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The Power of His Christ

by

### John Lowstreet

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Copyright 2012 John Lowstreet  
Smashwords Edition

Scripture taken from the New King James Version.  
Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.  
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Also by John Lowstreet, available at ebook retailers:

How To Be Blessed By Christ

In Cadenced Thought

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Smashwords Edition License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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This book is lovingly dedicated to my faithfully encouraging and life-giving wife. It is also dedicated to everyone else who loves the Lord Jesus.

### Linked Table of Contents

**Preface**

Proofs for God's Existence

The Primacy of Faith

Some Definition

Accessibility of Christ

Utter Brilliance of Christ

Saving Power of Christ

Four Areas of Needed Change

The Table of the Lord

Christ has Power to Bring Needed Change

Climbing Jacob's Ladder

Redeeming Grace and Truth in Christ

The Lamb Goes to War

Receiving Anointing From Christ

Supernatural Gifts of the Holy Spirit

No Explanation for Evil

Cup of Iniquity

God Will Judge the World by Jesus Christ

Power of Christ to Judge

Only Christ has the Answer to a Major Threat to Civilization

Why Did God Choose Israel?

The Throne of David

About the Capital City

Dominion of Christ

Message of Christ to All the Churches

About the Author

### Preface

" **Hear me everyone, and understand."**

Mark chapter seven verse fourteen

We found the keys in the left-hand cupboard over the stove, right where the Lord said.

You might think that it's weird to have God tell you where your keys are, but it's true. Of course, it's not my usual experience; there was a lesson in it. He cares about us, trivia and all, and He is always available. He's everywhere, and He knows everything. Once you've found Him, you can find anything.

I didn't always know this. One time, I said to myself, not believing I was being heard, "The God of the universe is not talking to me. I'm losing it. I need help." And God said, "I'll show you it's me talking to you. Look right there."

"Right there" was a spot in the sky. Curiously, I knew where to look. It was night, outside, and the stars where shining beautifully. "Right there" was where there were not many bright stars, so I looked. I looked for a couple of minutes, and said, "I didn't think so", and looked away. And God said, "No, No, No. Don't look away." So I said, "Okay, I'll bite", and stood there and looked. All of a sudden, a fuzz-ball meteor came through. Being a stargazer, it was clear to me that this was unusual. It was like a small comet body passing at slow meteor speed. And God said, "Now do you believe it's me talking to you?" And I said, "Yes, Sir". And God said, "I thought you would appreciate that".

Hearing from God is not a matter of getting Him to talk. It is a matter of getting one's self to listen. He's on the air all the time. We just need to tune in.

This book is about hearing what God has been telling everybody for centuries. You are invited to tune in. God knows where the keys to life are and will be happy to tell you where to find them.

### Proofs for God's Existence

**"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times, and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us."**

Acts chapter seventeen verses twenty-six and twenty-seven

God is not found by observation, but by feeling. God is not discovered by acquiring knowledge, but by acquiring sensitivity to His Presence. In order to find God, we must find that dimension within ourselves that can connect with Him. He is already close to us.

The highest part of any human being is love, and the source of all love is God. Doubting the existence of God is like doubting the existence of one's own mother. Your own existence proves that you have a mother. Like God, mothers reveal themselves to their babes. It is the babe who is asleep. It is the babe's eyes that do not yet focus. It is the babe who does not yet understand its mother's language.

Someone in Neolithic times had a profound paradigm shift. Instead of looking outward to acquire knowledge, this person looked within himself or herself and also began to look within other people. In doing so, this person launched a voyage of discovery that resulted in mankind's discovery of God. The Bible says this was first done in the days of Enosh, a grandson of Adam. "Then men began to call on the Name of the Lord", Genesis chapter four, verse twenty-six.

Our desire to find God is like a babes cry for the mother it does not yet know. The mother comes to the cry. Our desire to know God is what attracts Him to us, for He is already close to us waiting for that desire. He will surely come.

Some have thought that finding an intelligent design in the universe proves that there is a Creator. That's fine. We agree that it does. But that is an attempt to find out God by observation, and it is always possible that an observation can prove to be wrong. But go a step further and look within us. Our attempt to find an intelligent design is a groping for God.

All humanity is the babe that has not yet found God. We are all yet acquiring the ability to focus on God. Taken as a group, our growth has been slow. Occasional individuals have made significant progress before death took them out of this world. Their ability to connect with God proves that God exists. They have seen visions of Him and heard Him. The rest of us should be humble enough to accept their testimony as true.

John said in John chapter one, verse eighteen, "No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." Jesus Christ is our primary source of the knowledge of God. God's method of revealing Himself to His babes is to become one of us and to demonstrate to us our own potential to be like Him. One could have said to God, "God, if you're there, prove it. Show yourself." That is precisely what He has done in Christ. Through Christ, God has shown Himself. Christ was fully aware of this when He was on the earth and plainly claimed to be the Father's revelation of Himself to all mankind. The existence of Christ proves the existence of God because Christ is God in human flesh. Our faith in the revelation of Christ is the beginning of our awareness of the presence of God. Furthermore, Christ has proven His current position in heaven by pouring out His Holy Spirit on all flesh. A mere historical proof might reasonably be doubted, but the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit is the remedy for that problem.

The Holy Spirit in the earth is a contemporary proof of God's existence for those who are willing to receive Him. Of course, for those who refuse the Holy Spirit there is only the historical proof of Christ which anyhow should be enough. But then, many people rejected the revelation of God in human flesh while Christ was on the earth. They were spiritually blind and deaf. We should acknowledge our blindness, but a person who has never seen would not know what it is to see. If sight were a rare human trait, the testimony of the few seeing people might well be rejected. This is the current spiritual condition of humanity. To find God, we must acquire sensitivity to His presence.

If we cannot sense God's presence yet, or hear His voice, we can at least prove that He hears us. Most people who pray can claim to have had at least one prayer answered by God. He does not need to answer every prayer to prove His existence. If I call into the darkness ten times and receive one reply, I do not need nine other replies to prove that someone is there. One answered prayer is proof that God exists. There is no need for anyone to doubt that God exists.

This is an experiment anyone may try at any time. Think of ten important things that you need, or, better yet, that someone else needs, and ask God for each of them in the Name of Jesus Christ. Keep a record of your prayers, repeat your prayers persistently, and thank God when He answers your prayers. You will have proven the existence of God to yourself.

### The Primacy of Faith

**"Without faith it is impossible to please God."**

Hebrews chapter eleven verse six

Our prayers are answered because of our faith. We may have our faith increased when we perceive our prayers are answered, but the cause of our prayers being answered is that we first believed. God requires faith. A despicable criminal who has faith is in a better position with God than a more socially acceptable person who has no faith. However, faith is more than an inner condition. Faith is the foundation of all ethics and morality. It is not a feeling only but also a behavioral change, although the feeling of faith precedes the behavioral effects of faith. The criminal's faith must change that person or else it is not faith, but merely a slight stirring of the human spirit that produced a feeling akin to faith. On the other hand, socially proper persons must gain faith or their course will turn downward. What we believe or disbelieve becomes our motive and our character.

God insists on faith. Because humanity is so prevailingly weak He has made our salvation conditional only on our faith. But in order to do that He has made faith indispensable and mandatory. He adjudicates us all as eternally lost, unable to save ourselves by any effort of our own, so that He may extend His grace to any believer, no matter how disgracefully they may have lived. A comparatively good person is regarded by God as condemnable because of their few sins, so that He may forgive all sins only by His grace and favor. This leaves God in the position of justifiably having favor and grace toward any of humanity so long as they at least believe in Him.

Of all human attributes, faith marks us as uniquely human. Animals and people can be trained and conditioned to behave in desirable, or perhaps undesirable, ways. It is faith that moves us out of ourselves into a better future and into higher relationships so as to rise above our previously conditioned responses. Even an animal can respond to its environment. It is faith that shapes destiny. The universe is waiting on us, but we must believe that it is there as our inheritance, and that we can mature to that greatness. It is faith that views the future as more than a blank page on which randomness will be written, and believes that we will overcome all obstacles because we are created and destined to overcome them.

God did not make us to be coddled in Eden, but to be challenged to Canaan, to Jerusalem, and to His eternal throne. We become men and women through a growth process that is stimulated by the difficulties that we face. Our victories encourage our faith; our failures render our faith imperative.

### Some Definition

**Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down."**

Revelation chapter twelve verse ten

Three-Fourths of translators use the word "authority" in the phrase "power of His Christ" and the word "power" where the word "strength" is found in the above verse. There are seven Greek synonyms that are translated "power" in the old King James Version of the Holy Bible. We get our word "energy" from one of them. We get the last syllable of the word "autocrat" and similar words from one of these Greek synonyms. We get our word "dynamite" from the Greek word that is translated "strength" in the above verse. This Greek word "dunamis" has many translations and has reference to force and miracle power. According to Thayer's lexicon, in our verse it refers to the kingly power of God. This would be God's force, that is, His supernatural, awesome power.

In the phrase "the power of His Christ" a different Greek word is used. This is the word "exousia" which has reference to privilege and jurisdiction, and in this context means the power of government which is a power which belongs to Christ, and which has now come in the sense that He is now putting it to the fullest use. We might be reminded of the phrase in Isaiah chapter nine verse six, "and the government will be upon His shoulder". In Isaiah's day, the world had given itself over to be deceived and dominated by Satan. Suffering and injustice was the result. Much of the planet has yet to be released from this demonic infestation. But, the government of the kingdom of Christ is coming.

A selection of five statements from the New Testament will demonstrate the use of this word "exousia". It is found in Matthew chapter nine verse six, "But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins." Consider also Matthew chapter twenty-eight verse eighteen, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth." It is found where the devil tempted Christ in Luke chapter four verse six, "And the devil said to Him, all this authority I will give you." Christ used the same word when He put the devil under our feet in Luke chapter ten verses eighteen and nineteen, saying, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." For our fifth selection, this word is found in Acts chapter twenty-six verse eighteen, "To turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me." Christ has jurisdictional authority to be our savior, to forgive our sins, and to deliver us from evil.

Let us notice an interesting point from the scriptures cited above. The devil claimed to have authority to govern when he tempted Christ. Christ rejected that idea. He then used the same word to give us the authority over Satan. This is a strong personal rejection of this fallen angel in that we men and women, sinful but redeemed, are given governmental authority over Satan who is no longer an angel but a devil. At the same time, we are not given an authority that is separate from Christ, but by submitting to His authority, we are allowed to share in His awesome "exousia" governmental authority when we encounter Satan and his group of devils/fallen angels. Comfortingly, we are also given Christ's protection when we use His authority to trample on Satan's force and strength. People who are not under the authority of Christ are viewed as still submitting to Satan's governance. The preaching of the gospel is designed to convert men and women to the government of Christ. We are then given Christ's authority over Satan in order to be safe from satanic counter-attacks and retaliation. It is a great neglect when we do not use our power to resist the devil and make him flee from us. In giving us a share in His "exousia" authority, Christ also gave us a great responsibility to use it.

In our title verse above, the loud voice in heaven is celebrating the triumph of Christ in completely stripping Satan of his ability to control even the people who refuse the government of Christ. Satan is called the accuser of the brethren and has lost the last remnant of any "exousia" authority or even of "dunamis" strength. He is therefore cast down.

Accessibility of Christ

" **I am with you always"**

Matthew twenty-eight verse twenty

Christ has all power in heaven and in earth. He is Lord of the Universe. But, anyone has access to Him any hour of the day or night. You do not need an appointment. Since He is God, He can see us all at once, at the same time. You do, however, need to follow the protocols of heaven. After all, He is a king, a great king over all the earth and the King of Saints.

How should one approach Christ? The trusting faith of a child opens the door to Him. Believe Him when He says, "The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out", John chapter six verse thirty-seven. He reads hearts, so hypocrisy doesn't work, nor does flattery. He recognizes and appreciates sincerity. We are encouraged to "draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith", Hebrews chapter ten, verse twenty-two, and to "Come boldly to the throne of grace", Hebrews chapter four verse sixteen.

He likes faith. Venturing out and taking a risk on faith impresses Him. "O woman, great is your faith", Matthew chapter fifteen verse twenty-eight, and "I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!", Matthew chapter eight verse ten. Neither the woman nor the man referenced in these two verses were Israelites, and this was before the time that the gentiles had been admitted into the new covenant church. They had no promise of being included in Israel's benefits. "Whosoever will" had not been preached at that point. It was this impediment and their predicament that caused their faith to stand out and to be great to Christ. They were both trusting God's benevolence, and they believed that the God of Israel was the only hope of mankind and that He was the only hope for their immediate, personal need. Christ joyfully embraced their faith; it was the key to His heart. They obtained a personal relationship with the king of heaven. He did not see them as only members of a group of people. He accepted them as individuals and did them a personal favor. He made Himself accessible to them.

He likes a loving relationship. "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little", Luke chapter seven verse forty-seven. The sin didn't put Him off. He saves sinners. He wants your love and is willing to have it at the cost of forgiving much sin. A great sinner will find Him to be a great savior.

Here is an encouraging invitation. "If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me", Revelation chapter three verse twenty. He was displeased with this church as a group. They were the lukewarm Laodiceans. But, He still wanted fellowship with the individuals in the church. People are important to Him. He is not playing favorites; anyone is welcome with Him.

You are secure in your relationship with Him. "I will never leave you nor forsake you", Hebrews chapter thirteen verse five, and also verse eight, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." You will not be abandoned or rejected. He knows you better than you know yourself, and He will take the leadership in the relationship and draw out the best in you. He understands how to relate to you through your relationship patterns. Furthermore, relating to Him brings healing and wholeness to you. He does not hold you in contempt in any way. He will work with your weaknesses and help you appreciate your strengths.

Charlie 'Tremendous' Jones said, "You are the same today you'll be in five years except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read." Why not form a relationship with the best person in the universe? He doesn't change, but you will never be the same. He will bring out the best in you.

