3/21/2001   "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may be without sin. And if any man is a sinner, we have a friend and helper with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Upright One." BBE
         
        What is our response when the Spirit of God reveals sin to us? By the way, if sin is truly revealed to us, it is the Work of the Holy Spirit, (and if sin is not revealed in and unto us, the Spirit of God does not abide within us!) Do we get all "down in the mouth", that old "oh I failed again" feeling? Do we plead our sorrow before God and promise to do better next time? Or do we get all guilt ridden and beat ourselves with 23 stripes? Or do we understand that the Holy Spirit is destroying our claim to godhood, for all of our laborious attempts at righteousness are as filthy rags, even our so-called "Christian" attempts at righteousness. There is only one place to go when the Holy Spirit reveals our sins and that is to our Friend and Helper as this verse says or as the old King James puts it, our Advocate with the Father.(Hebrews 4:15-16) He Alone is God's Righteousness in human flesh, His Alone is the Righteousness that the Father will receive and His Alone is the Righteousness the Holy Spirit Will mediate by faith to our souls, His Perfection Alone must be Visible before our Holy Father's Eyes. We must get this right to have peace and joy in this fallen world and in these old mortal bodies that have spent so much time sinning and learning how to cover it up with a veneer of goodness & good deeds. No, "THIS is the WORK of God, that you believe in Him Whom HE Has Sent". (John 6:29) This is the Rest that remains for the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9) Hide in your Savior's Wounds, Abide in His Pierced Side. His Nail Pierced Hands have done all that is necessary, & Alone is accepted, that we might Abide in The Holy Presence of our Eternal Father, even now by faith in what He Has Done in & through His Beloved Son. (Hebrews 10:19-23) Beloved, that must be the starting point of any longing for Righteous behavior. "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief!!! (Hebrews 4:11)

1/15/2021                                                  Ephesians  3;14-15
        So what's the big deal? Why am I taking so much time, mine own and yours, as though we have great earthshaking things to do with our time right now. Well, I'm seeking to redeem this time of this so called lockdown. I am seeking to bring eternity into the chains of human time.
        And our passage, dealing with the family of the Father, His whole family in heaven and earth, is the most important event in all of Eternity, as far as we are concerned at least. For this we were Chosen to be adopted as His children, for this His Son became flesh and dwelt among us, for this He died that we might have, through faith in Him Alone, the Eternal inheritance of the Father that was promised before the foundation of this world. It is by this that we may live within the answer to our Beloved Redeemer’s prayer to the Father, "that they all may be one, as Thou Father, Art in Me, and I in Thee, that they may be one in US". (John17:21)
        This is the House that our Great High Priest has been faithful unto. (Hebrews 3:1-6) and finally, this is that great number that we find in Revelation 7:9. "After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, of all Nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes and palms in their hands.” And beloved this is the number that was sealed unto God in their foreheads before the four Angels released the four winds upon the Earth that would eventually be the winds of God's wrath. And don't think of wrath in this context as speaking of the final day, but rather that wrath that is the groaning of creation (Romans 8:19-22) throughout all history. ( The Final Day of God's Wrath = Rev 6:12-17/Heb.1:10-12)
        Remember, it is the Lamb who opens the seals. The book was in the Right Hand of the High and Lofty One Who Inhabits Eternity.(Isaiah 57:15) Tear your eyes away from the events of this world, and rivet them on this incredible scene of the Throne in Revelation chapter 4. "Thou art Worthy, oh Lord to receive Glory and Honor and Power: for Thou hast Created all things, and for Thy Pleasure they Are and Were Created."
        There is not a millisecond of our existence on this quaking Earth that is not found in the little book that is in the Right Hand of the Ultimate Power of the Father which He Gives into the Controlling Outworking of the Victorious Bloody Lamb!!!    

1/11/2021         I must backtrack a bit in our study of the Mystery. Perhaps the greatest difficulty in teaching and studying scripture, is wrapping our finite brains humbly around an Infinite Revelation. I've come to never assume that I understand even a thread of God's truth adequately. It's never that I'm learning something new. It's that the Holy Spirit IS Building His Truth into my mind and heart and understanding more completely. It never seems I can go on to something else. My thinking and study in this "sabbatical", started way back in Revelation 21:3. And that of course was the "dwelling place of God is with men". Well, how does that occur, how do we come to that statement in the book of revelation.? And so here we are looking now at the mystery of God in Christ, which is the Divine HOW, if I may be so bold. And that is the Gospel, the Power of God unto salvation and transformation.       
       We must guard against assuming we are finished with any book or passage of scripture and ready to go on to something new, because quite frankly, our spiritual digestive system isn't ready for that. We may read further in scripture, but we must be aware that where we just came from is going to feed into, and nourish spiritually where we are going. It's always line building upon line, precept building upon precept. The only truth that I am absolutely sure of is that the mystery of God is Christ Jesus, God come in our flesh to redeem an adopted people as His Body for the Family of the Father.(1 Timothy 3:16) The how, the way, the history that leads to that Eternal Family Reunion, of that I am consistently learning and relearning. Never be satisfied with what you know apart from knowing Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and through Him, the Father by His Spirit.
     The clearest evidence of a true spiritual understanding of God's word is the humbling understanding of how little we understand!!! 

1/7/2021                                                   The Father's Family:  Ephesians 3:14-15
        All that the one God does in Eternity and time flows out of His Essential Relationship as  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is the Will and Purpose of the Godhead. The Son is Living Declaration of that Will and Purpose, and the Holy Spirit is the Empowerment of that Will and Purpose , always in the inseparable concert of the One in Essence. 
        That understanding is plainly seen in the book of Ephesians. Paul starts out with the Will and Purpose of the Father to adopt children unto Himself, by gathering together in one all things in Christ.(1:9-10) The Empowerment of that victorious Will and Purpose is made plain in the statement that He has worked His Power toward us in that He raised Christ Jesus, His Word–His Declaration, from the dead.(19-20) The Holy Spirit is the Power of that Resurrection.(Romans 6:4, 8:11) But even prior to that we see that the incarnation itself was Empowered by the Holy Spirit in that the Seed that was in Mary was Generated by that Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35) and so it is that in the adoption of children, no one who has not the Holy Spirit belongs to that number.(Romans 8:9b)  This is a Spirit born family, this family of the Father, as the outworking of that Plan of adoption in time is spoken of by the Son as being “born again”.(John 3:3-7)
        This is why Jesus said in John 6:37, “all that the Father giveth me shall come to me”, and in 6:39 “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing.”  Again in 6:44, “No man can come to me, except the Father Who hath sent me draw him.”  And remember that chapter 2 of Hebrews is built on the fact that Christ Jesus took upon Himself our flesh and blood, in His complete faithfulness to all His House(Hebrews 3:1-3) “I and the children which God hath given me.”(Hebrews 2:13)  
        I am deeply saddened by the fact that the Will and Purpose of the Father in Choosing a people Unto Himself as His Family, according to His Good Pleasure (Ephesians 1:3-5), should be a matter of controversy among the professed people of God.  But then again maybe it's because that Choosing, that "predestination" is seldom stated in the Father's family context. Yes it is a Mystery, and in this unveiling of this Grand Mystery Paul declares that this was done before the foundation of the Earth. Difficult to understand, and even more difficult for our fallen wills to receive, but I didn't write those words in Ephesians (and other Scriptures). The inspired Apostle Paul penned that. That very truth, the truth of the Family Name of the Father as we see in Ephesians 3:14, is our “Eternal Security” as seen in Revelation 14:1. It is those who wear the Father's Family Name that populate the glories of the New Heaven and New Earth in Revelation 22. And further it is a Family so large that no man can number it, out of every nation, tribe and kindred! (Revelation 7:9)  Revelation 21-22 speak of a family reunion totally unimaginable to our finite minds.  What a day that will be!!!  To question this truth is to question the very Righteous Will and Purpose of our Most Holy God.


1/3/2021  There is a huge hole in Christendom.  I started to say “Christianity”, but I don’t consider what I see today as anything resembling what my Jesus brought to earth!  My Lord prayed to His Father in the most intimate chapter in all of Scripture, in John 17:23. “I in them, and YOU IN ME, that they may be made perfect in ONE; that the world may know that YOU have sent ME, and has loved them as YOU HAVE LOVED Me.”  In verse 22 He Phrases it, “that the world may BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE SENT ME.”
        You see, everything that God has Done and is Doing is wrapped up and topped with this Divine Bow, the Love of the Father for His Son.  All that God Does is all about Family LOVE!!!  This is missing in Christendom!  As Thomas Smail stated in his book, “The Forgotten Father”, “we have a Christology and a Pneumatology, but we have no Paterology.”  But it is far worse than that.  It is not an additional “theology” that we need.  It is an entirely corrected “Relationship” that we need!
        Consider with me the prayer of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:14-21.  He has spent the whole of Ephesians 1:1-3:13 unwrapping and bringing his readers into fellowship with the Mystery...”which from the beginning of the world has been hidden in God, Who Created all things by Jesus Christ.” (3:9) His calling by grace was “to make all see what is the fellowship of this Mystery”.  It is “for this cause I bow my knees unto the FATHER of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Now note the “description” of this Father, “Of Whom the WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH IS NAMED.”  This Family Context is missing from Christendom and Christian “theology”, and I don’t mean the “family church” on the corner.  This is the Divine Family, the Eternal Divine Relationship of Father, Son, bound together in the Spirit of Love, commonly called, and somewhat coldly so, the Trinity.  It is into this Eternal Fellowship that the Father’s Will and Purpose  adopted children for His Pleasure from before the foundation of the world.(Eph. 1:3-5)  It is for this Eternal Fellowship that the Incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of the Beloved Son was accomplished as John speaks in I John 1:1-4. “That which we have seen and declare unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us: AND TRULY OUR FELLOWSHIP IS WITH THE FATHER AND WITH HIS SON JESUS CHRIST.” (Vs 4)
        Christ didn’t come to “get people saved so they don’t have to go to hell.”  That is a gross mis-statement of but a part of the Father’s Will and Purpose in the display His Glorious Grace “wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved.”(1:6) The goal of our salvation is found in John 17:24, “Father, I will that they also, WHOM YOU HAVE GIVEN ME, may be WITH ME WHERE I AM; that they may BEHOLD MY GLORY, which you have give Me; FOR YOU LOVED ME BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.”


1/1/2021    "Fire blazed forth from the Lord's Presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. when the people saw all this, they shouted with joy and fell face down on the ground." Leviticus 9:24
     "A train of solemn rights preceded the priests admission to their functions. The entrance path was long and holy. None might draw near uncalled-uncleansed-without atonement made through blood-without the sprinklings of anointing oil. Leviticus 8:6, 24, 30
     "Through a whole week the victims died, and consecrating services flowed on. during these days the sacred tent enclosed the devoted band. They might not pass it's separating gate. The world was left outside. A barrier parted them from common life. They dwelt shut out from man, shut in with God. Leviticus 8:33
Here is a teaching voice for all, who boast, that they are Christ's. The priestly office shadows out their calling. They have a high employee. Their rank is royal priesthood. 1st Peter 2:9. They have new natures and they do new work. All in God's household minister.
     Reader, have you approached by rightful steps the servants place? The path is here marked out. Is the blood used as your atoning plea? Is there the Spirits inward witness of adoption to the family of Grace? Is the world shunned as mire? Is life regarded as a dedicated walk? They, who are truly called, pass this admission gate." Henry Law
     Calling, a well-nigh ignored truth today. John 6:43-44 "Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him. And I will raise him up at the last day." Those are Jesus' words, not some system of theology. Read them in their context of Ephesians chapter 1. Peter exhorts us in 2 Peter 1:10, "wherefore the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you shall never fall."
     Romans 12:1 and it's exhortation to present our bodies as living sacrifices, is not about doing stuff for God, it is about being consumed by God. May that be our eternal resolution as we begin 2021.
Beloved, our redemption draws nigh.

12/11/2020                                                               Context

         The situation within which something exists or happens, and that can help explain it.  Cambridge Dictionary
         The interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs : ENVIRONMENT, SETTING.  Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The context of Scripture:
        Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”
        Ephesians 1:5-6 “Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His Will, to the Praise of the Glory of His Grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”
        Ephesians 1:9   “Having made known unto us the mystery of His Will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself.”
        Revelation 4:11 “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive honor and glory and power:  for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.” 
        These five verses give us the context of all of Scripture, and that context is the Father’s good pleasure in His Will and Purpose .  All of Scripture must find it’s place and meaning in this context.  Genesis 1 is the beginning of the revelation of the mystery of God’s Will and Purpose in time, and Revelation 4 is the culmination of the Father’s Will and Purpose in eternity.  A closer look at Ephesians 1 teaches us that His Will and Purpose proceeds from before the foundation of the earth, is completely accomplished in His Beloved Son, and exceeds our time and space.  This must be the starting point of all consideration of scripture, doctrine, and “Bible study”
        Ephesians 1:5-6 presents the “reasoning” behind God’s Will and Purpose and His historical outworking of it.  “ Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good Pleasure of His Will, to the praise of the Glory of His Grace.”  Notice again the word “Pleasure” and the direction of that will and purpose, to bring about the praise of the Glory of His Grace.  Consider the introduction by the Father at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well Pleased.”  John 1:14 tells of this same Jesus that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His GLORY as of the only Begotten of the Father,) FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH.”  Our redemption is a wonderful part of the Mystery of the Father’s Will, but the display of His Beloved Son Who is the embodiment of the Grace and Mercy of the Father is the grand context of that redemption.  The Father is “gathering together in One all things IN CHRIST, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, IN HIM.”(Ephesians 1:10)  Before considering “what’s in it for us” as our flesh is so prone to do, we need to bow humbly before the Father’s display of His Grace in His Beloved Son.
        Paul, in speaking to Timothy of the Mystery of Godliness in 1 Timothy 3:16, displays to us the means of His outworking of His Will.  Notice that it is all about His Incarnate Son.  The Mystery of Godliness is the ultimate display of the Father’s Grace in His Son, that is “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life; (for the Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you THAT ETERNAL LIFE, WHICH WAS WITH THE FATHER, and was manifested unto us.” 1 John 1:1-2
        And of course we have to come to Hebrews 1:1-3 “God, (the God of Genesis 1 and Revelation 4:11) Who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, Whom He appointed heir of all things, by Whom He made the worlds; Who being the brightness of His Glory and the Express Image of His Person, and upholding all things by the Word of His Power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the Right Hand of the Majesty on High.”  And you see, His Son is the expressed Image of His Father’s Grace, One with Him in Gracious Essence, and therefore, the Father’s means of our entry into the Eternal Presence of the Gracious One as His Adopted children.  It is this Glorious revelation of His Grace which is our only standing before God.   And the only “work” the Father sanctions for us is to believe in Him Whom He has Sent.  John 6:29
        How then are we to enter into this glorious context, to understand this Truth, and thereby enter into that Holy Heavenly place of adoration and praise, pictured in Revelation 4?  And of course, the Father has taken care of that in giving is an Understanding.  1 John 5:20   That understanding isn’t so we can know “bible stuff” better.  No, no, it is to “know HIM that IS TRUE, and we are IN HIM that IS TRUE, even in His Son Jesus Christ.”  It is all about Union and Communion In and through the Beloved, so much more than a “hi, how are you” relationship.  Actually, this intimate knowledge in the Father and His Son “is the True God, and Eternal Life.”  It is that “that they may be One in us” that Jesus asks of the Father for us in John 17:21.  Don’t miss this Glory of the Father’s Grace in mere exegetical meanderings, bible dictionaries and mere knowledge stuff.  Bathe each approach to the Father in His Word in this context, with Paul’s prayer found in Ephesians 3:14-21.  Beg to be filled with all the fullness of God as He leads you to “comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the Love of Christ which exceeds knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.”  Do not limit yourself with the impossibility or incomprehensibility of such a truth, for the next verse promises that our God is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.”  And what is that power?  Consider carefully Ephesians 1:19-21, the power of the Resurrection of our Blessed Christ, that is His Spirit of  Glory!!!


