theodore Roosevelt, Washington, D.C., January 1917

“The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first. Instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”

Monday, June 19, 2000

How Do You Like These Apples? An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

S.O.S. 2:3, “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood so is my Beloved among the sons. I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste.”

This is one of the descriptions of the Shulamite's Right-Man, the Shepherd Lover. It is also a picture of our Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are four mentions of the “apple” in Scripture. To get a fuller picture:

1. S.O.S. 7:8, “I said I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof, now also thy breast shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples.”
A. Pleasant and powerful perfume.

2. S.O.S. 2:3, “I sat down under His shadow with great delight.”
A. Dense and delightful shade.

3. S.O.S. 2:3, “And His fruit was sweet to my taste.”
A. Sweet and luscious fruit.

4. Prov 25:11, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”
A. Golden color in the fruit surrounded by a molten silver setting of white flowers.

It is doubtless the “apple” of Scripture truly it is the very tree of life and above all, the fitting image of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Gold alone speaks of Deity and silver of redemption.

And He truly is the “Word fitly spoken.”

My Beloved!

S.O.S. 2:16, “My Beloved is mine and I am His.”  
Here the chief thought is that of her possession in Christ. He is mine for He has given Himself for me.  
The second thought is “I am His,” bought with His own blood.

S.O.S. 6:3, “I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine.” Here the thought is of His ownership that holds the chief place.

S.O.S. 7:10, “I am my Beloved's and His desire is toward me.” Here His ownership swallows up every other thought.

In these three verses we have the double thought that is given us in Ephesians chapter one.

Christ – the inheritance of the Church, and the Church – the inheritance of Christ.

Eph 1:11, “In Whom also we have obtained an inheritance.”Eph 1:18, “The riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”  
Eph 1:6, “Accepted in the Beloved.”

Christianity is a relationship and not a religion. Christianity is actually a love affair.

The Result of Our Love Toward the Lord Jesus Christ

1. Keeping His commandments.
John 14:15, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”

When there is a real love to Christ, there will be an intense sensitiveness to His Word.

2. Feeding His sheep.
Three times He said to Peter, “Lovest thou Me? Feed My sheep feed, My Lambs.”

The longing to be of a blessing to others comes out in various ways.

3. Fruit bearing to His praise.
“Herein is My Father glorified that ye bear much fruit.”

Never Thirst

S.O.S. 4:15, “A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.”

How this verse exactly corresponds with the threefold description of the Living Water in John's Gospel:

1. “Whoso drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.”
The soul's thirst quenched at the fountain.

2. “The water that I give him shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.”
An unfailing supply in the soul of the believer.

3. “He that believeth on Me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water.”
Streams from Lebanon flowing through the believer to a thirsty world.

Anticipation of the Appearing of the Blessed Hope

The Church that is separated unto her Lord is watching with intensity of desire for His appearing. The word “hope” is the Greek word ELPIS, which means a joyful anticipation of the assurance of something that will happen.

And with this thought the Song of Solomon closes.
S.O.S. 8:14, “Make haste, my Beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.”

And the same thought in the last Book of the Bible closes with:
“The Spirit and the bride say come, and He which testifieth these things saith, surely I come quickly. Amen, even so come, Lord Jesus.”

The Wisdom of Proverbs and the Word of God

Prov 8:23, “I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the Earth was.”
John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word.”

Prov 8:27, “When He prepared the Heavens, I was there.”
John 1:1, “And the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

Prov 8:27, “When He set a compass on the face of the deep, when He Appointed the foundation of the Earth.”
John 1:3, “All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.”

Prov 8:30, “Then I was by Him, I was as His artificer.”
Heb 1:2, “His Son, by whom also He made the worlds.”

Prov 8:22, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of the way, before His works of old.”
Col 1:17, “He is before all things and by Him all things consist.”

Prov 8:30, “I was daily His delight.”
Luke 3:22, “Thou art My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”  

Prov 8:30, “Rejoicing always before Him.”
John 17:24, “Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the world.”

Continued next time …

The Wisdom of Proverbs and the Word of God – Part Two

 Prov 8:14, “Counsel is Mine and sound wisdom, I am understanding.”
1 Cor 1:20, “Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom.”

Prov 2:4, “If thou searchest for Her (wisdom) as for hid treasure.”
Col 2:3, “In Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Prov 8:5, “O ye simple understand wisdom.”
Luke 10:21, “Hid from the wise and the prudent, revealed unto babes.”

Prov 8:1, 4, “Doth not wisdom cry unto you O men I call.”
John 7:37, “Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.”

Prov 8:35, “Whoso findeth Me findeth life.”
John 6:47, “He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.”

Prov 8:17, “I love them that love Me.”
Gal 2:20, “The Son of God who loved me.”

Prov 8:6, “Hear for I will speak excellent things.
Luke 4:22, “All wondered at the Gracious words which preceded out of His mouth.”

What is His Son's Name?

“Who hath ascended up into Heaven or descended?”
“Who hath gathered the wind in His fists?”
“Who hath bound the waters in a garment?”
“Who hath established all the ends of the Earth?”
“What is His Name?”
“And what is His Son's Name, if thou canst tell?” Prov 30:4

This is a marvelous verse. If we ask any Jew the first question, “What is His Name?” He would at once reply JEHOVAH. But if you go further in this verse and say, “What is His Son's Name?” The Jew becomes silent and says it is blasphemy to say that God has a Son.”

But here is a verse which attributes ascension to Heaven and the creation and the control of the world to God's Son.
1 John 5:20, “And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true.”

Why Was the Gospel of John Written?

John 20:31, “But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through His Name.”

John wrote his first epistle in order that those who believed in Christ “might know” that they have eternal life.

1 John 5:13, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the Name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the Name of the Son of God.”

Consequently, as we find the word “believe” running through and characterizing the Gospel, so here in John's epistle we have the word “know” running through his epistle.

The Gospel of John: believe. The epistle of John: know.

John gives the evidence for his own knowledge that he has heard and seen and handled the Word of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he seeks to bring his hearers into intimate knowledge and “fellowship” with the Father and with the Son, that their joy may be full.
1 John 1:1, 7, 2:13-14

This fellowship rests on salvation through the atoning work of Christ.
1 John 1:7, 9; 2:1, 2; 3:15, 16; 4:9-10, 14; 5:11-13

It is received by faith. 3:23, verses 1, 13.

10 Things That Happen When You Put Your Faith in Christ – 1 John

1. A new birth – 1 John 2:29, 3:1-2, 9, 4:7, 5:1

2. Forgiveness of sin – 1 John 1:7, 9, 2:12

3. Deliverance from the power of sin – 1:6, 2:1, 6, 3:3, 5, 6, 9, 5:18

4. Deliverance from the love of the world – 2:15, 5:4-5

5. Victory over the devil – 2:13-14, 3:8, 4:4

6. In keeping His commandments – 2:3-8, 5:2-3

7. In love of the brethren – 2:9-11, 3:10-19, 4:7-8, 11, 12, 20, 21

8. In the fullness of the Holy Spirit – 2:20, 17, 3:24, 4:2, 13, 5:6

9. In Divine enlightenment and knowledge by which we may know Truth from error – 2:20, 21, 27, 4:1-3, 6, 5:20

10. In answered prayer – 3:21-22, 5:14-16

The Epistles of Peter

1st Peter is chiefly the joy of suffering of persecution.

2nd Peter is chiefly the joy of suffering of temptation and of surrounding apostasy.

Peter speaks of himself as a witness of the sufferings of Christ, 1 Peter 5:1

Peter speak as an eye-witness of His majesty, 2 Pet 1:16

Peter speaks of the partaking of Christ's sufferings, and the partaking of His glory, 1 Pet 4:13, 1 Pet 5:1

Peter dwells on the sufferings of Christ and the sufferings of His followers.

Feed My Sheep, Feed My Lambs

Peter, the one to whom the Lord gave the commission “Feed My sheep,” delights in his epistle to speak of Christ as the “Chief Shepherd,” 1 Pet 2:25, 1 Pet 5:4. And of His servants as under-shepherds, 1 Pet 5:2, 3.

Peter speaks of Christ as the Precious Corner Stone and of believers as living stones in the same temple, 1 Pet 2:4-8

By implication, he speaks of Christ as our High Priest by Whom we offer spiritual sacrifices and of the royal priesthood of all believers, 1 Pet 2:5, 1 Pet 2:9

Funny teaching for the first pope — All believers are priests—royal priests!

Peter and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ

Peter brings out very fully the atoning work of Christ through His death and blood shed for us.
1 Pet 1:18-20, 1 Pet 2:24, 1 Pet 3:18, 2 Pet 1:4, 2 Pet 2:20

Peter closes his writings where Paul in his epistle to the Thessalonians began.

The Blessed Hope of the coming of the Lord, 1 Pet 3.

Peter and His Belief in the Inspiration of Scriptures

Peter throws radiant light on the inspiration of the Scriptures:
1 Pet 1:10, 12; 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Pet 1:4, 16-21; 1 Pet 3:15

He also includes Paul's writings under the same title as the Old Testament Scriptures, and shows that he wrote not in his own wisdom, but by wisdom given him from Above. Notice the use of the word “precious” in both of his epistles.

The Progressive Teaching of the Word of God

The majestic presence of the eternal Son of God fills the last Book of the Bible with the glimpses it gives us of His glory throughout the eternal future.

“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for ever.”
One with the Father and with the Holy Spirit.
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is, and is to come.”
The Lamb is all the glory Immanuel's land.
Rev 13:8, takes us back to the earliest stages. The Lamb slain is the purpose of God from the foundation of the world.
Rev 5:6, John's vision of the future shows us till all eternity, A Lamb as it had been slain.

Between these two records lies the progressive teaching of the whole Bible with regard to the Lamb of God.

“Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

Christ Our Keeper – The Book of Jude

First, we are to keep the faith, contend earnestly. This word is the same as strive, “agonize” in Luke 13:24, for the faith once delivered to the saints, Jude 1:3.

Secondly, we are to keep ourselves in the love of God, that He may be able to keep us, verse 21.

Jude uses the word “kept” ironically in verse 6. “The angels which kept not their first estate” are “kept” in chains unto judgment.

In verse 13, the same word “kept” is used. Sinners are “kept” in the blackness of darkness for ever.

Third, “the Lord is able to keep us from falling.” Now, there is a stronger word used here for “keep,” which means to guard, showing Christ's power to protect us from the perils Jude has been enumerating.

Finally, to present us faultless before the presence of His glory in that great day.

If you don’t believe that the Word of God is alive and powerful, read these verses.

“In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth” and “God said let Us make man in Our image,” Gen 1:1, 26

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Same was in the beginning with God, all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made,” John 1:1-3

“The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He appointed the foundations of the Earth,” Prov 8:22-29

“Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the world,” Christ said to His Father when He was about to lay down His life for us, John 17:24.

Thus, in the beginning of all things we see our everlasting Saviour, the Son of God, “Whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds,” Heb 1:2

What kind of a commentary can you possibly make of these words? The only thing you can do is appreciate it and absorb it.

In the Beginning – Time

God created the heavens – Space

And the Earth – Matter

And the Spirit of God – Force

Moved – Motion

Five factors of the most general forms into which the manifestations unknowable are re-divisible.

God the Holy Spirit has given us these five manifestations of God's creative power in the first two verses of the Bible.