### Utter Brilliance of Christ

**"No man ever spoke like this man."**

John, chapter seven verse forty-six

"In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"

Colossians, chapter two verse three

Who would you pick to be a king? Historically, many have come to the throne because they were born to it. Hereditary kingship is an odd thing when you think about it. The future of the nation is committed to a roll of the genetic dice. Also, wars have been fought over the confusion caused by disputes over the succession to various thrones. The concept of voting for leaders in republics is a great improvement, but still imperfect. Voters cannot always be certain of what they are going to receive for their vote. Indeed, uncertainty seems to be the rule, rather than the exception, in the history of governmental processes.

God has made a permanent choice of a king for us, and God knows everything and has control of everything. Of course He made a good choice. Jesus Christ is arguably the most intelligent person to ever live. So, someone might ask, "Why did He not bring the technology of the heavens to the earth and solve all of our problems?" When He miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes, the people were ready to follow that great technology. Some seem to have thought that He ought to have raised a great army and restored Israel's independence from the Romans.

If technology and military power had been the best approach, He would have taken it. But, out of His perfect grasp of the issues, He chose to strike at the root of all the world's problems. He first improved Himself. Luke, chapter two verse fifty-two, "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." If each one of us would solve the problem of ourselves, most of the world's problems would disappear. The problem of humanity is a set of individual problems. Each of us needs to grow. We need wisdom. Wisdom is free for the taking. No one is stopping us from taking wisdom. You are welcome to all you can hold. "Wisdom is the principal thing", says the book of Proverbs, and James, in the New Testament, says that God will always answer a prayer for wisdom. Most of our problems are caused by our obtuseness. If we only knew what to do, there is normally a way to get at least part of it done. What good is kingly authority, if you don't know what to do with it? Jesus Christ is the only man who ever thoroughly solved the problem of self. He started by completely acquiring wisdom.

But wisdom alone is not enough. One must have stature. We all have genetic limitations, but we should at least maximize our capabilities. When Christ began His ministry at the age of thirty, He was in excellent physical condition. He had taken care of Himself. He could walk across deserts. He could climb mountains. He was strong enough to endure forty days of fasting in the desert. His voice was clear; He could enunciate distinctly and be heard by large crowds. He could work long days, day after day. He had no addictions. He was a princely man. He was prepared to be a king.

But personal abilities are not enough. One must have favor with others. Popularity is sometimes overrated, but could also possibly be underrated. What good is an unpopular king? No one can lead without favor because no one will follow. Christ is not abrasive; He knows how to win people over. Christ is not arrogant; people are comfortable with Him. He has a great personality. He is a likable person who wins friends easily. He is loyal to his friends, and inspires loyalty in others. He brings out the best in people, and we like it. He loves us, causes us to love Him, and makes us realize that His love for us will always be greater than our love for Him. No one feels shorted with Christ; He is not a user but a giver. He is the best person you will ever meet. If all of us could be like Him, life would be good.

Favor with people is one thing, but favor with God is quite another. It is possible to be popular in heaven. Heaven is watching us; we should be aware of it. Luke chapter fifteen verse ten, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents". When selecting David to be king, God told Samuel that He was looking at the heart. People can be fooled by an outward display, but no one fools God. Jesus Christ is genuine. He has no hidden agenda. Who He is in public is who He is in private. His outward speech is not negated by private mutterings. His heart is perfect. He said it best, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man", Matthew chapter fifteen verses nineteen and twenty. What God sees in our soul is who we are, and the soul of Jesus Christ is immaculate. He is the perfect man. He is the only person in history who is fit to be the absolute monarch of us all.

But no amount of personal excellence or public popularity is enough. Everyone needs a helper. No one should be alone. When His time of preparation for ministry was over, God the Father approved and said, "This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." At the same time, the Holy Spirit came upon Christ without measure. Now He was fully equipped to be king. When Jesus was conceived, it was by the power of the Holy Spirit in the virgin, Mary. Because of this, He is both God and man in one person. But His conception was something the Holy Spirit did to Mary; His anointing is something more. Now the Holy Spirit is given to Jesus to stay with Him.

When David was anointed with oil by the prophet Samuel to be the king of Israel, the Holy Spirit came on him from that day forward. This account is found in the sixteenth chapter of I Samuel, verse thirteen. The Holy Spirit equipped David to be king. Something greater happened to Jesus Christ at His baptism. He became the human source of the Holy Spirit. All the rest of us receive the Holy Spirit by an impartation from King Jesus. "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things", I John, chapter two verse twenty. The name "Christ" means anointed one. Christ is the Holy One from whom we all receive our anointing for the service that He assigns to us in His kingdom. Christ is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit, and He does so as a result of the anointing that came on Him at His baptism. This can be seen in John chapter one verses twenty-six through fifty-one.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has personal excellence, and He is able to create excellence in us as well by baptizing us in His Holy Spirit. There is no other king like Him. He is God, Almighty and Eternal, and He is man, perfect and totally anointed. He is God come in flesh. He does not draw on the resources of His kingdom. He is the resource from which His kingdom draws its power and magnificence. We do not measure the greatness of this king by the greatness of His kingdom. He creates greatness in His kingdom out of His own personal greatness.

His kingdom is designed to last for eternity. He has endowed His kingdom with blessings that will fall on each individual citizen of the kingdom. These blessings equip us to work with Him for every era to come in the infinite future. He will work through us to solve the problems of this age, in this world, but His kingdom will grow forever beyond the limitations of this world. He has already conquered death and will finally destroy death. He has conquered Satan and will finally destroy that enemy of God and of mankind. We will never encounter an enemy that He cannot destroy. There will never be a proper potential that He will neglect to bring to full realization. He has already provided eternal life free for the asking.

He is utterly brilliant.

### Saving Power of Christ

" **Because you say 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing' - and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked - I counsel you to buy from Me."**

Revelation chapter three verses seventeen and eighteen

The power of Christ is the power of love. He can judge everyone because He has provided salvation for any one.

Christ saves us from the degradation of sin. If we are not getting a victory over sin, we should not assume that this is the norm. Rather, we should conclude that if we are being defeated by a recurring, personal sin, then we are missing the application of something that Christ has provided. "He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him", Hebrews chapter seven verse twenty-five. Our inability to escape the power of habitual sin is not a predictable and expected effect of the gospel of Christ. Rather, it is the effect of not believing and applying all the provisions of Christ's saving power. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge", Hosea chapter four verse six. Satan wants to tempt us to believe that we are so bad that nothing can be done about us, and that we must live a defeated life and expect death to save us from our sinful habits. The demons want us to be ignorant of the saving effects of a complete faith. Paul wrote the Thessalonian church and said that he wanted to "perfect what is lacking in your faith", I Thessalonians chapter three verse ten. An incomplete faith is belief in a half-truth, and that is a deception and a dangerous ignorance. We are saved by grace through faith, and believing only part of the gospel will necessarily lead to being only partly saved.

Christ can save to the uttermost. However, He only saves those who come to God by Him. If we ignore parts of His gospel of salvation, then we cannot claim to have come to God by Him. Rather, we are then only trying to come to God via our own opinions. Refusal to acknowledge any part of the gospel of Christ leaves us in the position of an unbeliever. There is no salvation in unbelief. Christ rebuked His disciples for their unbelief and hardness of heart in Mark chapter sixteen, verse fourteen. This was after they had been taught by Him for three and a half years, and after they had worked miracles under His guidance. They had never received what He had been teaching them about His resurrection and so had not believed the report of those who had told them of it. Present-day disciples may as well acknowledge that we are also inclined to unbelief and hardness of heart, repent of that unbelief, and start believing and practicing the whole gospel of our Savior. Perhaps many thorny, contemporary issues facing the churches are simply caused by our failure to believe all that Christ has spoken. Divorce, disease, mental illness, poverty, homosexuality, pedophilia, avarice, dishonesty, prostitution, addiction, domestic violence, depression, and anything else you may care to add to the list, are nothing new to mankind. Human problems were common in the first century as they are today. The gospel of Christ broke the hold of these things on believer's lives then, and to this time it is yet perfectly potent. The unbelief in the churches is the problem. Read the whole Bible and believe it. Put it into practice. Just do it.

When we repeat the same sin as a habit, even though we are attempting to gain a victory over that sin, it is because we are using only part of the tools of the gospel. Paul knew, as is also obvious in our day, that whole churches are neglectful of parts of the gospel because some things are lacking in their faith. The members of these churches necessarily suffer as a result.

When we understand all the truth of the gospel, then we can be diligent to apply that whole truth and have a complete victory. "Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly-kindness, and to brotherly-kindness love", II Peter chapter one verses five to seven. In James chapter one verse four, "Let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."

Getting rid of sinful habits can be compared to removing an adhesive bandage. Sometimes it is necessary to slowly and cautiously peel away; other times it is better to give it a quick snatch all at once. Another bandage is probably needed since some of the wounds of sin are terrible. But, we should expect progress. As Peter wrote, we start with faith, but must patiently grow to kindness and love.

How many of us have endured misery and shame because we were not all taught to use those parts of the gospel that were necessary to break the power of the sin that gripped us. The unbelieving world mocks the sinful failures of Christians. But, Christians can expect to be mocked if we will not utilize all the tools of salvation that are provided for us by Christ in His gospel. Paul said in Acts chapter twenty verse twenty-seven, "I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God." We need it all.

### Four Areas of Needed Change

" **Heal the Sick, Cleanse the Lepers, Raise the Dead, Cast out Demons"**

Matthew chapter ten verse eight

The need for change is not always properly assessed. We want change where we can feel the need, or if we are better informed, we may wish for change based on logical, objective reasoning. But, whether from feelings or logic our desire for change is most often based on our past experience. What if our normal, average experience desperately needs to be changed? How would we know that? How would we come to think that what we take for ordinary is actually extraordinarily bad?

Consider what things were customary for centuries. People once died of diseases that are nearly extinct. Appendicitis was likely to be fatal. Consumption was a name for various debilitating and frequently fatal conditions. Children died regularly. It took large acreages to produce enough food. Animals were used for transportation. Insect pests included lice on people. Many people bathed rarely if at all. Ships sailed into unknown weather for months or years without further contact. All this was normal the world over. Most people had little concept of society being different. They were thankful it was not worse as sometimes it was.

Much has changed in recent times, indeed, in living memory. We, too, are thankful that things are no worse. Since the historical conditions just described partly prevail even yet over large areas of the planet, we have much for which to be thankful. We could rightfully dread the loss of such substantive progress as the world has seen. However, we continue to accept what we perceive to be normal as did our ancestors. We have no choice since we must adjust to life as it is in order to be functional in our world. But, there is room for improvements that we can perceive, and what about improvements that are beyond our imagination?

When Christ came from heaven to earth, He brought a unique viewpoint. He sees us from the standpoint of the Creator's intentions for us. He was able to identify four areas that lie at the root of human pain. He was also able to give us the means to move forward. There has been progress made as a result of His gospel. How much more progress remains to be achieved can only be discovered by following Him.

The first of the four areas in which Christ commanded His disciples to bless humanity is the area of healing. Besides the obvious physical needs, none of us are spiritually healthy by Christ's standards. For example, severe depression is somewhat identifiable, though it can go undiagnosed. But it is Christ who sees how severely humanity is damaged. Christ sees that people have broken hearts and crushed spirits who do not perceive themselves as needy because they seem fully functional to themselves and to others. What we take to be a normal human condition, Christ sees as a wrecked, degraded form of human existence. We view some portion of the population as depressed, but how depressed are we all? Is our present normal the correct normal, or is it merely the average of us all? We have no way of knowing how badly we are affected by the fallen condition of ourselves and our environment. Christ sees us with a compassionate, fathering, shepherding eye. "Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden" is His altar call. He sees the multitude fainting and lost without a shepherd and has compassion on us. He was sent by His Father to bind up the brokenhearted. He commands His disciples to "heal the sick".

The second area of needed change is that lepers need to be cleansed. Contagious disease and contagious sin have contaminated the whole world. A leper was considered to be cleansed when the priest examined him or her and pronounced that the disease was stopped. The point is that the cleansing was in the pronouncement. When Christ healed ten lepers He sent them to the priest to be cleansed according to the Law of Moses and of Israel. The priest followed a prescribed ritual and procedure required by law. They were not considered clean and ready to associate with other people until the work of the priest was complete.

In the New Covenant, it is we who are authorized by Christ to remove whatever stigma isolates people and dehumanizes them. But just as Christ followed the law in this miracle of grace when He healed the lepers and sent them to the priest to be pronounced clean, so also we cleanse lepers according to the requirements of the word of God. We cannot pronounce someone to be clean while they continue in their sins. The first message of the gospel is to repent. However, once a person has repented of their sin, we are to pronounce absolution over them in the Name of Christ as He has commanded. The stigma and guilt of sin is washed away by the atoning blood Christ shed on the cross, and any person may be justified freely by the grace of God through faith in Christ as their savior. We are to proclaim to the world that its lepers are being cleansed.

Peter said in Acts chapter ten verse twenty-eight, "God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean." There are no classes or castes in the kingdom of Christ. People have value based on their purchase price which is the blood of Christ. We are of great value in God's consideration. We must also highly esteem one another and love one another.

The Lord also sees us as more dead than alive. We need to be raised from the dead. This is the third area of needed change. Christ's beloved disciple, John, said, "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers", III John verse two. He had learned from Christ something we all badly need to realize, and that is that our wellbeing in all areas of our life depends on our spiritual wellbeing. We would suffer less in life if we had a better inner, spiritual foundation on which to build.

Sin has killed us inside. We have no truly alive standard by which to measure the loss of the life that should have been ours if we were not fallen from our original, created condition. It is a revelation of the Bible that mankind was once much better off than we now are. Eden was more than a garden. It was a proper relationship to God, to the earth, and to one another. We need to be restored back to God. This restoration must begin with a spiritual rebirth and develop through a process into a renewed, eternal condition. We may expect that this is more than a return to Eden. God had a purpose in letting the original condition of Eden be lost. We are designed for a greater, eternal future. We are dead and need to be resurrected.