​11/18/2020                          Life in the Presence of the Father Who Sees and Knows

        In considering the whole of chapters 6 and 7 of Matthew, it is clear that our Jesus is talking about life in the Kingdom where His Father Sees and Knows. Life in the kingdoms of this world, and our own little kingdoms, are defined by the unknowing . We don't know what tomorrow holds so therefore we have to protect ourselves, with sufficient resources to meet whatever may come. If we are rulers, then we have to have an army adequate to defend against whatever may come. As mere humans, living in our own little kingdoms, we have to have adequate food stored up for the winter or a coming famine or the coming lock down, including plenty of TP. We have to have an adequate 401k so that we can live in our latter years according to the life that we've been accustomed to. We have to have adequate insurance policies to take care of our declining bodies if and when any major health calamity may come. You see, the kings and the kingdoms of this world can't see and can't know, and quite frankly they don't care about our little kingdoms unless they threaten their rule and authority. Any pretended caring is used as a power source to control and maintain their power. That's just the nature of fallen human kingdoms, whether personal or governmental . John makes it plain when he says this world lies in wickedness.(1 John 5:19)  That underlying wickedness is the foundation of all human kingdoms, no matter how “benevolent” or “benign” they may profess to be.  The best we can hope for in this world is a governmental kingdom that has the least negative impact on our little personal kingdom!
        But our Jesus is presenting a beautiful Eternal Divine contrast to that. And He isn’t just speaking of a kingdom to come after this world system is done away with, He is speaking of His Father’s Kingdom which Rules in our affairs in the midst of all other kingdoms.  His is a Kingdom that doesn’t depend on any popular vote or electoral college.  It doesn’t depend on vast armies, even on 10,000 angels.  He is speaking of the present reality of all those who come unto the Father through Him! (John 14:6; Hebrews 7:25)  We have a heavenly Father who sees all the we do, all things are naked and open unto him with whom we have to do, so says Hebrews 4:13.  And if we rightly understand that, it is not a negative, it is rather, a glorious positive. In the vision of our Most High God it's the place of blessing, Mercy and Grace. It does however require an eye fixed upon our God and His Kingdom.  As Jesus says, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”(6:33)  All of the “things” that we spend so much time in seeking after, seeking to gain, and then seeking to protect, all of these “things” our Father King knows we have need of before we do!  To see things correctly in this worlds kingdoms, we must live with the understanding that Our Father Sees. And that is the reason and necessity for discipline and correction fo the Fathers children, because we are so used to our own fallen vision, a vision of impure motives and of faithless prayers as our Lord has stated previously in this sermon.
         This renewed understanding doesn't bring with it a comforting knowledge of future events and our future needs. Rather it brings to us a knowledge, a confidence, a dependence, upon a Heavenly Father Who Knows, Who in his vision of Love for us, Knows from the Counsel of His Glorious Foreknowledge all that we have need of here on this fallen Earth and in the Glories of Eternity to come. Interestingly our Jesus draws examples of the Father's Care from the birds of the air and the lilies of the Field, on this fallen Earth, to show that our father provides for them even in the death context of this fallen world. He goes on further to talk about human fathers and how they provide for their sons. and then there is this glorious phrase in 7 verse 11, “if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more shall your Father in Heaven give good things to them than ask him.”
Oh yes, there are negatives. Those negatives state and recognize the delusiveness of our fallen flesh. “No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other, you cannot serve God and mammon.”  This piercing and disturbing statement eliminates so much of the "so-called" gospel in our day. Jesus and His Father’s kingdom is not an “add-on” to the life we are now living. We can't come and get Jesus so that we can live in our little kingdom better. Our Lord's statement is very clear, if your eye is single your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is evil, has mammon cataracts, it is full of darkness. Our Jesus doesn't come to give us eye drops, he comes to give us eternal eyesight for the very first time.  And that new “vision” looks in a new direction, unto the Father’s Kingdom and His Righteousness, with a new understanding that the “things” here below are in the Father’s Care and Provision.
        No, I'm sorry, the doorway to the kingdom of heaven, the gate into the garden of blessing, is very narrow. And Jesus boldly says and few there be that find it. And there will be plenty of false prophets plenty of impostors and lots of people who have proclaimed Lord, Lord, who will never ever Heaven's Glories. There is but one focus and one faith and one Kingdom our Lord exhorts us to seek and I might add, only, the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you . when we by faith believe in the One Whom the Father has sent (John 6:29), we have entered into the Righteousness of God By faith. But be sure the one you believe in is the One Sent by the Father, the God/Man Christ Jesus.  That entering into that narrow door brings us into the Kingdom of our Father, the Father Who Sees and Knows, and knows how to give good gifts to his children.(Matthew 7:11) And remember when Jesus ended these sayings the people were astonished at his doctrine for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. I believe that's plainly because he is the very Word of God the God who Spoke in time past by the prophets but now has Spoken to us to by His Son.  “And He said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:9)

11/15/2002                                   Further Thoughts on The Father’s Prayer

        I can't seem to leave the Father's Prayer!  I trust it is the Spirit anchoring it to my soul.  I'm not sure we usually grasp the import of the context of this prayer. Christ is speaking before the multitudes, but in the presence of the Pharisees, and all were seeking to find someone who would lead them against the Roman hordes and the Roman emperors and re-establish Israel as the kingdom of God, with them at the top of the heap, or at least able to work their own will without intrusion from the other heaps, that is the kingdoms of this world. I believe that even His disciples held this delusion at this point.  And our Jesus is speaking directly to that wrong-headed thinking. He is speaking of a Kingdom that is summarized in the final verse of our Lord's prayer, "for Thine Is The Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever, Amen".  He is speaking of His Father's Kingdom, a spiritual kingdom, more powerful than any physical kingdom, and more pervasive in the souls of men than any external rule of a human despot. And in this whole context he is presenting this King as the Good and Kind Father King “Who Knows”,  so beyond our usual understanding of rule and authority. We need to be aware that He is not asking them or us to make His Father our King. He is declaring that His Father IS King. He doesn't need our approval or our invitation.  He IS the Lord of heaven and Earth.
     All other kingdoms are kingdoms of death, whether it be the historical civilizations and kingdoms found in history books, or the present kingdoms of this world. They all end up in the ash heap of history as fodder for other dead men to try to come up with a better kind of rule, only to reproduce another footnote in history. But this King the Father King of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Power and Glory Forever. Beloved, in this revelation we should rest thankful and full of praise.
    First, His IS the Power, and it is unlike any power wielded by a earthly potentate. Ephesians tells us that His Power is manifested in the resurrection of His Beloved Son Jesus Christ from the dead. Until the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, death was the invincible ruler of all of humanity.  Death was Satan’s master stroke in His lust to destroy humanity whom God Created for His Own Glory.  Death rules in the fear of all humanity, motivating and magnifying those fears.  Resurrection of our nature in the God/Man Jesus Christ is the Father’s Ultimate Victory.  Hebrews 2:14-15 speaks plainly to the fact of Christ’s Victory as the destruction of “him who had the power of death, that is the devil”, and further “and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”   It is this Resurrection Power that is worked out toward His people eternally, for it is not a power that ends in death but a power that assures eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.(Please read again Ephesians 1:17-20: faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.)  Belief in the Resurrection of our Blessed God/Man is Powerful in all situations in this fallen dead Earth because it is activated by faith and perpetuated by hope and therefore cannot be silenced by circumstances or earthly rule.
     And then there's Glory. His Kingdom is the continual manifestation and revelation of the Glory of His Grace to his adopted children.(Ephesians 1:4-6) The apostle Paul spends nearly the entire book of Ephesians explaining that to us. Saturate yourself with that Glory, that eternal glory which the Father is even now displaying unto the principalities and Powers by the Church, His adopted children Forever and Ever.(Ephesians 3:8-11)
     And finally, the distinguishing qualification that separates this Kingdom from all the kingdoms of this Earth, His Kingdom is Forever and Ever. It is a Kingdom manifesting the Power of His Eternal Glory Forever and Ever. And mysteriously in His Son, the Eternal God being made flesh, and dwelling among us, and paying every iota of penalty that we rebellious and hateful people require, those who come unto God through him, our Eternal Mediator, are made kings and priests in that Kingdom unto the Eternal Glory of our Father.(Revelation 1:6) In that mysterious promise, I believe we see the return of the Father’s Will and Purpose of the Father for His Image bearers as stated in Genesis1:26 “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Hebrews 2:8 says that “But NOW we do not yet see all things put under him..”  But you see, we have NOW seen Jesus, our Victor, our Creator made our Restorer, our Redeemer bringing many children to Glory (Heb. 2:10) that we might fulfill the Purpose of bringing Praise to the Glory of the Father’s Grace Eternally in a New Heaven and a New Earth where Righteousness Dwells.(2 Peter 3:13)  Beloved bask in your inheritance, for it is yours in Christ Jesus. “Behold, the Tabernacle, the Dwelling Place of God is with men.” Revelation 21:3 


 11/5/2020                                        The Tabernacle of God is With Men   Part 12
                                                                          Revelation 21:3/Matthew 6
                                                                       Further thoughts of  the "Prayer"

        It seems to me that the Lord’s Prayer is actually a warfare cry. Those who have that beatitude spirit, that of a humble and a contrite heart that our Lord spoke of in chapter 5:3-11, know very painfully the reign of their flesh. Even though the flesh continues to lust after its own kingdom, the new heart and the transformed mind that the Holy Spirit implants into us by shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts(Romans 5:5), longs for a change of kingdoms. And therefore we cry out to our Father who is in heaven, that His Kingdom might displace our kingdom, that His Rule might be according to his Jesus in our souls. And of course His Will in that Kingdom is at cross purposes much of the time with our kingdom and our purposes. And therefore, to learn to live in His Kingdom, even on this fallen Earth, we must be brought to a faith rest where we see our Father as our total supply for all things, knowing full well according to His Word, that He Gives unto all life, breath, and all things.(Acts 17:24-24; but especially to His children, Phil. 4:19) To know lovingly that He Knows what we have need of before we ask Him, is the place of rest. 
        Need, and the lust perversion that so easily turns that need into a bondage to things and even into a bondage of worrying about “needful” things, must fall before the truth that our Father Knows. And therefore we look to Him every day for His Provision of our bread, for His Provision of a constant forgiveness that we desperately need, a forgiveness that flows continually out of the righteousness of our Jesus and His Justifying Righteousness that He has Purchased at such cost for us, and for strength and endurance and perseverance in the temptations and trials that we face each and every day. In this God-given faith and trust that we are to live by, which is actually the grace in which we stand, that grace that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord, it is in this heart dependence that our Father's Name is Hallowed.  This cry is not a once done prayer or an oft repeated mantra, but rather the Spiritual “instinct” of a heart that knows it’s own sin and desperation and it’s Father’s Gracious Goodness and Sovereign Sufficiency in all things.  It is in this Spirit birthed “instinct” that our Father’s Name is hallowed.  “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, HOW MUCH MORE SHALL YOUR FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN GIVE GOOD THINGS TO THEM THAT ASK HIM?
May the Precious Spirit birth this “instinctive” Kingdom cry into our souls increasingly and consumingly!!!


