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2ND SAMUEL 6-7
Micah 5:4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. ON VIDEO https://youtu.be/9fCkO9vYK94 2nd Samuel 6-7 https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-1-17-2nd-samuel-6-7-c-u.zip .Write the vision .Kids like arrows .Legacy thru dynasty .The tapestry of scripture .Jason’s [Levi’s] arrow .Pleiades .Whiskey ‘offering’? .Pentateuch- Torah .See the phone ‘competition’ .Ark as Logos .Tabernacle of David .Raiders of the lost ark? .David’s ephod .Who told you I wanted a temple? .Wal Mart encounter PAST POSTS- [verses below] Below are 2 chapters I taught years ago- Here’s the complete study [videos- links] https://ccoutreach87.com/samuel-links/ Text only- https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-samuel/ (922)2ND SAMUEL 6- David attempts to retrieve the Ark and bring it to the new capital city of Jerusalem. On the way back one of the brothers tries to steady the ark as it was about to fall. They were carrying it on a ‘new cart’ with oxen pulling it. This was not the way the law prescribed carrying it! This was the formula that the Philistines used earlier. So David’s man touches the Ark and is killed. They leave it at another brother’s house for three months and the brother is blessed, David goes and retrieves it. This chapter doesn’t say what changed, but obviously David went back to the law and used the prescribed manner this time around. As he enters Jerusalem with it there is this joyous picture of everyone leaping and dancing and praising the Lord. Sort of like the triumphal entry of Jesus [Gods ‘fleshly’ ark, who had all the fullness of God dwelling in his physical body!] to Jerusalem when the people shouted ‘Hosanna’. David places the ark in a tent/tabernacle that he personally made for it. I wrote earlier how this was an open tent that had no barriers between the ark and Gods people, a contrast between Moses tabernacle where God and the people were separated [law versus grace type thing]. David’s wife mocks him because he took off his royal robes and wore an ephod [priestly garment] and danced and humbled himself before the Lord. David says ‘I will even be more lowly than this’. His wife is barren for the rest of her life as a judgment for mocking David. What ever happened to the ark? Well let me give you some history. The ‘story’ [tradition] says that when the queen of Ethiopia visits Solomon to see his wealth, that eventually he ‘marries’ her and they have kids. The queen goes back to Ethiopia and supposedly takes the ark from Solomon as a gift. The Ethiopian orthodox church claims to have it in the main ‘church’ in Ethiopia. Because of this history all the Ethiopian churches have replicas of the ark in their buildings as well. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is one of rich tradition. They are technically not considered ‘Catholic’ [western] or ‘Orthodox’ [eastern]. They are part of the church who are sometimes referred to as Oriental. This referring to the historic churches [not necessarily Oriental in geography] who never accepted the traditional churches belief in certain expressions of the Trinity and the relationship between Jesus and God. They stuck with the Arian view of Jesus deity and are not considered ‘orthodox’ in this area. As the centuries developed and various barbarians who were raiding the empire were converted, they also believed in a Christianity that would be more aligned with this type of belief. Now, I know Christians do not consider this to be correct doctrine, but I am simply sharing the history with you. I am not siding with their belief! We really have no idea where the ark is today, to be honest it doesn’t matter. We ‘see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the purpose of dying, and he was raised again for us’! [Hebrews]. We have the real McCoy! (923)2ND SAMUEL 7- As David’s house is becoming established, he says to himself ‘I live in this great cedar house, and God is dwelling openly in this tent. I know what I will do; I will build a house/building for God also’. Good intent, bad imagery! David tells the plan to Nathan the prophet and Nathan says ‘go, do all that is in your heart’ and everything seems fine. That very night the Lord appears to Nathan in a vision and rebukes the whole scheme ‘Have I ever asked for someone to build me a house? All the years of journeying with my people, don’t you think if I wanted to dwell in some temple that I would have already done it!’. Basically Nathan and David get reproved big time. Why? Up until now God ‘dwelt’ in 2 separate tabernacle/systems. The Mosaic one was a type of law and separation between God and men. You had the classic veil separating God from the people. The ‘holy of holies’ [back room] was a type of mans separation from God because of mans sin. Now, after David retrieved the ark and brought it to Jerusalem. He set it up under an open tent called ‘the tent/tabernacle of David’. From this vantage point you had a beautiful picture of the future Messianic reign under Christ [of whom David is a symbol] where the people would all have open access to God. In essence ‘no more veil’. So even though David’s intentions are good, he is messing up the image. God still confirms his calling on David and his family/dynasty and we see one of those dual messianic prophecies that speak of Solomon and Jesus at the same time. God says he will raise up a permanent throne thru the loins of David and David will have a never ending rule. For this to happen someone obviously needs to be born from the lineage of David who will ‘have the power of an endless life’ [Hebrews]. Gee, I wonder who that could be? God’s intricate plan of salvation that is contained in these Old Testament books, written many years before Christ, couldn’t have been some made up 1st century story. It would have been impossible to have coordinated all the prophetic portions of scripture that tie together in Christ. Even the original writers and readers of Israel’s history could not have seen the unfolding of prophetic events that were to be fulfilled in Christ. We finish the chapter with David praising God and recognizing in humility that God has spoken about his family and purpose for ages to come. David sees that God is calling him to something greater than just being a human king, having a brief political history. God has plans for David even after David’s death! God spoke of David’s ongoing effect thru his seed [kids] that would continue for many generations to come. God wants all of us to live with a kingdom [not human!] legacy in mind. Paul the apostle built a gentile church that has lasted for 2 thousand years, he was a man of humble means. He left behind no edifice or bulky institution. But his ‘seed’ [spiritual kids] have outlasted him for many generations to come. [see 1st Kings study, chapter 3- entry 1050] [parts] I tlak about the tabernacle of David [and Moses] on today’s video- below are links to 2 small books I wrote years ago- I mentioned the subject in them. https://ccoutreach87.com/further-talks-on-church-and-ministry/ https://ccoutreach87.com/the-great-building-of-god/ Qouted from Hebrews as well- here’s my complete commentary- https://ccoutreach87.com/hebrews-updated-2015/ VERSES- [These are the vesres I quote on today’s video- 2nd Samuel 6-7] Psalm 127:1 Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Psalm 127:2 It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. Psalm 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Psalm 127:4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Psalm 127:5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. 2 And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. 3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. 