The role of miracle is to encourage us, with notable examples and instances, to believe in the overall progress that God is making with humanity as a whole. Without contemporary, concrete examples of the power of Christ to save us from sin and its ruinous, fatal consequences, the message of His gospel would eventually appear to be wishful thinking. But by healing the sick and raising the dead, the disciples of Christ can promote saving faith in the world. Faith is the last living impulse derived from the breath of life breathed into mankind by God. As it is the remnant ember of a once great bonfire of spiritual experience, so it is also the first gift of our spiritual rebirth. As a remnant ember it comes forth through hearing the word of God. As a new spiritual gift in the rebirth it comes as a creation of the Holy Spirit of Christ who is the author of the new birth in us. The role of miracle is to assist in fanning this live coal of faith into a living relationship with God the Father through Christ. By recognizing that the hand of God is with us in the world, we acquire prosperity of soul through faith, as John described, and the health of us all is improved as each of us begins to flourish in the spiritual realm. The health of the body is related to the health of the soul. We cannot live out a life that we do not possess spiritually inside of us any more than a corpse can breathe and move. We must be resurrected and healed by Christ. Miracle is a demonstration of this process.

The Lord Jesus proved His power to forgive sin by miraculously healing people through the act of forgiving their sin. In Mark chapter two verse five, "When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven you." Those who witnessed this miracle did not understand. The Lord further explained this in verse ten by saying, "But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins - He said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." This is the role of miracle. Forgiving sins is abstract; the only immediate evidence for forgiveness is a feeling of being forgiven. But in this case, a paralyzed man was healed when his sins were forgiven. Because he was miraculously healed, it was evident that his sins were also truly forgiven by God, and the rest of us can also believe that our sins can be truly forgiven even if we are not healed. It helps, though, if we see an occasional miracle by which to bolster our faith. We need miracle to have faith, and we need faith in order for miracle to happen. Notice that Christ responded to the faith of those who brought the paralyzed man to Him. They had some faith, Christ had faith, and from the result and from the report of the miracle many others now have faith. Faith is like a live coal that needs to be fanned. Furthermore, faith is that prosperity of soul that produces more life and health in us all. We are all liberated from our guilt by knowing that God truly forgives our sin. We are now able to be closer to Him and receive even more of the salvation we so desperately need. This one miracle of Christ has had long-lasting saving benefit for all humanity for all time. This is the role of miracle.

Christ wants your faith to grow to the point that you can also work a miracle for the good of others and the glory of God. The Apostle James wrote concerning praying for the sick, "And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed", James chapter five verses fifteen and sixteen.

The fourth area of needed change is to be free from the slavery imposed on the world by Satan. There are devils, unclean spirits, with which we must contend. That demons can and should be cast out is a major revelation of the gospel of Christ. It is Christ who has defeated Satan, and in the name of Christ we can enjoy this fruit of His victory.

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour", I Peter chapter five verse eight. "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places", Ephesians chapter six verse twelve. It is clear that we must not fight with one another, with flesh and blood, in the churches. False brethren are mentioned in the scriptures as a peril; however, we have a much worse enemy than one another. The idea of being attacked by rulers of darkness and hosts of wickedness should cause us to desire to use every spiritual weapon at our disposal. We need deliverance ministry to become mature among us so that it does not come into disrepute.

Peter saw Satan as devouring the vulnerable. We have no right to hold the weak among us in contempt. Instead, it is our duty and privilege to force Satan to release them. The power of love under the guidance of the Holy Spirit will break the hold of Satan. The spiritual defilements of demonic influences can be cleansed from people who believe in Christ. Negative emotions and habits can be changed in the Name of Christ. We can bring forth the fruit of the Holy Spirit when the weeds of unclean spirits are removed from our minds and emotions.

Casting out demons is not a panacea for all things wrong, but neither is it a disposable part of the Christian faith. Paul told the Thessalonians that he wanted to "see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith", I Thessalonians chapter three verse ten. If they had things lacking in their faith, then we do also. We cannot expect demons to leave us alone simply because we ignore them or do not believe they exist. We are all shamed when the church gets in the news due to another scandal. These scandals are the work of Satan. He is a cunning predator who knows how to undermine the human soul and involve believers in evils of which they did not think themselves capable. We have the tools in the New Covenant with which to expose the presence of a demon and rid a fellow believer and ourselves of these rulers of darkness. Neglecting to enforce the boundaries of the kingdom of Christ is our fault. "Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls", Proverbs chapter twenty-five verse twenty-eight. Too often, the history of the church, both past and recent, has been the history of an unguarded city.

The Table of the Lord

" **Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you."**

John chapter six verse fifty-three

The term "Table of the Lord" refers to the broken bread which is for the Body of the Lord Jesus which was broken to death on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and also it refers to the cup of wine which is for the Blood of the Lord Jesus which was shed on the cross as the atoning sacrifice for the cleansing of the sins of the whole world. The Table of the Lord is the New Covenant altar where we partake of His sacrifice, thereby acknowledging that there is no other atonement for our sins but Christ crucified and no other righteousness by which we may approach God but the righteousness of Christ Jesus that is imputed to us as believers on the basis of God's pure grace.

Christ purchased the world by His blood so that He is Lord of the living and the dead. The table of the Lord counteracts the power of death with the power of life. That law of thermodynamics is reversed which says everything is winding down to static equilibrium. Satan has only the power of death; Christ has also the power of life. He is our High Priest after the power of an endless life. He has power to give life to all who come to Him.

At the Table of the Lord, we not only receive His power for ourselves individually, but also for the church corporately, and for the world identificationally. Healing of body and soul, restoration to life, cleansing from defilement, and deliverance from demonic oppression are all enabled through the Table of the Lord. Here is our connection to heaven on which we draw on the life that is in Jesus. Here is what the Holy Spirit uses to impart sanctifying, life-giving grace to a broken church and a fallen world.

We do not come to the table of the Lord because we are worthy, but because we are in need of Him. It is because we are hungry for Him. The table itself cannot be defiled by sin. The table washes sin away. Here is where we celebrate the sacrifice that once and for all took away the sins of the world. Nothing can withstand its power. We come to His Table in an unworthy manner when we come not discerning the body and blood of the Lord Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. If we view the table itself as a religious rite or symbol that has power within itself, without Him, then we are coming unworthily, and there is a punishment for this sacrilege. But if we come believing in Jesus of Nazareth as the only sacrifice for sin, as God manifest in the flesh who died as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, then we come in a worthy way, and we release into the earth, into ourselves and all around us, the sanctifying grace that is needed for every ill of mankind.

The Church of the Lord Jesus carries within itself, in Christ as the prime member and active head of the church, the power of life as a resource on which to draw as a remedy for all the sickness and sin that rises within the church itself or that attacks the church from without. But, the table of the Lord does not remedy sin for which there has been no repentance. It does not excuse self-righteousness for which there has been no repentance. This is what coming in an unworthy manner is all about. When we think we are not sinful, we are not discerning the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for our sin. When the day comes that the church unites in repentance and proper discernment at the Table of Christ, the unlimited power of life in Christ will be released into this dying world.

### Christ has Power to Bring Needed Change

**"The working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself."**

Philippians chapter three verse twenty-one

It is important to realize that the power of Christ is going to transform everything when He subdues all things to Himself. The prophet Micah tells us "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they study war anymore", Micah chapter four verse three. There is a similar statement in Isaiah chapter two verse four. Also, "Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited", Zechariah chapter fourteen verse eleven. Isaiah says there shall be a highway from Assyria through Israel into Egypt and all three nations will be serving the Lord together, Isaiah chapter nineteen verses twenty-three through twenty-five, and in chapter eleven, Isaiah also foretells that the whole world will be brought to peace, animals included. Indeed, Christ is going to subdue all things.

Christ demonstrated this power when He was on the earth. He displayed His power over nature by calming the storm and by causing extraordinary catches of fish. He manifested His power over the spiritual realm by resisting Satan and casting demons out of people. He showed His power over poverty by multiplying bread and by paying Peter's taxes by means of a fish with a gold coin in its mouth. He healed every kind of disease and infirmity. He proved He could forgive sins by causing a person to be physically healed by means of a statement of forgiveness. Christ's power in heaven was revealed when He was transfigured. His resurrection reassures us that Christ even has power over death. His Holy Spirit in the earth, in us, shows everyone that He is in heaven and active in the earth. He commissioned us to preach His gospel because "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth", Matthew chapter twenty-eight verse eighteen.

The hard part of subduing all things to Himself is being accomplished at the present time. That hard part is subduing us. The problem is the human heart. As He was leaving the earth at the end of His ministry, He rebuked the disciples for their unbelief and hardness of heart. If they still had some unbelief and hardness of heart after being with the Lord Jesus for three and half years, under His personal instruction, what does that say about our hearts today?

One by one, we are being gradually transformed. Believers sometimes go years or decades without perceptible change, but it is necessary that some degree of change be ongoing, at least in the heart. If we are not making some degree of progress on the highway of holiness, it is reasonable to suspect that we are not on that road. "Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction", said the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter seven verse thirteen, "and there are many who go in by it." Christ in us is powerful to change us. If we yield to Him we are enabled to grow rapidly. John said, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God", John chapter one verse twelve. Our resistance to Him deprives us of our right to be better people. But when we seek the holiness that He extends to us, we gain authority and power over our own darkness. Compulsive sins and overwhelming sadness and anxiety can be conquered when we work with the Spirit of Christ that is in us. Being trapped in darkness is an indication that we are holding back some area of our mind or emotions and have not found a way to yield that part of ourselves to Christ. If we give up every part of our heart to Him, He will move in and gently, gradually bring the needed changes.

The human heart is the present battleground of spiritual war. If the animals became trusting and harmless before people were harmless, extinctions would proceed at a faster rate than at present. If the nations ceased to study war before the human heart was completely changed, someone would get hurt. Jerusalem cannot be safely inhabited until we are safe people, and then the whole earth will be safely inhabited as well. The diagnosis of humanity that Christ presented in the time of His ministry was easy to understand. Speaking of the unforgiveable sin, Christ said, "Brood of Vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks", Matthew chapter twelve verse thirty-four. The world is full of angry words because it is full of angry people. We say what is in our hearts. Listen carefully to what people say without interrupting them, and they will tell what is in their hearts. Accept the diagnosis of Christ. Hear the self-centeredness, the covetousness, the lust, the bitterness, and the unreasonable, vengeful malice that is rooted in paranoid fear. Listen to what you say in response to others and repent. James said in chapter three verse two "If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body."

It is a curious fact that what is called the unforgiveable sin is a sin of words. Some words can only come from a heart that is past redemption. This unforgivable sin was speaking a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Some had called the Holy Spirit a demon when they had witnessed a miracle. These people spoke this against the Holy Spirit because all the sin that was in their hearts made them hate God incarnate who was standing in front of them, Christ Jesus. This sin is unforgiveable not only because it is so shocking, but also because the Holy Spirit sent by Christ is the agent of change in the human heart. Resistance to Him temporarily interrupts the possibility of real change out of a repentant heart, but blaspheming Him locks a person into a permanent condition of impenitence. Repentance is a gift of grace from God, Acts chapter eleven verse eighteen, and the ability to repent can be so rejected as to be taken away, Hebrews chapter twelve verse seventeen. Apparently this was the eternal hazard these people faced by calling the Holy Spirit a demon. The Holy Spirit was in front of them in Christ so that their offense was especially damaging. We only have the right to become the children of God when we receive Christ. Rejecting Christ can be a temporary condition, but blaspheming the Holy Spirit by calling Him an evil thing goes too far and makes the rejection eternal.

Our theme verse speaks of a process of change. Unless we have deliberately, maliciously locked ourselves out, Christ continues to open His grace to our hearts. He forgives our present, sinful condition and lovingly restores our soul. He may begin with our mistrust, so that we will be further open to more of His grace in the future. Or instead, He could reassure a fearful person so that they would be willing to allow Him to touch and heal their woundedness. Perhaps someone is a great doubter; He could begin by increasing this one's faith. Whatever a person needs, it is forming a relationship with Christ that fills the need. He works one by one with us, deep inside of us, by pouring His Holy Spirit into us and making His scriptures come alive in us. This is a lifelong relationship and process of change. Indeed, life is eternal in this permanent, loving bond Christ forms with us.

Our sin is rooted in our rebellion against God. We refuse submission and obedience and, instead, insist that we are entitled to do what we want. We choose to sin because it feels good, or it is more profitable, or our emotions are more important to us than our principles, or simply that we have accepted no principles by which to be guided in some particular arena of temptation. We justify our sin by saying that we feel we have done nothing wrong. We insist on having the privilege of choosing our own value system or lifestyle.

The essence of salvation is to be subdued to Christ. To repent is to be saved. Christ is waiting to forgive us with grace and truth, but we must accept His truth. Our truth is not true. His truth is the truth, the only truth. To believe in Him is to admit that simple principle. We cannot be saved from within ourselves because we are limited by our own insight. Our inability to see into ourselves is blindness to ourselves. We must have Christ's insight into the condition of our heart. We cannot diagnose ourselves any better than we can see the back of our own head. We can only see ourselves as we are by looking into the mirror of the gospel of Christ. We cannot spiritually raise ourselves by our own power any more than we can lift ourselves by pulling on our shoes. We must reach out and grasp the grace that is in Christ. He then sends His Holy Spirit into us to lift our spirit upward from within us. He subdues us, but not by force. We receive Him, and He gives us the right to become a child of God. Then begins a process of awakening that continues to progress according to the diligence with which we pursue our relationship with Him.

When we change, the world will change.

### Climbing Jacob's Ladder

**"Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it"**

Genesis chapter twenty-eight verses twelve and thirteen

When Jacob camped in the open field that night, it was because he had left home and family. He was alone. He had deliberately deceived his father, and had reason to wonder if God would ever be accessible to him again. But Jacob dreamed. In the dream he realized that while there was a distance between him and God, and that while he had been living below God's standards, God was willing to make Himself available to him.

We also need to find God. It should be observed that God actually found Jacob first and sent him the dream. Certainly it is true for every human being that God has loved us first. We did not invent God; God has revealed Himself to us. But God's revelation of Himself includes the idea that He wishes for us to be elevated above our earthly condition into a heavenly life. We need to change, just as Jacob needed to change, and a ladder has been set up to show us the way. The ladder has been set up on the earth, so that it is on our level, where we are now. But the Lord is not on the ladder. He is above it, higher than anything that is set up on the earth. Though we join ourselves to the company of Angels, we cannot reach God by our own efforts. Nonetheless, this was the house of God and the gate to heaven, and Jacob realized it.