10/28/20                                           The Tabernacle of God is With Men    Part 11
                                                                          Revelation 21:3/Matthew 6

        In our text before us, this opening “salvo” of the New Covenant, this introduction to the One Who will fulfill all Righteousness as our Covenant Redeemer, unveils to us a God Who is very “up close and personal.”  An old saint repeatedly in his exhortations said, “our “God is a God of Grace and a God of Providence.”  That truth is proclaimed loud and long in our Lord’s Words in our text.  Our God isn’t a distant God hanging around the periphery of our daily existence, just waiting and hoping that we’ll get desperate enough to ask for His Help.  No no!!  Our God is the God of Providence and verse 8 says that when we do not understand that, we are like the heathen, trying to break down the barriers of heaven with our much “praying”.  Remember Elijah and the prophet’s of Baal? (I Kings 18;21ff)  Verse 8 declares that our God, more intimately our Father, knows what we have need of before we ask Him.  Throughout the previous verses, we have seen that our Father sees in secret, implying that He is ever Present in our every moment, even our every need.  And of course, in His Loving Omniscience, “Father knows best!”  It would be so blessed to walk through each day in the faith and comfort of this beautiful Truth that “our Father Knows what things we have need of before we ask Him.”  Of course, the question immediately arises, “Why pray then?”  And in that question, we fail to see that prayer is God’s means of awakening us to His Presence in our midst and His Call to walk with Him in intimate faith and dependence in all circumstances, testifying continually to our neediness and His complete Sufficiency.  And remember, the exhortation is to “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thess. 5:17) 
        In what is commonly called “the Lord’s Prayer (vs 9-13), Jesus begins with, “after this manner pray ye”.  As humans are prone to do, we have turned the example prayer, intended to unite our heart’s and minds with the Father’s Will, into a vain repetition!  Granted, even in vain repetitions, if the heart and mind are moved by these hallowed words, great benefit is found.  Throughout His Words, our Lord has stressed the heart, the inward part of obedience and devotion.  His Words here are no different.  Here is the heart that is meek and lowly, mourning over it’s own neediness, hungering after Righteousness, the blessed ones, coming before the Only One Holy!  “After this manner therefore pray ye”:
        “Our Father”   Have we entered by faith into the truth of that Name?  Not any father, not like our earthly father either good or bad.  Has faith in our Christ Jesus brought us to the next phrase, “Hallowed be Thy Name”?  In our Lord’s High Priestly prayer unto His Father in John 17:6, Jesus says, “I have manifested Thy Name unto the men which You have given Me out of the world.”  And what name did He manifest?  FATHER!!!  Over 100 times in the book of John!  “He that has seen Me has see the Father.”(John 14:9)  “Seen” equals “manifested” as in John 17.  John further says in 1 John 2:22-23, “He is anti-Christ that denies the Father and the Son.  Whosoever denies the Son, the same does not have the Father: but He that acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”  And in the prayer context, Jesus says in John 14:13, “And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do that the Father may be Glorified in the Son.”  Prayer unto our Father in Jesus’ Name is far more that just about paying bills and getting kids out of trouble.  It is about manifesting, glorifying the Father in the Son in our present circumstances whatever those may be.  Prayer elevates our here and now into Eternities provision and rest.  Coming to the Father continually for His Promised bounty and supply (Phil. 4:19) hallows His Name of Father, and all that means by Heaven’s definition!!!  This entire Sermon is in the context of our Father Who is in Heaven.  Our Jesus Who is in the Bosom of the Father has declared Him!!! (John 1:18)  You can’t have faith in Christ without having faith in His Father!  Have you seen the Father in the Son?  Beg the Spirit to remove any “hang ups” that cloud faith’s vision of the Father in the Son!!!  Hallow His Name by trusting Him completely!


9/16/2020                                       The Tabernacle of God is With Men    Part 10
                                                                            Revelation 21:3/Matthew 6
                “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is Perfect.”  Matthew 5:48
        Do you not read those words with a mixture of fear, frustration, guilt and failure?  Be honest now!!  The Standard is set.  All of those human interactions that testify to our imperfection before God have been laid out before us.  The Holy Requirement in each and every one has been made plain.  Each and every contact, each and every moment of human interaction and it’s mental replay has been laid bare.  It’s not enough to work on murderous intent one week, adulterous thoughts another, and our “frustrations” with beggars and enemies later on.  All must be dealt with in the same measure of perfection as our Heavenly Father, all of the time, every moment–“that ye may be the children of your Heavenly Father which is in Heaven.” 5:45
Remember 5:16?  “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and Glorify your Father which is in Heaven.” Jesus starts in chapter 6 by doing some drastic “wick trimming”.  We are entering into Hebrews 4:12-13 territory, the place of the ‘two edged sword, the place of motive and intent purification.  The Life that pleases the Father is lived in the Presence of One, flowing out of hearts, minds, and wills that need not to gain “points” with anyone.  This is pure religion, this is heart purity, the Life of God in the soul of man. 
        Jesus is speaking of a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees, radio preachers, theologians, even the throne of our own understanding, and every one and everything else other than God.  The call is, for us to be perfect AS OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN IS PERFECT!!!  Why was His Message so radical? In that fateful moment in the garden, all of humanities response to the LIE has been to establish their own godhood.  Whether it is governmental, religion, vocation, family or solitude, humanity must be its own god.  Any standard of right or wrong is determined by the definition and desire of our personal kingdom.  Therefore, “right or wrong–human righteousness” is always a floating standard.  But the Revelation of God says, “All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.” “There is none Righteous, no not one.”(Romans 3:10-23) Against that delusion that is the LIE, Jesus portrays a stark difference, and that is the Righteousness of the Holy God of Heaven, and no one shall enter the Kingdom of God apart from that Perfect Righteousness.  No aspiration of human godhood is allowed.
        We have seen that all of our interactions on a daily basis must proceed from a different soil, a different heart and mind than that of human flesh, no matter how religious that flesh may be.  As we come to Matthew 6, our Lord changes His emphasis a bit and begins to speak of those supposed evidences of our devotion to God.  In His descriptions of charity, prayer, fasting–all of those “pat ourselves on our spiritual backs” activities, He pointedly exposes the flesh that usually rides those things for it’s own glory!   But to be truly Righteous, truly worshiping the Most High God, we must understand that God is the Only Audience we are “playing” to.  He is the One Who sees in secret, that is in all things, from our innermost thoughts to our outermost behavior.  All things are naked and open unto Him to Whom we must give an account. (Hebrews 4:12-13) We must do that which is pleasing in His Sight and His Sight Alone!!  Like it or not, that is the requirement of Heavenly citizenship!!
        There is only one Man who could declare, “For I came down from Heaven, not to do mine own will, but the Will of Him that sent me.” (John 6:38) There is only one Man who consistently, moment by moment, lived doing the Perfect Will of God.  It was prophesied of Him, “LO, in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy Will O God.”(Psalm 40:7-8) He alone could live the Perfect Righteousness of His Father in Heaven.  He alone could bear the Righteous Judgement, the penalty required by the idolatries we practice but often are unaware of, the behaviors before our fellow man that everyday don’t measure up to our Father’s requirements, and our inadequate acts of “devotion”, our supposed worship unto our God that often peek out of the corner of our eyes to see if anyone notices how devoted and holy we are!  And most of all, He alone could BE His Father’s Delight, His Father’s Pleasure in His Mysterious Union of God and Man.  Our Jesus Alone wears the Declaration of the Father that “This is My Beloved Son in Whom I AM Well Pleased.”(Matthew 3:17)  He alone could bear the penalty that all of our violations of everything He is describing to the point of satisfaction that the Holy God of Heaven could say, “their sins and iniquities I will remember no more”.(Hebrews 10:16-17)  Any obedience, any righteousness that is not this “excessive” cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven!!! 

10/5/2020                                           The Tabernacle of God IS With Men  Part 9
                                                                         Revelation 21:3/Matthew 4-7

        As usually happens as I travel a tiny bit down the path of some Biblical Truth, I run into the wall of “I’m missing something very important”.  I had typed most of this study and yet this nagging feeling grabbed me again.  And then it dawned on me, probably the Spirit hitting my up the side of the head of my spiritual understanding,  our Jesus is laying before us the New Covenant which Is in His Blood.(1 Cor. 11:25)  This is the New Covenants “Mountain Moment”.  “I the LORD have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a Covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.” (Isaiah 42:6) Instead of going up a mountain to receive the Law from God as on Sinai, our Covenant, our Jesus, sat down on the mount, his disciples around Him and “opens His Mouth (4:4) and taught them”, speaking as the very Word of God, the Word that He “embodied”.(5:1-2) The contrast was very apparent to His hearers as we see in 7:28-29: “the people were astonished at His doctrine; for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

        As we proceed in our thinking on Matthew 5-7, we must bear this continually in our minds.  This introduction, all the Lord’s subsequent ministry, death, burial, and ascension, His requesting of the Father that His Holy Spirit Dwell in the heart of every child of God, all of it, is the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:”31-34!!!  And this New Covenant passage is the very one the Holy Spirit quotes in Hebrews 10:15-17 in assuring those whose faith is in this God/Man Who was Sent of the Father, of the new and living way into the Holiest of All, the Bosom of the Father.(Vs 18-22) 
Our Lord began by showing His hearers  the needful attitude of a contrite and humble spirit that is the very soul of the “blessed” in the beatitudes.  Our Jesus is expressing the heart and character of those who comprehend at least a little bit, of how short they come of the Glory of God.  They have learned, as Mary, that their rightful place is at the feet of Jesus, hearing and dwelling on every Word that proceeds from the Mouth of God.  These alone are the salt and light.. These alone are the ones into which God has shown the Light of the knowledge of God in the Face of Jesus Christ.  That very light has dimmed the false light of THEIR fleshly zeal and dedication that usually is “glorified”. All Glory and Honor belongs only to Him Who Sits on the Throne of Glory.  Revelation 4-5.  All their “shining”, all of their good works have only one purpose, to “glorify your Father which is in heaven”.
        Beginning in Vs 17, our Lord speaks of the purpose of His Coming, not to destroy the Law or the prophets, but to fulfill it.  Not one “Jot nor tittle” (the smallest characters in the Hebrew alphabet) could be erased or changed in God’s law till He fulfilled every last tiny character and requirement of it.  I wonder, if in his inclusion of the “prophets”, He is referring to the condemnations of guilt the prophets spoke to a disobedient people throughout the old testament.  Their disobedience required punishment.  Not only must He walk in a spotless and holy manner while on this fallen earth, He must also pay the penalty that the law required for the sins of His people, to cleanse their sin and purify their conscience before the Father as stated in Hebrews 10.  Praise God, however, He was also the fulfillment of the Deliverer, the King who would ascend to David’s Throne in His Resurrection as David and the other prophets declared. (Acts 2:29-36)  I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that every breath that Jesus took was in some way a fulfillment of the Law and the prophets!!!
        In verse 20, Jesus establishes His point of contrast against which He paints the perfect portrait of the Righteousness that God requires, the Righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Dwelling Place of His Father.  “For I say unto you, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”  We must not minimize or belittle the place of the scribes and Pharisees in the proclamation of the “law” at this time in Israel’s history.  They were the equivalent of our “lead pastors”, radio and tv preachers with almost absolute influence on how the average Jew understood the law.  Jesus here is striking at the very core of their “law source”.  What did characterize the Pharisees righteousness?  We might consider it the building of boundaries around the law, the qualifying how far men can go without breaking the law.  It was kind of like putting “baby plugs” in a light socket to keep them from getting electrocuted.  I think that is what our Jesus was getting at with His Words, “ye have heard it said”.  What He quotes sounds pretty straight forward.  But He knew his listeners were hearing it through the filter of the Pharisees.
        We do the same thing today.  Much of what we call righteousness is pharisaical righteousness.  We look on our Lord’s words on verbal murder and begin to run through our vocabulary that describes our anger with other people, hoping that God does not consider them as murderous.  “I just get frustrated”.  “I’m just venting about what he did”.  “Maybe Idiot and imbecile are wrong, what about “you dummy” in expressing my displeasure without quite approaching mental murder”.  You get the idea.  Oh, and then there is this thing of visual adultery.  Oh my goodness, we really work hard on this one.  “Does God calculate adultery as the first glance or the second?”  Or maybe we just have an appreciative eye for beauty, not a lustful one.  We could look at the rest of the Lord’s hard sayings and the extremity of His avoidance tactics, you know, the plucking out the right eye and cutting off the right arm, and look at every other issue He brings up and see how we play games with God’s Righteousness.  I leave it to each one of you to “chew” on this passage in the Spirit of Holiness as he uses the Word to dissect the cadaver of self righteousness.  I don’t promise it will be pleasant, but if you would enter your Father’s House, it must be on His Terms!!!
        And praise Him, here are His Terms.  “This is the work of God, that you BELIEVE on Him whom He has sent.” (John 6:29) “And this is the Will of Him that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting Life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”(John 6:40)  Our Lord’s point in all of those, “but I say unto you’s” is that the Righteousness of which He is speaking, the only Righteousness that is allowed in the Kingdom of Heaven is found only in a heart and mind that Delights to the will of the Heavenly Father.  And of course, that is why the prophet declared, “Lo I come (in the volume of the bood it is written of Me. Ps. 40:7-8) to do Thy Will, O God.” Hebrews 10:7 declares that He alone is the Fulfillment of that Delight, that Righteousness and all it requires, both in obedience and penalty for His people.  He alone is the Father’s Delight!  “And this is the record, that God hath given to us Eternal Life, and this LIFE IS IN HIS SON.  He that HATH THE SON HATH LIFE; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1 John 5:11-12) It’s all about the Son Whom the Father has sent, beloved.  All is by Grace through faith.  Peter says that the Father has by His Divine Power, given to us all things that are necessary unto life and Godliness through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.  Next time, we will explore the outworking or that power of Life as Jesus expresses it in Matthew 5-7.


9/27/2020                                           The Tabernacle of God is With Men   Part 8
                                                                        Revelation 21:3/Matthew 5:17-20

        It is important, as we progress to the core of our Lord’s formative Sermon, that we note again verse 16.  “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, AND GLORIFY YOUR FATHER WHICH IS HEAVEN.”  I say “formative” for verses 17-20 declare why He has Come. (Psalm 40:6-10 + Hebrews 10:5-10) Jesus did not come so that we could be good little boys and girls!  No, no, He came to Do what we could not do and Be what we could not be.  He came to fulfill all Righteousness, to do all that the Holiness of the Father required “to bring many sons to Glory” (Hebrews 2:10), “to gather together in One all things in Christ”(Ephesians 1:10), to fulfill the “Adoption of children by Christ Jesus to Himself, according to the Good Pleasure of His Will.”(Ephesians 1:5)  This is all about the FATHER’S LOVE!!!  This is what was required to Sign, Seal, and Deliver the Adoption “papers” to the High and Lofty One Who Inhabits Eternity that His Children might Dwell with Him in Eternity and He with them, that being Revelation 21:3!  The entire Purpose of Eternity and time is to display the Wisdom and Grace of the Father in Heaven that IS His Beloved Son!!!  And the Adopted children are the recipients of that Incredible Wisdom and Grace in The Beloved Son, that in the ages to come that He might show the Exceeding Riches of His Grace in His Kindness toward us through Christ Jesus!!!(Ephesians 1:17-20, 2:7, 3;21; Psalms 36:7-8)  We are entering into the declaration and description of the Life lived in the Audience of One, the Thrice Holy God, but note, Who Is our Father!  In this “Righteousness that must exceed that of the Pharisees”(Vs 20), we enter into the Mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5-8), that new mind and heart of Ezekiel 36:24-27, the “family DNA” of the Kingdom of Heaven, our Home by Inheritance.  In our Lord’s words, “But I say unto you”, we shall see the Word of the Son which is the Word and Will of the Father, the Delight of the Son, which must be the delight of anyone who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, “That ye may be the children of Your Father which is in Heaven!!! (5:45)  
        We seem to miss a very key element in this Sermon, and in most all of scripture for that matter.  This Will and Purpose of the Father, revealed and fulfilled through His Beloved Son and  “Implemented” through The Glorious Spirit of His Love, IS ALL ABOUT FAMILY!!!  Ephesians 3:14-15 “For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ OF WHOM THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH IS NAMED.”  Revelation 14:1 “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.”  Hebrews 2:13-14a “And again, I will put my trust in Him, Behold I and the children which God has given me .  Forasmuch as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he also likewise Himself partook of the same that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the Devil.”  And our Lord’s talk here about the Kingdom of Heaven is about Home!  It’s the place of belonging, the place of peace and safety. It is the “place” where our Loving Heavenly Father Dwells!!!  It is the place of family feasts and celebrations.  Think of all that is good about “home”  on this earth and then think of it on Spiritual Steroids! Family here on this earth, the good, the bad, and the ugly, is at best a sad glimmer of the Glories of the Dwelling Place that Jesus has prepared for His Adopted children.  Jesus could have said in John 14:6, “no man gets into heaven but by me”.  But praise God that is not what He Said.  “No man comes unto the FATHER but by ME!!! The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Power of God unto salvation, isn’t about “saving souls”.  It is about the Glorious Mysterious Work of the Son in doing His Father’s Will to bring His Adopted children Home, into that Glorious Presence behind the veil, home with their Father.(Hebrews 10:12-25) 