“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear,” Heb 11:3

God prepared our planet to become the home of man, and, above all, the scene of His supreme revelation or redemption through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Genesis gives us the beginning of the human race – Gen 1:26-27, Gen 2:7

The outline of the divisions of the race as given in the 10th chapter of Genesis.

The origin of the Sabbath, the origin of marriage,   the beginning of sin and death.

We are introduced at the very beginning to man's great enemy, Satan, and his true character is revealed: subtlety and deceit.

And the result of the fall of our first parents is manifest in Cain's hatred of his brother, ending up in murder.“ And wherefore slew he him because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous,” 1 John 3:12.

The Precious Blood of Christ – 1 Peter 1:18-19

The meaning of the blood – Lev 17:11, 14
Redemption through His blood – 1 Pet 1:18-19
Forgiveness through His blood –   Eph 1:7
Justification through His blood – Rom 5:9
Peace through His blood – Col 1:20
Cleansing through His blood – 1 John 1:7
Loosing from sin through His blood – Rev 1:5
Sanctification through His blood – Heb 8:12
Access through His blood   – Heb 10:19
Victory through His blood – Rev 12:11
Glory everlasting through His blood – Rev 7:14-15

I think we can work up a message from this.

Thursday, June 15, 2000

Thought for the Day

It will greatly help you to understand Scripture if you mark not only what is spoken or rhymed,

but of whom
and to whom
with what words
at what time.
Where
to what intent
with what circumstances
considering what goeth before
and what followeth

Pastor-Teachers

Heb 13:7, “Remember those which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their manner of life.”

Heb 13:17, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves for they  watch for your souls as they must give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is profitable for you.”

Lord, from whose hands we take our charge
The care of childhood and of youth
To set their feet upon life’s road
In loyalty to right and truth.

O hear as of Thee we ask
The strength and wisdom for our task.

That we may open doors on life
And share the visions that we see
Of the deep wonder of the world
And man’s heroic history.

And wake in them the answering chord
Give us the skill and patience, Lord.

That we may use all law and rule
Not rudely to oppress and bind
But as the needed discipline
For freedom of soul and mind.

Equipped to face with fearless eyes
And steady faith life’s enterprise.

That we may understand their need
When comes their hour of strain and stress
With compassion to help and save
From sordid thoughts and bitterness.

Lord uses our struggles, conflicts, fears
To light for them the troubled years.

It is ours to give and spend ourselves
Nor grudge the labor and the pain
To sow the seed of noble worth
Yet without Thee our toil is vain.

Great Lord of life, tis Thine to give
The quickening breath by which they live.

Wednesday, June 14, 2000

June 14, 2000 – Flag Day!

Lord while for all mankind we pray
Of every sea and coast
O hear us for our native land
America we love the most.

O guard our shores from every foe
With peace our borders bless
With prosperous times our cities crown
Our fields with plenteousness.

Unite us in the secret love
Of knowledge, Truth and Thee
And let our hills and valleys shout
The songs of liberty.

Lord of all the nations
Thus to Thee our country, America, we commend
Be Thou her refuge and her trust
Her everlasting Friend.

Flag Day – June 14, 2000 A.D.

O Lord Almighty, Thou whose hands
Despair and victory gave
In whom, though tyrants tread their lands
The souls of nations live.

Thou will not turn Thy face away
From those who will do Thy will,
But send Thy peace on souls that pray
and guard Thy people still.

Remember not the days of shame
The hands with rapine dyed,
The wavering will, the baser aims,
The brute material pride.

Remember, Lord, the years of faith
The souls humbly brave,
The strength that died defying death
The love that loved the enslaved.

The race that strove to rule Thine earth
With equal laws unbought,
Who bore for Truth the pangs of birth
and brake the bonds of thought.

Remember how since time began
Thy bright eternal mind
Through lives of men that fear not men
Is light for all mankind.

Thou wilt not turn Thy face away
From those who do Thy will,
But send Thy strength on souls that pray
For strength to serve Thee still.

A Thought For “Father’s Day”

The word “father” is mentioned in Scripture as follows:

In Matthew it is mentioned 44 times
Mark it is mentioned 5 times
Luke it is mentioned 17 times
John it is mentioned 122 times.

So, you can see the emphasis and you know where to go to find the word “father” emphasized.

In the Hebrew word  ELOHIM we have revealed to us the glory of God’s power.
In the Hebrew word ADONAI we have revealed to us the glory of the Lord’s possessions.
In the Hebrew word JEHOVAH we have revealed to us the true glory of the Divine Person.

In the Greek name “father,” we have revealed to us the glory of the loving paternity.
In ELOHIM there is made known the skill and strength of His hands as Creator.
In ADONAI there is made known the claim and call of His authority as Lord.
In JEHOVAH we see the Grace and constancy of His immutable purpose as the Unchanging One.

In the word “Father,” we have the hand and the heart of our Father’s love who said, Eph 1:17, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.”

The Father of glory.

Happy Father’s Day!

Father’s Day

1. Father
When “Father” alone is mentioned, it speaks about intimate relationship. Christ says, “Father,” John 17:1

2. My Father
Christ uses the words “My Father” in one or two relationships. Either in their fellowship of mutual love  or service, or as mutually acting on behalf of believers. John 10:25, John 5:17.

3. The Father
When “the Father” is mentioned, the exclusiveness of His being is emphasized. John 14:9, John 6:44, John 4:21

4. Your Father
These words employ with them the thought of responsibility. 14 times the couplet occurs in Matthew.

Helping the needy, 6:1
Praying to purpose, 6:8
Forgiving to be forgiven, 6:14-15
Trusting to be fed, 6:26, 32
Praying and receiving, 7:11
Allowing the Spirit to speak, 10:20
Trustful because cared for, 10:29
Looking after the little ones, 18:14
The one to be recognized, 23:9

And so on ...

”Father, the father, my father, your father.”

I told you my Father was your Father! Happy Father’s Day. Even orphans have a Father –believing orphans, that is.

June 14 – Flag Day 2000

A Thought for the Day

Psa 60:4, “Thou hast given a flag to them that fear Thee, that it may be displayed because of the Truth.”

Christ said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes unto the Father but by Me.”

A Thought for Father’s Day

Gal 4:6, “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father,” i.e., Father, Father.

Thought for Father’s Day

”I must be about My Father’s business.” Notice, it was not His mother’s ...

”He who hath seen Me hath seen the Father,.”
”I and the Father are one.”
”Believe in God. Believe also in Me.”
”No man hath seen God at any time. The only Begotten Son of the Father hath revealed Him.”

Tuesday, June 13, 2000

Identification of Right-Man and Right-Woman Will be a Soul Identification — Whom My Soul Loveth

There will be compatibility in the soul.

1. Compatibility between self consciousness, awareness of each other. Prov 31:28

2. Compatibility between mentalities, think about each other. Prov 31:11

3. Compatibility between volitions. Prov 31:16
The blending of wills. A desire to do the same things.

4. Compatibility between emotions. Prov 31:28
Appreciation for one another. You enjoy the same things and feel the same way.

5. Compatibility between consciences.  Prov 31:25
Raised with the same norm or standards, the same background and creed, race, etc.

6. And sometimes compatibility in the old sin nature. The same area of human good or human bad, the same areas of asceticism or lasciviousness, the same area of likes or dislikes the same pattern of the old sin nature.

Protection for a Young Girl When Dating

1. The father is the guardian of the virginity of his daughter. 1 Cor 7:36-38

2. The girl guards her purity even if her date can’t control his. Ezek 16:25. “Don’t open your feet to a man.” This is plain English, but it communicates. The girl in this passage was doing the opposite.

3. The Word of God gives the girl stability. Isa 33:6, “Wisdom and knowledge shall be  the stability of thy times.”

4. On a date, the boy is the custodian of his date’s soul and body. 1 Pet 2:25. Analogy: “Bishop of the soul,” i.e., guardian.

Principles for a Young Man When Dating

 1. He needs to have a love affair with the Word of God. Prov 4:8-9

2. He needs to have accurate information concerning himself and the opposite sex and himself. Prov 5:20, Prov 6:24-32, Prov 7:1-27, 1 Cor 6:16-18. And, on womanhood, Prov 31 and other passages.

3. He needs to have the right companionships.
    A. Stay away from “operation fast crowd.” Prov 1:10-19, violence, robbery.
    B. Stay away from “operation wrong crowd.” 1 Pet 4:3-4, drunken orgies involving sex.

4. He needs to respect the privacy of the opposite number on a date. In other words, stop bugging her to make out.
The physical relationship in courtship between the Right-Man and the Right-Woman will take self discipline. But when the marriage takes place, the wait will have been 1,000,000,000 times worth it.

The goal: arrival of the wedding day:
Without emotional scars
Without a guilt complex
Without regrets
Without a mental image of past conquests
Without comparison, or lack of respect
Without frigidity or nymphomania

”Many waters cannot quench love, neither can a flood drown it.” SOS 8:6-7. No matter what your Right-Man or Right-Woman does, it can’t put out the fire of that Right-Man/ Right-Woman love, which is a “flame of Jehovah.”

God’s Grace Received in Marriage

When the believer marries the Right-Woman, he receives Grace from the Lord. Prov 18:22

Translation: “Whosoever findeth a good woman, he has received Grace from the Lord.”

The Right-Man or Right-Woman is always from the Lord. Prov 19:13-14

Verse 13, “And the contentions of a wife are a continual dripping,” i.e., Chinese torture. The wrong woman.

Verse 14, “And a prudent wife is from the Lord.”

A mature woman is the most valuable property in the world if she is yours. Prov 31:10-31

Recognition of Right-Man and Right-Woman is Very Important

There are four ways to determine this for believers:

1. Maturity of soul, developed from the Word of God. The word “edify” in Ephesians chapter 4.
Mature believers who are single have an inner structure that the Lord builds within through the daily intake of the Word of God.

2. Faith basis.
Take it by faith that there is a Right-Man or Right-Woman for you. 1 Cor 7:17

3. Don’t conduct the big search. If you do, you will blow it.
The big search for a Christian woman is prohibited in Gen 2:22. “The Lord brought Eve to the man.” The big search is prohibited for Christian men also. 1 Cor 7:27, “Seek not a wife.” This means don’t hustle for it. Have a love affair with the Word of God while you wait for the Lord to bring your Right person to you. Prov 4:6-8

4. Make the whole operation a Grace deal.
And the Lord will lead you to a girl or a guy which is so marvelously wonderful that your thought pattern will “blip out.” i.e., “I don’t earn or deserve him or her.”

Co-heirs of the Grace of God.

Soul Recognition is First Before There is Any Physical Relationship

If you have a soul love with your mate first, then the physical will be great.

The Right-Man and Right-Woman have not only a soul designed for each other, but they also have a body designed for each other. Their bodies will match. There is only one key to that lock. God has designed the right combination to work beautifully in the body. “Operation skeleton key” is out. That is disaster. “Any port in the storm” – that is out. That is disaster. “All cats are gray at night” – that is out. That is disaster.

Sexual relationships before marriage can destroy any happiness in this area before marriage.

Sexual relations before marriage can destroy the soul and make it impossible to find the Right-Man or the Right-Woman. Prov 6:32. But there is a Divine match in the bodies also of Right-Man/Right-Woman.