In Jesus Christ, God has crossed the barrier of the ladder and become a man. There was no other way, and Jesus Christ is the only way. Earth and the children of earth could neither rise to heaven nor even join with the angels of God. We could not go to God, so God came down for us. The Lord Jesus stated this in John chapter one verse fifty-one, "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." God in the flesh is Jacob's ladder. Without the atoning cross of Jesus Christ, even angels cannot connect between heaven and earth. They ascend and descend on Him.

We climb the ladder that is provided in Jesus Christ by both the Spirit of Jesus and by the word of Christ. To show that this is so, let us compare three passages of Scripture. The first is in Isaiah chapter fifty-nine verse twenty-one, "As for me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the Lord, "from this time and forever more." In this verse, God is telling us that He will always give us His Spirit and His word. This was an Old Testament prophecy. But the teaching is expanded in the New Testament. In Ephesians chapter five verses eighteen and nineteen, Paul teaches the need for God's Holy Spirit, "And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." In Colossians chapter three verse sixteen, Paul teaches the need for God's word, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." Notice the use of music in receiving the word of Christ as well as in being filled with the Holy Spirit. We need both the Holy Spirit and the word of Christ, the Holy Bible.

Not only does Paul emphasize the use of music in receiving the word of Christ and in being filled with the Holy Spirit, but in the verses that follow in both Colossians and in Ephesians, Paul goes on to say that being thankful and being submissive in our relationships are part of the process of receiving the word of Christ and also of receiving the Spirit of Christ. It is clear that the process of receiving both the spirit and the word are the same. While our theological trail seems to circle around a bit, our actual course of action is simple and clear.

If we wake up in the morning singing like a bird, thanking God for what we have, and deciding to be submissive in our relationships with forgiveness and humility, we will make progress either in the Holy Spirit of Christ or in the word of Christ. The Christian life makes progress on two legs, the Spirit and the Word. Faith comes when we hear the word of Christ; we experience our faith when we interact with the Holy Spirit. Faith and experience, the word of faith and the experience of the Holy Spirit, move us forward in the Christian life. We need both. However, many Christians and even whole churches focus on only one of these two.

A ladder can be climbed using only one leg. We lift ourselves on one leg, and let the other leg catch up. The leg we use for lifting will get tired, and we will appear either crippled or tentative, but the ladder can be climbed this way. The experience of the Holy Spirit will draw us closer to God. Faith coming through the word of Christ will also draw us closer to God. However, there is no need to limit ourselves to only one of these. We will experience greater Christian growth and power if we will open ourselves to both a rich experience of the Holy Spirit and also to the richness of the word of God. A person who uses both legs to climb a ladder moves each leg up two rungs at a time. There is efficiency in this method, an effectiveness and economy of effort that comes from the interaction between both legs. By analogy, there is a spiritual synergy between the Holy Spirit and the word that He inspired. The Christian who appreciates both the Holy Spirit and the word of Christ will be more effective and make better gains than a believer who is resistant to one of these or worse yet, neglectful of both.

Using music relates to the attitude of our heart toward God. Paul used the phrases "melody in your heart" in Ephesians and "singing with grace in your hearts" in Colossians. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Paul uses the same three terms for the music in both epistles, which should have forestalled ecclesiastical controversies over music. A psalm is a hymn of praise sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument. Hymns strike us as more formal; spiritual songs seem to refer to the casual music that people enjoy. Our attitude is more important than our style of music. Our music is to the Lord. We speak to one another, teach one another, and admonish one another in music. Music written centuries ago transmits the best of the past into our contemporary experience and corrects that which is lacking in our faith today. Contemporary music unites us in the present truth that is being emphasized by the Holy Spirit today. When we let music open our hearts to one another and to the Lord, we become filled with the Holy Spirit and the word of Christ comes to us in the richness and broadness of its wisdom. Isolating ourselves with hard hearts has the opposite effect. Let the music of others teach and admonish you and you will be glad of the effect it has on you through the Spirit and the word of Christ.

"Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ", Ephesians chapter five verse twenty. There are some things for which we do not wish to thank anyone. But the purpose of this thanksgiving is not to respond to events and conditions in our lives. Instead, the purpose is to respond to God with thanks in order to be filled with The Holy Spirit of Christ. We need not thank anyone for tragedy, but we can be thankful to God who has given us eternal life, and who will render a final judgment against all evil things. The context of this verse goes back to chapter four of Ephesians where we are exhorted to put away all bitterness so as not to grieve The Holy Spirit. A thankful attitude and spirit prevents us from being overwhelmed by the present darkness of this world which is referenced in the next chapter Ephesians. This opens our hearts to be filled with The Holy Spirit and with the word of God, and so we ascend into the heavenly realms of Jacob's dream.

Notice that our thanksgiving to God is to the Father in the name of our Lord. When we do anything in the Name of Jesus Christ, it is as if He is doing it. We represent Him and act on His behalf. A miracle in His Name is accomplished by His power; we cannot work miracles on our own. A prayer in His Name is a request on His behalf. We may be the beneficiaries, but it is because He gave us His name to use so that we might be benefited by Him. So, when we give thanks to the Father in the Name of Jesus, it is as if He is thanking the Father, and His Name is honored in being used in this way. God's response is to send His Holy Spirit into a person who will thus join in the fellowship between the Father and the Son. This specific way of being thankful to God touches the heart of God, and He responds by drawing us into the fellowship of the whole Divine Trinity through adding the Holy Spirit to the experience. When we adopt this grateful attitude in the throes of our suffering we have entered into the holy place of sublime worship. But just thanking the Father in the name of the Son on an average good day will bring the Holy Spirit into our experience of God, and the word of Christ will dwell in us richly in all wisdom.

"Submit to one another in the fear of God", Ephesians chapter five verse twenty-one. It is not possible to neglect horizontal relationships with other people. We simply cannot say to ourselves that we will withdraw from the world so as to experience God. John put it this way, "He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" I John chapter four verse twenty. If we wish to be God's friend, then any friend of God must be our friend. Submitting to God is to submit to others. Submission is the price of liberty in the Holy Spirit. Do you wish to be free of this world and rise to God? Then you must take the route of the cross of Christ where He submitted to the death of the cross. Take up your cross and follow Him. When you have died to yourself then you will be raised to life in Him. Life in the kingdom of Christ is an orderly life. Submission to others brings the army of Christ into good military formation. The next chapter describes our armor. This is not complicated or debatable; we must submit.

The verses that follow indicate that submission is a two way street. One party is to submit to a proper authority. The other party with the authority is to submit to the responsibility of having authority by placing the needs and happiness of others above one's own needs and happiness. The Holy Spirit of Christ is not going to fill someone who abuses authority. Christ is king, but He is a servant king. He exercises His kingly office in submission to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. All of us are to follow Him by accepting the duties and responsibilities of who we are and of the relationships in which we stand with regard to others.

The Holy Spirit is given to empower us to serve Christ. It follows that we will not be empowered to serve ourselves. But when we take our assigned duty station we find that the Holy Spirit has already anointed us to fulfill our purpose in life. We will rise to God from there. The story of Joseph in the book of Genesis shows how a person who knows how to bow will find that others, even former enemies, will bow in their turn. But when Joseph came to his great authority, he realized that God's purpose in giving him authority was so that he would be equipped to serve God by serving others.

We are no different. We climb Jacob's ladder in order to bow to Him who is at the top of that ladder.

My friend, believe in Jesus. He is your only way. Once you have believed in Him, you shall see heaven open. There is nothing else like an open heaven in Jesus Christ. This is what you were created for. This is what you have been craving. This will end the thirst that has been withering you. This will soothe the ache of your heart. Jesus will heal your hurts. He is Jacob's dream come true, and because of Jesus, heaven is open to you.

Redeeming Grace and Truth in Christ

"And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"

John chapter one verses sixteen and seventeen

There was redemption in the law. Persons, objects, and animals could be redeemed from various adverse circumstances according to the law that came by Moses. For example, it was always necessary to redeem the firstborn of man or beast. Also, most possessions or persons that had been sold could be redeemed. Furthermore, God had actually redeemed all Israel, and David led Israel to pray for redemption in the Psalms as well. Israel's normal daily worship included redemption. It is evident that God prefers redemption over destruction.

As a matter of fact, the act of giving the law is in itself an act of redemption. It is difficult for us to imagine what chaos would be in the Earth without some form of law. Even bad laws and worse enforcers of the law are better than the total absence of all law. Not that bad law is good, but the account of Noah's flood points out that it is possible for the Earth to be filled with such violence that a total reset is sometimes necessary to preserve mankind. After the flood, mankind was authorized by God to use the death penalty against murder. God's original intent was for mankind to live and love out of family authority and relationship. But mankind yielded to sinful impulses, and to satanic temptations, to such a degree that it was necessary to take more severe measures against sin and violence. God therefore authorized legal punishment in order to restrain evil men. This redeemed mankind out of the hand of the enemy. When God redeemed Israel out of their bondage in Egypt, He gave them His law through Moses, which further redeemed them from a continuing influence of Egypt in their culture. God's Ten Commandments, which He wrote on stone, will still redeem any culture today from satanic chaos. These commandments reflect how men and women should live in a divinely ordered, heavenly culture. God's Ten Commandments can be applied on a case-by-case basis to any human condition or situation and bring order into the earth. This is redemptive.

Unfortunately, we need more redeeming than what the law could bring. Mankind has fallen so far below the standard of the Ten Commandments that we are totally unable to lift ourselves. We need grace, God's free and undeserved favor. We need greater truth than the realization of failure that the law brings. We need the truth of salvation in Jesus Christ to bring us hope and life. We need more than a reset in our culture; we need a rebirth in our persons. The Holy Bible points out the parts of human history that prove each person needs a spiritual rebirth from God. We are not the victims of the world around us; the world around us is our victim. We have exploited the earth as individuals and collectively. Our various individual failures add up to a planetary disaster. We are so fallen from God's standard that we are unable to comprehend the depth of the loss. We do not understand God or His ways. The truth that came through Jesus Christ reveals the overwhelming need we have of the grace that comes through Him.

What the above theme verse states is amazing. We receive of His fullness. All of us receive more than a part of Christ; we each receive all of Him. The grace of God comes to each of us out of Christ's fullness. Furthermore, we receive His grace repeatedly. The more of His grace we receive, the more of His grace is available to us. He is a veritable fountain of redeeming grace. We do not receive grace because we have deserved it. We receive more grace because we have already received some grace. His grace is the only reason for His grace. The whole structure of salvation is composed of unmerited favor from God from its foundation to its pinnacle. In Christ we have received grace for grace. The grace of God in Jesus Christ is the motive, the means, and the objective of our salvation. The apostle Paul said that we are saved "to the praise of the glory of His grace", Ephesians chapter one verse six.

### The Lamb Goes to War

**"Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood"**

Revelation chapter one verse five

The King has counterattacked the primary foe of mankind. Our main problem is our sin. His remedy is His cross. Sin, our wrong acts and our tendency to do wrong acts, is more than a temporary soiling caused merely by our immaturity. Sin is a permanent, indelible stain on the character of humanity. It cannot be removed by an apology to God or man. Sin is the cause of war, crime, and failure. Death inevitably follows sin, not to mention a long litany of destruction.

Marriages and homes come apart because of sin. Childhood is lost because of sin. Starvation and poverty are brought on because of sin. The world is full of inequity and injustice because of sin. Personalities are crushed because of sin. The wonderful potential of people is wasted because of sin. The natural beauty of the planet is broken and spoiled because of sin. What should have been a peaceful life in a paradise degenerates into a rat race because of sin.

Poverty is not the problem; poverty is a symptom of sin. Much of what we think are problems are really symptoms. Sin is the underlying problem. Our many difficulties the world over are either the direct result of human nature, or could be overcome except for the foolishness and ineptitude brought on by sin. Sin distorts human personality, and misguides human culture. Sin is Satan's attack on the image of God in man.

"What can wash away my sin?" asked the songwriter, Robert Lowry. His answer is wonderful, "Nothing but the blood of Jesus." Christ Jesus could have led nations to war and shed the blood of thousands, or even millions, while protecting His own body. This was the normal course of action for history's princes. Instead, Christ gave His own blood, and no one else's. He knew the lawful decree of God, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission", as stated in Hebrews chapter nine verse twenty-two. The Greek word translated "remission" specifically means "release from bondage or imprisonment." The penalty for sin is death; we die because humanity is sinful, beginning with the first parents of us all. This is a terrible bondage that imprisons us all, from our beginnings in the womb until death takes us away. We cannot escape it, and do not deserve to escape it because of our sinful condition. Our life's blood is required from each one of us because of our own sin. But Jesus Christ is different. He alone is in a unique position to give His blood for another person.

Jesus is a Lamb. Conception in a virgin womb is a striking and astonishing fact of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Because of this, He does not inherit the bondage to sin that is our legacy from the first male parent of us all. Under God's law, inheritance comes from the male, so the sin of mankind was not passed on to Jesus from His mother Mary. His life's blood was not required from Him because of sin, like the rest of us. He was born with no inherited guilt. Because of the gracious character of God, He was allowed to give His life for another person. Also, He was able to give His life for more than one person, because as God's Son, His blood is infinitely precious. And, because of the loving nature of Jesus, He did give Himself for us as the Lamb of God.

Jesus is a Lamb for another reason. In addition to His virgin birth, He also lived an innocent life. He was born under obligation to the law of God that had been delivered as a covenant to Israel. He alone kept the covenant of God by never transgressing God's law, and by fulfilling God's law in all respects. He had a perfect walk with God, loved God with all His heart and soul and mind and strength, and loved His neighbor as Himself. He meditated in God's law day and night. He was a man of prayer and virtue. He is a Lamb, by birth and by lifestyle. There is not another like Him.