9/23/2020                                                The Tabernacle of God is With Men   Part 7
                                                                           Revelation 21:3/Matthew 5:1-16

        As uncomfortable as it makes me, I must emphasize Isaiah 57:15 as we approach our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. With whom will the Most High God dwell?  With whom will He Love, Commune, Guide, and Bless?  57:15 gives us the answer, the requirement for God dwelling with us and we with Him.  That makes me very uncomfortable.  
        “For thus saith the High and Lofty One that Inhabits Eternity, ‘I dwell in the High and Lofty Place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”  Isaiah 57:15
        This verse lays bare the arrogance of my heart and mind.  But just in case I am deceived as to my true condition, our Lord gives us His commentary in Matthew 5:1-16.  The so called “Beatitudes” are a preface to our Lord’s entire sermon.  We must understand that His Sermon, including the beatitudes, is not some sort of “Sinai Light”.  His sermon was purposed to strip away the facade of righteousness that Israel (and us) had built around the Character of the High and Lofty One. He is here describing a Life Lived before an Audience of One, the Father in Heaven.  And for the Father to “tabernacle” with any human, privately or collectively Matthew 5-7 must be perfectly true.  Not one “jot or tittle”, the smallest fragment of the Hebrew language, of the Law, must be broken.  
        Firstly I would have you take note of 5:2.  After seeing the crowd of people, He went onto a mountain He sat down and “his disciples came unto Him.”  At this time, He had a number of “disciples”.  But recall John 6:66, not for long! I just noticed the “accidental” verse numbering in John, 6:66.  That is ever the response of mere humanity, mere man, when it encounters the Mystery of the God/Man and His Person and His claims–“And from that time, many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.”  Now notice verse Matt. 5:2, “AND HE OPENED HIS MOUTH, and taught them, saying”.  All of the literal translations keep that phrase, “and He opened His Mouth”.  Contextually, that is incredibly important to our understanding of the import of this whole sermon.  Do you remember the Lord’s first answer to the Evil One in the temptation?  In his response to Satan trying to get Him to “unGod” Himself, Jesus answered, “Man shall not live by bread alone, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDETH FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.”(4:4) In that seeming descriptive phrase of 5:2, our Jesus states His Deity, the Word Who became Flesh. Every Word that proceeds from His Mouth is coming from the Mouth of God!!!  “Hear Ye Him!!!” (Matthew 17:5, Hebrews 1:1-2)
        Bear in mind, what we commonly call, the “beatitudes” isn’t the “light and fluffy” text for an “aspirational” sermon. You know, those “do better for Jesus” sermons, where our response is “gung ho” until our sovereign will is crossed or someone does something stupid on the highway.  No, this is the heart description required of those with whom the Father, the High and Lofty One Dwells with in Eternity!  There is no “fudging” these statements any more than any of the rest of the Sermon!  The entire Sermon is bringing us to the Bar of God’s Righteousness to lead His hearers to total faith dependence upon the Only One Who IS the Fulfillment of this radical Righteousness that the High and Lofty One Requires.
        I am not going to “expound” on this section nor what follows.  My purpose is to point out what I believe is the Spirit’s focus in the language and phrases used that seem to be overlooked in our zealous passion to do God’s will. Jesus is here manifesting a Righteousness that only He can Be, only He can fulfill, and to see that, to bow before that, we must have some acquaintance with the Spirit’s operation by the  Word as described in Hebrews 4:12-13.  The fruit of the Spirit’s “surgery” is a heart that sit’s low a Jesus’ feet, a heart described in this portion.  Just three thoughts:
        #1 Each “Blessed” in Vs 3-10 is accompanied with an incredible promise.  As in Isaiah 57:15, we see the purpose of God in our being made low is actually in our exaltation–“to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite one.
        #2 But this “exaltation” is in a heavenly context.  “For their’s is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Herein lies the weakness and frailty of our current earthbound “gospel”.  If we  do not grasp in faith the Kingdom of Heaven context of all our Lord’s Words, we will continue in fear, anxiety and discontent as our fallenness and that of others invades our “world”.  This is a Kingdom dependent upon the Mystery of Godliness.  The passion for the Righteousness that Jesus speaks of here is so perfect, so Heavenly, that it leads to our persecution for we operate upon a different level than this old world.  This old world “lieth in wickedness”,(1 John 5:19) it is in the Devil’s lap.  The Blessed are in Christ Jesus Who is in the Bosom of the Father. (John 1:18) The more we apprehend this Truth in Christ Jesus, our present faith inheritance in our Lord,  the more we become separated from this world and it’s lusts, and it cannot comprehend this.  Hence comes persecution.  We are different, a peculiar people!  You don’t have to be burnt at the stake to be persecuted!
        #3 And thirdly, (vs 13-16) this Spirit born blessedness is the only true salt and light in this world.  Salt has lost it’s savor, it’s ability to flavor and preserve, the light has grown dim, unable to shine forth the Gospel of Righteousness, where the humbling work of the Spirit through the Word is ignored and unknown. Christendom today is seen as an organization evidenced by adherents, buildings and budgets.  But our Christ, the Son of the Living God is ever the Bloody Lamb, ever without a place in this world to lay His Head.  He is ever the Meek and Lowly Jesus, Ruling from the Throne of Power and that in Mercy and Grace.  That very Throne reminds us continually that all of His Benefits are without any of our merit, any of our “doing or getting better.”  All is ours in His Glorious Words, “It is finished”.  It is only by faith in His Better, His Best, His Sufficiency, that we become a bit better in the here and now.  Our real Hope is for that Day when we shall be like Him when we see Him as He Is!  Remember, “For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”(Hebrews 13:14) That city is the New Jerusalem where the tabernacle of God is with men in the Heavenly Kingdom.​

9/13/2020                                            Revelation 21.3/Matthew 4:12-25   Part 6
                                                                       The Tabernacle of God is With Men

        Please don’t lose sight of where we are headed.  That New Jerusalem “tabernacling of God with Men” is our destination, just as it was and is in our Glorious God/Man’s ministry.  I haven’t forgotten about Melchizedek for He is “embodied” in the emblem of Aaron’s rod that budded, later in our consideration.  By our Father’s Mercy and Grace, I pray we shall lose our narrow focus on the Gospel and see that this plan has been hidden in God from before the foundation of the earth, just as His choice of His Adopted children. (Ephesians 3:9, 1:4-5) Consider the Goal of the Father’s Eternal Love: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places IN CHRIST.”  This is our purpose in studying the Christ of the Ark of the Covenant–that we might worship the Glory of God’s Grace and live without fear in sure belief in the present desperately fallen world., with a real sense of “heaven on earth” by faith in our hearts.

        Remember, we are looking at the revelation of God come in the flesh!!!  Our portion in this study, Matthew 4:12-25, contains three important themes.  Remember, He has shown unmistakably that He is the Man who can stand up to and withstand all of the evil one’s temptations.  This testimony is crucial as He is the one Who professes to deliver His people from the bondage of Satan.  He is no Holy Hypocrite!!!  There is no “do as I say, not as I do” in His Words.  His Word is Truth just as He is the WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE.  
First we see in Vs 12-16 the fulfillment of a very important prophecy.  John the Baptist is in prison, and Israel’s judgment is sealed, but yet there is hope in this Man, Christ Jesus.  He leaves Nazareth and goes to Capernaum, very near the northern border of Israel.  Strange place for the “King of the Jews” to start His ministry.  But notice, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah.  He is in the borders of Zabulon and Naphtali, “by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.  And now notice, “the people sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up.”  This is from Isaiah 9:1-2.  Now notice a parallel prophecy from Isaiah, 42:6, “I the LORD have called thee in Righteousness, and will hold thy hand, and will keep thee, and give Thee for a Covenant of the people, FOR A LIGHT OF THE GENTILES.”  The Light of the World is beginning to unveil another part of that mystery, “preached among the Gentiles”, as we see in 1 Timothy 3:16.   “That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body, and partakers of His Promise in Christ by the Gospel,” (Ephesians 3:6; see also Ephesians 2:11-22).  Only a hint at this point, but we are working our way to the 13th Apostle, Paul, formerly of Tarsus, to whom was given  “the dispensation of the Grace of God.” to manifest this mystery. (Eph. 3:2-7)
        Secondly, in Vs 17-22, we see Jesus calling some of His disciples, His Apostles, to follow Him and to preach the message of repentance unto Israel.  It seems strange that He would call absolute strangers and they would drop everything and follow Him.  Perhaps Acts 1:21-22 casts some neglected light on this mystery.  In addressing the replacement for Judas the traitor, Peter gives the qualifications essential to be one of the Lord’s Apostles.  “Wherefore of these men which have accompanied with us ALL THE TIME THAT the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto the same day that He was taken up from us, must one be a witness with us of His Resurrection.”   It seems they were witnesses of His baptism before He called them.  Their whole ministry as Christ’s Apostles depends upon their eye witness accounts of His Life and Ministry, but especially of His Resurrection!!!  None of the Apostolic testimony is hearsay.  No so called apostle in our day can lay claim to being such a witness, therefore their claim to that office is delusional!
        Thirdly, in Vs 23-25 we see the beginning of His miracles of healing and casting out devils.  Peter draws on this beginning of miracles, after Cana, and beyond, in his condemnation of the Jewish leaders in Acts 2:22: “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as yourselves know.”  To this also does Nicodemus refer when he comes to Jesus by night.  “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with Him”. (John 3:1-2)  And finally, note that in Vs 17, Jesus proclaimed that, “the Kingdom of Heave is at hand.”.  His ensuing miracles flow right out of that Glorious prophecy of the Kingdom in Isaiah 35.  It seems significant that the passage starts in the wilderness!  But take time to read Vs1-6 and recall the various miracles of our Lord!  And remember the Lord’s answer to John’s question, “Art Thou the One that should come?”  Jesus sends John’s disciples back to him with eye witness accounts of blind eyes seeing, the lame walking, the lepers cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead raised and the gospel being preached to the Poor.(Luke 7:22)
Each step, each encounter of our Lord is leading us to His fulfillment of Righteousness for us.  And next we encounter that Righteousness He is referring to, the Sermon on the Mount

 9/4/2020                                              Revelation 21:3/Matthew 5   Part 5
                                                                The Tabernacle of God is With Men

        Oh how I wish 1 Timothy 3:16 was as known and loved as John 3:16.  I understand why, John 3:16 is more easily accessible to a desperate sinners heart.  But 1 Timothy 3:16 is the declaration of the Mystery of the God/Man who was sent to make John 3:16 and Revelation 21:3 possible.
        “And without controversy great is the mystery of Godliness; God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into Glory.”  
This mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hidden in God (Ephesians 3:9) is the Gospel which Paul preached, a message that even Peter admitted contained “some things hard to be understood.” (2 Peter 3:16) It is the message of the God Who was manifest in the flesh and dwelled among us so that He might, in that Glorious new heaven and new earth, dwell Eternally with us.
        The core of that Gospel is “God was manifest in the flesh”.  John, in his first epistle, gets all “touchy-feely” to make this point.  “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life.”  Hebrews 10 makes it plain that the Father prepared a unique and special body, through the virgin birth, but a human body none the less. Our Lord and Savior is fully God and fully man.  It’s the last part that we can hardly wrap our minds around.  But we must understand that in that Glorious Union, there was no “co-mingling” of our Jesus’ human essence with His Divine Essence.  There was no mixing of essences.  In other words, Jesus is not a mixture of humanity and divinity.  He is not a 50/50 hybrid.  He is fully human and fully divine, 100% human and 100% Divine and that equals 100% in God’s Incarnate mathematics!  Only God can do that!!!  And yes, it is a Mystery!
        In looking at His Baptism, we emphasized that it was a man who came up out of the water.  But in the Father’s declaration, we see He is more than a man.  “This is my Beloved Son in Whom I Am well pleased.”  The Father declares him to be the Son of God, proclaiming a marvelous Union with this man who came up out of the water.  Something completely new has entered human history. That “mystery which has been hid in God from the beginning of the world” (Ephesians 3:9) is becoming unveiled.
        Remember the angels words to Joseph?  “For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” (Mt 1:20)   John 3:34 says that God gave Him the Spirit with out measure, undoubtedly speaking of that truth found in Colossians 2:9, “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”  And here we have our New Covenant Man, the One who has a new Spirit, a new heart, a heart with the law of God in His heart (Ezekiel 36:24-27), the One Who could truly say, “I delight to do Thy Will O God.”  He came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it!!!   He is our Covenant Keeper, our answer to the witness of the tablets against us.  He is now the Witness at the Right Hand of God for us!  The Spirit’s alighting upon His head is God’s testimony that our Jesus is our Ark of Safety, Eternally greater than that of Noah.
        This then is the significance of Matthew 4:1.  “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.”  The first Adam was placed in a beautiful garden, but without that fully indwelling Spirit, fell before one prohibition.  The Almighty God is “throwing down the gauntlet” before Satan’s face by the Spirit’s leading the second Adam into the temptations in the wilderness.  And thus begins the “justification in the Spirit” of 1 Timothy 3:16.  That justification in the Spirit continues every day of His Life on the earth and is culminated in His Ultimate Justification in His Resurrection from the dead by the Holy Spirit.  Justification in 1 Timothy 3:16 means, “to show, to exhibit, one to be righteous, such as he is and wishes himself to be considered.” (Thayer)
Our Man, our Adam, in the fullness of the Spirit, went into the wilderness, fasted 40 days, and in great weakness in his human flesh, faced victoriously the best/worst that Satan could personally throw at Him.  And then, for 3 years, he walked in our hostile world and faced victoriously everything that Satan’s pawns could heap upon.  And then, as the Cup of His Father’s Will drew nigh, he said, “Hereafter I will not talk much with you:  for the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.” (John 14:30) He knew that Satan was licking his chops, “I’ve got him now, he can’t survive death.”  But there was no sin, no guilt in the Son of Man, nothing Satan could attach the claws of death to.  And as Peter so beautifully describes His Ultimate Justification, “Him, being delivered by the  determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: BECAUSE IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE THAT HE SHOULD BE HOLDEN OF IT.” (Acts 2:23-24)
        Take notice of the original garden temptation.  The serpent attacked the Word of God, “Yea, hath God said”?  And through his Satanic interpretation, “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil”, he convinced the first couple and they fell before the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.(Genesis 3:1-5)  Satan follows that same tactic with the second Adam.  He lays out great temptations to the lust of the flesh, eyes, and pride of life.  But Jesus’ answer?  “It is written”.  The Law, the Word of God was in His Heart, and Satan cannot stand before the Word of God written upon His Heart. 
        The next phrase in the Mystery of Godliness in 1 Timothy 3:16 is “Seen of Angels”.  And that is what we see in our Matthew 4 text.  “Then the devil leaveth Him, and BEHOLD, angels came and ministered unto Him.” (Vs 11) They did more than bring Him bread and water.  They were worshiping their Champion Who had just defeated their former prideful prince, the one who had led a host of their companions into hell.  The angels were watching it all, rejoicing in this display of the marvelous power of the Grace of God in Christ Jesus.  Don’t just skip over the BEHOLD’s of scripture!