Jer 31:22, “The female, Right-Woman, in marriage shall fit the hero,” the Right-Man in marriage.

1 Cor 7:3, “Let the Husband Render Unto the Wife Due Benevolence”

Examples I have heard:

Now this is not from Mars and Venus, so you may disregard it all.

But, if I were you, I would look at it very closely.

One Lord, One Saviour, One Creator, One Bridegroom

The Hebrew Letter TETH, Which Means Security and Enclosure Like a Fence or a Hedge

In an acrostic Psalm, like Psalm 119, each letter of the alphabet is placed before each verse. There are 176 verses in Psalm 119, so it takes eight verses for every letter. That is old math: 8 x 22= 176

In Psalm 119:65-72 we have the letter TETH in front of every verse.

Verse 65, “Thou hast dealt with thy servant according unto Thy Word.”
Verse 66, “Teach me good judgment and knowledge for I have believed Thy commandments.”
Verse 67, “Till I was afflicted, I went astray. But now I keep Thy Word.”
Verse 68, “Thou art good and doest good. Teach me Thy statutes.”
Verse 69, “The proud have forged a lie against me, but I will keep Thy precepts with my whole mind.”
Verse 70, “Their mind is as fat as grease (i.e., fat head), but I delight in Thy law.”
Verse 71, “Tis good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn Thy statutes.”
Verse 72, “The law of Thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.”

Another of the features of the organization of the 119th Psalm is 10 words which cover the complete ground in telling us what the Bible is and does. The 10 words are:
Way
Testimonies
Precepts
Commandments
Word
Law
Judgment
Statue
Righteousness
Word

The Creation of Man! 

Gen 2:7, “And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives and man became a living soul.”

All of God’s works are wonderful, but man is the most wonderful of all. Something of the care, thought and ultimate purpose of God is suggested when the psalmist declared,

Psa 139:14-16, “I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Thy works and that my soul knoweth right well.”

”My substance,” body, “was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.”

”Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them.”

When we consider a few facts of the body, we can see the skill of the Lord and we marvel that “a harp with so many strings can keep in tune so long.”

Think of all the number of bones which hold the body together
    The elasticity of the bracing muscles
    The rapidity of the movements of the different and fitting parts
    The miracle of the corpuscles of the vitalizing blood
    The circulation of the blood as it touches every part of the hemisphere
    The machinery of the digestive organs in their distributing work
    The great air-shaft of the breathing bellows
    The multiplicity of the working factory which we call the brain
    The telegraphic system of the nerve-fibers of the many nerves
    The thousands of receivers and distributors of the pores which are scattered all around. And many other things which go to make up the body.

Eph 5:16, “The whole body fitly joined together.”

The human body, in its compactness, is used by God the Holy Spirit to elucidate and illustrate the oneness of the spiritual organism of the Church.

Think of what the body means from the mere skeleton point of view.
For a man to stand upright, let alone walk, or work, there must be a strong and firm though light body skeleton.

He has some 250 bones wonderfully tied together by ligaments whereby the 33 vertebrae of the spine, 64 bones of the upper limbs, 62 in the lower limbs, with 24 ribs and 22 skull bones are all made to subserve one organic whole.

As the body in its several members is dependent one upon the other, and all together go to make up the whole. So each believer in Christ and altogether are needed to function to a single issue.

The Hand

1 Cor 12:15, “If the foot should say because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?”

The hand in its working, is a miracle in its operation. The bones even if tied together, could do nothing without muscles, of which there are at least 500, with accompanying tendons.

Does any imitator of Paderwski ever think how it is that he can practice for hours on a stretch, or any other admirer of Kriesler ask how that combined and effective motion of fingers, wrist, and forearm are possible? Probably not. Yet, it were all impossible but for the marvelous conjuncture of 20 bones in each hand, tied together firmly with eight more in the wrist and three more above them.

Yet what is the hand without the other parts of the body? And behind all and over all and in all, the dominating will?

Other things may be said of the body, but it will suffice to indicate it’s a wonderful organism. As the body is a unit and a pulsating organism, so the Word of God is a unit and no part can be taken away without mutilating the whole. The whole body of Doctrine.

And we are in His hands.

Monday, June 12, 2000

Knowledge of the Word of God Gives You Confidence in a Crisis

One of the greatest crisis in life is the death of a loved one, and I know that personally from experience and not only from the Word of God academically.

2 Cor 5:1, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tent were dissolved we have a building of God, an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.”

2 Cor 5:6, “Therefore we are always confident knowing, that while we are at home in this body, we are absent from the Lord.”

2 Cor 5:8, “We are confident, I say, and wiling rather to be absent from the body and face to face with the Lord.”

Verse 1, “We know”
Verse 6, “Therefore we are always confident knowing”
Verse 8, “We are confident, I say”

Knowledge of the Word of God will sustain you in one of the greatest sorrows of life, the loss of a loved one. The only thing that sustained the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross was the Word of God.

The Manifestation of Christ!

There are at least 14 Truths brought before us covering a complete course of Bible Study in connection with Christ's manifestation.

1. God.
Christ, the manifestation of God’s person.

God manifested in the flesh. 1 Tim 3:16, “Christ is God expressed in living character.” God is not fully known apart from Christ, but He is well known if we know Christ. He is the visibility of God.

2. Sin.
Christ – the revealer of sin's iniquity.

John 1:5, “The Light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.” The Light revealed the sightless eyes of man's ignorance, the evil of his nature, and the plague spots of his wickedness.”

3. Love.
Christ – the manifestation of God's love.

1 John 4:9, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us.“
Love is seen in three stages in 1 John 4:9-17
Love for us, answering for our sins in the past, verse 9
Love in us, moving us to love in the present, verse 12
Love with us, giving us a bright outlook as to the future, verse 17

Love for us   Love in us   Love with us

This is only three of the 14 manifestations of a complete Bible Study. I know you can't wait. But He will ...

The Lord is waiting on us, for us to be waiting on Him.

The 14 Truths Concerning the Manifestation of Christ, Part Two

4. Atonement.
Christ the satisfaction for sin.

Heb 9:26, “Once in the end of the world, He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.“

Provisionally He puts away sin by giving satisfaction for it in His death – and thus removes it as a hindrance.
Substitutionally, He removes sin as a penalty, as we believe in Him. 1 Pet 2:24.
Effectively, He puts away sin as power as we identify ourselves with Him by reckoning we are dead to sin. Rom 6:8-11.
Prophetically, He will remove sin as a presence for He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John 1:9.

5. Substitution.
Christ suffering in our stead.
1 Pet 1:20, “He was manifested in these last day for you.”
“For you” may be read “on behalf of you” and thus in your stead.
We must distinguish between provision, substitution, and identification.

“Provision” is for the needy world for Christ has made it possible for all to be saved.
“Substitution” is for the believing sinner. For Christ has borne his sin and He will not have to bear it.
“Identification” is the Gospel for the saint. For we have died with Christ in His death.

14 Truths Concerning the Manifestation of Christ – Part Three

6. Resurrection.
Christ the manifestation of God's power
John 20:1-14, “He shewed Himself.”

The fact of Christ's resurrection is the living factor on the altar of Christianity and it is also a living factor in the life of the believer which lifts him from the realm of self to the fellowship of Him who lives in the power of an endless life.

7. Salvation.
Titus 2:11, “The Grace of God which bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared.”
Provisionally, salvation is a blessing offered to all.
Personally, salvation is a benefit to the individual believer.
Practically, salvation is a force to mold us like unto Christ.

In the first, Christ is offered to us, Acts 13:24
In the second, Christ is accepted by us, Eph 2:8
In the third, Christ by the Spirit lives in us, Eph 3:16-17

We are half way home. We have seven more manifestations to declare.
14 manifestations – a total Bible Study.

14 Manifestations of Christ, a Total Bible Study – Part Four

8. Life.
Christ the Communicator of life.
1 John 1:2, “The life was manifested.”

Sin brings death, which means separation from God. Christ brings life which means union with God in Christ, John 17:3.

As natural life is the union of the soul and the body, James 2:26, so spiritual life is the union of the believer with Christ. Col 3:3.

Christ is revealed to us as the Quickener from sin’s death, Eph 2:1. He is revealed to us as the Sanctifier of the mind and the life, Gal 1:16. And He is revealed through us to others by a consecrated testimony, 1 Thes 1:8-10.

9. Power.
John 2:11, “Manifested forth His glory.”

Glory is the excellence of anything in display.
Christ’s first miracle displayed the excellence of His power. And it was fitting that His first miracle should display His power to change things.
By the cleansing of His blood, and the conformation of the Spirit, He can change the sinner into a saint.
Translation, transfiguration, and transformation cover the ground of God’s Gospel of Grace, godliness, and glory.
Translated into His kingdom as to place, Col 1:13
Transfigured by His spirit as to character, 2 Cor 3:18
Transformed by His coming as to the glorified body, Phil 3:20, 21, 1 John 3:2.

14 Manifestations of Christ – A Complete Bible Study – Part Five

10. Satan.
Christ was the Victor over the evil one.
1 John 3:8, “The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil.”

The works of Satan are mighty and manifold but Christ has met him upon His own ground and conquered and routed Him.

Take but one chapter out of the Gospels and in it we have a record of how Satan raised a storm and demonized an individual, tormented a woman, and caused the death of a child.

But Christ raised the dead to life.
Healed the woman.
Delivered the man.
And stilled the tempest. Luke 8

11. Emancipation.
Christ is the Remover of sins.
1 John 3:5, “He was manifested to take away sins.”
The word for “take away” is literally “removed,” Matt 21:21
”Loosing” in Acts 27:13
”Lifted up” in John 11:41
”Take away” in John 11:39

This word signifies to take away by taking up upon one’s self and is so indicated in

John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.”
It is literally, “beareth away.”

Christ removes the sin from us by His propitiation and power, by bearing their consequences in His death, and by severing us from their control by His presence.

We only have three more to go out of the 14 can you wait? Bated breath?

14 Manifestations of Christ – A Bible Study All in Itself  – Part Six

 12. The Holy Spirit.
Christ is the One who endowed and who is endowing with the Spirit.
John 1:31, “He was manifested.”

John knew Christ when He saw the Spirit resting upon Him. And knew that He was also the baptizer with the Spirit.

Christ was anointed to do a definite work. Acts 10:38, Heb 9:14 and when He accomplished that work, became the anointer with the Spirit as a reward, Act 2:33

13. The Father.
Christ the Revealer of the Father.

John 17:6, “I have manifested Thy Name.”

John 17 reveals what that manifestation means.
    A work done for us to the Father, verse 4
    The blessing of eternal life from the Father, verse 2
    Confidence in the Father, verse 8
    Possessed by the Father, verses 9, 10
    Kept through the Father, verse 11
    Message from the Father, verse 14
    Sanctified in the Father’s Truth, verse 17
    Oneness with the Father, verse 21
    Seeing the glory of the Father, verse 22

There is a message in the message of the manifestation of Christ.

14. Immortality.
Christ is the Bringer of life and immortality to light, 2 Tim 1:10

Life is more than perpetuity of existence. Immortality is more than deathlessness.
The latter is a state of holiness and bliss in an incorruptible and glorified body, from which it is impossible to fall. And this life is holy in its nature and joyous in its bliss.