Jesus went to war on sin. He confronted sin with virtue and struck at lying pretense with blazing truth. He overcame the tempting of Satan, and He followed through on this by striking down every demonic force He encountered. He rebuked the corruption of the decadent religious and civil authorities that oppressed the people. He taught people how to live righteously in the sight of God. By His miracles, He showed how righteousness could bring restoration of health, sanity, and life itself. His heavenly power was a threat to every earthly power. When He raised Lazarus from the dead, the authorities could stand it no longer and decided to kill Him.

The cross was Christ's victory over sin. His war ended with this final battle. The Lamb's victorious cry was, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." When He said that, He transferred His death from divine retribution in this world to saving grace in the kingdom of heaven. In the kingdom of heaven, the shedding of Christ's blood becomes an eternal asset. Any sinner can come to God and, by faith in Christ, claim the shedding of Christ's blood as the payment for the sinner's debt in the place of the sinner's own blood. Remission from the bondage of sin has come. The inhabitants of this sinful world can be redeemed into the kingdom of heaven because of the shedding of Christ's blood. What's more, this world itself can be redeemed into a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

The Lamb is totally victorious over the primary foe of mankind. Believe in Him and in His shed blood, and you are victorious in Him.

### Receiving Anointing from Christ

**"But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him."**

I John chapter two verse twenty-seven

The Bible says of Joshua that he, "was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him", Deuteronomy chapter thirty-four verse nine. The Lord also told Moses concerning the elders of Israel, "I will take of the spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone", Numbers chapter eleven verse seventeen. Moses said to Israel, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear", Deuteronomy chapter eighteen verse fifteen. Jesus said, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do", Matthew chapter twenty-three verses two and three. The point is that the type of work that the Holy Spirit did in Moses was so important that it was continued in other men. It was continued first in one man, Joshua, Moses aide-de-camp, then in many men, the elders of Israel, and also in the succession of priests, judges, prophets and kings that governed Israel in succeeding generations, and continued even to the time of Christ in the scribes, sitting in Moses seat, according to the Lord Jesus. This was a governmental anointing.

Another type of anointing was developed in the Ministry of Elijah. The anointing of Elijah was a restoration anointing. The anointing that had been on Moses did not restore anyone; failure with him brought judgment only. Elijah's anointing was given in response to Israel's total apostasy and failure, and this anointing was designed to bring Israel back to God. Elijah's successors were not selected by appointment. Anyone who chose to succeed Elijah was a candidate for receiving his mantle of prophecy. Elisha saw this and was allowed to pick up Elijah's mantle and to use it to do what Elijah did. Indeed, Elisha asked for and received a double portion of Elijah's anointing and worked exactly twice the miracles that Elijah worked. Centuries later, John the Baptist had the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, and from there, acted in the spirit and power of Elijah to restore Israel as Elijah did. He restored the hearts of the children to the fathers and of the fathers to the children, as prophesied in Malachi chapter four verse six, so that the incarnation of God in Christ could be better received. This was a restorative anointing.

Both Moses and Elijah appeared with Christ on the mount of transfiguration. The apostle Peter recognized the value of all three kinds of anointing, and was ready to devote himself to this vision from heaven. But God spoke from heaven and corrected Peter. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him!" Matthew chapter seventeen verse five. Peter had already heard the scribes who sat in Moses seat of governmental anointing. He was also acquainted with the Ministry of John the Baptist, who carried Elijah's restoration anointing. These two kinds of anointing had been with Israel for centuries. Jesus was the new thing. Jesus Christ has the whole kingdom anointing of government and of restoration in greater measure than Moses and Elijah, but He also has a unique anointing of redemption.

Paul the apostle said, "But we have the mind of Christ", I Corinthians chapter two verse sixteen. How do we get the mind of Christ? We get His mind by hearing Him. He has revealed His mind in His Gospel. How do we get the anointing of Christ? We ask Him to send His Holy Spirit to come on us. The unlimited anointing that is on Jesus Christ is available to whosoever will.

Our King has chosen to administer His kingdom through any and all of us. He is at work in the Earth to do the will of His Father in the kingdom of God. He expects us to do God's will where we are, no matter who we are. He enables us to carry out God's kingdom mandate by sharing His mind with us, and by anointing us with the Holy Spirit with which He is anointed. He expects us to help Him bring the kingdom of God into our own heart and mind, and into our marriage, home, family, community, workplace, state, and indeed, into the whole world in which we live. Everything on this planet belongs to Him, and He is extending His kingdom into everybody and into everything. He founded His church for this purpose, saying, "And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it", Matthew chapter sixteen verse eighteen.

Do you want His anointing? Do you want His mind? Then do what God said, "Hear Him."

The anointing of Christ is comprehensive; it is an anointing that teaches you concerning all things. The genius of His anointing lies in His redemptive power. The kingdom of Christ brings forgiveness on a new dimension and redeems every human problem at the source. Through Christ's apostles, we are commissioned to heal every kind of sickness, bring divine life into everything that sin has slain, cleanse everything that has been defiled, and drive Satan out of every sphere of human life that he has sought to dominate. The whole earth and every person is a candidate for redemptive ministry through Christ. He has shared His redeeming anointing with us. Any believer can grow in Him and minister to others under His direction through His word and His Holy Spirit.

Supernatural Gifts of the Holy Spirit

"Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them; if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching."

Romans chapter twelve verses six and seven

This is the beginning of a list that differs from the list of charismatic gifts given in First Corinthians chapter twelve verses eight through ten. The Greek word charismata, that refers to the supernatural grace given to the members of the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, is used in both books even though the two lists differ greatly from one another. The gift of prophecy is in both lists. Prophecy is first in the Roman list and, in First Corinthians, Paul insists at length on the superiority of prophecy in the public ministry of the churches. Prophecy is not a human skill, but a supernatural endowment of the Holy Spirit. It follows that Paul means to say that the other things in the lists are also supernatural endowments of the Holy Spirit.

The Greek word translated ministry in the above verse is simply the word service or deacon, an office in the church. The qualifications of the first seven deacons were given as, "full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom" Acts chapter six verse three. While service may not be thought to be supernatural at first glance, a deaconship that merely moves on the common level of humanity, without the gifting of the Holy Spirit, reduces the churches to mere fraternal organizations. For the church to be the body of Christ, functioning in the world as Christ was in the world, it requires a leadership that functions in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Mere human ability is insufficient to duplicate the ministry of Christ. We are all servants "but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all", Mark chapter ten verses forty-three and forty-four. He who stooped to wash His disciples' feet as a deacon requires a high level of humility in us all. The office of deacon in the churches is best filled by those who have a charism of service, a supernatural anointing for Christ-like service given by the Holy Spirit. The word charism is the singular form of the plural word charismata.

After the same pattern, Paul was also referring to a charism of teaching, a supernatural anointing to teach as opposed to a human inclination to teach.

We do not choose our function in the body of Christ any more than our own left thumb can choose to be an eyeball. The Holy Spirit chooses what we do as members of Christ, and our function in His body becomes clear to us by observing what the Holy Spirit helps us do, rather than by what we seem to have a natural ability to do. This is true even when our natural ability and the Holy Spirit's functioning in us coincide, as is often the case. But it may not be always the case. We are prone to rely on our human ability, instead of letting go of that and allowing the Holy Spirit to work through us. The Holy Spirit's power is demonstrated in us when we do something that is not natural for us, but rather supernatural, or else when we do what we ordinarily do well but with additional supernatural ability. The church is intended to function supernaturally in demonstration of the Spirit's power. Then God is glorified.

Why was Gideon commanded to reduce his army of thirty-two thousand to merely three hundred? "Lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, 'saying my own hand has saved me'", Judges chapter seven verse two. Similarly, the church is not to claim glory for itself, but exists to glorify God. "To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen", Ephesians chapter three verse twenty-one. But the glory that is in the church is by Christ Jesus; that is to say it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that was given by Christ Jesus, rather than by human accomplishment in the church. Thus is the necessity of the body of Christ being composed of members who are interdependent in order to function, and who are dependent on the Spirit of Christ to function properly. After all, it is the power of His Christ that the Father wants to put on display more than the abilities of sinners who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. He must have the preeminence. Therefore, proper function is supernatural function so that God in Christ is properly glorified.

It is clear that prophecy is a supernatural function. But that an activity is supernatural is not an indication that it is an undisciplined activity. Prophecy is to be in proportion to our faith. We are all exhorted "to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints", Jude verse three. The faith belongs to all of us as the body of Christ. It is not one's personal faith that is at stake, but it is the common faith of us all. What Paul has in view is a supernatural flow of words from the Holy Spirit that is constrained by our corporate faith which has already been finalized for all saints for all time. Paul goes so far as to say to the Corinthian church, "And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets", First Corinthians chapter fourteen verse thirty-two. Supernatural does not mean out of control; prophecy is not ecstatic utterance in the sense some have thought. The Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures. Subjection to the Holy Spirit means subjection to His word that He has already given.

On the other hand, teaching is a gift that expounds and applies the word that has already been given, but not so as to exclude the manifestations of the Holy Spirit who gave the word. So also, the serving ministry of the church springs from obedience to the Scriptures, and also from obedience to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. The church is like a train that runs on two tracks, and will run amok if it leaves the constraints of either track.

The new covenant is a covenant of the Word and of the Spirit. If we attempt to apply God's Word in the world without the Holy Spirit we will be sterile and ineffective. The sheep of Christ's flock need fresh green grass, not the dry, brown hay that grew during a revival that occurred in a previous century. If, on the other hand, we attempt to guide the flock via a personal spiritual experience without thoroughly receiving the vast amount of truth which has been already revealed and is contained in the Holy Scriptures, we will be misled and we will mislead others. Sheep do not need the toxic weeds that appear during the sort of religious excitement that is not properly informed by the objective truth of God's Word and also is not directed by the supportive structure of Christ's anointed shepherds. Matters are made worse, of course, if men who are not under Christ have hijacked the positions of shepherds. Godly leadership is indispensable and is part of the provision of Christ through both the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Spirit. "As for Me," says the Lord," this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My Words, which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the Lord, "from this time and forever more", Isaiah chapter fifty-nine verse twenty-one. This is an important covenant, and we neglect to implement either half of it at our peril. Fully utilizing the promise of this precious covenant will bring us to the realization of the power of His Christ in our present circumstances.

### No Explanation for Evil

" **Why should you die, O house of Israel?"**

Ezekiel chapter thirty-three verse eleven

It is impossible for God to lie. It is contrary to God's nature; He is a God of truth. That being the case, we should also expect God not only to not lie, but also to not explain evil. Moral evil is essentially irrational. Evil is founded on a lie because it has no sensible rationale. A God of truth has no need to explain someone else's lie.

When we ask persons who have committed crimes, "Why did you do it?" the answers frequently seem to make no sense. Killing someone in self-defense may have an explanation. Murdering someone out of hatred can only be explained in terms of the hatred itself. A criminal can only make excuses for the hatred, but the hatred is an irrational emotion. God is love and light, and hatred is darkness. Light does not explain darkness; light dispels darkness. There is no true explanation for murder, other than that the murder proceeds from the darkness within the murderer. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. He would not then interact with darkness. Instead, darkness simply evaporates in the presence of God's light. His love only exposes hatred for what it is, and makes the hatred irrelevant.

We sometimes think that when we get to heaven, God will explain everything that has happened in the world. But what if it made no sense to Him? If the evil in the world is a dark lie of selfishness and envy and death, a loving God of truth, and of life and light, would have no explanation. He would simply judge the evil, and let it go at that.

Before God made the world, His blueprint for the world was within Himself. After God made the world, anything that does not conform to His original blueprint would be discarded. Indeed, Christ's angels will "gather out of His kingdom all things that offend", Matthew chapter thirteen verse forty-one. He is like a sculptor who cuts away everything that doesn't conform to the figure that is in His mind. Everything will eventually be made to conform to God's design for His world. He need give no explanation for what He discards other than that it does not belong in His world.

The Bible deals with the subject of evil without explaining why there was ever any evil in the first place. We are told that some of the angels fell, but this does not explain why they chose to so misuse their free will. It is reasonable to suppose that the revelation that has been already given to us while we are on the scene of evil and sin is our complete revelation on this subject. Heaven will have revelations of all the good that is there that we cannot now imagine. We will then be so occupied in the enjoyment of heaven as to lose our need to explain the past.

Before God made the world, Christ was the Word, which was continually with God and was continuously being God. He is the blueprint by which the world was made. All things were made by Him and for Him. He is the firstborn of every creature. Everything that exists has its reason for existence in Him. He is the destiny to which we will conform. He is, therefore, God's explanation for why there is a world. God has a good explanation for what is good. Everything good conforms to Christ. Evil is anything that does not conform to Christ as God's blueprint. We should not expect an explanation for that lack of conformity to Christ. Rather, evil will be annihilated in the light of Christ.

### Cup of Iniquity

" **Having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations"**

Revelation chapter seventeen verse four

When terrible things happen, they are sometimes filling up a cup of iniquity. There are certainly other reasons for the pain that is in the earth. But filling the cup of iniquity is one explanation that is revealed in God's word. He allows evil to continue up to a measured point. He is patiently waiting for repentance. Notice this in God Almighty's revelation to Abraham concerning the future of his descendants. Genesis chapter fifteen verse sixteen, "But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." God was going to wait while the Amorites filled their cup of iniquity. They were actually being given a chance to change their sinful direction and were receiving the opportunity to keep the land of Canaan. There was a great deal of suffering in the earth among both Amorites and Israelites while this process ran its course. But it was not God who was filling the cup of iniquity; they were. They could have emptied the cup by repentance.

In this process, however, many individuals came to repentance and salvation forever. Others were being justly punished for their crimes. The process was not allowed to continue in vain. No one can charge God with being less than wise, just, holy, and loving in all that He does. The short-term experience of individual lifetimes is meshed perfectly with the long-term history of nations with no injustice perpetrated at any level of divine activity. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" is said in II Corinthians chapter four verse seventeen.