4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. Hab. 2 Revelation 11:19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Revelation 15:5 And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened: In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Ephesians 1:21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Philippians 2:9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Zechariah 8:4 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. Matthew 18King James Version (KJV) 18 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Hebrews 11:39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: Hebrews 11:40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. http://www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg https://twitter.com/ccoutreach87 https://plus.google.com/108013627259688810902/posts https://vimeo.com/user37400385 john chiarelloFollow On https://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_logo http://johnchiarello.tumblr.com/ http://johnchiarello.thoughts.com/ Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on- Thanks- John.# Advertisements Occasionally, some of your visitors may see an advertisement here, as well as a Privacy & Cookies banner at the bottom of the page. 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Samuel 5-6POSTED BY CCOUTREACH87 ⋅ JULY 7, 2016 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENTSAMUEL 5-6
https://youtu.be/utB_jCUEFtY Samuel 5-6 https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/7-5-16-samuel-5-6.zip https://youtu.be/r5SeuJUYJtY White cop murders Black father- again http://www.cnn.com/ Cop case http://www.kristv.com/story/32390894/man-fatally-shot-by-police-in-minnesota-video-investigated http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/us/falcon-heights-shooting-minnesota/index.html 2Timothy 3:10 But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, 2Timothy 3:11 Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. 2Timothy 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. My Links on Samuel- https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/1st-2nd-samuel/ [Old commentary I wrote years ago] MY VIDEO/POST LINKS- https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/every-cop-a-criminal/ [1-2 Samuel] https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/when-the-saints-go-marching-in-sam-3-john-2-4/ https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/06/29/just-a-box-samuel-4/ https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/would-you-be-isis/ https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/protestant-reformation-luther/ https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/qm/ https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/the-great-building-of-god/ ON VIDEO [past posts- verses below] .Woman lied- Muslim tourist arrested- Arab world pissed off- and the liar goes on her merry way- Thanks Jezebel! .Jail and radio ministry .KCTA .Jacko- lessons form a bi-polar guitar genius .Rush- sting- Police- Rock n Roll stuff .The fish god gets hooked .Tumors and rats- stop for heaven’s sake! .The diviners ‘it’s you guys bad management of the city- that’s caused all this’! .Luther- Erasmus- the big issue .Divine Comedy? .Should we make ‘water boil’ models too? If I had the chance to make the video- after the James Comey decision- the next bullet point would be- .How the FBI director spent 15 minutes- detailing ‘gross negligent handling’ of classified info by Hillary Clinton- then said ‘she’s off the hook’- Huh? She might actually lose her ‘top secret clearance’ and be pres.- well- there’s a first time for everything. NEW STUFF-[review] Today we talk about the judgment that broke out on the Philistines because they captured the ark. When the ark shows up in the land of the enemy- it causes problems, every city it goes to- tragedy befalls the poor philistines. So- they call their priests and diviners and ask ‘what should we do’? They look right into the face of the 5 rulers- and say ‘it’s your fault- you guys took the thing- so- as a sign of repentance- make 5 gold images of the curse that’s among us’. The judgment of God was the people got tumors- and a bunch of rats [many more than 5 mind you]. So- the priests- from a pagan religion- tell their own rulers- ‘Make 5 models of the tumors [because there were 5 cites of the philistines] and 5 models of the rats- after the number of YOU LEADERS that our over us’. Hmm? I think they might have been sending a message to their mayor and city council- you know. So- they obey the words of their priests- and put these 10 images in a little box- and they put the ark and the little box on a new cart- with 2 cows at the helm. The priest tell their rulers ‘if the cart takes the ark back to the land of the Jews [city of Bethshemesh] than it will prove that it was the true God’s judgment that was upon us’ [I think that wanted to say – you Rat finks!] Sure enough the ark goes straight back to the land of the true God- and the rulers of the enemy realized it was indeed God’s judgment. Now- when the ark makes it back- God’s people lift the lid- called the Mercy Seat- and many people die. Why? The ark contained the 10 commandments- the lid was a symbol of the Blood of Christ- the atonement. And when you approach a Holy God [peek into the box] without the Blood covering- you get wiped out. We today can enter into the Holy presence of God because of the Cross- but if we attempt to come any other way- well you see what happens. PAST POSTS- LOSING MY RELIGION [not a performance] ON VIDEOS- https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/11-27-15-losing-my-religion.zip https://youtu.be/12jgnZnoacE [losing my religion] https://youtu.be/hipVuk4m6JY [not a performance] .Abrahams covenant .Circumcision .Was Adam real? .Too smart? .2 trees .Fundamentalism .Should we re-think Paul- again? .Symbolism in Genesis .Erasmus .Atonement ‘theory’? .Why argue for God? PAST POSTS- [verses below] (820) . ROMANS 3:19-31 ‘Now we know that what things the law says, it says to those who are under the law… that every mouth may be stopped and all the world becomes guilty before God’. One of the questions that arise as a response to Paul’s gospel is ‘if the law cannot make us righteous, then why even have it’? Paul will consistently teach the concept that Gods intention for the law was simply to reveal mans sin to him. Man would have this ‘form’ of the law written on stone tablets and as he tried to live up to God’s standards he would come to the proper diagnosis that all men are sinners. This diagnosis would then lead him to a place of faith in Jesus. After he believes in Jesus he then fulfills the law naturally, out of having a new nature ‘yea, we establish the law’ [3:31]. I have found it interesting over the years to teach people this. To explain to sincere people, church goers. To say ‘did you know the bible says that no man can be saved by trying to obey Gods Ten Commandments’? I will always explain that this doesn’t mean that God wants us to break them! But when we come to the Cross we by nature keep them. These verses lay down the foundation of ‘justification by faith’. He that believes is righteous. To declare Jesus righteousness for the remission of sins that are past. Having faith ‘in His Blood’. Both Jews and Gentiles need to be made righteous thru faith/belief in Jesus. I want to establish this fact in your mind. Paul without a doubt describes this experience as being ‘justified by faith’. This is the same as saying ‘believing with the heart unto righteousness’. Later on [chapter 10] this needs to be understood when parsing the verses that say ‘with the heart a man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation’ many are confused about this, to get it right you need to see that Paul spends much time early on establishing the fact that ‘those who believe unto righteousness’ are justified by faith already! Below are just a few clips from Romans 1-3- I hope to hit on these in the video. Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Romans 1:19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: [parts] The Catholic Humanist- Desiderius Erasmus [15-16th century] – re introduced the New Testament in the Greek version [He was referred to as a Dutch renaissance Humanist- as well as a Catholic Priest and scholar] Now- Erasmus was a critic of the Church- like Luther- but chose a ‘middle road’- he did not join the breakaway Protestant Reformers- but chose to stay within the fold of Rome- while speaking out against the abuses he saw. But his first Greek translation of the New Testament did indeed set a spark- because it allowed the Priests to see the bible in its original language. And Luther was actually teaching this book of Romans to his students in Germany when the Reformation began. Today the Catholic Church [as you can see in the official Catechism that I have been posting] does indeed teach the bible as God’s Word. The divisions between Protestants and Catholics are many- but they did agree that the bible was the Word of God. Some Protestants do not know this- they think the church holds Tradition higher than the bible. No- the church does believe that God speaks both thru tradition- and scripture. They see the tradition of the church as simply another means by which God uses the church [Magisterium] to explain scripture- but the Catholic Church does not elevate tradition over the bible. And indeed- it was a catholic scholar- Erasmus- who introduced the first Geek version of the New Testament. NOTE- Erasmus disagreed with Luther on the doctrine of Predestination- which I covered in the last video. Luther was for it- Erasmus was what we would call ‘Free Will’. In his writings- which were very influential- he wrote in Greek and Latin- the language of the elites. He did this on purpose- for his target was the influential leaders of the Church. He rejected offers of money- because he did not want to align himself with any particular movement- so he could be an independent writer with no strings attached. He had many criticisms of the Catholic Church- and was very influential for the later reforms- those we see at the Council of Trent [Though the church criticized him- they said he ‘Laid the egg that hatched the Reformation’]. He taught that the church/priests/popes should be the servants of the people- He rejected the idea that the Priests/leaders made up the ‘whole of the church’- but he believed all believers made up the true church. Erasmus was a firebrand in his own way- rejecting the language that Luther and some of the reformers used [they were vulgar at times]- Luther respected the works of Erasmus- he thanked Erasmus for debating with him on the nature of Justification by Faith- He disagreed in the end- but said this debate was at the heart of the gospel- and was glad that Erasmus was willing to engage. RENAISSANCE ARTISTS- The famous renaissance artists- DaVinci- Michelangelo- Raphael- used their artwork as a form of knowledge- the images taught things- they were not just paintings. DaVinci’s most famous work was his painting on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in the Vatican. It took him 4 years to complete. The renaissance period- from about the 13/14th century to the 17th- [though there was a sort of Renaissance that took place- yes- in the Islamic world before the European Renaissance] was marked by what we term Humanism. Today we associate this term with ‘secular Humanism’ which often has a bad connotation- especially among Christians. But it meant something different back then. It was a new focus on breaking the limits off of man- and for man to excel in knowledge and skill- and to see man as having value. There was somewhat of a break away from the church in a sense- in that the church and its teachings were not the only source of wisdom for man. But- Jesus himself taught that ‘the Sabbath was made for man- not man for the Sabbath’- so- the Humanist spirit- elevating the value of man- does have a Christian basis in my view. Leonardo daVinci [15/16th century] was what we refer to as a true Renaissance man- meaning his knowledge was in many fields- not just art. He actually considered himself a sculptor first- then an artist- though he is most famous for his Fresco mentioned above. 1989 The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus’ proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”38 Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. “Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of [parts] . Galatians 2:11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. Galatians 2:12 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. Galatians 2:13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. Galatians 2:14 But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the [parts] VERSES- 1Samuel 5:1 And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. 1Samuel 5:2 When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. 1Samuel 5:3 And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. 1Samuel 5:4 And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. 1Samuel 5:5 Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon’s house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day. 1Samuel 5:6 But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof. 1Samuel 5:7 And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god. 1Samuel 5:8 They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about unto Gath. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel about thither. 1Samuel 5:9 And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts. 1Samuel 5:10 Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people. 1Samuel 5:11 So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not, and our people: for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there. 1Samuel 5:12 And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven. ________________________________________ 1Samuel 6:1 And the ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines seven months. 1Samuel 6:2 And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the LORD? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place. 1Samuel 6:3 And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you. 1Samuel 6:4 Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords. 1Samuel 6:5 Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land. 1Samuel 6:6 Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed? 1Samuel 6:7 Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them: 1Samuel 6:8 And take the ark of the LORD, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go. 1Samuel 6:9 And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us: it was a chance that happened to us. 1Samuel 6:10 And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home: 1Samuel 6:11 And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. 1Samuel 6:12 And the kine took the straight way to the way of Bethshemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Bethshemesh. 1Samuel 6:13 And they of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. 1Samuel 6:14 And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Bethshemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the LORD. 1Samuel 6:15 And the Levites took down the ark of the LORD, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Bethshemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto the LORD. 1Samuel 6:16 And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day. 1Samuel 6:17 And these are the golden emerods which the Philistines returned for a trespass offering unto the LORD; for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Askelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one; 1Samuel 6:18 And the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fenced cities, and of country villages, even unto the great stone of Abel, whereon they set down the ark of the LORD: which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua, the Bethshemite. 