The revelation which God makes to us in the Scriptures is meant to be revealed in us by the Spirit through faith. And revealed through us by His effective working in our testimony in us and through us.

14 manifestations of Jesus Christ – a total Bible Study course.

Thought  Promise  Confidence  Encouragement for Today

 Rom 11:36

”For of Him” EK — out from Him
”And through Him”  DIA — through the instrumentality of Him
”And to Him”  EIS — towards Him
”Are all things”  PANTA
”To whom be glory for ever. Amen.” This is literally “the glory,” EIS — unto the ages

EIS to whom the glory, EIS — unto the ages

Distinctive Words of Our Teacher the Holy Spirit

There are certain luminous which have a distinct and definite meaning in their use and application. We will just take eight of them. Atonement, blood, reconciliation, purchase, redemption, believed, beginning, and Lord.

Atonement
There is a mass of meaning in the great words of Scripture as they operate in our life and testimony.

There are seven vitalizing principles which govern all these great words:
    1. The first time a word occurs explains the meaning in other places.
    2. There is one verse which embodies the Truth.
    3. There is one book which covers the many-sidedness of a word.
    4. There is one chapter in which a full revelation is given.
    5. There is one word in the New Testament which corresponds to the Old Testament word.
    6. The derivations from a root word are colored by the original meaning.
    7. The specific revelation given in a word and its practical bearing.

First occurrence. Embodying truth. Covering book. Illustrative chapter. Corresponding word. Colored words. The practical application.

Are you ready for it? Are there any serious students of the Word of God left in the body of Christ  or are we all “Nod to God” Christians?

Five Biblical Synonyms for “Faith in Christ”

1. “Call upon Me,” Joel 2:32, Rom 10:13, “Whosoever shall call upon Me.”
2. “Drink and eat,” the Lord’s table, 1 Cor 11:24-26, “Take eat and drink.”
3. “Come,” Matt 11:28, “Come unto Me.”
4. “As received Him,” John 1:12, “To as many as received Him.”
5. “Obeyed the Gospel,” Rom 10:16, “To them that obeyed the Gospel.”

You will find where salvation is being discussed, the word believe or a synonym for faith is in context, 1 John 5:1.

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

How to Apply the Essence of God to Solve Any Problem That You Face!

Sovereignty
God has a plan, so put your faith and trust in His plan.

Righteousness
God is perfect goodness, therefore any trial will be good for us.

Justice
God’s plan for all of us is fair. God is always fair.

Love
Every situation is in the realm  of His love for us.

Eternal life
His love is shared through every experience.
John 14:19, “Because I live, ye shall live also.”

Omniscience
He knows about all of our trials and sufferings before they even happen.

Omnipresence
Matt 28:2, “Lo, I am with you always.”
He is everywhere, therefore, He is always with us.

Omnipotence
He has the power to do whatever He wants.

Immutability
He never changes toward us. All of these characteristics remain the same all of the time.

Veracity
He is the perfect Truth. So, what He says in His Word is true and what we apply to our life is true.

Sunday, June 11, 2000

Forty Years! 40 — The Number of Testing!

Three great communicators of the Word of God were Moses, Jeremiah, and Paul.

The 40 years of the Exodus generation is parallel to the 40 years of Jeremiah’s ministry to the Jews.

The Jews: 1441 B.C. to 1401 B.C. Moses started it.
The Jews:  626 B.C. to 586 B.C. Jeremiah finished it.

Both the start and the finish are characterized by great communicators. Paul was the starter in the Church Age. In Jeremiah’s day they were free in body, but enslaved in the soul, Jer 11:1-10. The manifestation of soul slavery—overt manifestation—the same in both generations—idolatry. In Exodus it was the golden calf. In Jeremiah’s day it was the phallic cult, Baal.

For 40 years Grace did not cease as Jeremiah, like Moses, taught the Word of God. And they certainly did not earn or deserve God’s Grace. These are the two most undeserving generations in all of history. And in both occasions they are Jews. Very important principle!

But the Jew’s of Jeremiah’s day rejected the Word of God and the nation returned to slavery from which the Lord had taken them. 

By way of contrast, believer-priests of the Church Age are likewise set free by faith in Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit is the basis for living in freedom. This is found in the following passages: Gal 5:1, Gal 3:1-6, Rom 8:2-4

”Stand fast in the liberty where Christ has set you free.”
Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?
”For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and death.”

The Magna Carta of freedom in the Church Age.

Women’s Lib!

The Woman in Her Role as a Mother

A. First of all, with the mother as a believer, her first responsibility in her relationship is to the Lord, and that is to stay in fellowship and learn the Word of God. 1 John 1:9, 2 Pet 3:18

B. She is responsible to teach her children. Deut 6:6-9
    1. Lips, the Gospel
    2. Life,  the Christian way of life

C. The family is sanctified, set apart, because she is a believer. 1 Cor 7:14
    1. The family comes under the Grace extended to her.
        A. Blessing when she is in fellowship
        B. Protection of her guardian angel
    2. At the Rapture, a child who has not reached the age of accountability or one who is not capable of making a decision, will go with the believing parent.

D. In extreme cases, if the husband refuses to let her teach the children the Word of God, the authority of the Word of God supercedes the authority of the husband. At the same time she should treat him in mental attitude Grace, which is the filling of the Holy Spirit.

E. Her submission in other areas and her mental attitude of Grace in marriage resulting from the filling of the Spirit will go far in winning an unbelieving husband, 1 Pet 3:1

Memorial Service

A good friend that I have known and ministered to for 20 years was killed in a motorcycle accident over the weekend. In remembrance of him, I would like to say:

This isn’t death, its glory
This isn’t dark, its light
It isn’t stumbling, groping
or even faith, it’s sight.

This isn’t grief of having my
last tear wiped away
It’s sunrise, it’s morning
of my eternal day.

It isn’t even praying
It’s speaking face to face
It’s listening and glimpsing
the wonders of His Grace.

For this is the end of pleading
for strength to bear my pain
Not even pain’s dark memory
will ever live again.

How did I bear this Earth life
before I came up higher?
Before I knew my soul was granted
its very deep desire.

Before I knew the rapture
of meeting face to face
the One who sought me
the One who saved me
the One who kept me by His Grace.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

Absent From the Body, Face-to-Face With the Lord

I will meet Him in glory
I will talk with Him again
I will walk with Him in Heaven
Free from sorrow, care, and pain

He is not dead, he liveth
Not here, but over there,
Where Christ liveth also
Who all his sin did bear.

I cannot bring him back here
However I might try.
But I can plan to meet him
in His presence by and by.

My robes are white as His were
In the precious crimson flow
My future’s safe as his is
In my Saviour’s care I know

You ask me aren’t you grieving?
No! My soul knows God’s own peace
For like him I have a Saviour
Whose blessings never cease.

And the blessing that is greatest
Is that death means gain, not loss
To the soul that’s seen the value
Of His death upon the Cross.

And all life takes on new meaning
Which death can never dim
So with hope and joy abundant
I will ever walk with Him.

”Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel and afterwards receive me to glory.”

Saturday, June 10, 2000

Christianity is not a Religion it is a Personal Relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ

Christ was continually calling attention to Himself and yet self is never obtruded.

In John chapter 14 Christ used the personal pronoun 35 times.
    1. The “Me” of faith’s object, verse 1
    2. The “My” of the Father’s house, verse 2
    3. The “I would” of assurance, verse 3
    4. The “I go” of preparation, verse 3
    5. The “I will” of come again, verse 3
    6. The “Where I am” of place, verse 3
    7. The “Whither I go” of knowledge, verse 4
    8. The “I am” of the way, truth, and life, verse 6
    9. The “By Me” of meditation, verse 6
    10. The “Known Me” of reproof, verse 7

25 more to come if you are interested.

Check it out, there is no mistaking who the Saviour really is.

The Law of Contrast – 2 Cor 4:7-5:9

This is a paragraph of continuous contrasts between what is seen and what is unseen.
    Temporal and eternal
    Outward and inward
    Visible and invisible
    Material and spiritual
    Earthly and heavenly
    Affliction and glory
    Being at home in the body and at home with the Lord
    Faith and sight
    Dying and living

Of these ten contrasts, the former members of each being in one group and are akin. The latter members are equally inseparable. What is seen and temporal belongs to the realm of death. What is unseen and eternal is in the realm of life. Sight and faith are the respective organs of vision in the two realms. Only sight, which rightly sees in its own sphere, is blind to the other and cannot interpret the relation of the two. But faith not only sees its own realm, but all that sight sees besides and is a true interpretation of both realms. Sight refuses what faith chooses and inversely and knows only the present, while faith foretastes the future.

”The just shall live by faith.” “We walk by faith and not by sight.”

The Commands of Christ!

The Lord commands our obedience that we may enjoy His blessings. Precepts are coupled with God’s promises that we may enjoy the latter through our practice.

Christ says “If you love Me, ye will keep My commandments,” John 14:15.

In Phil 4:1-6, eight commands are found:
    The “stand fast” of fidelity
    The “be of the same mind” of compassion
    The “help” of energy
    The “rejoice” of joyfulness
    The “let your moderation” of testimony
    The “be careful for nothing” of anxiety
    The “everything by prayer and supplication” of entreaty
    The “thanksgiving” of doxology

The “Bees” of Scripture

There are seven passages where we find the word “be” occurring, which further illustrates the law of command.

The “be holy” of consecration, 1 Pet 1:5
The “be perfect” of adjustment, 2 Cor 13:11
The “be strong” of equipment, Eph 6:10
The “be patient” of endurance, James 5:7
The “be sober” of conduct, 1 Pet 1:13
The “be vigilant” of watchfulness, 1 Pet 5:8
The “be ye separate” of holiness, 2 Cor 6:14-17

These “bees” are buzzing around the honey!

Psalm 27 – The Sequence of the Lord

The word “Lord,” JEHOVAH, occurs 13 times in Psalm 27. Jehovah means “the unchanging One who will cause things to be.” The thought of sequence of what follows in recognizing the Lord as being the Faithful One is seen several times.

First we have faith’s avowal, then faith’s blessing.

”The Lord is my light and my salvation.” And the sequence is “Whom shall I fear?”

”The Lord is the strength of my life.” And the sequence is “Of whom shall I be afraid?”

”That I may dwell in the house of the Lord.” And the sequence is “In the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion.”

”When my father and my mother forsake me.” And the sequence is “The Lord will take me up.”

If the psalmist had not seen “The goodness of the Lord,” he would have fainted. But the sequence of seeing that goodness was that he did not faint.

To “wait on the Lord” is to find the sequence of “good courage, and to have the soul strengthened.”

The Law of Conciseness

There is a soul of meaning in the great “star words” which shine out in the sky of Scriptures.

Take only three:
Ebenezer  Mizpah  Maranatha

”Ebenezer,” was the name which Samuel gave to the stone, which he set up as a memorial of the Lord’s help against the Philistines, and of his victory over them, therefore the meaning, 1 Sam 7:12, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped me.”
What a helper the Lord really is. All other helpers fail, but He is the helper that meets every need and conquers every foe.

Mizpah was the name of the heap of stones which Labin and Jacob erected as a witness and a watchword between them, as its meaning testifies. Gen 31:49, “The Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent the one from the other.”
When the Lord is in the soul compact, how binding our obligations are the one to the other.