In the light of this then, let us consider the suffering that is prophesied in Zechariah chapter fourteen verses one and two. Jerusalem shall have its spoil divided in the midst of it, the city shall be taken, the houses ransacked and the women raped. When does this occur? When the Day of the Lord comes! Of all times for such a tragedy, this is most unexpected. But notice the sequence; it is this tragedy which precipitates the arrival of the Day of the Lord. "The Day of the Lord is coming", "for I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem", in these verses. God gathers all the nations against Jerusalem because their iniquity must be stopped. The reason and occasion for the Day of the Lord is the taking of His city by all nations. It is this attack that is the last straw of sin upon the earth. The evil in the earth cannot be allowed to continue beyond a measured point. At that point, there will have been no repentance sufficient to further delay God from taking action against sin. The world fills its cup of iniquity to its full measure, and this horrible action vindicates God in His full response. He gathers the nations in order to arrest them and to punish them. We should have repented long before.

Jerusalem is the city of the great King. It is, therefore, the capital city of planet earth. The attack upon God's city is an act of rebellion against the plans and purposes of God for this planet. Each suffering person in Jerusalem is a personal affront to God. That all nations are involved and complicit in this attack provokes a global response from an outraged Creator. His patience and forbearance cannot be exhausted for He is infinite. But, His Godhead is directly challenged by this attack. His attributes of holiness, justice, and vindictive wrath are properly and righteously engaged because of such a direct assault on His authority. There is a limited amount of time allotted for repentance. The cup of iniquity can only hold so much.

The cries of distress from the ravished daughters of Jerusalem come, appallingly, after the great weeping of repentance in Israel as prophesied in Zechariah chapter twelve beginning at verse ten, "They will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son." This great repentance of Israel is an astonishing event. It will have been the greatest act of repentance in the history of the earth. It will place Israel back under the special protection of God, and His favor to them will become most evident to all the other nations. It will open the way for God to fully and finally punish the enemies of Jerusalem. Their iniquity is now full, and because of Israel's full repentance, there is nothing preventing a full response from a fully provoked and thoroughly aggrieved Almighty God.

### God Will Judge the World by Jesus Christ

" **He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained."**

Acts chapter seventeen verse thirty-one

"So truth fails", Isaiah chapter fifty-nine verse fifteen. These strange words were uttered by the prophet describing what he saw. But, truth is supposed to be invincible. It is lies that are supposed to fail. The prophet is describing temporary conditions. Truth has the ability to rise again. This is its invincibility. Lies fall never to rise again.

The cause of truth may suffer temporary failure in that many people are ignoring truth and even ignoring lies on the issues to which truth is speaking. For example, whole populations may ignore God. They don't worship a lie, they just don't worship. They don't care whether God exists or not. This is a failure of truth to grip the hearts of mankind.

The objective of truth is to focus attention on itself. When truth is ignored, it is as if there is no truth. To be successful, truth must be believed. A distracted people are a truth-less people. When attention is not riveted to truth, truth has failed.

A doubting man in an honest search for truth is in a better case than a heedless man who would not know the truth if he found it. But, there is a worse case. This is the man who knows the truth and prefers to not reform his life. The truth about himself makes him feel condemned so he ignores it. He justifies his own actions rather than change his actions according to the truth. He has not accepted lies, nor has he embraced truth. He makes excuses. He loves sin.

This rejection of truth will be the condition of mankind's last generation. God will send them strong delusion because they did not love the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. They will believe the lie. This is described in Second Thessalonians chapter two verses nine through twelve. What that lie will be is not the issue so much as is their hatred for the truth. Believing the lie of the last days will be a judgment on those who refuse to believe the truth of all eternity. There is a price to pay for not believing the truth.

God will not let His truth be ignored. "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God", Psalm nine verse seventeen. It is not just the wicked who are sent to hell, but also those who forget God. The evidence for mankind's sin is in that "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge", Romans chapter one verse twenty-eight. The verses that follow say that as a judgment on this, God gave them over to their sinfulness. They suppressed God's truth, so God allowed their natural humanity to be suppressed. Far from ignorance being an excuse, it is an indictment when it is chosen over truth.

Ignorance of God is not possible for long, however, because He will not let Himself be ignored. Again our theme verses in Acts chapter seventeen say that the times of ignorance, God winked at, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world by Jesus Christ. To prove this, He raised Him from the dead. Furthermore, His often stated objective in judging the nations is that all the nations shall know that He is the Lord.

The failure of truth has no corresponding victory. The outcome is a descent into an eternal abyss. When truth fails in a person's life, they are lost forever. When truth fails in a nation, that nation fades from history. When truth fails in a family, the family line goes extinct. When truth fails in a city, it becomes rubble. When truth fails in a church, the congregation is dispersed. Judgment is according to truth.

Truth will not fail forever. Heaven is built on truth. God's throne is established on truth. People who believe the truth are made holy by that truth and will forever worship the true and living God.

Jesus Christ is the truth by which the world will be judged. Many facts are true that are morally and spiritually neutral. But there is no neutrality with regard to Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God has come into the world as a human being. It is a great offence to God to ignore this remarkable truth. In Christ, God is showing us how He expects us to live. A refusal to even consider God's display of grace in His Christ brings judgment on those who are willfully ignorant. Jesus Christ is God's light for us. Ignorance of Him is darkness. Choosing to be ignorant of Him is deliberate rebellion against God and against His Christ, and this will provoke God to enact the judgment of the world by this man whom He has ordained.

When we look at Christ and accept that He is God's pattern for human life, we are submitting to God. God is willing to accept our repentance; indeed, He was seeking our repentance by sending His Christ into the world. The Father wants to forgive our sin. Our repentance enables us to receive His forgiveness. But, our impenitence interrupts God's forgiveness, and it is a further provocation against the already grieved Holy Spirit of God. The judgment of the world will follow because Christ has come into the world to bring God's light, and men and women loved darkness and chose it instead.

Furthermore, God, the Father, has given the execution of judgment to Christ. Our reaction to Christ is the basis for each person's condemnation or justification before God, and, in addition to that, Christ executes that judgment on each person. It is Christ, at the last judgment, who will gather all the nations to the valley east of Jerusalem, separate them as a shepherd divides His sheep from His goats, and send each person where He judges they belong for eternity. In the meantime, it is Christ who opens the sealed scroll of God's prophetic decrees over the world and releases those prophesies. Daniel was told at the end of his prophecy that the words of prophecy that had been given to him were sealed up until the time of the end. In the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, it is Christ, the Lamb, who is found worthy to unseal the scroll and to enact the decrees of God. There is a final judgment, and there are intervening, temporary judgments that restrain the evil of the world until that last, permanent overthrow of all offences against the holiness of God.

Christ has the right and authority to execute both temporary and final judgments because of His own personal righteousness. No one else is worthy to cast a stone at any fellow human being. We are all fallen except Christ. He has the grace to say that He does not condemn us, and He has done that for many. Anyone who comes to Him, repentant and believing, will not be cast away by Him. They will be eternally accepted before God. But, just as He has grace, so He has both the authority and the obligation to execute God's righteous anger against any and all who remain obstinately committed to do evil. Fallen angels and impenitent men and women will all be brought before Him and judged eternally.

The world was judged and Satan was overthrown when Christ went to the cross. When Christ died as the sinless Lamb of God He purchased the sinful souls of all people from God. He obtained from God the authority over the whole world which He now holds. Satan's privilege to kill all fallen mankind was nullified. The intentions and purposes which God had always had in creating the world were no longer restricted by the sin of man.

Truth cannot ultimately fail, but must flow unimpeded from the throne of God and from the throne of His Christ. God has already determined that this shall be done. He has selected His Christ and has given the world notice of His unchangeable intention concerning Him in that He has raised Him from the dead. There is a day of the Lord coming. We have been given an appointment with God and with His Christ. At a time which has already been set, holy angels will convey us to the throne at which our eternal destiny will be finally settled.

### Power of Christ to Judge

**"Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."**

Luke chapter thirteen verses four and five

Later, in Luke chapter twenty-one verse six, the Lord said of the temple in Jerusalem, "These things which you see - the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down."

There is a sequence here. Stones fell on eighteen people during the ministry of the Lord when a tower collapsed. But just as those stones fell in a tower, eventually all the stones in Jerusalem fell. Were these eighteen the worst people in Jerusalem? No, everyone needed to repent. Calamity of a few should have made everyone consider. The only way to have prevented the imminent fall of Jerusalem was to have repented.

When we observe catastrophes, we should not think that the people who suffer them were bad people. They may have been better people than the most of us. Isaiah chapter fifty-seven verse one says, "The righteous perishes, and no man takes it to heart; merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil." When there are calamities around, we should take it to our heart. We should repent. All of us are vulnerable. II Peter chapter three verse seven says, "But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." Every calamity that we see reminds us that the world will end in a great catastrophe. Also, when the last vials of wrath are being poured out in the book of Revelation, we are told that the judgment continues because the world continues to be unrepentant. "They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds", Revelation chapter sixteen verse eleven. See also Revelation chapter nine verses twenty and twenty-one for a list of the sins that bring the judgments. The world is not going to end arbitrarily, or because God has predetermined the day of our demise capriciously. These statements of impending catastrophe are not merely static predictions of inevitability, but they are also conditional, changeable warnings from the loving Lord Jesus who is not only our savior but also our judge. The world is going to end because we will not end our sinning. Why is it that we will not repent? The signs of divine displeasure are all around us. God is not being mean; we're being stubborn. Amazingly, even the last vials of wrath at the end of time would cease if mankind would repent.

Revelation chapter sixteen verse nineteen says that in the last great earthquake, "the cities of the nations fell." When the Savior of the world observes the fall of a tower in Jerusalem, He reminds us that all towers fall, all cities fall, and all people die. But, at the same time, He reveals to us that repentance prevents disaster. "Except you repent", He said, "you will all likewise perish." We can change everything with repentance. Nineveh changed everything when they repented at the preaching of Jonah the prophet. Their city did not fall at that time. The Lord Jesus said also that even Sodom and Gomorrah would have endured to His day by repenting in the presence of His mighty works. Repentance changes everything. We would not know this if we were not told this by the Lord.

The power of Christ as king is associated with His grasp of the principles of divine judgment. All judgment has been committed to Him according to John chapter five verse twenty-two. God "has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead", Acts chapter seventeen verse thirty-one. "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth", Matthew chapter twenty-eight verse eighteen. He understands what is going on in the world even if no one else understands. He has a perfect interpretation of history because He is the true maker of history. He is the king of all ages. His reign is timeless and eternal, and it certainly transcends this present age and its faddish fascination with sin.

There is a Jerusalem coming, a new one, that will be populated with repentant people who do not die, but live forever with God. It is described in the last two chapters of Revelation. There is a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness, that will appear after the last great catastrophe, the fall of this old heavens and earth. This is described on the last chapter of II Peter.

The power of Christ as king is presently being exercised to develop the new heavens and the new earth. People are currently being prepared to populate the world to come. Those who reject Christ are being recorded for the last judgment. Not only are believers the sheep of Christ, but also the unbelievers are the goats of Christ whether or not they realize it. All souls belong to God and are already given to Christ for either His redemption or else for His final pronouncement upon them of doom.

The world would be a paradise if mankind were not sinners. God has revealed to us that natural catastrophes are not in the nature of things. He made a perfect world. Natural catastrophes are the groaning of creation under the burden of man's sins as described in Romans chapter eight verses twenty-one and twenty-two. But, nature was not made to be in upheaval. Isaiah chapter fifty-five verses twelve and thirteen says, "For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." Natural catastrophes are not normal. Pain and suffering are not normal. Death is not normal. The downward tendency that we see in the physical world is the result of our own moral decay. But this is only the norm of a fallen world; it is not the Creator's norm. Paul said in Romans chapter eight verse twenty, "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope." God is a good God, and He made everything good and very good. It is we who are the problem. We need to become sons of God, and then all creation will be delivered from its pain. This is the revelation of the Bible.

This explains why judgment comes in a sequence. God is not trying to destroy us. He is trying to get us to change.

The words of the Lord concerning the fall of a tower in His day are about a sequence. It is interesting to notice that the fall of every stone in Jerusalem was not entirely completed in 70 A.D. at the time the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. The Wailing Wall was left standing, but partly buried. This wall is what is left standing of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. After the war in 1968, its lower courses of stones were uncovered. It could now all fall. I am of the opinion that were the Wailing Wall to be destroyed in some way, the prophecy of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter twenty-four would be fulfilled, as He said, in that generation. The generation in which the Wailing Wall finally comes down would then apparently be the last generation. The sequence of judgment can be a long one. The tower falls on eighteen people as a warning to everyone around 30 A.D., Jerusalem falls disastrously in 70 A.D., someday the last stones of Jerusalem's Temple fall, then all the great cities of the nations fall, and afterward even stars fall. All through the centuries the call to repentance continues. Toward the end, angels circle the earth warning of woe to come. Their warning is a call to repentance. Our repentance is a button that we could push that could interrupt the sequence at any point.

Well, you may say, "I wish everyone would all repent." The Lord explained to us in Luke that our own repentance will work for us personally even at the end of the world. "Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man", Luke twenty-one verse thirty-six. Unfortunately, it seems clear that mankind as a whole has no intention of repenting to God's standard. But as individuals our repentance will work for ourselves. We have a personal way of escape in the manner of Noah. He built the Ark for himself and his family, and, in so doing, condemned the world around him, Hebrews chapter eleven verse seven. Our prayer to escape the destruction of the world builds our own ark in the Savior, our Lord Jesus. God would let the whole world escape if they would. He will also let individuals escape if they will.

Everyone hates a trip to the dentist. But those who love us either take us, or talk us into going before it's too late. This world has old problems that have been getting worse and are not going to get better without intervention. God is going to take us to the dentist.

What is not always appreciated is that there is a way of escape. "Pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things." No matter what happens in the world in general, we, as individual persons, can have a place of refuge. The end time events are not so fixed and inflexible that we will be caught helplessly and swept away. It is true that doomsday will tighten like a noose on the whole world as the Lord said in Luke chapter twenty-one verse thirty-five. But, He would not have told us to pray for escape if there was no escape.

All that is needed is to repent and pray. Christ, the judge, said so.