1Samuel 6:19 And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. 1Samuel 6:20 And the men of Bethshemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God? and to whom shall he go up from us? 1Samuel 6:21 And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjathjearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of the LORD; come ye down, and fetch it up to you. OTHERS LINKS- http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/06/us/baton-rouge-shooting-alton-sterling/index.html http://www.kristv.com/story/32380864/police-warn-women-to-be-aware-of-their-surroundings http://www.kristv.com/story/32381759/protesters-take-to-streets-after-police-kill-louisiana-man http://www.kristv.com/story/32381873/trump-saddam-killed-terrorists-so-good http://www.caller.com/news/local/woman-still-missing-police-seek-tips-36e6044d-242a-6d6f-e053-0100007f1363-385584551.html http://caller.com/news/local/crime/bbc-documentary-centers-around-2009-death-of-corpus-christi-lieutenant-36eed922-ac1f-60d8-e053-01000-385638011.html http://www.kztv10.com/story/32380998/republicans-attack-fbi-over-decision-on-clinton-emails http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/06/chilcot-inquiry-tony-blair-george-bush-letters/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/06/europe/uk-iraq-inquiry-chilcot-report/index.html http://cnn.it/go?adkey=bn http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/watchman-on-the-wall/58191-you-won-t-believe-the-pitch-i-got-from-one-false-prophet https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/house-of-prayer-or-den-of-thieves/ My book [deals with link above] http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/july/christian-teacher-fired-for-not-divorcing-husband-wins-at-c.html http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2016/june/why-cant-we-christians-laugh-anymore.html being targeted again! http://www.kztv10.com/story/32369626/man-threatens-woman-with-knife-steals-purse Advertisements Occasionally, some of your visitors may see an advertisement here, as well as a Privacy & Cookies banner at the bottom of the page. You can hide ads completely by upgrading to one of our paid plans. UPGRADE NOW DISMISS MESSAGE Share this:Related2nd Samuel 4With 1 comment Sunday sermon Sunday sermon Just a box? [Samuel 4]POSTED BY CCOUTREACH87 ⋅ JUNE 29, 2016 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENTJUST A BOX [Sam. 4]
And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. Jesus https://youtu.be/-pCME0vwbE0 Just a box? https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/6-28-16-just-a-box.zip NOTE- Tomorrow I talk about the tragic death of a local girl. I’ve been commenting on it the past few weeks. Like Heather- a girl who was murdered last year- right after going to CCPD and telling them ‘he’s going to murder me’. She was killed. Ok- obviously the family thought the cops were not doing their job [whether true or not- I don’t know- but you could understand the feeling coming from the family]. So- the other day I read an article in the Caller Times- they have been doing a good job on covering the problem of domestic violence in Corpus Christ. But- I read the headline- and it seemed strange- I looked for the link- as of now can’t find it. Why strange? It had the sister of the latest victim- saying something like ‘the law and CCPD are doing a good job [Hmm?] but the system needs time to work’. Then they said the sister of the victim said this. I read the actual article [small print as we say- which most people don’t read- they usually form their opinion from the headline]. And this quote- according to the actual article- WAS NOT FROM THE SISTER- But the cop in charge of the domestic violence unit. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to the Caller Times- and attribute it to a simple mistake- but the national media do indeed do this type of stuff- all the time. [ I just found the article- right before I post- in my news paper collection here at the house- I’ll post the actual pictures on facebook right now- I hope the caller times makes a correction because if the family does not feel this way- it victimizes them again]. ON VIDEO- .Why 2 Ebenezer’s ? .Bathroom prophecy- huh? .To the guys at the Kingsville Fire dept.- TMRS might cut our checks! [you’ll have to watch- sorry boys] .Why do our guys suffer from PTSD- and ISIS does not? .Will right theology- alone- save you? .SCOTUS abortion ruling- why celebrate like that? .You actually see ‘the box’ on this video .What’s up with the door? .Reverend Wilcombs- North Bergen- New Jersey https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/house-of-prayer-or-den-of-thieves/ Here’s the book I gave him. .Apostolic ministry .The question an Iraqi asked my friend MY LINKS- [verses below] https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/4-22-16-the-alamo.zip I mention this on today’s video https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/ogopogo-ruth-3/ This too https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/1st-2nd-samuel/ [Old commentary I wrote years ago] VIDEO/POST LINKS- https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/every-cop-a-criminal/ [1-2 Samuel] https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/when-the-saints-go-marching-in-sam-3-john-2-4/ https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/acts/ I mention Acts 17 on today’s video- here’s my complete commentary Below are 2 commentaries I wrote years ago- on Romans and Hebrews- on today’s video I mention Romans 1-2 and Hebrews 11- if you want you can read them here. https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/hebrews-updated-2015/ https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/romans-updated-2015/ NEW NOTES ON SAMUEL 4- [news links and commentary below] The people of God go to battle against the enemy- at a place called Ebenezer [means rock of help- a picture of Christ]. So- they think God is on their side- and the enemy wins! They go back to Shiloh- the place where the Ark [box] was- and they think if they bring the box with them- this time they will win. The Ark was a God given thing- but inside of it were the 10 commandments- which the people did not keep anymore. The Philistines hear that the box is now with the army- and they fear. Yet- they say ‘be strong- be courageous- let’s fight to the death anyway’. This is a God given principle- courage- but the Philistines worshipped false Gods [they had bad doctrine about God]. So- they engage in battle with God’s people [right doctrine- but not right obedience] and sure enough- the enemy wins- and captures the Ark! The 2 sons of Eli are killed- fulfilling the first prophecy God gave Samuel and Eli hears what happened- and falls back off his chair and dies. Bible teachers ‘warn’ not to confuse the Ebenezer of chapter 4 with that of chapter 7. Why? Because in chapter 7 the Ebenezer is an actual stone monument that represents victory for God’s people. And the Ebenezer of chapter 4 seems to not be a picture of Christ- the Rock of help. Jesus said that whoever ‘this rock’ falls on- it will grind him to powder- but whoever falls on it- will be broken. Jesus was speaking of himself- saying ‘if you repent- and ‘fall’ down before me’- yes- it is a type of judgment- but necessary. But- if you reject me- the rock comes in judgment. I believe the Ebenezer of chapter 4 was a type of Christ too. Because God allowed the defeat- so the people would realize it’s not good enough to just have ‘the box’ which is an outward expression of religion- but you need a change of heart. When you receive the Ebenezer of chapter 4- then you get the Ebenezer of chapter 7- and the Philistines get ‘ground to dust’. See? VERSES- 1Samuel 4:1 And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer: and the Philistines pitched in Aphek. 