8/31/2020                                                              Revelation 21:3   Part 4
                                                                       The Tabernacle of God is with men.
                                                                          John’s Baptism unto repentance.

        We must understand that for this verse to be possible, for this entire Book of Revelation to be true, and for this intimate Dwelling of God with His people and they with Him, everything foreshadowed by that tabernacle in the wilderness had to be fulfilled, the shadows had to be made Reality for this heavenly tabernacle to be Eternally with men!!!  Whether Jew or Gentile, male or female, bond or free, our salvation, our Eternal Dwelling with the Most High God depends upon the truth foreshadowed in that tabernacle, especially the make up and contents of that Glorious Ark of our Safety!
        We initiated our look into the pot of manna by looking at our Lord’s Words after the feeding of the five thousand, and his difficult words of feeding upon His Body and Blood.  We feast by believing and coming as Jesus states in John 6:35. “And Jesus said unto them, I am the Bread of Life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”  Eternal Life is only found in the Son of God as Peter testifies in Vs 68-69.  We feast upon Him, upon the only adequate One, the Only Body sufficient to suffer and die for our sins, by coming to Him and believing in Him and that continually and constantly.
        The second item in the Ark was the tablets of stone upon which God had written His Law, the expression of His Will and Righteousness.  Deuteronomy 31:26 is very significant in understanding the tablets place in the “testimony”.  “Take this book of the Law, and put it inside of the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD your God, THAT IT MAY BE THERE FOR A WITNESS AGAINST THEE.”.  It is that Witness that prefaces our text in this study.  We will be doing a “flyover” of Matthew 3-6 in coming studies.  This will be only an outline that I pray you will prayerfully use to dig deeper into this text.  This text is Jesus Witness that He Alone can turn the “against us” witness into the  “Dwelling with us” witness of 21:3.
        We begin with Matthew 3, John the Baptist and his ministry as Christ’s forerunner.  John didn’t come to preach “revival sermons”.  He came to call the nation of Israel to repentance, repentance because “all that the LORD says” they did not do! (Exodus 19:8) As the natural seed of Abraham, they forsook the faith of Abraham and became idolatrous and adulterous in the very face of the God Who “bore you on eagles wings, and BROUGHT YOU UNTO MYSELF.” (Exodus 19:4) John was calling out the testimony of the Ark of the Covenant against the nation, as the final Old Testament Prophet.  He was the last prophet to proclaim the failure of the Old Covenant because the physical seed of Abraham had not a heart with which to love the Lord their God with all their hearts, minds and spirits.  Matthew 3 contains three types of hearers to John’s message:
        1) The truly repentant (however many were temporarily repentant) “and were baptized of Him in Jordan, confessing their sins.” Vs 5   I am thinking that their being plunged into the water at that time was a testimony that the penalty they deserve is death.
        2) The self righteous, the Pharisees & Sadducees, who believed they had fulfilled God’s Law–as they interpreted it.  “O generation of vipers” is Johns’ way of saying they were of their father, the Devil!  Vs 7-10
        3) The Righteous One   “And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for it becometh us to fulfill all Righteousness.”  Vs 15  

        And then comes the testimony, the display of the New Covenant that God would make with His people, spoken of in Jeremiah 31:31-35, a covenant that is sure and sealed upon Jesus coming up out of the water.  This covenant is between the Father and His Incarnate Son.  And He proclaims that by the Spirit’s descending upon Christ’s head and then with His Glorious proclamation.  Remember, this is happening to the man who is standing before John’s eyes.  The Father says of this Man, “This is My Beloved Son in Whom I Am Well Pleased.”  Here is the Only Man Who is Righteous and Holy.  Here is the only Man Who truly can say, “I  delight to do Thy Will O God , Thy Law is within My Heart.” (Psalm 40::8)  And in this symbol of baptism, with it’s proclamation that death is necessary for falling short of God’s Righteousness, but unlike the repentant ones in Vs 5, the Holy Spirit of Life descends upon Jesus.  And in that anointing, in that coming up out of the water, is the testament of that Power of Life (Ephesians 1:18-20)  that the Father worked in the Son when He raised Him from the dead, for all who believe in the Son.   In that moment, through the Father’s proclamation, the Testimony in the Ark is no longer “against us”,  it is now “for us”, for if God be for us (in and through His Son) who can be against us? (Hebrews 13:6)   All that remains is the “cutting of the covenant” at the cross, following this proclamation of the covenant, just as the “cutting vision” followed God’s proclamation of the Seed promise unto Abraham.  Next time, Matthew 4.


8/24/2020                                                               Revelation 21:3   Part 3
                                                                “Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men”

        Admit it or not, “distance” is the defining word of our relationship with God on this fallen world!  Oh yes, we have our “moments” of fellowship, our “times” of glorious communion, but we can’t maintain them for very long.  This fallen world intrudes, our fleshly inadequacies intrude, “necessary things” intrude!  The Book of Psalms so honestly expresses this distance, this frustration.  Ps. 22:1  “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?  Why art Thou so far from helping me?”  27:9 “Hide not Thy Face from me”.  71:12 “O God, be not far from me, make haste for my help.”  We cling by faith to the hope in His Reply, and He does Answer.  But this distance, this sense of “alone-ness”   returns, and with it the Faith struggle that is ever our companion on this fallen earth.     
        But Revelation puts an end to that distance!  The tabernacle in the wilderness was the testimony, the declaration of everything that was necessary to bring us to this Glorious Eternal Dwelling of God as His Adopted Children.  And it is by His “dwelling” with men, His Presence in and with His people, that He will bring about the praise to the Glories of His Grace among the principalities and powers in heavenly places.  But that is then, and we live in the here and now.  Is this not just “pie in the sky”?  No, no, it is the marvel of Scripture, the declaration of the Most High God, that in and by belief--faith in His Word, that our vision in the here and now is changed by the Living Hope found in that Declaration, in the Hope and Power of the Resurrection. (Ephesians 1:19-20) Romans 5:1-5 states that by the Justifying Righteousness of our Jesus, we now stand in the Grace of God and therefore we are to rejoice in the Hope of the (ultimate) Glory of God.  This Hope will not deceive us, it will not leave us ashamed, BECAUSE THE LOVE OF GOD IS SHED ABROAD IN OUR HEARTS!!!  We have the continual ministry of the Holy Spirit of God, the Love of God, ever assuring us that we are the children of God.  And the more we grow in awareness of His ministry of Love, the more we long for our Eternal Home!!!  And in this increased anticipation is our growing peace and joy, even in tribulation.  And in the increasing grip of faith upon this Eternal Hope, our grip on the things of this fallen world is loosened! 
        But to return to that tabernacle, that glorious tent with it’s Holy place, speaking of our current condition, needing our candles continually filled with oil, our wicks trimmed, and our desperate need for fresh bread to make it from Sabbath to Sabbath.  And with it’s emblems, there is the assurance of the Delivering God that His Supply is always available in our wanderings.   And then there is the Holy of Holies, pointing to our blessed passage before us in Revelation 21, all of it surrounded by the ministry of angels, (Hebrews 1:14) woven into the curtains, hovering over the Golden Display, the Testimony of our Perfect Jesus, the God/Man, the One Who alone, through His Justifying Sacrifice, can bring us into this Eternal Holy of Holies, there to LIVE in the uninterrupted Presence of His Father.  (Ephesians 3:3-12)  I think it is the lack of continual feasting on the Testimony of that Golden Box that explains the fear and unbelief that pervades the professing people of God today.
        Consider briefly the Glorious Contents of our Blessed Hope.  First of all, the pot of manna.  Without going into it’s history of sustaining Israel in their wilderness wanderings, consider our Lord’s words in John 6.  “Then Jesus said unto them, Moses gave you not the bread from heaven: but my Father giveth you the TRUE BREAD FROM HEAVEN.  For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world.” Vs 32-33 “And Jesus said unto them, I am the Bread of Life, He that cometh unto me shall never hunger, he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”  Vs 35  And what does Jesus say we are to do with this Glorious Meal? “Then Jesus said unto them, ....Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood ye have no life in you.  Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood hath Eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed.  He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.”
         Jesus didn’t come so we could do better!  He didn’t come to give us His Spirit to properly “energize our flesh” so that we could please the Father a little bit better.  No!  He came to be the Man, the only Human, that God could and would accept as Righteous into His Presence!!!  And our part is to continually feast on Him, believe in Him Whom He has Sent to the radical point of being one with and in Him! (John 6:29) We are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10).  We are to enter the Holy Presence of our Heavenly Father, even now by the Blood of Jesus, by a NEW AND LIVING WAY, which He consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, HIS FLESH.” (10:19-20)  Remember Paul’s indictment of our flesh in Romans 7:18?  “For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dewlleth no good thing.”  Our flesh was typified by the veil separating the Holy place and the Holy of Holies.  Until Jesus, that curtain said, "sorry, you can't get there from here!"   It took the Father’s preparation of a Flesh, a Perfect Body as stated in Hebrews 10:4-5, and the “tearing of that Flesh” that alone could take away sin and give us eternal access into the Presence of the Most High God.  That Perfect Body is ever in the Holy of Holies, the Presence of the Father and He alone is the assurance of our continual access into that Presence.(Hebrews 7:25)  So lay aside your attempts to “do better”. Quit beating yourself up for your failures–for you are bound to fail.  Fix your eyes steadfastly on The Man, the only Bread that can sustain Eternal Life–by faith now and in reality in Eternity.  Learn to live incessantly at the foot of the Throne of Grace!  Scripture repeatedly says and implies that , “the Just shall live by faith.”  It is this “faith focus” that results in “faith behavior”, for as Peter says, “According as His Divine Power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM THAT HATH CALLED US TO GLORY AND VIRTUE.”  Beloved, feast on Jesus!!!  Come to Jesus and you will never hunger, believe on Jesus and you will never thirst.  (John 6:35)  

Next time, the tablets of the Law and Aaron’s rod that blossomed.
 



8/19/2020                                                      Revelation 21:3 Part 2
                                                                 The Tabernacle of God is with men.

        In our last study, we took a look at the “Cliff Notes” of the interpretation and application of this verse, seeking to contrast God’s “faith indwelling” in the here and now, with His Real Presence with His Chosen People in Eternity in that New Jerusalem, in the new heavens and the new earth.  This is the actual fulfilment of our inheritance in Christ Jesus.  This is the culmination of our being brought to the Father in and by His incredible Will and Purpose in His Beloved Son.  In other words, this is the fulfilment of John 14 and Ephesians 1.  But there is so much more as to God’s working this out in this old world’s history in a single word.  That word is “Tabernacle”.
        Unfortunately, the contemporary translations have chosen to put some form of interpretation in the place of the actual word tabernacle.  While their “meaning” is correct, it clouds the incredible thread of God’s working through the ages to bring us to that “Dwelling Place”.  Tabernacle is one of those words that are repetitive throughout Scripture.  Jerusalem is one, altar is another–there are many.  They are not just themes that make interesting study, they are God’s GPS, the Predetermined Route of God’s Providential Sovereignty whereby He displays the path of His Glorious Grace before the principalities and powers in heaven and earth. To replace them with “interpretations”, while well meaning and may be helpful during the “first works” of our salvation, to do so is akin to tearing down the monuments to our historical continuum. Bear with me as I explore this blessed “for instance.”
        For the sake of accuracy and veracity, I must give you a bit from Strong’s Concordance: #4633 (skene’)– #1. tent, tabernacle, (made of green boughs, or skins or other materials) #2. Of that well known movable temple of God after the pattern of which the temple at Jerusalem was built.  KJV translation – tabernacle (19x), habitation (1x) Thayer’s Greek Lexicon adds a bit more: From the root, ska “to cover”, a tent or tabernacle.  The name is transferred to heaven, as the true dwelling-place of God and the prototype of the earthly “tabernacle’ or sanctuary in Hebrews 9:11.
        Why be so picky, after all “what’s in it for us”.  Unfortunately, that is our attitude today about most of Scripture.  We have a “me centered” instead of an “AWE centered” faith. Revelation is the culmination of the REVELATION that our God has displayed throughout the ages, the history of this earth.  We should be in AWE to be a tiny part of that incredible LOVE that has spanned the ages to redeem a Bride for God’s Heavenly Isaac!!!
It is in this “tabernacle” that God displays His Love for His Adopted Children in displaying the beauty and perfections of His Son!!!  I will only consider a few items in this tent, given time & space, but most of all my limited understanding!  This tabernacle was the place of God’s communication and communion with the earthly people that “I bare you on eagles wings and brought you to Myself.” (Exodus 19:4)  In Exodus 25:22, after the command of gifts the people were to bring and the basic outline of the tabernacle, we read “And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony.....”  Everything was dedicated unto God by blood, & into the Holiest Place, the high priest went once a year & sprinkled the Golden Ark, the ark of testimony with blood.  It is this ark we will briefly consider.  I feel here the frustration that I feel in Hebrews 5:11, “of Whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.”  God forgive me for my dullness!
        It is that tabernacle, the materials of it’s construction and it’s furnishings, that proclaim the incredible truth of the Divine Incarnation, God becoming Man in Christ Jesus.  The golden box, the Ark of the Testimony especially proclaims this.  It’s impervious wood covered in gold testify to this miraculous union.  But it is the testimony of the contents of the ark that I wish to look at, for “and in the ark thou shalt put the Testimony that I shall give thee.” (Exodus 25:21) Throughout these instructions, the ark and it’s contents are called, “the testimony”.  May I say that in this glorious “box”, God is giving us His eternal WORD, His Testimony, and that WORD is His Son!!!  (Hebrews 1:1-3) Next time we will look at the emblems of His Testimony and the Son’s taking that theme to Himself.