### Only Christ has the Answer to a Major Threat to Civilization

**"But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses; and a god which his fathers did not know"**

" **He shall go out with great fury to destroy and annihilate many"**

Daniel chapter eleven verses thirty-eight and forty-four

Human civilization has a common heritage. The prophet Daniel foresaw this human legacy threatened. He saw this threat come in the form of a shift in the world's struggles.

Daniel was given a vision of the power struggle that emerged after the breakup of Alexander the Great's empire. He saw details of the intrigues, intermarryings, and political maneuverings that were perpetrated by the descendants of Antiochus and Seleucus, two of Alexander's generals, up until the time of Christ. The eleventh chapter of Daniel describes Daniel's prophetic vision of their protracted war. While these two dynasties struggled against one another, they were struggling over a common heritage, and they all valued the same things. Their struggle for dominance is typical of all wars fought since their time. The interests and ambitions of nations and of ethnic and religious groups collide because they want the same things. The world's struggles are for dominance over territory, influence, wealth, holy sites, religious differences, natural resources, or something that is considered valuable to both sides.

What Daniel foresees is a struggle that arises when the continued existence of these valuable things is threatened. He specifically refers to the end time in verse thirty-five of Daniel chapter eleven, and in verse thirty-six predicts that a new kind of king will arise. What characterizes this king is that he does not reflect the will of his people, rather he does "according to his own will." He is characterized by disregard for all past values. He fights to establish an impersonal God, a God of forces or fortresses. He will divide land for gain, overwhelm countries, but establish nothing; he will only "pass through." His only legacy will be furious destruction and annihilation. This king's radical reordering of values will end the normal course of human events.

It is worth noticing that this annihilating, genocidal approach to international relations has a history in the Bible of how it developed. Destruction was the character of the first of the nations that descended from Amalek, a great grandson of Israel/Jacob. When the Israelites journeyed from Egypt, the Amalekites/Amalek attacked them with no objective other than their destruction in order to prevent them from entering their promised inheritance in Canaan. The Amalekites were a kind of jealous cousin to Israel. Moses said in Exodus chapter seventeen verse sixteen, "the Lord has sworn; the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." That conflict between Israel and Amalek lasted for centuries. Moses fought Amalek. Four hundred years later, Gideon fought Amalek. More centuries passed, and King Saul was commanded to fight Amalek. In that engagement Samuel, the prophet, chopped Agag, the Amalekite king, in pieces before the Lord because Saul had not. He then prophesied against Saul for not doing the job as God had charged him and informed Saul that he had just lost the kingship and throne of Israel. Ultimately, after another four hundred years, Israel and Amalek clashed under the Persian Empire when Haman, a descendant of Agag, the Amalekite king, sought to annihilate Israel. The Jewish feast of Purim celebrates the deliverance the Lord provided Israel at that time as recorded in the book of Esther. It is interesting to note that Israel's deliverance came in the form of an imperial decree allowing Israel to conduct a war against their enemies within the confines of the Persian Empire; after all, it was war that the Lord had sworn against Amalek, not an escape from confronting Amalek.

Satan has propagated the Amalekite spirit into other nations. As the Amalekite bloodline has dispersed in the course of time, by analogy this sociopathic, misanthropic worldview has been transmitted as well in the spiritual realm. Any time one nation seeks to annihilate another nation, this ancient, Amalekite-like spirit is at work. There have been examples of this approach throughout history. What Daniel has predicted is that at the end of this present age, annihilation will rise as a primary motive for international conflict.

The remedy will come from the kingdom of Christ. Christ will not perpetuate either the struggle for dominance that is so typical of the world, or the struggle for annihilation that is typical of satanic activity. King Jesus will successfully cause all wars to cease. He is the Prince of Peace. At His birth, the genocidal, Amalekite spirit lashed out against Christ when Herod first sought to kill the infant Messiah, and then, when he could not murder Christ, erupted in psychopathic rage and sought to annihilate all the babies of Bethlehem that were less than two years old. His attempt was to defeat God when he heard the prophecy that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem under the star that had appeared. When Christ returns back to earth, He will come with a permanent remedy for both annihilation and dominance. The specific details of that remedy are in His choice of method when He exercises His great power and reigns, but the outcome is that we will be free and the world will be at peace.

Why Did God Choose Israel?

"It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that he may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

Deuteronomy chapter nine verse five

The key thought in this verse is found in the phrase, "that he may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers." The Lord told Abraham that He would make him the father of nations. He also told Abraham that through his seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. That seed is Christ, the Lord. The purpose of the Lord in making a covenant with Abraham was not to single out Abraham to bless only him and no one else. Instead He told Abraham, "I will make you a blessing." The purpose of choosing Israel was not to bless only Israel and ignore the other nations. God's purpose is to bless all nations through Israel.

The emotion behind anti-Semitism is the sense of rejection caused by Israel being God's chosen nation. God was not rejecting other nations when He chose Israel. He was bringing order and stability into the world. There was, and is, chaos among the nations. This chaos and disorder is the source of war, economic instability, and a spiritual and moral decay that infects the earth. In creating Israel as a chosen nation, God was creating a gold standard of spiritual stability for the earth. He told Israel that they were "the least of all peoples", Deuteronomy, chapter seven verse seven. They are still a small nation. By not choosing the biggest, strongest nation, God is revealing to all nations that it is His hand that is blessing us all.

What do I mean by the phrase "gold standard of spiritual stability"? In money, the gold standard counters the financial chaos that results from letting all the currencies in the world float up and down against one another. In spiritual matters, Israel counters the spiritual chaos that results from letting all human cultures compare themselves with each other. God's spiritual standard in Israel stabilizes the spiritual condition of the world on the behalf of all mankind. Using the monetary gold standard creates a measuring stick that is separate and independent of the value of any one currency, thereby stabilizing all currencies. By having one nation separated to Him, God stabilizes all nations under Himself.

This spiritual gold standard is referred to in the book of Lamentations chapter four verses one and two, "How the gold has become dim! How changed the fine gold! The stones of the sanctuary are scattered at the head of every street. The precious sons of Zion, valuable as fine gold, how they are regarded as clay pots, the work of the hands of the Potter!" It is the sons of Zion who are the gold that mankind is not regarding as the work of God, but rather as just another human culture like all the other nations. Eventually Nebuchadnezzar, the conqueror of Zion, came to recognize the hand of God at work in Israel and in the nations. The confession of his faith is found in Daniel chapter four. Verse thirty-seven is compelling, "Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and His ways justice. And those who walk in pride He is able to put down." After Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, the Persian, ordered the temple of God rebuilt, and the vessels of the Temple returned to Jerusalem. The accounts of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther show how God used His spiritual gold standard in two empires, the Chaldean and the Persian, to change the way humanity views the world.

Since the people of Israel often fell short of God's golden standard of righteousness, the standard is now vested in one Israelite, Jesus Christ, who is God's anointed holy one. Israel continues to be the standard for the nations of the earth, but only in that the Holy One of Israel is now Israel's king forever. Jesus Christ now structures all the nations around the kingdom of God. When Israel rejects the kingdom of God, they are actually rejecting God's purpose for them as God's nation among all the nations of the earth. When other nations reject Israel, they are actually rejecting God's purpose in the earth through Christ. Psalm two verse two says, "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed", but verse six says, "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion."

God will surely "fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." He will make Abraham, who is the father of all them that believe, to become also a father to the nations. God means to bless the nations. He made the world, and He will be faithful to us all. It makes no sense to reject God's faithfulness to mankind by rejecting Israel, who is the nation through which He chooses to bless mankind. Also, it makes no sense to reject God's spiritual gold standard for all the earth. Furthermore, it makes no sense for Israel to reject Christ, who is the man through whom God has chosen to fulfill His national purpose for Israel. God is faithful and deserves to be trusted.

### The Throne of David

**"The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David."**

Luke chapter one verse thirty-two

There is no other throne like the throne of David. God has made a declaration concerning the throne of David that makes it unlike any other throne. Before we consider God's declaration concerning this throne, let us consider what constitutes a throne.

We live in a democratic age, at least in ideals. The concept of the seat of authority, however, is an older idea of mankind. A throne is a seat of authority. God Almighty is seated on a throne, and all other thrones derive from His divine authority. At one time, this derivation of authority was stretched by governments into a dogma of the "divine right of kings." This went too far. No mere man is endowed with a divine right over others. But the ability to exercise government over other men is a grant through divine providence, even when the one who is governing is an elected official. God's grant does not confer a divine right. Rather, when God providentially confers a position of government on a man, this makes that man accountable to God for how he governs other men.

Human government was instituted by God in a statement to Noah recorded in Genesis chapter nine verse six, "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man." This right and responsibility to avenge murder did not exist until God granted this right and placed this responsibility among men. Before God did this, the earth was filled with violence because of the inability of individuals to govern their own behavior. The purpose of human government is that we might be able to lead quiet and orderly lives, instead of being destroyed by chaotic violence.

The proper relationship of the Church of Jesus Christ to human governments is to pray for them. We have great power in intercessory prayer concerning government. Human government can best achieve its divine mandate through the prayers of the Church. Paul makes this clear in I Timothy chapter two in verses one and two, "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence."

However, as history records, human government has had limited success, to put it mildly. If God had expected human governments to build perfect systems of government, no doubt He would have instituted it from the beginning. Human government was a stopgap measure designed to partially relieve some of the distress of a fallen world. But it is, in itself, a distressing thing. Let us persist in our prayer for authorities as Paul exhorted.

This brings us to the throne of David. What did God say concerning David's throne? II Samuel chapter seven verse sixteen, "And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever." This was spoken many centuries after Noah's time. This is a further development of the idea of human government. Once God establishes King David's throne forever, human government cannot be abandoned as a temporary measure. To make David's throne permanent is a decree that makes human government permanent. But, human government is imperfect, and God is giving it a permanent status while it is still imperfect, therefore, human government becomes the subject of redemption. It must be perfected. Just as the soul of man is immortal, and therefore, must be either redeemed or punished eternally, so also David's throne has been decreed immortal by God and carries the same eternal burden.

Herein lies the crux of the matter; whoever receives the throne of David must also be the Redeemer of mankind. A redeemed person is himself the subject of grace, and therefore unable to redeem himself, much less a whole system of government. To redeem the throne requires the power of redemption, and so the king must be the Redeemer. He must also be king forever, because a succession of kings cannot be perfect. Every dynasty has a rotten apple somewhere. Only a perfect king who never dies can sit on an eternal throne. Anything less is unsafe and doomed to failure. But he must be a man; this is human government. This is not the eternal throne of God. It would have been simple to have done away with all human government, and let all authority be directly referred only to the throne of God. Making a human throne eternal is an awesome act of grace. God placed His own awesome authority in an eternal, delegated status. Thanks to God, He has also placed His only begotten Son, who is both God and man, on David's throne. We are safe, and God is safe, with Jesus Christ.

There is more. The throne of David is set up as a fountain of redemption. Consider what God says also to David in II Samuel chapter seven verses fourteen and fifteen, "I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you." When the sins of mankind were laid on Christ to be paid for on His cross, the accumulated iniquity charged against the throne of David was also laid on Him. While Christ was not personally culpable of anything, He was held accountable for the iniquity of His throne, and was chastened with the rod of men. The king was whipped. But God's mercy did not depart from Him. Without this promise of sure mercy attached to it, this throne would have been a liability. But God's mercy is an asset of the throne of David. The king on this throne was in a position to assume the sins of all mankind.

History is full of kings who deserved a horse whipping. Jesus Christ did not deserve a whipping, but He got one anyhow. "By His stripes we are healed", Isaiah chapter fifty-three verse five. It was for our salvation, but He who provided our salvation has become "the captain of our salvation", Hebrews chapter two verse ten, as also in Hebrews chapter five verse nine, "and having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." Salvation does not flow upward out of our need; some will not be saved who need salvation as desperately as any of us. Salvation flows downward from the throne of grace out of the authority of our loving king. He is not the author of eternal salvation to rebels, but instead to those who obey Him.

God's act of salvation and forgiveness cannot be an abandonment of His authority. Furthermore, the chastisement of sin cannot come against the throne of God! There must be another throne to uphold God's authority and, at the same time, receive the chastisement of our peace and heal us with stripes. This is the throne of David, given to Christ, and received by Him with His grace and His power of redemption.

### About the Capital City

"Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King."

Psalm forty-eight verse two.

"We ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."

Acts seventeen verses twenty-nine through thirty-one

Human motives in worship are not always easily discerned. Sometimes it is easy. In the South Pacific, after World War II, some islanders developed a cargo cult. They were awed by the amount of goods and material they had seen during the war. When the war was over, they felt themselves disadvantaged, and someone developed the idea that religious rituals could bring back the "cargo". Their motives are easy enough to understand. But, do we know ourselves well enough to know when our secret motives are to seek from our God, some form of "cargo"?

Understanding God as He truly is, exactly defining Him, is not easy. Our minds function out of paradigms which are already familiar to us. It is easier to view heaven as an ideal earth than to know God as He is. After all, we do not know what heaven is really like. John, the apostle, said in I John chapter three verse two, "It has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." Once we have been changed to be like Christ, then we will have an understanding of heavenly paradigms because we ourselves will be heavenly. We cannot understand heaven out of our earthbound limitations. But there will be a new heaven as well as a new earth. People who are now in heaven will see the present heaven itself changed into a new heaven. No doubt, they have a better understanding than we do of what the new heaven will be like, but even they have not seen the new heaven yet and can only imagine. Since the dead have not yet been raised, and the world has not yet been judged in righteousness by Christ, who can predict the changes that will be brought by these great events? For now, it is enough for us to believe that there will be changes, that there will be a resurrection, and that Christ will judge the world.

Perhaps we do well, for now, to understand that God is beyond our understanding, rather than develop a mental concept of God that is of our own making. God is better understood with our heart than with our mind, and in our spirit instead of in our intellect. We can feel Him better than we can see Him.

So, when we are raised from the dead to be like Christ, living in a new heaven and a new earth, our King will have a capital city, Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is described in Revelation chapter twenty-one. It is there, as described in Psalm forty-eight, "Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth."