Maranatha is what Paul said in the close of his first letter to the Church at Corinth. 1 Cor 16:22, “If any  man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.” There are no punctuation marks in the original language. So, it’s literally, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, accursed.” Maran-atha: the Lord cometh.
The fate of these who do not love the Lord Jesus Christ is to be accursed.
Then the apostle in a jubilant note says, “the Lord cometh.” Maran-atha , “the Lord cometh,” settles all questions Paul seems to say, so that we need not worry about anything.

And   And   And

A conjunction is that part of speech which connects two parts. If we do not mind our conjunctions, we shall lose our associations as the man found out when he got into a railway carriage which was not connected with the train and he was left behind.

Looking for the Blessed Hope “and” the glorious appearing of the blessed God and Saviour, Titus 2:13.

The word “and” is found in its frequent occurrence in Gen 32:22-31 and it gives us a series of connective sentences which binds the incident recorded in a simple sequence.

And — He rose up that night
And — He took his two wives
And — His two women servants
And — His eleven sons
And — Passed over the ford Jabbok
And — He took them
And — Sent them over the brook
And — Sent over that he had
And — Jacob was left alone
And — There wrestled a Man with him

And  and and and and — the law of conjunction.

Family and God’s Provision

1. God’s attitude and will toward the family.
    A. God’s attitude toward the human race is Grace.
    He has provided for them what they do not earn or deserve, John 3:16, salvation.
    B. The family is a Divine Institution provided for the whole human race by God, the institution set up for the raising and training of children.
    C. It was instituted by God and blessed, Gen 1:28.
    D. Divine Institution number two, marriage, is the institution set up for establishment of a home for the family and was founded on love, a mental attitude love and so was Divine Institution number three, family, Gen 2:22-24 and Eph 5:28-33.

Family – Part Two!

Family Inter-Relationships

A. Children are a blessing. Gen 4:1, Psalm 127:3-5
But often they are a headache because of failure on the part of the parents and/or children to be obedient to the instructions in the Word. Prov 17:21, 23:24

B. One of the most common problems in the home is that of rebellion and resentment and the problem with the mental attitude.

C. There is a bonafide, independent use of volition in the part of a maturing adolescent, tempered with a mental attitude respect towards parents and the use of good judgment.

Example: Dating a boy, or a girl, who is a believer and/or a believer learning the Word of God and the parents to not like him or her personality. But the young people are compatible in the realm of their personalities. Therefore, in using their own volition, they should show their mental attitude respect openly.

D. The key to better understanding in the home is the proper mental attitude of parents and children.

E. Both parents and children must face this problem and seek a solution in order that harmony might prevail so that your children may be a lump in your throat and not  pain in your neck.

F. The proper mental attitude in the home and elsewhere comes through the filling of the Holy Spirit and knowledge of the Word of God.

G. The Christian way of life, in the home and outside the home, is a supernatural way of life. Romans 8:2, which cannot be lived apart from the control of God the Holy Spirit, Romans 7:6b.

Family — Part Three!

The Responsibility of Children! There are two:
Responsibility toward God and toward their parents.

1. Toward God
    A. Children are responsible to make a decision regarding salvation. God wants you!
    B. It is only after you have made this decision and only you are responsible for the decision, that you can be a truly “wise son or daughter,” Prov 1:7.
    C. The believing child is responsible for his relationship with the Lord.
        1. To maintain fellowship, 1 John 1:9
        2. Faith in the promises of God, Prov 1:7
        3. Growing into maturity, Eph 4:16, edification as quickly as possible.

Family — Part Four!

Children’s Responsibility Toward Parents

A. Rebellion against parental authority is sin. And sin withholds good things from you. Jer 5:25, Prov 30:11

B. Rebellion against parental authority may ultimately result in a violent death. Prov 30:17, Matt 15:4

C. The child is commanded by God to obey parents, as a minor, and to honor them, for life. Ex 20:12, Col 3:20, Deut 5:16, Eph 6:2. To honor is to respect their better judgment, their instructions, their advice, and their rules. And, to think highly of them.

D. Honoring is for the duration of a child’s life, but obeying is not.

E. Children should understand their responsibility toward God and their parents and perform it. The whole package is called appreciation.

F. Children with believing parents should be thankful for them and respond with helpfulness and cooperation. They should realize how valuable their Christian training really is.

G. Children are to obey their parents, believer or unbeliever, even if you think they are unwise. This is their responsibility. Trust the Lord to direct you, Prov 3:5-6, and let Him show your parents that they have been unwise.

H. Heed parental instruction. Listen and do. Prov 1:8, 25:12

I. Children must provide for aged and needy parents. 1 Tim 5:4

Friday, June 9, 2000

Behold!

Salvation comes from without and the watchword of salvation is not “behold your creed,” “behold your theology,” or “behold your experience.” But “behold your God.”

Our goal is God Himself – not joy or peace, not even blessing, but Himself. “My God.”

”Behold the man,” John 19:5

The proof of Christianity is Christ Himself. No other evidence is needed. He is the evidence of all evidence. Let any honest person read the Gospels without prejudice or preconceived notions. And he must be convinced that the Christ therein revealed is not the product of human thought.

The fact of Christ is the fact that is indisputable.

There is one Scripture that is often misquoted. Nine ministers out of ten misquote it. The misquotation is:

”The Truth as it is in Jesus.” But the verse is:

Eph 4:21, “As the truth is in Jesus.” There is no “it.” To put “it” in is to make the statement to be a comparative one. Namely, that truth is to be found somewhere else as well as in Jesus Christ.

Whereas to declare “As the truth is in Jesus” is to make a positive and exclusive claim and that is Truth is to be found only in Him. And notice, in Him as Jesus. That is in the man of Nazareth.

Behold! – Part Two

”Behold the Lamb of God.”

John 1:36, “And looking upon Him as He walked he said, Behold the Lamb of God.”

Christ as the Lamb reveals Him in the eternal fact of His death. He suffered in the body of His humility. He suffered in the soul of His feelings. And He suffered in the spirit of His personality.

The supernaturalness of His death is the essential thing to ponder. God cannot die and yet there is the eternal fact, that He who died for us is God.

We are exhorted to “Looking unto Jesus who endured the Cross.” The “unto” might be rendered “into.” To be looking into that Holy One who endured the Cross is something more than a surface look. It means painstaking research, constant meditation, holy gazing, prayerful observation, soul communion, consecrated attention, and spiritual insight.

As we ponder the death agony, the soul suffering, and the atoning work of our Lord, we behold more than the actuality of His death.

But we see:
    An infinitude in His sacrifice
    An eternal value in His death
    A holy sanctification in His offering
    A substitutionary fact in His act
    A God-glorifying work in His death.

”Behold the Man.” “Behold the Lamb of God.”

Behold! – Part Three

”Behold thy Saviour”

Isa 62:11, “Behold the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, say ye to the daughter of Zion ‘Behold thy salvation cometh,’ ‘Behold His reward is with Jim, and His work before Him’.”

”Behold the Lord,” “Behold thy salvation,” “Behold His reward.” That is a message in itself.

”Behold thy salvation cometh” is literally “See thy Saviour cometh.” The announcement has a special reference to the restoration of Israel.

If Isaiah 61 and 62 are studied, you will see what the Lord will do for His people in the frequent “I will” of His promise. And the effect of His operation is summarized in the repeated “Thou shalt:”
“Thou shalt be called by a new name”
“Thou shalt be a crown of glory”
“Thou shalt no more be called forsaken.”
”Thou shalt be called Hephzibah”
“Thou shalt be called sought out”

All the fulfillment of promises and the experience declared shall come to pass when the Saviour of Israel shall return. When He comes as the Saviour, then a seven-fold salvation shall be known.

Jehovah shall save Israel from the desolations and disasters of their wandering state as a scattered nation. For He says,
”I will take you from the nations.”

He will save Israel to Himself for He affirms:
”I will be your God.”

He will save Israel from all their uncleannesses. For He declares:
”I will save your from all your uncleannesses.”

He will save them from unbelief. For He pledges to:
”Take away the stony heart.”

He will save Israel from their disobedience, for He assures them:
”I will cause you to walk in My statutes.”

He will save to the possession and power of the Holy Spirit, for He promises:
”To put His Spirit within them.”

And He will save Israel to be a praise among the nations. Whereas before they profaned His Holy Name among them, Ezek 36:23-29.

Israel has a future, God has a plan for Israel.

Behold! – Part Four

”Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah.”

The Lion and the Lamb are the notes upon which the Holy Spirit plays, as the music of Heaven sounds forth the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lamb in His gentleness and the Lion in His powerfulness.

As the Lion, Christ has prevailed to open the book of God’s purposes and to unloose the seals thereof. Therefore, He is worthy because of what He is and has done to adjudicate in overthrowing the wrong and to establishing the right.

When men try to get their rights, they seek to acquire them by the force of their might. But Christ obtains His by the conquest of right.

Not without meaning are the Lion and the Lamb found together in Rev 5:5-6. One of the elders told John the “Lion had prevailed to open the books.” And yet in response to the elder’s direction, “Behold” he saw not a Lion but a Lamb – and a “Lamb as it had been slain,” in all livingness of His death.

The slain Lamb becomes the slaying Lion. The bruised One becomes the bruising One. The record of the Revelation of Christ’s future is that He goes forth conquering and to conquer.

”Behold the Man,” “Behold the Lamb,” “Behold the Saviour,” “Behold the Lion.”

Behold! – Part Five

”Behold the Lord cometh,” Enoch long ago prophesied. Jude 1:14-15, “Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment.”

Three things are prominent in this prophesy of Enoch:

1. The Person who is coming.
”The Lord.” The word KURIOS speaks of ownership, authority, and power.
The Lord as owner has a right to exact an account from His creatures. As Lord He has authority to demand a statement and also has the power to see that it is given.

2. The purpose of His coming:
To execute judgment upon those who have misused His gifts, and who have sinned against Him.

3. The partners who are said to come with Him are:
His saints. God’s holy ones, made so by His Grace in Christ and by His Spirit in His Truth, will execute judgment with Him.

We must distinguish between the Lord coming “for” His saints in Grace, and for His coming “with” them in judgment. We are looking for the Blessed Hope and the glorious appearing of our Great God and Saviour, Titus 2:13

Christ coming “for” His saints is described in 1 Thes 4:13-18. Christ coming “with” His saints is described in 2 Thes 1.

There is all the difference in the world in the scene in the upper room when Christ promised to come and receive His own to Himself, and the scene depicted in Rev 19:11-16 where the white horse riders are seen accompanying the white horse rider.

Behold! – Part Six

Rev 21:5, “Behold I make all things new.”

When we look out on the world, it is like a caldron of boiling metal. The fire of hell beneath is being stirred with a poker of hate. There is only One who can remedy matters, and that One is the One who says, ”Behold I make all things new.”

The nailed hand of Calvary is the only hand that can arrest the hard hand of might.

The love of Christ is the only power that can fuse the mass of mankind into the common interest of brotherhood.

The selfless Lord, who emptied Himself, is the only one who can give the disinterestedness of mutual good.

When He begins to remake, the iron hand of anarchy will be broken, the willful mind of lawlessness will be ended, the lusting soul of greed will be suppressed, the harmful fist of cruelty will be crushed, the covetous eyes of selfishness will be put out, and the stinging tongue of blasphemy will be rebuked, and the order of get-all-you-can-for-yourself will give place to “give all you have for other’s benefit.”