1Samuel 4:2 And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines: and they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men. 1Samuel 4:3 And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD smitten us to day before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. 1Samuel 4:4 So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubims: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 1Samuel 4:5 And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. 1Samuel 4:6 And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the LORD was come into the camp. 1Samuel 4:7 And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. 1Samuel 4:8 Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. 1Samuel 4:9 Be strong and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and fight. 1Samuel 4:10 And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. 1Samuel 4:11 And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. 1Samuel 4:12 And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head. 1Samuel 4:13 And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out. 1Samuel 4:14 And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What meaneth the noise of this tumult? And the man came in hastily, and told Eli. 1Samuel 4:15 Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that he could not see. 1Samuel 4:16 And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to day out of the army. And he said, What is there done, my son? 1Samuel 4:17 And the messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken. 1Samuel 4:18 And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years. 1Samuel 4:19 And his daughter in law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to be delivered: and when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was taken, and that her father in law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and travailed; for her pains came upon her. 1Samuel 4:20 And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not; for thou hast born a son. But she answered not, neither did she regard it. 1Samuel 4:21 And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel: because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father in law and her husband. 1Samuel 4:22 And she said, The glory is departed from Israel: for the ark of God is taken. NEWS LINKS- http://www.kristv.com/story/32325046/why-are-somepeople-extremelygrumpy-in-the-morning I’m tired of our local media targeting me! http://caller.com/news/local/crime/judge-to-rule-on-whether-kleberg-da-will-face-indictment-364360b1-8081-5d7b-e053-0100007f6346-384539791.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/28/politics/benghazi-report-hillary-clinton/index.html I refuse to read it- I don’t have to. ‘No bombshell’- remember what I told you the other day? We ALREADY KNOW THE BOMBSHELL. In short- the ambassador asked- ONE THOUSAND TIMES- for more security. This has never happened in the history of the state dept. [run by Hillary Clinton] Then- another 1st- the actual security team- hired by the state dept. – were militia groups in Libya [I know this is hard to believe- but its true]. Then- they actually carried out the words of our ambassador- and they murdered him. Now- we need no more bombshell- that’s it. HILLARY’S RESPONSE- ‘They are just attacking my campaign’- sad- The report showed us that one of the reasons we did not send our men help- was the Obama administration debated if they needed ‘approval’ from Libya- I mean our own men were under attack. Besides the fact that Hillary lied- and said the attack was because of a video- she even lied to the family members of the dead. The investigation was NOT INTENDED to find who was at fault- if it were- then yes- it would be Hillary’s state dept. But the media says ‘no wrong doing found’ but that’s not what they were looking for- in the sense that our guys asked for help- and didn’t get it- yes- that is wrong doing. PAGE 30 [of the report] security assessment 9 months before attack- state dept. witness said ‘people will die in Benghazi’ because we have inadequate security. Now- Hillary’s state dept. knew this- why did she not provide adequate security? HOW THIS WOMAN CAN RUN FOR PRESIDENT IS BEYOND ME. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/28/house-benghazi-report-slams-administration-response-to-attacks.html?intcmp=hpbt1 I saw this- right after the above link. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/28/read-house-benghazi-report.html?intcmp=hpbt1 http://video.foxnews.com/v/4998680232001/nigel-farage-rubbish-to-blame-brexit-for-stock-losses/?intcmp=hpvid1 See? http://thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/hfa-gmail-attack-723571 Why All the Post-Brexit Hysteria? Establishment Launches “Bregret” Campaign [my views were not formed by the above- nor did I read the links- but just from the title- I see others have said what I said] http://www.kristv.com/story/32329418/mosquito-from-trap-tests-positive-for-west-nile-virus http://www.kristv.com/story/32332295/firefighters-on-the-scene-of-building-fire http://www.caller.com/news/behind-broken-doors/column-its-time-to-do-something-about-domestic-violence-364635d1-01d3-0b8b-e053-0100007f5e41–384765381.html http://www.kztv10.com/story/32332278/aransas-pass-police-investigating-fatal-shooting http://www.kztv10.com/story/32329571/jim-wells-county-sheriff-candidate-facing-federal-charges http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/06/29/istanbul-airport-reopens-after-terror-attack-leaves-41-dead-239-injured.html?intcmp=hpbt1 http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/06/29/russia-us-point-fingers-after-latest-incident-in-mediterranean-sea.html?intcmp=hplnws http://www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com facebook.com/john.chiarello.5 https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg https://plus.google.com/108013627259688810902/posts Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on. I deal with issues at times that it would be beneficial for some of you to download and save the file from the Word Press link. This creates a permanent record. The on-line videos are only good if sites are not hacked- which has happened in the past. Thanks- John.# Advertisements Occasionally, some of your visitors may see an advertisement here, as well as a Privacy & Cookies banner at the bottom of the page. You can hide ads completely by upgrading to one of our paid plans. UPGRADE NOW DISMISS MESSAGE Share this:RelatedKings 7 Corpus Christi Sunday sermon 11-25-18 Sunday Sermon [video made 11-18-18]
Habakkuk 2:1 I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. Habakkuk 2:2 And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. Habakkuk 2:3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Church Unlimited- Mass - https://youtu.be/DiRNv2hp3aU https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/5-28-17-c-u-mass.zip https://ccoutreach87.com/5-28-17-c-u-mass/ [I talked from the verses used in the Sunday Mass- and the verses from Church Unlimited] Sunday sermon videos [made 11-18-18] https://youtu.be/smTOw7EJSjY https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5/videos/10205026402177950/ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wLa7tFY64lGtOCNC4kv4f3gctQ7c_78O/view?usp=sharing Blog- www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg?view_as=subscriber Other sites- https://ccoutreach87.com/links-to-my-sites-updated-10-2018/ [Links to all my sites at the bottom of this post] NOTE- Every so often some of my sites think I am Spam- or a Bot- I am not. My name is John Chiarello and I post original content [all videos and text are by me]. I do share my past posts from my other sites- but it is not spam- Thank you- John. NEW NOTE- I made a video for 11-18-18- but this post is a re-post of a past Sunday sermon- the notes and teaching go with the older videos linked