8/17/2020                                                              Revelation 21:3 Part 1
“And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will Dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and god Himself shall be with them, and be their God.”

        Do you sense the Awsomeness of this verse?  (I am using Awe in it’s fullest, Divinely inspired meaning!)  It is incomprehensible to my earthbound mind that the God of the Throne in chapter 4, can take of an Eternal Dwelling with His chosen creatures.
        Consider this: In this fallen world, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit of Promise, His Guarantee that verses 1 and 2 of this chapter will shortly come to pass.  After the introduction of chapter 1, the preparation of the church in chapters 2-3, the Incredible Vision of the One for Whose Pleasure this was all created in chapter 4, and finally the introduction of His Pleasure, the Triumphant Bloody Lamb in chapter 5, we come to chapters 6-20, the “footstool” portion of John’s vision.  Psalm 110:1  “The LORD said to my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”  This is but a brief “interlude” in the Plan and Will of the Almighty between His pre-proclamation of victory in Chapters 4 & 5 and the Ultimate Goal presented so beautifully in chapters 21 & 22.
But during that “interlude”, the Holy Spirit is Eternity in our hearts, ever there stirring up our prayer connection with our Eternal Father through the Intercession of our High Priest, our Eternal Melchizedek.  As Romans 8 implies, we really don’t have a clue, as fallen yet redeemed humans, how to exercise this prayer connection.  In our fleshly desire and understanding, we spend our prayers explaining in great detail our situation and telling God what He should do.  But as Frederick Dale Bruner has poignantly stated, “Prayer is not an intelligence briefing with God.”   Romans 8:26 kindly says that the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities for we don’t know how to pray as we ought.”  I thank that is being exceedingly kind.  The Spirit, Who is the Mind of Christ, must strip off the many fleshly layers of our concerns and the translate the gibberish of our requests before the Father.  Our wordless groanings, when we are wonderfully at a loss for words, are probably our purest form of prayer!  It is as the Spirit drags us out of the quagmire of our current situation and need into the Throne room of our God’s Sufficiency that we come to peace and rest in the chaos of our present need.  And the One Who is Ever at the Right Hand of the Throne of God is ever ready and able to dispense the exact portion of Mercy an Grace to our present need.  (Hebrews 4:16) But that is in the here and now.
        Verse 3 transcends this faith Indwelling.  We are ushered into the full inheritance of the purchased possession.  All things are made new. (Vs 5) True Intimacy with the Almighty is sealed in the marriage bond of Vs 3.  This is no mere “faith apprehension” of what will be.  This is the shadow statement of Exodus 19:4 on Divine steroids!  He has borne us on angels wings (Hebrews 1:14) and brought us to Himself–there to Dwell with us Eternally!  You see, He is our Inheritance that we have in Christ Jesus.  This is that Glorious truth that his disciples struggled to get hold of.  “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No man comes to the Father but by Me.” (John 14:6)   This is our Jesus’ answered prayer in John 17:24, His High Priestly prayer,  “Father, I desire that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I Am; that they may behold My Glory, which Thou hast given me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.” 
        Notice the double emphasis, an astounding emphasis.  First, the tabernacle, the Dwelling Place of God is with men.  And secondly, “they shall be His People.”  The Thrice Holy God has chosen, and gone to incredible Personal Cost to make this specially prepared group of human beings, His creation, His Dwelling Place!!!  And not just a mere presence that we struggle to see and comprehend by faith, but now in full living reality, we are His people, and He Eternally is our God with all the word God means.  He is ever Present with us and we with Him as His Holy Nation, His family with His Name on our foreheads.  In other words, the Mind of Christ ever motivates us and animates us in the Delight to do His Will.  No more “going to church” language, we will be church in a new reality. This is that holy temple of Ephesians 2:21-22, the “habitation of God through the Spirit.”  This is the display of the Wisdom of God by the church that is the Eternal intent and purpose of God, to display His Wisdom unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places. (Ephesians 3:9-11)  And Gloriously, our “prayers” will all be praise and adoration, for all is fulfilled, all is complete, need as we now know it will be no more.                                                   


8/9/2020                                                                 Revelation 21:2 
        And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

         I shudder with fear as I attempt in my paltry understanding to comment on this most Glorious Vision.  John’s vision, may I say inadequately, is Eternity’s Anticipation.  All of Scripture has been marching to this climax.  This is the answer to the Beloved Son’s prayer in John 17.  This is the completion of the Father’s Will and Purpose in Ephesians.  This is the revelation of he Mystery which has been Hid in God from the beginning of the world. (Ephesians 3:9)  Do I dare?  But I must, my hearts’ desire is here, the Love my God has shed abroad in my heart by His Spirit (Romans 5:5) compels me.
        What a scene Vs 2 evokes in my heart!!  In my hearts’ eye, I see a Glorious Bride walking down the aisle of Heaven, the Eternal Father’s Arm Proudly through hers (for He Alone can be rightly proud at this moment of moments!), she being adorned in the purest, most beautiful linen (such as she never dreamed of in the shop windows of this old world), the eyes of her heart and her head fixed unswervingly on her Glorious Bridegroom, her Beloved Jesus, tears of joy and overwhelming gratitude flowing from her eyes, from her entire being.
And her Bridegroom awaits her, not in some earthly banquet hall, nor even a special cathedral in heaven, but rather He waits in the ultimate expression of His Creative Power and Craftsmanship. He awaits in the place He has promised to prepare for her. (John 14:2-3)  He awaits His Bride upon His Masterful Creative Display, the New Earth, especially prepared for His Eternal Eve!!!
        And there He stands, decked out like no other bridegroom.  His blazingly pure white linen vesture is dipped in blood.  His hands and feet are marred by ugly scars.  But on His Head is placed the ultimate crown, proclaiming the He Is KING of King and LORD of Lords, and in his hand is the most beautiful scepter, studded with the gems of heaven, testifying His Perfect Righteousness.  And His heart is about to explode with the LOVE He has for His costly bride. (Isaiah 53)  
        The heavens and earth erupt with the incredible music of the trumpets and singing of all the angelic hosts, with a new Song so incredibly complete and perfect as to make Mendelssohn and Pachalbel sound like commercial jingles. 

        As we proceed through the rest of this chapter and the next, we will be given greater detail as to this Divine Marriage, and the Glories that this completely unworthy, but most graciously blessed bride inherits.  We shall see the New Earth in a new light–literally- “For the Lord God giveth them light.”  The mystery of this “New Jerusalem” will be unveiled in the light of the Apostles and the Prophets.
        But here I must add some thoughts on Ephesians 5:30-32, “For we are members of His Body, of His Flesh and of His Bones.  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.  This is a great Mystery: but I speak concerning CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.”
All that Paul has stated before, all the “duties” of husband and wives, couched in the terms of Christ’s love for His Church and His Sacrifice for her, all of that has really only one Eternal Purpose, to testify to this coming Wedding, this Wedding Feast of the Lamb.  Husband’s and wive’s, read this with me and tremble!  I fall weepingly short of this testimony.  Because of this picture, I don’t think I can ever officiate at a wedding again.  The responsibility is too great for all concerned.  To take it lightly and to ignore the responsibilities is surely damning.
        Do you see why that old serpent has so attacked this portrait of Christ and His bride?  This is why we have adultery, abortion, pornography, LGBTQIA+, the increasingly vocal outcry to legalize pedophilia, and of course, that which God hates, divorce, and I’m sure many other aberrations that I have missed.  He will do everything he can do to distort, diminish, distract, and destroy every evidence ant testimony to this Grand Love that has been the Father’s goal for the Son from all Eternity.  In this display of the Son’s love for His Bride we are to see the Glorious union that is the Triune God.  Father as One in the Son, the Son in the Father ever bound as One by the Oneness of the Spirit Who is that Love!
        Warning: Remember, though I had to state the negative, Satan’s assault on God’s Eternal Purpose, never forget that the Bride in Eternal Oneness with Her Glorious Groom is the Eternal Will and Purpose of our Eternal God and Father.  It is our Inheritance in Christ Jesus. Neither Satan nor all the hosts of hell can prevail against it!!!  Meditate on this truth until it captivates your foundational thinking.  Follow the verses in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and be blessed.  We will cover some of them as we travel further.  If you care about your soul, make this, your calling and election sure!​


8/6/2020     I wish I was an organized individual.  I wish I could outline a course of study in the Word of God and stick to it.  That has never been my gift.  Our fellowship has been discussing, interacting with the Book of Revelation.  I use those terms because commentaries were for the most part discouraged.  We sought to discuss it in the light of other Scripture.  My previous post, "The Pleasure of the Most High God" grew out of that study.  Anything pertaining to God, coming to Him, communing with Him, is to be Worship.  Hence the need for Melchizedek, our God/Man King/Priest!   Revelation speaks of the ultimate, eternal, unending worship "unto the praise of the glory of His Grace."  And that is why He created all things, and why He will recreated all things by Christ Jesus--it is for His Good Pleasure!!!   And that is why creation is a big deal throughout scripture.  God is to be worshiped eternally by New Creations (the redeemed, the church) on a New Earth and New Heavens before the principalities and powers in heavenly places, displaying to them the manifold wisdom of God.  Ephesians 3:8-10
Hence this post on a new heavens and a new earth.  Others will follow on each verse of Revelation 21.

                Revelation 21: Entering into the ultimate fulfillment of our inheritance in Christ Jesus

1:1 An I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and there was no more sea.

        John wasn’t seeing a “new” revelation here.  He was seeing the fulfillment of a long anticipated promise to the faithful in Christ Jesus.  We see it clearly stated in Isaiah 65:17.  Some call this the “millennium passage” & expect this for a thousand years on this old earth.  That is indeed a “short sighted” viewpoint.  Isaiah 65 opens with the mysterious “I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by My Name. 
What follows is a condemnation of the nation that was supposed to be called by His Name, the nation that instead became known for their idolatrous “affairs” with the gods of the nations they were supposed to destroy.  But in vs 13 the theme returns to the people who “sought Me not” who are here spoken of as his servants.  In vs 15 “and ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call His servants by another name.”  
        And it is for these chosen, these people of another name who are to inherit the newly created heaven and earth described in vs 17-25.  Vs 17 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: for the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind.”  No mere millennial reign of a thousand years, but for an eternity of peace, righteousness, and joy in the Holy Ghost as Paul describes it in Romans 14:17.  And that name is His church, His bride, the Mystery of which Paul speaks in Ephesians 3:8-11, a bride made up of Jew and Gentile by faith, the seed of the faith of Abraham.
        This then is the world that Peter points us to: 2 Peter 3:13  “Nevertheless we, according to His Promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth, wherein Righteousness dwells.”  Peter, in vs 7, seems to give the indication that this old world, by the Word of God that brought the deluge on the earth in the days of Noah, by that same Word this world is kept in storage until the day of His Wrath in it’s fiery destruction.  This world in the here and now is kind of God’s “Storage Mart”, and you don’t get the first month’s rent free!  Don’t hold on too tightly to this old world, you might get burned.
        This is the world that all creation has been suffering birth pains for. (Romans 8:22-23).  Creation was to be under subjection to man (Genesis 1:26), but instead has been subjected to the futility of death, (Rom 8:20) because of man’s sin.  All creation has been waiting for the “deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”  Vs 23 implies that this liberty is the redemption of our bodies in our new creation in the New Heavens & the New Earth.  This gives us a broad hint that this old earth is but a polluted shadow of what is to come!
        Note carefully that in Hebrews 1:2, the Son is introduced as the Appointed Heir of all things and the One by Whom the Father made the worlds.  If the worlds are to be melted by a fervent heat, as Peter promises, and are now subjected to futility as Romans 8 says, what is The Son going to inherit?   Hebrews 2:5: “For unto the angels has He not put in subjection the world of which we speak.” God’s Will and Purpose, according to vs 6-8, was that all creation was to be put under man’s feet, the “dominion” of Genesis 1:26.  But in vs 8b, “But now, we see not yet all things put under Him.”  And that is the chaos we live in now because man has abdicated his rightful role as creation’s caretaker in his rebellious lust to be as God.  But then Vs 9–“But we see Jesus”.  We see the Heir and Creator, our Hope.  What follows is the testament of His doing His Father’s Will to gain the Inheritance of the heavens and earth inhabited by His Redeemed Bride by the sacrifice of Himself as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Rev 13:8)
        Let’s not forget that this old earth has never been the planned inheritance of the Son nor His children (Heb 2:13). Again in Hebrews 1 we read, “And, Thou Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they shall wax old as does a garment; and as a vesture (an old garment with holes) shall thou fold them up; and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail”.  This old world isn’t even the low rent district!
“There was no more sea.”  I saw a computer generated animation of the separation of the continents by the Lord breaking open the “fountains of the great deep” in the great flood.  Those waters became a great separation of cultures, language, philosophy, religion, etc.  They rule & divide to this day.  No such division on the New Earth.  All will be One in the Lord in answer to the Creator/Redeemer’s prayer in John 17:20-26.

I’ve heard it warned that Christians can become so heavenly minded that they become of no earthly good.  That is hardly a danger.  Our problem is not being New heavenly and New earthly enough.  It is this Blessed Hope in Christ Jesus that is the Spirit’s motivating factor, 21:7 “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.”  And I might add, this is the eternal inheritance that is ours in Christ Jesus.  