This is no delusive hope, but a promise of Divine revelation. Three things in Rev 21:5-6:

We have the declaration of “He said” 
His promise “He said” these words are faithful and true”
and His accomplishment, “He said it is done.”

He said, He said, He said it is done.

Behold! – Part Seven

”Behold I come quickly”

Three times in Revelation He makes this announcement. And once “Surely I come quickly.” In each case there is a different association.

First, with the exhortation to “hold fast” lest the crown of reward should be lost.

Second, with the promise of blessing to those who keep the sayings of the Book.

Third, with the promise of reward for work done.

Fourth, with the assurance “Surely I come quickly,” Rev 3:11, 22:7, 12, 20

”Quickly” may be taken in three ways:

1. Meaning at once, as when the servants were told to go on their master’s mission
”quickly” and as Mary rose up “hastily,” Luke 14:21, John 11:31. “Hastily” and “quickly” are the same word.

2. It also means “suddenly” as the word is given in 1 Tim 5:22.

3. The word also describes the way in which a person does as the woman when “departed quickly” to tell that Christ had risen, Matt 28:8

Therefore, the suggestion is when He rises to come, He will do it suddenly and His method in coming will be with speed.

God-speed!

Thought for Today: Pierced

We share everything that Christ is:
    He is the Son of God, and we are sons of God.
    He is the Light of the world, and we are lights in the world.
    He is anointed, and we are anointed.
    He is a Priest, and we are priests.
    He is pierced, and we can be pierced and be identified with Him.

A bondslave was a willing servant. After serving seven years, the slave was free to go, but if the slave loved his master, he didn’t want to leave but being freely willing, stayed and served his master. He was identified by piercing.

Deut 15:16, “And it shall be if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee because he loveth thee and thine house, he is well with thee.”
Deut 15:17, “Then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door and he shall be thy servant for ever and unto thy maidservant shall thou do likewise.”

Do you think all these guys we see with pierced ears are willing slaves of the Lord? I don’t think so, but that would be a good approach for witnessing.

Identified with Christ.

The Secret of Divine Declension!

There are certain uniform dispensational features which distinguish every new period. Each dispensation is marked by seven features in the following order:

1. Increased light.
2. Decline of the spiritual life.
3. Union between the disciples and the world.
4. A gigantic civilization–worldly in type.
5. Parallel development of good and evil.
6. Apostasy on the part of God’s people.
7. Concluding judgment.

We are now in the seventh dispensation and all the seven same marks have been upon all alike, showing one controlling power.

”Deis in historia”

The Balance of World Power

The history of the world’s power is always been from bad to worse and not from worse to better. The vision of Daniel portraying the time of the Gentiles illustrates a drifting declension.

The golden kingdom of Babylon with its absolute autocracy is followed by:
The silver kingdom of Medo-Persia with its Parliament of princes
The brass kingdom of Greece with its sweeping conquests under Alexander the Great and his four generals.
It is followed by the iron of Rome with its many senators.
And lastly we have the brittle clay of the powers of the time of the end.

If we look at the weight by specific gravity of these several materials, we see how there is a declension:
Gold is equivalent to 19:3
Silver to 10:51
Brass to 8:5
Iron to 7:6
Clay to 1:9

Thus we see that the image is top heavy and therefore are not surprised as to its overthrow.

The same principle is illustrated in the vision that Daniel saw in Daniel 7:
The kingly and majestic lion is followed by
The strong and brutal bear, and the bear is followed by
The cunning and sleek leopard, and the leopard is followed by
The hybrid and horned monstrosity.

The rise and fall of nations.

The Secret of the Judicial Method

We find certain great principles illustrated and enunciated:

1. That the Lord uses one nation to punish another, as in the case of Judah being overcome by Babylon.
2.  God punishes the nation that He had used to punish another. So, Babylon in turn is crushed by the Medo-Persian empire.
3. God deals with nations in their corporate capacity in time, and not hereafter.
4. Nations have no hereafter. Only the individual has.
5. Individuals are forgiven but nations are not.
6. God deals with them in righteousness when they continue to be negative.

Nations Have Been Cut Off!

Nations as nations have been cut out in the past. Joel 3:14, “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of ‘decision’.”

These words describe the gathering of the nations. But the word “decision” does not convey the thought. The sentence should be “Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of ‘excision’.” With “excision” means a cutting out.

This Hebrew word is used in describing the mining of gold, in separating the gold from the refuse. Prov 16:16.

The word is also used in speaking of a sharp threshing instrument which is used to separate the chaff from the corn. Isa 41:15

Under another figure, Christ gives the same thought when He speaks of a shepherd separating the sheep from the goats. Matt 25:32

This unmistakably shows the judgment of the nations will be one of the things Christ will perform when He comes in His glory and that the judgment will be the annihilation of nations. As nations, in their being, cut out of being.

Goodbye, United Notions!

Promises! The Secret of Living Promises!

There are two great and wonderful lines of prophecy in relation to Abraham and David.

1. God promised to Abraham the land he called, “the land of promise” and the dimensions of which are given in Gen 15:18.

2.  Another line of prophecy which is connected with the throne of David and the promises which relate to the occupancy of it by one of his seed. These are clearly stated in 2 Sam 7:8-17 and expounded in Psalm 72. They are called “the secret of living promises” for the simple reason that God has covenanted with Himself and thus placed Himself under obligation to fulfill His Word and oath. He cannot do anything other and He would not if He could.

In spite of all the sin and iniquity of Israel, which as a nation has been ruthlessly sifted among the nations. The Lord has pledged Himself in His love and Grace that not a grain of the nation of Israel shall be lost. His word of promise is “I will sift the house of Israel among all nations like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the ground.”

Thursday, June 8, 2000

“God Forbid”

Many times in Scripture you see this expression “God forbid.”

For example:

Rom 6:2, “God forbid how shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

Luke 20:16, “He shall come and destroy these husbandman and shall give the vineyard to others, and when they heard it they said God forbid.”

However, the words “God forbid” do not appear in the original language of Scripture. The word for God is THEOS and it is not in these verses.

Here is what the Greek has to say: ME GENOITO. ME is “not” or “never.” GENOITO means “to become.” The literal translation is “May it never become or happen.”

There’s no “God forbid” here.

The Message of the Shepherds, Luke 2:10-11

”And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.”

”For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.”

1. How sure is God’s Word.
2. How wonderful are God’s ways.
3. How glorious is God’s salvation.

The Forsaken Saviour

Mark 15:34, “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI? Which is being interpreted, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

1. The cry of Jesus Christ was recorded in the opening words of Psalm 22
    A. In His dying agony, Christ found relief in the Scriptures.
    B. That the Psalm is Messianic there can be no doubt.
    C. These words from the Cross were not spoken in a whisper. It was a loud voice.

2. This cry from the Cross must be reverently examined
    A. It is addressed to the Father in the language of confidence.
    B. The cry refers to an experience of deep distress.
    C. The cry is not one of impatience, cowardice, or despair.
    D. Yet, the cry is one of surprise and conscious innocence.

3. This cry starts the great enquiry for all the ages
    A. It was surely uttered in order to stir our deepest thoughts, not merely to give vent to our Saviour’s feelings at the time.
    B. Christ “was tasting death” for us.
    C. Christ knew perfectly “why” He had been forsaken, but He would have all men to examine the mystery and to know their own personal relation to it.

A Sinner’s Faith, Luke 7:50

”And He said to the woman, thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace.”

1. The marks and evidence of her faith.
    A. Her zeal
    B. Her humility
    C. Her contrition
    D. Her love
    E. Her confidence

2. The fruits and consequence of her faith.
    A. The pardon of her sins
    B. An assurance of her acceptance
    C. Everlasting happiness and glory

3. From this history we may know:
    A. The nature of faith
    B. The excellence of faith
    C. The condescension to believing faith

”Without faith it is impossible to please Him.”

The Miracle at the Gate of Nain, Luke 7:11-17

1. We learn some lessons from this subject:
    A. First, that Christ was a man
    B. You can see how the sorrow played upon all the chords of His soul

2. We also draw from this subject that He is God:
    A. If Christ had been a mere mortal, would He have had a right to come in upon such a procession?
    B. Would He have succeeded in His interruption?

3. We learn also from this that Christ was compassionate.

4. We learn again from all this that Christ is Lord over the grave.
    A. Just outside the gate of the city death and Christ measured lances.
    B. And when the young man rose, death dropped.

”Death where is thy sting?”

Spreading the Word, Luke 8:11

1. What is the seed to be sown? The Word of God.

2. The soil upon which this seed is to be cast: The field is the world.

3. The manner of spirit in which the seed is to be sown:
    A. With prayer.
    B. In simple faith upon God’s promises.
    C. In entire dependence upon the influence of God the Holy Spirit
    D. In the spirit of love to Christ and the souls of men.
    E. Not sparingly, but bountifully.

Rich and Poor, Luke 16:19-31

1. The rich man in his affluence and enjoyment.

2. Lazarus in his poverty.
    A. A beggar
    B. Homeless
    C. Afflicted in person

3. The death of Lazarus.
    A. At his death he becomes the subject of angelic ministration.
    B. He is conveyed in triumph to glory.

4. The demise of the rich man.
    A. His riches could not save him from death.
    B. They could only secure him an imposing funeral.

Application:
    1. Faithfulness on Earth is often allied with poverty and suffering.
    2. That earthly prosperity and magnificence are no proofs of the Divine favor.
    3. That whatever be our condition in this world, we are traveling towards another.
    4. That death is inevitable in all stations and ranks.

”It is appointed unto all men once to die.”

The Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, Luke 24:51

1. Consider the ascension as the crowning fact of Christ’s life.
2. Consider the ascension as His enthronement as King over all.
3. Consider His ascension in relation to His coming again.

”This same Jesus which you have seen ascending, so shall come in like manner.”

God’s Wonderful Love, John 3:16

1. Its characteristics.
    A. Eternal: “loved” – who can tell when it began.
    B. Compassionate: “the world”
    C. Unspeakable: “so”

2. Its manifestation.
    A. Condescending.
    B. Limited: “Believeth.”
    C. Blessed.
        1. Negative: “Should not perish.”
        2. Positive: “Have everlasting life.”

”Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”

The House of the Christian When God Visits It, John 4:46-54

 The trouble:
    1. Unites its members in tender love.
    2. Directs their souls more trustfully to the Lord.
    3. Awakens them to importunate prayer and intercession.
    4. Produces at last a joyful and thankful faith.

Unbelief, John 8:24

1. It is the one thing that especially ruins man
    A. All manner of sin may be forgiven, but unbelief bars the door against mercy, John 3:36

2. Was the secret of the Jews being thoroughly “of the world?”
    A. If they had only believed in Christ, they would have been delivered “from this present evil world.”
    B. Once believing on a heavenly Saviour, a man has a portion and a soul in Heaven, Gal 1:4

3. There is nothing hard or uncharitable in warning men plainly of the consequences of unbelief.
    A. Never to speak of hell is not acting as Christ did.

The Holy Spirit convicts of unbelief in Christ.

Wednesday, June 7, 2000

Self Destruction!

Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shall be no priest to Me, seeing thou hast forgotten the Law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”

Lack of knowledge of the Word of God is self destructive.