above. I did teach much on the video anyway- and used the verses for the Mass for 11-18-18- also added below in the verses section. Overall I tried to challenge some of our mind sets about the ‘End Times’ and how 20th [and 21st] century Evangelicals look at these passages. The Mass readings for this date did cover some of the more popular passages about the End Times. Some [most?] might disagree with the perspective I tried to talk about- and that's ok. The main point I was trying to make was End Times teachings should be seen in the light of the overall redemptive purposes of God. Revelation [the book] is a beautiful picture of Christ and the Church. And yes- there are passages about ‘violence’ how the Word ‘slays’ people- but in a redemptive context- yes- the Word of God- and those who submit to the Lordship of Christ- are ‘put to death’- or ‘buried with him in death/baptism’ so these perspectives are what I tried to share on the video- For those who want to go deeper into the end times and different ways Christians have viewed these passages- just Google Preterism- partial Preterism- and you can see a different perspective rooted in scripture as well. I am not a ‘full Preterist’ meaning I do believe in the literal 2nd coming of Christ and the future resurrection to come- but some of their ideas are worth listening to- John Here are a few links I just found- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterism https://www.ligonier.org/blog/preterist-approach-revelation-unfolding-biblical-eschatology/ ON VIDEO- [other videos below] .Ascension Sunday .Cathedral city .We are the 2nd book- Bishop Mulvey .Dead words versus life in the Spirit [manifested thru us- the Logos made flesh once again] .Tertullian ‘Have we chased God into a book’?https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tertullian .Gnostic writing in the first few centuries .Pseudepigraphy https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pseudepigraphy .Life in community .Logos .Watch Tower .Theresa of Avila http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=208 .Catholic Mystics .Contemplative prayer .Hebrews- James- context .Paul and James .Faith and works Correction- On the video I mentioned a quote/book from Theresa of Avila- the book was called ‘The Interior Castle’ written in 1588 - the quote I used was ‘Cathedral of the mind’. Other videos- 11-21-18 Emergency update https://youtu.be/I78ByhKZ7tE Notice how they changed the pictures https://youtu.be/W5NNtFhfND8 11-23-18 We call for a federal investigation of the Corpus Christi Police Department https://youtu.be/cNcvH_OH8Kk 11-24-18 call for the resignation of Chief Mike Markle of CCPD https://youtu.be/baNHI5bajkE https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5/videos/10205044572312192/ Twilight of the Idols https://youtu.be/OUQg7muqpzU The bright n Morning Star https://drive.google.com/file/d/19FdwBi6WcAPZnMpRh2zPFK5RBXTzuxFD/view?usp=sharing Blood money https://youtu.be/17bgum4qO48 The carnival https://youtu.be/71ACh0RVuZo The hornets nest https://trello.com/c/zRamqon8/275-4-9-16-the-hornets-nestmp4 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u0lj76whbftNnoOwfgZhuVBQ3Qs0UBWi/view?usp=sharing Neil- and Rick Hart- who died about a month ago- https://dai.ly/x6xcitv Talking church https://www.bitchute.com/video/bbqifwCZs72d/ https://trello.com/c/iffb3zTX/276-talking-church Acts 12 https://youtu.be/SRmccCVfFTQ 11-20-18 News update- https://youtu.be/iZj8l-K_jEU 11-19-18 Bank robbery https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5/videos/10205029651339177/ https://youtu.be/KkL1ZUIoiqs Bethlehem christians https://youtu.be/3QiH9JSXn90 Ride thru Lincoln tunnel https://bit.tube/play?hash=Qmc5Di9G5JQ2F9PDScSnU4WNvBpiiR5WDLCuTuWeG6mpyy&channel=160276 11-22-18 Corruption in CCPD- https://youtu.be/P4FXx922MjI https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i8eI6AY8YQXNvPv3mIBRM24VEqaLXBMT/view?usp=sharing https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5/videos/10205037783342472/ https://vimeo.com/302280963 https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aocp2PkNEAGMgh2ThbtUHJKGRBfZ https://dai.ly/x6xm7lj https://flic.kr/p/PjQAaR https://trello.com/c/sDh5bwfp/280-11-22-18-happy-thanksgiving-chief-markle-tommy-nichols-and-mike-the-cop-enjoy-oh-yeah-ccpd-toomp4 https://d.tube/v/ccoutreach/x1f4o56m 8-26-18 Sunday sermon https://dai.ly/x6xafhp Homeless friends- Bill Hagan https://flic.kr/p/JSJQEH Acts 3 https://youtu.be/Zdx2ZP4VqOo Hebrews 12 https://www.bitchute.com/video/QqXiog6LDAwW/ Holy Savior https://d.tube/v/ccoutreach/b4uq9ws4 North Bergen- Fatima- 2nd mile https://bit.tube/play?hash=QmQHdUN2Ao9UrzZpuJ8Z4v2L1i6kVVfrUZUdQat4hkBgok&channel=160276 Friends https://youtu.be/XXl-Rw0xByk 2nd Samuel 1 https://ccoutreach87.com/2018/11/20/2nd-samuel-1/ Corpus Christi https://ccoutreach87.com/2018/11/21/corpus-christi-4/ 2nd Samuel 2-3 https://ccoutreach87.com/2018/11/23/2nd-samuel-2-3/ PAST POSTS- [Past teaching I did that relates to today’s post- C.U.- Mass] https://ccoutreach87.com/galatians-links/ https://ccoutreach87.com/hebrews-updated-2015/https://ccoutreach87.com/hebrews-updated-2015/ https://ccoutreach87.com/romans-updated-2015/ https://ccoutreach87.com/james-2015/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/06/01/acts-13/ CHAPTER 11: [see commentary on Acts 21] END NOTES- JUSTIFIED BY FAITH. TORTURED- BY FAITH? REJECTED MONEY- BY FAITH? THEY ALL WAITED FOR THE CITY- THE CHURCH. ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, FOR BY IT THE ELDERS OBTAINED A GOOD REPORT [JUSTIFIED]’ This is the key verse to the chapter. Paul will go on to prove that all the Old Testament figures that ‘pleased God’ did it by faith, and not by works! ‘Through faith WE UNDERSTAND that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear’ Faith is not ‘blind’. It informs and gives understanding. This understanding is real! Let me show you what I mean. All of the universe and creation had a beginning point. Science did not always know or believe this. Today science teaches this. It is called ‘the point of singularity/density’. Science has traced back the origins of all things and has found scientific evidence to prove that all things had a ‘beginning point’. Now if you were to ask science ‘what did you have right before the beginning point’? They are stumped. Some of course believe in God and will boldly proclaim him at this point. To the others they can not answer this question. Why? Because they realize, thru science, that matter is not infinite. Some have theorized that either all things always existed [which science has now disproved] or that at one point nothing existed [which science also teaches that if this were true then you would have nothing today. You can not get something from nothing!] So all true science has gone back to this ‘point of singularity’ and can not see what is right before ‘the point’. The Christian ‘sees’ God at this point! He ‘understands’ that by necessity there has to have been something that existed before creation, science teaches this. This something can not have been created also, because then where did the ‘being’ who created ‘it’ come from? So science teaches us that whoever got the ball rolling [Saint Thomas Aquinas calls this the ‘prime mover’] had to have been preexistent/ self existent in order to have done it. And we know that creation couldn’t have done it by itself, so therefore all reasoning and understanding leave us at the philosophical point of ‘there had to have been something/someone who existed forever in order for anything to be today’. So now you see how ‘by faith we understand that all things that now exist were brought into existence by someone who we can not see’. FAITH UNDERSTANDS! As we go thru the rest of this chapter I want you to focus in on all the references of justification by faith. You will be surprised [I think?] on how many examples