Sadly, in Ezekiel chapter twenty-one verse twenty-seven, the present situation of Jerusalem is "Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown! It shall be no longer, until He comes whose right it is, and I will give it to Him." From the time of King David, until the time of Ezekiel, the city of Jerusalem had been the capital city of God's anointed kings over His covenant people. God's temple was there with the Ark of His covenant in a special room called the Holy of Holies. Because of gross sin described in this chapter of Ezekiel, and because a series of lesser punishments had not brought a complete reformation in ancient Israel, a final stroke of doom fell. Jerusalem would no longer be the capital city of the dynasty of God's kings. Only Christ has the right to the crown in Jerusalem. God will give it to Him. Until then, Jerusalem is in a situation of being repeatedly overthrown. Sin did this.

The future, beautiful situation of Jerusalem is dependent upon the future situation of the whole world as cleansed from sin by the sacrificed blood of Christ on His cross. The New Jerusalem will be arranged according to the character of our Redeemer King. It will reflect His compassion. His joy will fill the city. His peace will replace the centuries of strife. His authority will make His capital the capital city of the planet, the joy of the whole earth. A city is more than urban infrastructure; it is an organization. The New Jerusalem will be a spiritual structure, structured after Christ. We will be like Him, and we will populate the New Jerusalem. The outward appearance of the New Jerusalem will mirror the inner image of Christ in all of us because the New Jerusalem will be inhabited by a fully restored, completely sanctified people. The spiritual atmosphere of the New Jerusalem will be formed by our fellowship with our God who will be dwelling with us, and we with Him in resurrected bodies.

Many are looking forward to a thousand-year period of unprecedented outward wealth and increased holiness and peace before the final, perfect condition of the world is achieved. Most expect this to begin with the return of Christ and the resurrection of the righteous dead only. Others consider the scriptures which support a thousand-year kingdom of Christ on the earth to be symbolic of the present time while the gospel is being preached, and then expect the final judgment of the world to be accomplished all at once when Christ appears. Some have thought instead that this thousand year period refers to a spiritual event before the return of Christ when the gospel will have much greater success than ever before, but that any outward changes will be the result of improvement in the moral and social conditions of the nations. Whatever the event proves, this writer has reference to the end result after the full effect of Christ's redeeming work has been realized. We may expect an eternal reign in the capital city of the great king, the Lord Jesus.

### Dominion of Christ

**"I will declare the decree: the Lord has said to Me, You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession."**

Psalm two verses seven and eight

It is a divine decree. The Lord God Almighty has given Jesus Christ the ends of the earth and all the nations. He has but to ask. It is the Father's gift to His only begotten Son.

Originally, the earth was given to mankind. But man fell into sin and rebellion against God. At that point, Satan attempted to usurp the position of possessor of the earth. He never had a right to it. He attempted to take over because man had fallen. Adam did not give the earth to Satan; man had the stewardship of the earth under God, but not a fee simple title that he could sign over to another. In Genesis chapter fourteen verse nineteen Melchizedek called God, "God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth", and God also said, "If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all its fullness", Psalm fifty verse twelve. God made the earth, mankind lost stewardship of the earth because of sin, but God retained the title to the earth.

God will never surrender the title of the earth. Christ receives the title to the earth, but He is God as well as man. The statement "You are my Son, today I have begotten you" is a reference to the incarnation of Christ. God, the Father, is speaking to God, the Son, referring to the fact that the Eternal Word, the Logos, that was later to be made flesh, was already the Son from all eternity. At a point of time, the Word was made flesh. At that point at which He became flesh, He who had been the Son within the Triune God was begotten in the womb of the Virgin Mary, as a man, and acquired a human body and soul. The sense of the Father's words is that "You are already My Son, and now I have additionally begotten You as a human being as well." It is now the Father's will that Christ should have possession of the earth because of His unique position as both God and man. This constitutes a restoration of the stewardship of all mankind over the earth to whatever extent individual men will submit to the God-man, Jesus Christ, as the Father's King for mankind.

This restoring of stewardship through Jesus Christ implies that all things will be restored in Him. Peter spoke of Christ in this way in Acts chapter three verse twenty-one, "Whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things." Clearly, there is much yet to be restored, but eventually all things will be restored. Because Christ has made atonement on His cross, all losses over the whole cosmos are redeemed. You see, as God, Christ is possessor of heaven and earth. This has tremendous implications. It is only in the last century that mankind has acquired enough knowledge of the universe to appreciate its vast scale. It is tempting to shrink from the idea that the one God rules it all. But, the observation that the universe is expanding implies that everything has a common source. The Bible asserts that this source is God, the Creator. John, the apostle, says of Christ, "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made", John chapter one verse three. Through Him all things were made, and through Him all things will be restored.

When Jesus Christ declares this decree of the Father to give Him the earth, He does so in a remarkable fashion. "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth", Matthew chapter twenty-eight and verse eighteen. He clearly understood the decree to include heaven, even though heaven was not mentioned in Psalm two. He had already said in Matthew chapter eighteen verse eighteen that what we bind or loose on earth is bound or loosed in heaven. Jesus Christ has given us the authority of His name. In Jesus' name, when we are agreed, we can act on earth, and it will be accepted in heaven. This is remarkable. Together we are allowed to exercise the stewardship over the earth that was given to Christ. The objective of our stewardship under Christ is to make disciples of all the nations, baptize them, and teach them to observe all things that He commanded the original apostles. Christ intends to possess the ends of the earth through us, His Church.

What is commonly called The Great Commission is nothing less than Christ declaring the Father's decree and asking for the ends of the earth. The Great Commission is our King's purpose until the end of this age. He has chosen to exercise His rule and His dominion through His Church. Consider His words carefully, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age", Matthew chapter twenty-eight verses eighteen through twenty. He has the authority, and He is with us always. His desire is that we should share in His inheritance and be co-heirs with Him. When Christ was speaking to the church in Thyatira, He said, "And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations - 'He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed in pieces like the potters vessels' - as I also have received from My Father", Revelation chapter two verses twenty-six and twenty-seven. Christ says that He gives power over the nations just as He received from His Father. When we overcome sin and evil and persecution, and stay the course with Christ, He gives us power over the nations. We bind on earth and He binds in heaven. Then our prayers become effective to change the course of history.

Has it worked? Yes, it works where the church keeps the works of Christ. It is not a political agenda or a military campaign that we are engaged in. Christ is the Prince of Peace and the captain of salvation. He is not striving, burning with ambition, to conquer the world. He is a gentle Shepherd who calls men and women to come to Him to find rest for their souls. His agenda is the kingdom of heaven, which is totally unlike anything of this world. His purpose is eternal life and righteousness. His dominion is being exercised on the behalf of humanity, not against it. He dashes in pieces the oppressors of mankind, and gives the earth to the meek for their inheritance in answer to the prayers of His people.

### Message of Christ to All the Churches

**"For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living."**

Romans chapter fourteen verse nine

Jesus is an old-fashioned bridegroom. If the church/bride does not like the word "obey", there will be no wedding. She can sulk at her altar until her bouquet wilts. He will not have a teeny-bopper church/bride who wants to sit around popping her bubblegum and doing her own thing. Nail-scarred hands mean business. The Lord Jesus did not die on a cross in order to be jerked around by religious people who think of themselves as experts on the salvation of everyone else but themselves. The Lord clearly explains this in the first three chapters of Revelation. Each of the seven messages to the seven churches of Asia are identified as what "the Spirit says to the churches." This means that what was said to these ancient congregations applies to all congregations today. These seven messages are most accurately described as the seven-fold message to every church. Christ is not talking to someone else; He is talking to you and me.

These seven representative churches were located in the ancient Roman province of Asia which now is part of the modern nation of Turkey.

The first of the seven churches in Revelation chapter two is Ephesus. The Lord Jesus told the church at Ephesus that He wanted first love and first works, and wanted them to remember who they had been. In Acts chapter thirteen, we find that the church in Antioch was the instrument of the Holy Spirit. They ministered to the Lord and listened to the voice of the Holy Spirit. They obeyed Him. What the church did in verse three is said in verse four to be what the Holy Spirit did. They fasted, and they prayed. In verse one they are described as both a teaching and a prophetic church. The word of the Lord and the spirit of the Lord were both important to that church. The church at Ephesus had a similar beginning. Christ expected them to remember their early days, and to repent of ever having fallen from that position of obedience. Churches today should not have our own agenda; we exist to carry out the Lord's agenda. Once a great city, the site of ancient Ephesus is in ruins today.

The second church is Smyrna. This was a suffering, persecuted church. Christ has only encouragement for His people in Smyrna. The name Smyrna refers to myrrh, the bitter incense given to the infant Christ by one of the wise men at Bethlehem. As the hymnist, John Hopkins, wrote, "Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom." The congregation at Smyrna was sharing in the sufferings of Christ. He promised them that they would be glorified together. He would give them the crown of life, and they would not be hurt by the second death if they would be faithful. Another hymn writer, Isaac Watts, wrote, "Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood? Is this vile world a friend to grace, to help me on to God? Sure I must fight if I would reign; increase my courage Lord. I'll bear the toil; endure the pain, supported by Thy word." There is a kind of religious idea that supposes if one is good no trouble will come. The congregation at Smyrna obviously knew better. Christ supports them in their mature faith. Again we are exhorted in Revelation chapter two verse eleven to "hear what the Spirit says to the churches." We must be prepared to face persecution and suffering as Christians. To think otherwise will make us vulnerable to disillusionment and potential shipwreck of faith. The site of ancient Smyrna is the thriving, modern city of Izmir, Turkey.

The third church is Pergamos. This church was true to the name and faith of Christ but tolerated false teachers. Christ warned them that His word is like a sword, and that He will fight against false teachers. Sometimes Christians feel that speaking out against false teachers will cause conflict in the church. But this warning from Christ indicates that it is the tolerance of false teaching that causes problems. Christ's agenda is the great commission, that is, the teaching of all that He commanded. False teaching in the churches dilutes His message. The Lord said in John chapter fourteen, verse six, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Anything less than these three together is something less than true Christianity. It is popular with some to speak of each individual's own, personal truth. But, Christ has His own personal truth, and more than that, He is the truth. To be a Christian is to abandon a self-centered agenda and to adopt Jesus Christ's truth as one's own truth. This is why Christianity has creeds. We are not entitled to maintain a personal interpretation of the Christian message. We are commissioned to unite in spreading the truth of Christ throughout the world; and we are empowered by the Holy Spirit when we do it. When someone attempts to distort the gospel of Christ, if we don't fight them, Christ will fight them, and the Holy Spirit will also fight them. We may as well be on the winning side. Pergamos is now in ruins near the modern town of Bergama, Turkey.

Together, these first three churches yield a three-fold witness to an important truth. The future prosperity of families, cities and nations depends on the approval of Christ. As the church goes, so goes the city. When Lot left Sodom, the fire fell. When Christ left the city of Jerusalem it fell, and it has not been a safe place since. God's truth is the foundation of civilization. To the degree that civilization abandons its foundation of truth it will, to that degree, fail. The Ten Commandments is the word by which we will be judged. The gospel of Christ is the only way for people to be received and accepted by God. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth as Paul said in I Timothy chapter three verse fifteen. When the church in a community fails, the community also fails.

The fourth Church in Revelation chapter two is Thyatira. Christ commended their activity and perseverance. However, this church had problems in the area of spiritual sanitation. They were rebuked for both erotic sensuality and demonic activity. Christ indicated that some in this church had known "the depths of Satan", and He promised to cleanse this church of this degradation by taking some serious measures against them. The church was allowing a Jezebel to operate in the congregation. The lesson for us today is that spiritual uncleanness is not taken lightly by Christ in any church. The good works of a church cannot offset the tolerance of evil in the congregation. We serve a holy God. The modern name for Thyatira is Akhisar, Turkey.

Chapter three of Revelation begins with Sardis, the fifth church. Sardis had the outward appearance of a live church, but Christ informed them that they were dead. The life of the church is in the Holy Spirit. Christianity is not a cookbook religion that follows some recipe that once worked for someone else. Christianity is an active relationship with the living God. If the relationship is dead, He knows it. He called this church to repent of their dead works and to serve the living God. Any church today may take this message to heart. We should be alive to the presence of God. We should feel Him, hear Him and obey what He is now communicating to His congregation today. The ruins of the ancient metropolis of Sardis are at the village of Sart, Turkey.

Philadelphia is the sixth church in the series. The Lord Jesus does not rebuke them. They are encouraged by Christ that their perseverance and obedience will be rewarded. He gives them an open door, assures them that He loves them, and promises to protect them from a global catastrophe that He says is coming. We are not going to lose if we stand with Christ. He will not abandon us. Let us hold faithful to Him and not abandon Him. Philadelphia is still a thriving town known as Alasehir, Turkey.

The seventh and last church is the Laodiceans. They were lukewarm, conceited and self-satisfied. Christ represents Himself as standing outside this church, knocking and waiting to be invited into His own flock. What a picture! Being lukewarm to Christ meant that the Laodiceans believed themselves to be in no need of Him. They did not want any more Jesus than they had once experienced. A little Jesus was enough for them. Christ informed the Laodiceans that they were "wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked." He did not think them an attractive bride at all, and called for their repentance on the grounds that He did, in fact, still love them. Christ loves us today, even at our most repulsive moments. When the bride has been asleep, our patient Lord will wait for us to brush our teeth and hair and put on some makeup. A shower and clean clothes might be in order. He is a loving Savior, but that is not an excuse to disgust Him with our lukewarmness today. He deserves our wholehearted devotion and love. Ancient Laodicea is now a large ruin near the Turkish village of Eskihisar.

Luke chapter nine verse thirty-five, "And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is my beloved Son. Hear Him!"

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Thank you for reading.

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About the Author**

John Lowstreet has spent his life trying to know God personally and to more deeply understand God. His one quest is to have more experiences with God. John studied the Bible to find God, and as he found Him, grew to love Him. His writings and poems reflect deeply held convictions about the character of God and the importance of Jesus Christ. Christ is not complicated. He is profound, however.

There are other books by John Lowstreet at e-book retailers for your use and enjoyment.

In Cadenced Thought

How To Be Blessed By Christ

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