1. It is destructive.
    A. What does it destroy?
    B. How does it destroy?

2. It is willful, a criminal ignorance.

3. It is God-offending.

4. It deals out retribution.
    A. For themselves.
    B. For their children.

”Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” Matt 4:4, Luke 4:4

Self Destruction! – Part Two

Hosea 13:9, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thine help.”

1. Self destruction is possible to all men.

2. The only power by which we can destroy ourselves is the power of sin.

3. Every finally destroyed man is self-destroyed.

4. The self-destroyer who is in this perilous position may yet be saved from self-destruction.
    A. The self-destroyer cannot save himself.
    B. No fellow man can save the self-destroyer.
    C. God can save the self-destroyer and God alone.
    D. Think of this encouragement.

”As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he should return unto Me and live.”

Thought for Today: “Nothing”

”Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Rom 8:39

”I give unto them eternal life and no one shall pluck them out of My hand,” John 10:28

Promises for Thomas’s

”I will keep him in peace, peace because he trusteth in Me,” Isa 26:3

This is double peace for your trust. Your translation says “perfect peace,” but it is SHALOM, SHALOM.

Greek Grace Gems!

Gal 3:24, “Wherefore the law was a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”

Gal 3:25, “But after that faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster.”

The Greek word for “schoolmaster” is PAIDAGOGOS, which is not a schoolmaster as some interpret. The Greek word means a “boy leader,” “a servant whose office it was to take the children to school.” It was a guardian who saw to it that the child got to school. and got his lessons and attended to them. It is possibly like a tutor today.

The Law brought us to school, to Christ the Teacher, and now we no longer need the Law because we have the Lord. We have graduated with honors.

The Verbs are Important in Understanding the Greek Language of the New Testament

The verbs have voice, mood, and tense.

”Voice,” is the relation of the verb to the subject.
    1. Active voice: the subject produces the action.
    2. Middle voice: the subject participates in the results of the action.
    3. Passive voice: the subject receives the action of the verb.

The passive voice is the voice of Grace. We receive salvation. We don’t work for it.

”Mood” is the relation of the verb to reality.
    1. Indicative: the mood of reality or certainty.
    2. Subjunctive: the mood of potential or possibility.
    3. Oplative: the mood of desire.
    4. Imperative: the mood of command.

”Tense” is time and kind of action.
    1. Present: continuous action at the present time.
    2. Aorist: action occurring in a point of time.
    3. Perfect: completed action in past time with finished results at the present time.
    4. Imperfect: continuous action in past time.
    5. Future: action planned for a future time.

”Conditional clauses” – four “ifs” in the Greek language:
    1. 1st class: if and it is true.
    2. 2nd class: if and it is not true.
    3. 3rd class: maybe it is true and maybe it is not true.
    4. 4th class: I wish it were true but it is not true.

Tuesday, June 6, 2000 – D-Day

Today, June 6, D-Day 1944–2000

Psa 144:1, “Blessed be the Lord, my strength, which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight.”

2 Tim 2:3, “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

2 Tim 2:4, ‘No man that wareth entangleth himself with the affairs of this world, that he may please Him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”

Psa 33:12, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance.”

Today – June 6, 1944–2000  D-Day

Thought for the Day: “All Things”

Rom 8:32, “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things.”

Rom 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

”All Things”

Promises for Doubting Thomas’s

Psa 119:9, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way. By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word.”

What do young men need? Cleansing! Dirty old men, too.

1 John 1:7, “The blood of Christ keeps on cleansing us from all sin.”

Did you know that it is Biblical for a husband to call his wife a drip?

Prov 19:13, “A foolish son is the calamity of his father, and the contentions of a wife are a continual dripping.”
Prov 27:15, “A continual dripping in a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.”

How dare you call me a drip! I am going home to Mother.

God Protects His Children

 Job 1:10, “Hast Thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.”

How full is this verse! When is the last time you claimed this one?

The protection God gives His people is the vexation of Satan and of all his instruments. Satan, as the father of lies, sometimes speaks the truth for his own advantage. He knows more about our protection than we do.

The people of God, the children of God, dwell in the midst of enemies, in the midst of danger. God Himself undertakes the guarding and the protection of His children.

Notice how the hedge grows. Not only about the person and his household, but about “all that he has.” His most insignificant things are all hedged about.

The Supremely Excellent Name – Psalm 8

1. The inscription, verse 1a
”O Lord our God, how excellent is Thy Name in all the Earth.”

2. The ascription, verses 1b and 2
”Who hast set Thy glory above the heavens.”
”Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”

3. The comparison, verses 3 and 4
”When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained.”
”What is man that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?”

4.  The compensation, verses 5-8
”For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”
”Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.”
”All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field.”
”The fowl of the air and the fish of the sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.”
”O Lord, our God, how excellent is Thy Name in all the Earth.” Verse 9

Verse 9 comes right back up and touches verse 1, and enclosed in that Excellent Name is His matchless Grace toward us.

Who can do justice to this Psalm?

The Incomprehensibility of God! 

Job 11:7-12

”Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?”
”He is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? Deeper than hell; what canst thou know?”
”The measure thereof is longer than the Earth and broader than the sea.”
”If He cut off, and shut up, or gather together, then who can hinder Him?”
”For He knoweth vain men. He seeth wickedness also, will He not then consider it?”
”For vain man would be wise. Though man be born like a wild ass’s colt.”

1. The incomprehensibility of God.
    A. In the perfection of His nature.
    B. In the dispensations of His province.
    C. In the operation of His Grace.

2. The folly of presuming to sit in judgment.
    A. How incompetent we are to resist His will.
    B. How unable we are to escape His judgments.
    C. How destitute we are of everything that can qualify us for such an office.

We have to therefore learn:
    A. To receive with meekness whatever God has revealed.
    B. To bear with patience whatever God has inflicted.

If people have questions about God, here are some questions about God.

Greek Grace Gems – TEREO

1 Pet 1:5, “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” The literal translation is “having been kept.”

1. We are kept safe.
    A. God hides His children. Psa 27:5, Col 3:3
    B. God guards His children. The word “kept” is the word to guard, TEREO

2. We are kept up.
A corpse may be kept safe, but it would only be preserved corruption. We must remember that He who keeps our spiritual life secure from outward attack, also keeps it from internal decay. With perpetual preservation there is continual renovation.

3. We are kept back.
He who knows anything about the tendencies of his soul thanks the Lord as much for “restraining Grace” as much as for “sustaining Grace.”

4. We are kept on.
If you are found running with patience the race that is set before you, then give glory to the Lord unto whom alone it belongs.

5. We are kept through.
There is as much need for us to be taught how to bear with equanimity as how to serve with unceasing zeal.
We are kept through faith’s trial as well as in faith’s service.

6. We are kept clean.
We who are kept safe in our title are kept meet in our persons for the coming glory.

7. We are kept in order.
The Grace that saves places us in Christ’s school-house for instruction.
“The Grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared to all men, teaching them to deny ungodliness,” etc.

8. We are kept always.
The keeping of this text extends into the “last time.” We are kept “unto the end.” What is there before us? Well, there is sickness for sure. But the premise is “He,” that is the Lord, “will make his bed in his sickness.”
Beyond sickness stands grim death, but that has lost all power to sting. Beyond death there yawns a open grave. But here the Lord’s keeping shines forth most magnificently. Yes, kept for the resurrection morning. Kept by invincible might for re-union with glorified souls.

Nothing short of eternal keeping becomes the ever-living Lord, or meets the requirements of our immortal souls.

”Having been guarded by the power of God through faith.”

Did you know that it is Biblical for a wife to call her husband an infidel? Well, it is!

1 Tim 5:8, “But if any provideth not for his own, and especially his own household, he hath denied the faith, and he is worse than an infidel.”

Believers can be worse than unbelievers.

The word here in the Greek for “infidel” is unbeliever.

P.S. “Fidel” Castro???

Monday, June 5, 2000

Promises for Doubting Thomas’s

Psa 119:67, “Before I was afflicted a went astray, but now have I kept Thy Word.”

Believers Have it Made in the Shade!

Psa 91:1, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the  Shadow of the Almighty.”

See, we’ve got it made in the shade!

Believers are Always Found Hanging Out in Shady Places

Isa 49:2, “And He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in His quiver hath he hid me.”

Shady characters are these believers!

Believers Are Commanded to Steal …

”Let him that stole, steal ... no more.”

In other words, can you believe that believers were stealing and Paul told them to stop? Believers stealing????  Believers don’t steal. Oh no???

Sunday, June 4, 2000

The Unity of the Family of God

Eph 3:15, “Of whom the whole family in Heaven and Earth is named.”

1. The whole family in Heaven and Earth are knit in one because they have but one everlasting Father.

2. The whole family in Heaven and Earth is knit together also in the love and compassion of one common body, the bride, the Church.

3. The whole family in Heaven and Earth are still  more knit together in one, in that they have one common spirit.

4. The whole family in Heaven and Earth are bound together still further and if possible even more endearingly in that they have one elder Brother, the Lord Jesus Christ

5. They have one family likeness.
”The beauty of the Lord their God is upon them.”

6. One common affection.
”The love which is in Christ Jesus constrains them to love one another.”

7. One eternal home.
Hey! Your Father is my Father!

Saturday, June 3, 2000

The Full Gospel

Rom 15:29, “And I am sure that when I come unto you, I will come in the fullness of the Gospel of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ,” ”Fullness” is the Greek word PLEROMA, which means to fill to the full, to completely possess and to fill full with a quality.

In what does the “fullness” of the Gospel consist?
    1. A full Christ for an empty soul.
    2. A full salvation for a lost soul.
    3. A full assurance for a doubting soul.
    4. A full restoration for a fallen soul.
    5. A full comfort for a sorrowful soul.
    6. A fullness of food for a hungry soul.
    7. A fullness of love, joy, hope, and peace for all souls.

What are we to do with it?
    1. Believe it.
    2. Receive it.
    3. Enjoy it.
    4. Live it.
    5. Love it.
    6. Impart it.
    7. Depart with it in our soul and on our tongues.

Sonship and Friendship

1 Cor 1:9, “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Consider this fellowship or partnership with Christ in the following aspects:

1. Partnership with Him in what He was.
He was crucified, He died, was buried, rose again. In all these we have a part.

2. Partnership with Him in what He is.
He has not only risen, but He has ascended. We share His present dignity. For we are said to be seated with Him in heavenly places, and are treated by God as such.

We share His offices. We are prophets, priests, and kings. Heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ.

3. Partnership with Him in what He shall be.
Much of His glory is yet in reserve. For now we see not yet all things put under Him.

Temples of God, 1 Cor 3:16-17

1. Every Christian is a dwelling place for God.
That God dwells in us is only possible from His dwelling in Christ, through Whom we touch Him.

2. Christians as temples are to be manifestations of God.
The meaning of temple is that there the dwelling Deity shall manifest Himself. God dwelling in us reveals Himself.
    A. To us ourselves.
    B. To others around us by our conduct.

3. Christians as temples should be places of sacrifice.
What is a temple without worship? What is worship without sacrifice?

4. Christians as temples are to be holy. Holiness is separation to God’s service, dedication.
The idols of covetousness, idolatry, intolerance, drunkenness, etc.

When God enters, all Dagons fall to the ground maimed and destroyed!!!

Victory Through Christ!