7/10/2020                                            The Pleasure of the Most High God

          In my thinking regarding Melchizedek, I hit a “pause”, a feeling of that I was missing something crucial in my understanding of God’s Revelation of His Glorious King/Priest.  Our little fellowship is studying Revelation on Wednesday nights, and I’ve felt the same “pause” there also.  In my time this morning of meditation with my Lord, some things seemed to “gel”.  Consider with me:
          Because we are so finite and still in the bodies of this death, we tend to start with ourselves in understanding the Word of God.  I have been convicted of late that I need to seek the Lord in all of scripture as to His Mind and Will in all things scriptural and practical.  I am so fleshly that I am a terribly slow learner.  But in reading through Revelation this morning, I was struck with the Key to the whole book, and I humbly submit, the Key to all of scripture, and furthermore, the Key to all “human history” as found in the book of Revelation 4, the Throne Room Worship scene, and specifically the Ultimate Worship Praise from the lips of the twenty four elders, “Thou art worthy , O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for Thou hast created all things, AND FOR THY PLEASURE THEY ARE AND WERE CREATED.”
          This scene, with the four beasts exemplifying all of creation, as per Romans 8:19-21, and the twenty four elders exemplifying all of the redeemed from the earth, is the ultimate purpose of all creation, from fall to the glorious testimony of the new heaven and new earth in Revelation 21-22, “FOR THY PLEASURE THEY ARE AND WERE CREATED.”   The purpose is the Father’s Pleasure!!!  Keep that in the forefront of your mind!
          Now consider John’s sadness and his weeping in 5:5, “because NO MAN WAS FOUND WORTHY to open and read the book of human history and God’s Purpose, and note, “neither to look thereon”.  Therein lies the meaning and purpose of the Old Testament and it’s stated “search”.  Job’s query in Job 9:32-33 for a mediator that might lay his hand man and God.  And then there is God’s “search” in Isaiah 50:2 and 59:16, and his conclusion, “and He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor.”  And then comes Glory in Revelation 5:5-14 and the revealing of the Lamb that was slain and had redeemed all the worshipers!!!  And note the Glorious Worship that follows in Vs 13-14.  The Worship to the One Who sits on the throne is extended to this bloody Lamb for ever and ever.  
          For therein, in this Lamb, is the Father’s Eternal Pleasure.  And this Incredible Truth is plainly declared in two events.  The first is Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3:13-17, esp vs 17, “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED.”  This was the Father’s proclamation that the man who stood before them, just come out of the water full of meaning to those who believe, this is the Man that is the Father’s pleasure, this Man satisfies the frustrated search of the Old Testament.  
          But wait! There is more!  Matthew 17:1 adds to this Glorious Satisfaction.  The Lord takes Peter, James, and John up into a high mountain, and is “transfigured” before them.  The picture painted in 17:2 transcends mere humanness!  And then Jesus is speaking with Moses and Elijah, the two most significant figures in the OT, speaking for the Law and the prophets, both who manifested feet of clay testifying that the Law and the prophets left them (and all humanity) searching!  And after Peter’s impulsive fleshlyness, “behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, “THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM PLEASED; HEAR YE HIM.”  And herein the Father declares that His Pleasure is ONLY found in His beloved Son Who is both inseparably Man and God.
          Now note Hebrews 1:2-3.  The Father told us on the Mount of Transfiguration to hear His Beloved Son.  Hebrews amplifies that with, God has “in these last days spoken unto us by His (Beloved) Son, Who is all His Pleasure.  His Son is His Heir and the One by Whom He created all things.  And in vs 3, after declaring the Son’s Character as His Own, He declares his redemptive work as the Lamb perfectly finished, and where does this Son/Man/Image sit? In the Throne Room of Worship that we started with in Revelation 4 & 5.  The rest of Revelation is the outworking of the Father’s Pleasure through the redemptive work of His Beloved Son.  Hebrews declares fulfilling of the Father’s Will by the Eternal High Priest necessary to bring us into that into that Glorious Eternal Fellowship in the Throne Room of God.  Our Melchisidek is the Man of Job’s desire, the Man of God’s “search” in Isaiah.  Hebrews 10 declares that our rightful place, by faith, is in that Incredible Worship service of Revelation 4-5, “by a new and Living Way” paved for us by the blood of the Lamb and the Body prepared for Him by His Father.  And all of this is for the Father’s Pleasure in His Beloved Son and our part is the Eternal Praise and Worship in the Throne Room of the Father and the Son enveloped by the Sevenfold Spirit of God.  Were it not for our Melchizedek, the Apostle John would still be weeping!!!

​5/10/20   There are several more Melchizedek studies in the blog.  Consider especially the latest, "Its all about the Body of the Righteous Man".
​ 
4/19/20  Please note there are two more posts in the blog on the continuing consideration of our Melchizedek.  The truth of Melchizedek isn't "another doctrinal consideration" to add to the many pages of our theology.  Everything that God has promised to the Believing children of God is wrapped up in this revelation in Scripture of Melchizedek!

4/10/2020  The traditional Easter "season" is upon us. "Please consider Our Melchizedek & His Resurrection" in the "In the Son of His Love" blog.  Please consider the other "Melchizedekian" posts to fill out the context of this post.  More to follow.  Glorious Resurrection to you!

4/4/2020  It has been a long time since I have worked on this site.  What a year it has been.  And now even more of an adventure with the pandemic fear of Covid-19.  Be of good cheer, our God is not surprised.  Nothing is outside of the operation of His Loving Sovereignty.  All things do indeed work together for Good to those who are the called according to His Purpose.  You find His Will and Purpose spelled out in Ephesians 1.
     Having said all of that, I wish to take note of the movement of the "topic heads" under the cross scene.  The blog, In The Son of His Love is now next to this home page.  Lord willing, I will be posting to the blog frequently. Check there each time you open this sight. 


"Sin is so loathsome in the sight of God, a stench to his Nostrils, yet men think it beautiful!" (Edward Samuel)  And we are so used to it that it requires the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth to peel back the "skin" of our fleshly comfort, and to show us sin as God sees it.  Legalism will not suffice, it only creates a thicker skin--the skin of pride & self satisfaction!

4/4/2019   Consider "Grand Theft Blessings" in the blog

3/14/2019  New blog post, "Tamar".  It's time for us to get off our religious high horse! 

What if, when you woke up tomorrow, the only things you had were what you thanked God for yesterday??  "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you."  1 Thessalonians 5:18

3/3/2019  New post:  A different "take" on Growth in Grace.
​2/27/2019  New post in the blog--"God isn't into retreads."

2/15/2019  "The Gospel of the Resurrection Preached in Isaac's Sacrifice."   This is the final installment of the "rabbit trail" provoked by our Galatians study.  God only has one Gospel, both in the OT and the NT.  Jesus, the Son of His Love, IS THE GOSPEL!!!  No man comes to the Father, but by Him!!! (John 14:6-11)  Jesus is the Narrow Way to the Father, but He has spilled a wide path of His Blood for repentant sinners of all ages to come into the Presence of God Eternally!!!  (Hebrews 10)  "  "This is the Work of God, that you believe on Him Whom He has sent." (John 6:29)

2/15/2019  Genesis 17 & Philippians 3:3  The Gospel in the Mark of Circumcision   Here we explore this physical sign of the physical people and see it's slide into little more than a bloody "religious" surgery that became a physical mark of racial pride & prejudice!  The physical mark became a religious mask of a uncircumcised heart!

2/11/2019  Genesis 15:17-21  The Gospel in God's cutting the covenant with Abraham.  I believe that here we see a very comprehensive shadow gospel of our Lord's sacrifice for the sins of His people.  Please consider that all of this predated the sacrificial worship of the Old Covenant and pointed to the Seed of Abraham , the sacrifice prepared by God, as the only adequate Sacrifice that God Most High Could and Would accept!  

2/9/19  Please consider two installments in the Galatians study.  They are part of a bit of a rabbit trail centered upon Galatians 3:8, the Gospel preached beforehand to Abraham.  First of all, Melchizedek!  This "digression" is central to Paul's argument against the Judaizers that were seducing the Galatians.  His premise is that the Gospel of the Grace of God predates the giving of the Law just as faith predates circumcision.  It's all part of a "package"!  The Law & it's circumcision & observances was a parenthesis between God's Covenant of Promise given to Abraham and the coming of the Seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:15-18) Who is the Christ!

1/29/2019   A new post in "In the Son of His Love" blog.  Heart Surgery!

12/25/2018   Whether "Christmas" is your thing or not never forget the historical event that it purports to celebrate.  Consider "Merry Humiliation Day" (blog post) and bask in the Peace & Righteousness of the Son of God's Love who was made like sinful human flesh for us.  An old saint said, and I paraphrase, "the Incarnation of Deity into human flesh is so much incomparably more than if a star should become a clod!"

12/19/2018  Bearing in our bodies the dying or or Lord Jesus Christ, from 2 Cor. 4:10  A new post in "In the Son of His Love" blog.  Been thinking of this theme as I face open heart surgery.  "That I may know Him and the Power of His Resurrection (Ephesians 1:19-20)' & the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable to His death"'

12/16/2018   For your Christmas meditation, please consider "Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ."   This was provoked by 2 Corinthians 3:18 and I pray that it is an antidote to the infection of materialism that engulfs this season.  Yeah, I know, A.W. Pink didn't believe in celebrating Christmas, but don't lose the Blessing of the Glory of God in someone elses theological opinion.  Romans 14:1-8

"The key that unlocks the door of the understanding of the great purposes of God concerning humanity is to be found in Eden's Garden, the threshold of all human history.  The Key is the Seed, the Messiah Christ, promised by God at the fall of man.  Using this key, human history becomes a beautiful pattern revealing the Will of God being unfolded in ever increasing grandeur, and not a jumbled maze of unrelated incidents.  This key unlocks the mystery of His Will concerning Time and Eternity.  TIME IS ONLY A FLEETING INCIDENT OF ETERNITY,"  
From  A New Heaven and a New Earth by Archibald Hughes published in 1958, sadly long out of print.

9/22/2018  I believe that we spend way too much time trying to figure out what God wants us to do and not nearly enough time prayerfully considering what He Has Already Done!!!  While the Gospel preached to Abraham is summarized in, "in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed", the the "Visitations of the Lord" to Abraham prefigure what God will Do to fulfill His Promise.  And that is the Gospel!  And that Gospel is His Display of His Glorious Son for our redemption.  We could say that HE, GOD'S BELOVED SON, IS WHAT GOD HAS DONE!!!
​Part 2, "The Emblems of the Covenant".

5/15/2018  Galatians 1:6-9  Paul's Gospel of the Grace of God Alone!
5/13/2018  We begin a new study on Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.  It seems like the contemporary church is about everything except the One Whom the Father has sent! (John 6:27)  We have added so many "things" to Jesus that we don't even know the MAN God sent, His Eternal Son come in our flesh, that we might have Life in His Name.  If we add ANYTHING to Christ, we un-Christ Him.  That is Paul's warning in this needful book!

   I have included a brief study on "Thoughts on the Kingdom of God".  Huge systems of theology have been built upon view of the Kingdom of God.   This brief treatment does not espouse any "system", but is merely a consideration of themes in our Lord and His Apostles teaching.  Prayerfully consider them and search the Scriptures to see if they are so.

          We have spent so much time and effort trying to bring our humanity as a sacrifice worthy of God’s acceptance that we have failed to see that the only Humanity that God will accept, is our God/Man Jesus!  (Hebrews 10, John 6:29)

​1/6/2018   There is a new post in The son of his love blog.  "Making bricks without straw".  I'm sure it is controversial, but that is not my purpose.  The church doesn't seem to be about knowing the Father through the Son as John says in John 17:3 & I John 5:20, and yet that is the very essence of Eternal Life!  The church seems to be about itself, defined by the here and now.  That is an eternally deadly mistake!

12/19/2017  Perhaps it is fitting that I offer you the last of The Application of the body of Christ/The Book of Revelation just a few short days before Christmas, the celebration of the Incarnation.  For it seems that the Incarnation finds its complete fulfillment, in the Fathers' Purpose and Will, in the application of the Ascended Victorious Head of the Body in His Body left on the earth through the Indwelling of His Promise, His Holy Spirit.  It is by this ministry that Christ, the True Image of God in man (Hebrews 1:2-3) is "fleshed out" in His Body left on this earth.  This is an embarrassingly brief overview of Revelation, but my purpose is to provoke individual pondering and meditation on this glorious book of comfort.  We have been content with the "expositions" of other way too long!

12/4/2017  Part 9  The Application of the Body of Christ. Ephesians 4:9-32  "That He might fill all things"  The church is Christ's body!  He has not left His body on the earth to a bunch of humans, redeemed though they be, to try to figure how best to do His "work" for Him!  This underlying mindset has plagued the church for centuries and is rampant today/  No, Christ is the Fullness of the Godhead and we are complete only in Him! (Col. 2:9-10)  He is the Fullness, and He does the filling!  This is the Father's Will.

11/28/17  Part 8  The Application of the Body of Christ.  I Cor. 12:12-31  "So also The Christ".   We see in this study, the incredible union of Christ with His people.  Scripture never sees Christ Jesus separate from His people.  He hasn't gone to the Right Hand of the Father and left the church here to be His "hands and feet".  No, no!  The church is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:23) He is the Head, and as in the physical body, all movement and function depends upon the "signals" that the brain sends to the members!  The Body of Christ only functions as the Body of Christ when the Mind of Christ is the source of all "movement" and behavior!!!  (Phil. 2:1-11)  "Let this mind be in you" is not a mere suggestion!!  It is the criterion by which we measure the Holy Spirit's practical setting apart His people from the futility of mind they once operated out of. (Eph. 4:17-19)  Notice the "mind" message of Romans 12:3-21.

11/19/2017  Part 7  The Application of the Body of Christ.  I Corinthians 12  The Manifestation of the Holy Spirit

11/9/2017  Part 6  The Application of the Body of Christ.  Ephesians 4:7-8/Psalm 68:17-18  God's Purpose must determine our purpose, God's Will must be our will.  The validity of our "gift and giftedness" is only determined by one manifestation:  is that gift bringing about the "unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect (mature) man, to the MEASUREMENT OF THE STATURE OF THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST." (Eph 4:14)  No other measurement is allowed in the Kingdom of the Son of His Love!  