Paul gives to Israel from their own history [his too!] on God justifying people by faith. I will also try and show you [if I remember] how this chapter links the division between Paul’s epistles to the gentiles [Romans, Galatians] with James letter to the Jews. James was one of the lead Apostles at Jerusalem [Acts 15] and the Judaizers who were always accusing Paul of preaching grace in a way that justified sin, they came out of Jerusalem. James and Paul were rivals in a sense. James had the difficult job of overseeing the Church at Jerusalem, who had all the Pharisees who believed, while Paul was preaching this radical message of grace. This is why James’s letter [book of James] focused so much on faith and works. James was seeing the Genesis 22 account of Abraham’s justification when he offered Isaac on the altar. James will say ‘see how Abraham was justified by his works’. While in Paul’s letters he focuses on the Genesis 15 account of Abraham believing God and being made righteous. James was not contradicting Paul; he was showing the actual outcome of the life of a person who was previously justified by faith. James was saying ‘When God made Abraham righteous [Gen 15] he later actually became what God made him!’ [Gen. 22]. Now when Abraham would later do righteous things, he only did them because he previously had faith in Gods promise. But the fact still remains that when Abraham did a righteous act, God still justified him [in a sense, God has the prerogative to say ‘good job son, I am pleased with you’ so this can be described as an act/function of justification]. Well, now that I already showed you all this, I guess I wont have to remember telling it to you later. The point is in this chapter Paul will go down and show all these examples of Jewish leaders acting by faith and doing righteous deeds. This sort of bridges the gap between the strong emphasis on faith in Paul’s letters, with the strong emphasis on works in James letter. Paul is telling Israel ‘yes, all the old saints did do good works that pleased God, but they did them by faith!’ ‘Faith without works is dead’ [James]. So in a sense this single chapter bridges one of the key divisions in the early church between Jerusalem and Antioch [Acts 13 and 15]. Note; I believe all the chapter references above are correct, I write all this from memory so you might want to go back and double check the references. I know all the stories are right. ‘By FAITH Able offered …by which he obtained witness that he was RIGHTEOUS…by FAITH Enoch was translated…he had this testimony that he PLEASED GOD…without FAITH it is impossible to PLEASE HIM [all these ‘please him’ references are like saying ‘being justified’ when a person is justified by God, God sees him as acceptable, pleasing. ‘Thou art my beloved son in whom I am well PLEASED’ God to Jesus!] By faith Noah… prepared an ark to the SAVING of his house…and became heir to the RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS BY FAITH [wow, he makes this one real plain] By faith Abraham…went out into a strange land…and sojourned’ interesting, both the aspect of ‘going out to a new land’ and ‘staying in it when you get there’ are both functions of faith. Let me throw in some practical stuff here. Over the years of ‘doing ministry’ I have seen and been a partaker of both of these experiences. Sometimes it takes an act of faith to uproot us from familiar territory and move on to the next level. And do you know what can happen next? The enemy will try to intimidate you once you get in the land of promise, and tell you ‘you cant stay here, look at all the people who hate you. Look at all the mistakes you made’ and it often takes an act of faith to STAY IN THE LAND. Don’t leave the land of your destiny; all true leaders will go thru both of these dealings. ‘For he looked for a city which hath foundations [Jesus is the foundation of this city!] whose builder and maker is God’ All of these great heroes of the faith were looking forward towards a future promise of being in Gods true church, the ‘City of God’ the Bride, the Lambs wife. Paul shows Israel that this 1st century appearing of Messiah was for the purpose of Israel coming into the ‘new land’ the Body of Christ. It is important to see this. There are many preachers today who are treating natural Israel as in if everything is just fine. It isn’t! They need Christ as much as the Muslim does. God was telling Israel ‘come into this new city’ [New Jerusalem versus Old Jerusalem] he wasn’t appealing for them to stay in ‘old Jerusalem’ and be a ‘completed Jew’. [I know this sounds harsh, but I want to emphasize to all my evangelical friends that Jews need Jesus, they play a special role in Gods plan, but ultimately they need Christ!] ‘Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed’ it takes faith to produce spiritual offspring! It might look impossible, but with God all things are possible. ‘Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky and the sand by the shore’ sometimes God will allow you to bring forth one ‘seed’ [person or act of ministry] and you will be surprised how much fruit can come forth from this singular effort. This is why it’s so important to simply hear and obey God. Often times in ministry we do tons of ‘leg work’ which is OK. But when God gives you an idea or mode of function that you weren’t even thinking of, go with it. These are usually the ‘little seeds’ that produce the great harvest! ‘THESE ALL DIED IN FAITH, NOT HAVING RECEIVED THE PROMISES’ I want to emphasize here that it is possible to live your whole life in faith without actually seeing the fulfillment of all that God has told you. Now faith does obtain promises [verse 33] but sometimes we also see things many years down the road and we must realize that the measurement of faith is not whether or not you are currently getting the actual promise. In the above [and below] verse’s we see Abraham and Sara being told that their offspring would number in the millions. They believed these promises, but it is obvious that they didn’t live to see it fulfilled, but they sure knew that after they were gone it would come to pass. So I want to exhort you to believe to see certain things fulfilled in your life time, but have some greater goals that you initiate while here on earth, knowing that after you depart they will be fulfilled. ‘And truly if they had been MINDFUL of the country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned’ what is Paul saying here? The greatest threat to the gospel taking root in the Hebrew community was the desire to go back to old law and culture. How many believers ‘revert’ back to an older form of church simply because they missed the old culture and ‘feelings’ that they had when they were younger? Many of the Jews would not go all the way with the gospel because they were ‘mindful’ of the good old days of law and sacrifice. I just watched a show the other day that told how even some gentile believers began celebrating certain feasts of Israel with their Jewish neighbors. While it is good to understand and see the significance of the feasts, yet we know Paul wrote the early believers and said ‘you observe days and times and feasts, and I am concerned about it’. So when we [or 1st century Israel] are ‘mindful’ of the ‘good old days’ then there is always a danger of going back! ‘By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac…of whom it was said in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure’ Abraham exhibited characteristics of the Father [God] as well as Isaac being a type of the Son [Jesus]. It’s interesting that these verses show that Abraham knew for a fact that God was going to give Isaac millions of children, Abraham also knew the voice of God so well that when he ‘thought’ he heard God say ‘offer up this boy’ that in the mind of Abraham, the only way these 2 things could be reconciled, is he came to the conclusion ‘I guess God will have to raise him up, being he has told me this boy will have millions of children, plus he is telling me to kill him’. Most of us would not have come to this conclusion! We would have doubted either the original promise, or said ‘surely this can’t be God telling me to offer Isaac’ [most likely we would have doubted the latter!]