1 Cor 15:57, “But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1. A great duty – Thankfulness.
In all things give thanks, but more especially for what pertains to our eternal interests.

2. A great gift – Victory over sin, over sorrow, over death.

3.  A great medium – The Lord Jesus Christ.
It was His Word that rendered our victory possible.
It was accomplished by:
    A. His life.
    B. His work.
    C. His death.

4. A great giver – God. “Thanks be to God.”
The highest Object in the universe.
The Source of all power, of glory, and honor.
He does not require our thanks, but He will accept them.

Friday, June 2, 2000

The Negative Always Emphasizes the Positive!

The negative side of redemption, 1 Pet 1:18
The positive side of redemption, 1 Pet 1:19

1 Pet 1:18, “Forasmuch as you know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain manner of life received by traditions from your fathers.”
1 Pet 1:19, “But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.”
The negative emphasizes the positive.

Another illustration:
”For by Grace ye have been saved by faith,” Positive.
”And that not of yourselves,” Negative.
”It is the gift of God,” Positive.
”And not of works, lest any man should boast,” Negative.
Positive, negative, positive, negative. Divine structure of Scripture.

We are told today by “shrinks” not to say “No” to our children or we will destroy them. Wrong. Wrong.  “No” will save them.

How confusing when the same “shrinks “ tell us to say “No” to drugs.

We need more Nehemiahs. Neh 5:15, “But the former governor that had been before me was chargeable unto the people, and had taken of them bread and wine, besides 40 shekels of silver. Yea even their servants bare rule over the people.”

”But so did not I because of the fear of God.” Nehemiah said no! ! !

No, Honey, you can’t put your hand on the stove. It will burn you.

You cannot serve God and mammon, too.

”He that is not with Me is against Me.”

There Are 38 Different Names for God the Holy Spirit

Each one of these names suggests a Bible study in itself. Since God the Holy Spirit indwells you, and sometimes controls you when you are in fellowship, you ought to get acquainted with Him. I won’t give you all 38 titles. I know you are busy. But here is an
example:

Seven times it says “The Spirit of the Lord” and it is mentioned in Judges and the four references to “the Comforter” in the book of John.

That would be an interesting study! 38 messages on the titles of God the Holy Spirit.

Another Interesting Study Concerning God the Holy Spirit

 The 16 uses in Scripture of the definite article declares His personality. There are two ways by which the Holy Sspirit is spoken of mainly, with and without the definite article.

As a rule, where HAGIOS PNEUMA, Holy Spirit, occurs, the reference is to what the Holy Spirit does and gives.

An example:

Acts 2:4, “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

There Are 13 Different Prepositions Connected with God the Holy Spirit

All with meaning, and purpose, and definition.

I know that there are not too many interested students among believers in prepositions, etc. But I will give you just one or two to show the importance of each and every word in the Word of God.

There is not much line-by-line and verse-by-verse categorical, exegetical study of the Word of God today – q sign of the times.

APO means “source,” as when a tourist goes from one place to another, i.e., from the Holy Spirit.

DIA means “through.” Through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit as when a lawyer is a medium through whom the prisoner’s case is advocated.

EIS means “into” or “toward,” as when a bird goes to its nest and nestles down into it.

This is just a taste for honest, serious, students of the Bible. Are there any more left from the turn of the past century? We are sure not going into this new century with very many.

”Study to show thyself approved, a workman than needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.”

The Secret of the Undermining Cause!

The undermining power of sin is always the cause of decay and destruction of earthly kingdoms. With repeated emphasis, like the tolling of a bell which proclaims the passing of the dead, the prophet Jeremiah asserts as He proclaims the Word of the Lord, that the reason for the Lord’s judgments is:

”Because of the evil doings.”

Again and again he explains the cause of the Lord’s acts as because of sin.

Let the following “black list” speak for itself:
    Jer 4:4, Because of the evil of your doings.
    Jer 5:6, Because their transgressions are many.
    Jer 6:19, Because they have not hearkened unto My Words.
    Jer 7:13, Because ye have done all these evil works.
    Jer 8:14, Because you have sinned against the Lord.
    Jer 9:13, Because ye have forsaken My Law.
    Jer 9:19, Because ye have forgotten the land.
    Jer 19:15, Because they have hardened their necks.
    Jer 28:16, Because thou hast taught rebellion against the Lord.
    Jer 30:14, Because their sins were increased.
    Jer 40:3, Because ye have sinned against the Lord.
    Jer 44:3, Because of their wickedness.
    Jer 44:22, Because of the abominations which ye have committed.
    Jer 44:23, Because ye have burned incense.
    Jer 44:23, Because ye have sinned against the Lord.

Following these reasons of God’s judgment is the announcement of doom in such and similar words as “therefore this evil is come upon you.”

If Jeremiah chapter 25 is carefully read with Matt 25:31-46, it will be seen that the judgment means to be cut out of existence. For the word “punishment” in Matt 25:46 is KOLASIS, which means a “cutting out.”

God judges a nation in time, but individuals in eternity.

Divine Influences. Hosea 14:5-7, “The Dew”

Divine influence – like the dew – is unseen.
    It is silent.
    It is gentle.
    It is reviving.
    It is abundant.
    It is free.

Zephaniah and Apostasy

 Zephaniah – that is in the Bible

Zephaniah 3:2

The four facts affirmed in the text are applicable to us today.

1. Inattention to instruction, “She obeyed not the voice.”
2. Incorrigibleness, “She received not correction.”
3. Unfaithfulness toward God. “She trusted not in the Lord.”
4. Neglect of worship. “She drew not near to her God.”

Application:

What caution we have in Zephaniah against apostasy

What concern and care does the Lord manifest in using so many endeavors for the preservation of His people?

What inducement to avail ourselves of the Grace, mercy, and forbearance of God.

How affecting the expressions of God in the light of the infidelities and apostasies of His people.

The Lord’s Flock, Zephaniah 3:12-13

1. Their station.
    A. Afflicted
    B. Poor

2. Their character.
    A. Derived from confidence. “They shall trust in the Name of the Lord.”
    B. This confidence is founded in holiness. “The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity.”
    C. This confidence is derived from their uprightness. “Nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be in their mouth.”

3. Observe their privilege.
    A. The pasture. “They shall feed and lie down.”
    B. The repose. “They shall feed and lie down.”
    C. Their security. “And none shall make them afraid.”

This sounds a little like Psalm 23.

Thursday, June 1, 2000

The Law of Eclipse

An eclipse is one thing overshadowing another, and blotting out of the line of vision. The book of Hebrews illustrates this law.

The word “better” is one of the key words of this letter. Christ is better than the angels because of what He is and what He has established. Heb 1:4, 1:8

Christ is better than Moses because the Son is higher than the servant. Heb 3:1-6

Christ’s priesthood is better than that of Aaron’s because it is not passed on to another but it is concentrated and consolidated in Himself. Heb 5:1-10

Christ beings in a better hope than the law could give. Heb 7:7

A better covenant. Heb 7:22, 8:6

Better promises and better sacrifices. Heb 8:6, 9:23

Grace bestows a better substance than can be obtained on Earth. Heb 10:34

And we also find in the Christian regime a better country and a better resurrection. Heb 11:16, 35, 40

Christ eclipses every thing and everyone.  He overshadows all.

The Law of Detail

Little things are often of great moment. Christ emphasized every jot and tittle in the Word of God. Matt 5:18

”The taches and the loops,” Ex 26:4-11, of the tabernacle which kept the curtains together might seem to be unimportant but they kept them from being bedraggled.

We are exhorted to yield our members in detail as well as yielding our bodies as a whole. Rom 6:13, 16

Therefore the Lord calls for:

The eyes of our attention. Psa 123:2
The ears of our obedience, John 10:27
The feet of our walk, Eph 4:1, 5:2, 8, 25
The hands of our business, Ecc 9:10
The lips of our testimony, Titus 2:1
The speech of our tongue, Col 4:6
The mind of our affection, Col 3:12-14
The soul of our desire, SOS 1:7
The will of our purpose, John 7:17
The spirit of our intelligence, 1 Cor 2:11

He wants “you,” not yours.

The next time you go to Church, your pastor can teach off of all the different parts of your spirit, soul, and body.

The Law of Ellipsis

”Ellipsis” signifies a breaking off, therefore something wanting.

We are told in Eph 3:20, “God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think.”

The word “abundantly” means “superabundance.” It was used in this way when a vessel is filled to overflowing.

The word “exceeding” signifies an abundance beyond an abundance. It was used when a constant supply is poured into the vessel so that the water drenches the carpet as well as the table cloth.

The word “above” goes beyond the other two descriptions so that the water poured into the vessel which drenches the cloth and the carpet flows out of the house into the street.

The word “abundant” is rendered “enough to spare,” Luke 15:17; ”Beyond measure,” Mark 6:51; ”Superfluous,” 2 Cor 9:1; ”Overmuch,” 2 Cor 2:7

So that the sentence “exceedingly abundantly above” means that which is beyond measure, which is beyond measure of beyond measure, which is beyond measure what is beyond of a beyond measure.

And it is right after the apostle has said, “Exceedingly abundantly above” that we find the ellipsis.

He is able to go beyond the measure of all the beyond measure. No matter how great the gap and the want, the Lord’s answer is unlimited and immeasurable.

You can see how difficult it is to explain in the English language.

The Law of Resemblance

The resemblance between the Living Word and the Written Word:
They are both said to be “sure.”
They are both said to be “living.”
They are both said to be “eternal.”
They are both said to be “wonderful.”
They are both said to be “perfect.”
They are both said to be “light.”
They are both said to be “truth.”
They are both said to be “powerful.”

The same law holds good in the resemblance between Christ and the believer:
He is the Son of God, we are the sons of God.
He is the Living Stone, we are living stones.
He is the Light of the world and we are lights to shine in the world.
He is the Branch and we are the branches.
He is the Bridegroom, but we are the bride of Christ.

The Law of Topic

One profitable way to study the Bible is to how a theme is repeated, or a word is used.

Here are a few:

“In that day,” that is Isaiah.
”Thus saith the Lord,” that is Ezekiel.
”The kingdom of Heaven,” that is Matthew.
”Straightway,” that is Mark.
”The Son of man,” that is Luke.
”Light and love,” that is John.
”The Holy Spirit,” that is Acts.
”Righteousness,” that is Romans.
”Things of God,” that is Corinthians.
”Crucified,” that is Galatians.
”Riches,” that is Ephesians.
”Joy and rejoice,” that is Philippians.
”Christ,” in Colossians.
”Christ’s coming,” that is Thessalonians.
”Better things,” that is the book of Hebrews.
”Precious things,” that is Peter’s epistles.
”Know,” that is 1 John.
”Truth,” 2 and 3 John.
”Blessed and overcome,” the book of Revelation.

Not only topical words are used, but also topical themes.

Col 1:15-19 emphasizes Christ’s pre-eminence. He is:

    Superior to all for He is “the image of the invisible God.”
    Superior in order, “First Born before all creatures.”
    Superior in creation, “In Him were all things created.”
    Superior in power, “In Him all things consist.”
    Superior in position, “Head of the body.”
    Superior in resurrection, “First begotten from the dead,”
    Superior in place, “Pre-eminent.”
    Superior in possessions, “All fullness dwelleth in Him.”

No subject so glorious as He. No theme so affecting to us.

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