I feel led to emphasize a portion of the Relational Theology study.  I needed it desperately this morning.  Perhaps you do too!  click on this:  The Spirit's Work in the Inner Man

10/30/2017  Part 5  The Application of the Body of Christ.  Ephesians 4:1-6

10/22/17  Part 4  The Application of the Body of Christ.  Ephesians 4/Romans 8:28-30

10/15/17  Part 3  The Application of the Body of Christ.  The "mathematics" of our Spiritual growth.

​10/10/17  Part 2 The Application of the Body of Christ.  A beginning look at the "means" the Holy Spirit uses in bringing His people into the "stature of the fullness of Christ."

10/3/2017  "The Role of the Holy Spirit" in the application of the Body of Christ.  This is the beginning point of the application of the Body of Christ, the guarantee that He Who began a Good Work in us will perform it until the day of Christ! (Philippians 1:6)

10/2/2017  A new addition to the Body of Christ study.  This is a most important, or maybe I should say, the most important part of this study, The Perfection of the Body of Christ.  Apart from this Truth, there is no salvation for sinners!

8/13/17   We begin a new series of studies on the Body of Christ.  I know the first thought that comes to mind with the use of that phrase is the church.  But the Biblical meaning is far broader, or maybe I should say, more specific.  I am speaking of the Body of the God Man.  Eventually, we will look at the church, the Body of Christ, but there is a lot to cover regarding the Word Made Flesh before we get to that truth.

8/8/17  There is a new post in the blog, "in the son of his love".  I've been away from this site for a while as the LORD drills into my heart more of His Grace and Mercy.  As the hymn says, "O to Grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be."

 3/10/17  "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the Seed of David, was raised from the dead, ACCORDING TO MY GOSPEL." II Timothy 2:18  The final study in our consideration of the Power of the Gospel is now complete.  Part 11 "From Faith to Faith."

3/5/17    Part 9: The Gospel is the Power of God to  Everyone Who Believes.   Part 10:  In It the Righteousness of God is Revealed.

​2/14/17  Part 8 of the Gospel study is available.  Part 8:  Time is but a fleeting incident in Eternity.
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1/29/2017  Part 7 of the studies on the Gospel:  Present Tense Salvation--This is a test.  We explore the reason and needfulness of trial and tribulation for the people of God.

1/22/17  Two more studies on the Gospel:  The Gospel is unto salvation/in the Present Tense; and The Gospel in the Present Tense/Who is your Keeper

God's so called "delays", that is when He doesn't answer prayer or act on our time table, are God's Divine "poultice" laid on the lacerations of our souls.  They are perfectly prepared and applied to "draw out" the infections of our fallenness, that earthly "pus" that borders on gangrene, that would destroy the Eternal Focus of the New Man in Christ Jesus--if that were possible.  Peter says we, "are kept by the Power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." (I Peter 1:5)  "Delays" are part of that "Keeping Power".

Happy New Year!  Start your new year by considering Present Tense Salvation, a new addition to the study of  the Power of the Gospel, Romans 1:16-17.  When I start a study, I never know where it might lead.  Scripture is so interwoven that its many "rabbit trails" are filled with insights to the Glory of God.  That is true here as this study looks at I Peter chapter 1.

Merry Christmas to all!  As many celebrate the "trappings" of Christ's birth and forget the Christ of the Birth, take a moment to contemplate the Reason for the Season, the Real Design of God for this Magnificent Birth and the Glories that Eternally follow it.  Click on "God's Glorious Hybrid".

12/11/16  The Gospel--It is unto Salvation, and it is from Eternity!
12/5/2016  The Gospel--It is the Power of God!!!
11/27/2016  We begin a new study, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the first two studies are found under "Romans 1:16-17 at the top of this page.  You will also note that "Mystery of Godliness  I Timothy 3:16" has also been moved to the top of the page.  The study of Ephesians and of Hebrews may be found under "more".  If you haven't explored "Mystery of Godliness", I encourage you to do so as it was the "inspiration" for the "Gospel" study.

10/4/2016  A new blog post: Unbelief, the measure of our futility and fear.
8/29/2016  A new blog post:  God Is His Word!
​8/13/2016  A new blog post:  The Ultimate Evil!


7/11/2016  Mystery of Godliness--Part 14  Worshiping God in the Spirit   Part 2
7/8/2016  Mystery of Godliness--Part 13  The Behavior of Belief, Worship God in the Spirit.
6/27/2016  Mystery of Godliness--Part 12  The Behavior of Belief!  Believing is Seeing!!!
6/22/2016  Mystery of Godliness--Part 11  Received up to Glory  Part 2  Our Victorious King/Priest Ruling and Reigning right now in the midst of His enemies!!!
6/13/2016   "A Father's Hand"--On adversity.  Beautiful comfort for the afflicted.  Author unknown.
6/12/2016  Mystery of Godliness--Part 10  Received up to Glory.  Here is the anchor of our Eternal Hope!
6/5/2016  Part 9 in the Mystery of Godliness.  The Apostolic commission and the Great Commandment!
5/29/2016  A most crucial study has been added to the Mystery of Godliness series.  Part 8: Preached among the Gentiles; the Preachers, the Apostles.  There is much ignorance in the church about the pivotal role of these Chosen Witnesses.  Their part in the plan of God was unique, foundational, and never to be repeated!
5/22/2016  Two more studies in The Mystery of Godliness are now up:  Seen of Angels-Part 2; and Preached among the Gentiles.
5/8/2016  The Mystery of Godliness part 5:  Seen by Angels--The Cherubim.  God's will, purpose, and plan is far broader than "just" the salvation of sinful man.  I am not minimizing that truth of course, but I think it needs to be placed in the context of the Father's Will as stated in Ephesians 1:10, "That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth--in Him!!!
5/1/2016  The Mystery of Godliness part 4: Justified in the Spirit.  God's verification that Jesus is God come in the flesh.  The operation of the Holy Spirit in the Son of Man.
4/24/2016  The Mystery of Godliness: part 3  God Come in the Flesh.  Without this Truth, there is no Christianity.  Please consider carefully and prayerfully.
4/19/2016  A new post in the blog, "The Heir of all things."
​4/17/2016  The first two studies of, The Mystery of Godliness--I Timothy 3:16, is under the "more" section.  How can a human, dead in trespasses in sin, one who does not seek after God, ever be godly?  It is a wonderful, Divine Mystery, revealed in our Glorious Jesus.  
4/5/2016  In this “temporary life”, we spend most of our “temporary time” concerned with “temporary” issues.  Many are necessary because of our “temporariness”.  Satan’s lie, however, is to lead us to believe that the temporary is lasting and thereby he traps us into the pursuit and maintenance of the temporary with little thought of the Eternal.
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3/5/2016  We have spent so much time and effort, trying to bring our humanity as a sacrifice worthy of God's acceptance (whether our great victory over sin, or our great service for Jesus, or our "utmost for His highest"), that we have failed to see that the Only Humanity that God will accept is our God/Man, Jesus.  This is the message of Hebrews 10 and the message well nigh forgotten in this age of the humanistic church.  In Him dwells All the Fullness of the Godhead bodily and we are complete Only In Him!!! (Colossians 2:9-10)

2/9/2016  "God is not our God but in and through Jesus Christ.   God will not show mercy to thousands, nor unto one of all the thousands of His saints, but as they are in Jesus Christ.  God will not give us long life here, or Eternal Life hereafter, but in, for, and through the Lord Jesus Christ."  Isaac Ambrose
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1/25/2016  A new/old post in the blog, Worship is Life, Revisited

1/5/2016  There is a new post in the blog and an accompanying study, The Resurrection, the Power of the Gospel. Note:  This isn't an Easter meditation.  This isn't about Easter, it is about our Jesus and our salvation.  Without it, we are dead in our sins.  The study is for the most part,  merely the Apostles words in the book of Acts.  The contemporary church needs to seriously consider this.  It's gospel has lost it's power, or perhaps, never had much!

1/4/2016  The master of evil is pulling out the stops of his desperation--his days are short.  This will be evidenced by his continual onslaught against the foundational human covenant the Creator God gave to man--the marriage of one man to one woman!  In the midst of the fallen confusion, consider A Wedding Meditation.  This is a new one and coupled with a previous "wedding meditation", I trust it will make plain why God Ordained marriage is indespensible to God's design and purpose for His Creation.  (click on the titles)

12/15/2015  The Ephesians study is complete--that is until I study Ephesians again!  The Word of God is so incredible that each time I revisit a passage, it's almost like a new book!  Also, there is a new post in the blog, "Why Christ Came."

11/1/2015  Consider "The Shield of Faith", a new installment in the Armor of God, Ephesians study.  

10/13/2015  The Ephesians study is now through Eph. 6:15, Our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace.  Romans 5:1  "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have Peace With God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  The Justifying Righteousness of our Christ is the only solid foundation for peace.  Without this grand work our Savior, without this Divine Peace Foundation, all attempts at peace, inward and outward, are doomed to failure.

Also, enjoy the beauty and richness of the old KJV word "loins" in the study of the "Girdle of Truth.  I am not "King James Only", but loins just does a better job of reflecting the Scriptural witness and meaning than the contemporary "waist" or "hips".

8/5/2015  Do consider, "What is the Fear of God?"  A. W. Tozer wrote a book called, "Worship, the Missing Jewel of the Church."  I don't believe he would be pleased with what passes for "worship" in the contemporary professed church.  I think a more serious thing is missing, however.  It is more like the church is missing a key "chromosome".  The Body of Christ was created to function in the context of the Biblical Fear of God.  This study is one poor creature's inadequate attempt to understand the Scripture's teaching on The Fear of God.   I pray it might be a stimuli toward a continual bowing in humble worship of the Most High God in all that we are and in all that we do.  

8/5/2015  In light of the outrage and denial of the "planned parenthood" fiasco, consider the article, "Satan's Hatred of Women."

5/3/2015  Wedding season (June) is nearly upon us. " A Wedding Meditation"  points us to the truth that marriage is God's covenantal object lesson of the Great Mystery of Christ and His Bride, the church. Just click on the title.

\2/26/2015  There is a new post on the blog--"Processed Food".  This could be the cause of the spiritual "diseases" that infect the visible body of Christ!  2/28/2015  A "follow up" post to "Processed Food".

12/31/2014  There is a new post on the blog--may it stir a "Spirit inspired" new years resolution to "Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh."  Galatians 5:16

12/04/2014  James Bourne (1773-1853)  "If we make the law our rule of life, we shall feel its demands most infinite; and we shall never be able to fulfill them.  Nothing remains for us that will reach our case but to have the Lord Jesus Christ revealed in the conscience with all His saving benefits; and this forgiveness of God is most wonderful. (Hebrews 10:1-14)  Nothing we can do will please the law, whose demands are infinite; and there is no remedy but coming to that sweet liberty that is in Christ Jesus.  What are God's children to do?  Why, not to mend themselves, or hide their sin, or patch it up, but to come to the Lord Jesus Christ with an honest confession, that He may undertake for them." (Hebrews 7:24-25)  

11/23/2014    John Newton (Amazing Grace) on the Trinity, the Deity of Christ.  (click here)

11/16/2014  Our God is too small.  We have lost the truth that He IS the Lord of Heaven and earth, that He Does His Will in all the affairs of men.  Hence,  the beginning of a new study, "Learning to Live in the Context of the Lord of Heaven and Earth!"  (Click here)  Now complete 12/30/2014

09/21/14  Discouraged?  Satan's assaults got you down?  Does your flesh seem to have you down for the count?  Read "Prevailing Intercession" by Henry Law, a new page under "more" on the header.  It may be a bit long for the contemporary reader, but it will stir your faith to clearer apprehensions of your great High Priest and Intercessor, Christ Jesus, and that will encourage your soul.

"Men show themselves strangely forgetful, or hypocritical, in professing original sin in their prayers, catechisms, and confessions of faith; and yet urging upon themselves and others the practice of the law, without the consideration of any strengthening, enlivening means; as if there were no lack of ability, but only a lack of activity!"
Henry Marshall  1628-1680

Thomas Adam on conscience and the sufficiency of Jesus  (1701-1784)
            If it was not for Christ, conscience would tear me in pieces.  Conscience is the most positive, teasing, tormenting thing in the world; and nothing can silence it but faith.  Conscience is the viper on Paul's hand; and its nature is to sting, inflame, and kill.  Why then do I not swell, or fall down dead?  I know!

Lessons from the holocaust:  Corrie Ten Boom--"When we pray, we enter God's domain from the domain of our inability.  We saw then that even though everything was terrible, we could rely on the fact that God didn't have any problems--only plans.  There is never panic in heaven!!!

Waiting on God isn't a time thing, it's a trust thing!!!

Nuggets of Gold from Adam--Thomas Adam (1701-1784) that is:
    "I know so much of Christ as not to be afraid to look my sins in the face!"
    "Humility is knowing that we are not humble."
    "Christ comes with a blessing in each hand; forgiveness in one, and holiness in the other, and never gives either to any who will not receive both."

The Father has "thought of everything"!  He saved us by the Blood and Righteousness of His Son, the Perfect God/Man.  To assure that He lose none of His purchased people, (John 6:39) He has placed this Glorious God/Man at His Right Hand as their Eternal Sufficiency(Acts 2:30-33, 7:55-56; Hebrews 7:24-26), as the Anchor of their Eternal Hope.  But an anchor without a connecting cable will not keep the vessel from drifting away!  So He sent His Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, to dwell in His purchased people.  The Spirit and His groaning intercession is the Divine Anticipation in our hearts of that glorious day when we shall be complete, when we will be like the Perfect God/Man for we shall see Him as He Is.  The Spirit is the connecting cable, encouraging and assuring our hope unto that coming day!
That , beloved, is the Inseparable, Insurmountable Love of our Heavenly Father!  Bask in His Goodness!  Glory to His Grace and Mercy!
(From "Intercession-Connecting Redeemed "Earthlings to Heavens' Glories by Christ Jesus" from A Practical Study of Hebrews)

Considering Ephesians 1:11 & 12 and Romans 8:28:  If my God supplies my needs according to His Riches in Glory by Christ Jesus, then that supply will be sure to exhibit His Glorious Riches in and by Christ Jesus.  Through my needs, an avenue is made to manifest a bit of eternity in my temporality.  But to see that Glory, the eyes of my heart must be fixed upon the Source of the supply, not the emptiness of my need!!!

Recommended sites!
christianbookshelfls.net
underhislovingyoke.org