. There is a real important reason for Abraham to have been a real man of faith. God wanted this ‘picture’ of the offering up of Isaac for a type of the Cross and Resurrection. The only way he could have shown this example was to have had someone so radically filled with faith, that he would have come to this conclusion of ‘well, I guess God will just raise him’. It was necessary for the figure to have been truly fulfilled. It took Abraham many years of hearing and believing God before he would get to this stage. The part of Abraham’s mind that said ‘God will just have to raise him up’ was important for the figure to truly work. God knew he could only bring someone to this conclusion by arranging the whole scenario around a person of faith. It truly took a real person of faith to have come to the conclusion of resurrection as being inevitable! [For Abraham to fulfill the type of God, he had to have been convinced beyond all doubt that after he offered up his son, that he would be raised again. This is exactly what the Father [God] believed and knew about his own Sons death. So not only did Isaac fulfill the type of Jesus in this story, but Abraham also fulfilled a type of God!] [NOTE; Today is September 22, 2007. Israel’s Day of Atonement. I just heard a brother preach on the feasts of the Lord [I have done this also] but he preached it in a way that said ‘because God said you were to observe these feasts perpetually, therefore all gentile believers need to start observing these days’ he added ‘I know Paul taught the law passed and all, but these feasts are supposed to be forever because God said so’. How are the feasts ‘perpetual’? Thru the fulfilling of them in Christ! Paul makes this plain all thru the New Testament [as well as this letter!] I was surprised to hear the brother preach that the first 2 feasts [out of the 3 main ones] were fulfilled and memorialized, but the 3rd one [Atonement/tabernacles] has yet to be fulfilled! What? Jesus fulfilled Passover and Pentecost for sure, and they are still being ‘fulfilled’ God is still bringing people in thru the blood of Christ and the Spirit is continually being poured out on people, and of course the ultimate reality of our atonement thru our high priest is a daily reality [he ever lives to make intercession] that is ‘fulfilled’ all the time[ I understand what the brother meant, that both Passover and Pentecost were fulfilled at the Cross and the day of Pentecost, and Tabernacles still has a future fulfillment. That Jesus will ‘ingather’ all peoples to himself at the end. The way he said it was in a way that he said Atonement, the beginning of Tabernacles/booths, still has to be fulfilled. It really came out badly!] I just thought it worth noting that today is natural Israel’s feast day, and we hold this feast in reality 24/7!] ‘By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of pharaohs daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward…by faith the harlot Rahab perished not…’ I want you to see that faith in Moses situation caused him to forsake great riches and leave a successful future. This is in keeping with all the times Jesus called people in the Gospels ‘forsake all and follow me’ mentality. We too often equate the ‘treasures of Egypt’ with following Jesus; the scripture puts a different spin on it! Also Rahab ‘perished not’ because she ‘believed’. Paul teaches in Corinthians that those who believe are ‘being saved’ and those who don’t believe are ‘perishing’. I want you to see that Paul is really making a theological argument for ‘being saved by faith’ in this chapter. Even a harlot can be saved! Wow. The law seemed to have no mercy on someone like that! ‘Who thru faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions…women received their dead raised to life…others were TORTURED not accepting deliverance…others had mocking and scourging and bonds and imprisonment, they were stoned, cut in half, were slain with the sword… being destitute, afflicted, tormented…they wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth, ALL THESE [both the ones who shut the mouths of lions as well as the one’s who were tortured without deliverance] OBTAINED A GOOD REPORT THRU FAITH, AND RECEIVED NOT THE PROMISE’ Faith does not always cause you to be better off in this life. I am very familiar with all the verses of God blessing us and providing for us ‘the blessing of the Lord it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow to it’. I believe and claim these verses just like the next guy. I also don’t want to tell people ‘give your life to Christ and all will go well’ did it go well for the ones who were tortured not getting delivered? Sure did. It went well the moment they saw the face of God. The same for those who were cut in half. It also went well for the women who received their dead raised to life. The point is ‘going well’ is not always defined by your outward circumstance. We must see the overall biblical worldview of all things here being temporary, while all true spiritual riches are eternal. Moses actually was ‘less rich’ by the choice to follow Christ. But he was ‘more rich’ in that he fulfilled Gods purpose. It is important to see that many of these great heroes of the faith died without fully seeing the promise in this life. Now the last verse does say ‘that they without us should not be made perfect’ and this does show that the promise is now fulfilled thru Christ. We have all become recipients of eternal salvation thru Christ. The Old Testament patriarchs have ‘found that city’ in that we are all now members of the great ‘City that comes down from God out of heaven’ we are all in Christ today, even our Old Testament brothers who had faith. The point is don’t always measure a persons faith by their outward wealth and condition. James rebuked this idea in his epistle, he taught us not to show partiality to people who were rich while despising the poor. When believers see faith only from the standpoint of outward things, they are missing the true riches. Jesus taught that all these outward things were not the true riches; I am surprised how many believers spend so much time hoarding and storing things that will all pass away some day. Let’s close this chapter on a good note. Paul has offered Israel all of their Old Testament heroes as an example of being justified by faith. He is saying ‘look, all the great fathers of the faith pleased God, just like you have said and taught for ages. I am declaring unto you they were all ‘justified/pleasing to God’ by faith, not law’. Therefore if you want to follow the example of Abraham and Moses and all the other wonderful fathers, then you too MUST BELIEVE! END NOTES- JUSTIFIED BY FAITH. TORTURED- BY FAITH? REJECTED MONEY- BY FAITH? THEY ALL WAITED FOR THE CITY- THE CHURCH. This chapter is loaded with the history of the Jewish people- I could teach on each story- but that would be a bit much- So I pasted the verses below to show that the writer is saying ‘see- all of our forefathers were justified- received a GOOD REPORT- by faith’. Wait a minute- they DID THINGS- in these stories- Isn’t that WORKS? If you read the letter of James- and the letters of Paul- some scholars says there is a disagreement- Paul says a man is justified by faith- and not by works. James says ‘see how a man is justified by works- and not faith only’. If this letter [Hebrews] was written by Paul- then it’s a true masterpiece- because he is combining the examples that James uses [Rahab- and Abrahams Genesis 22 experience- which James uses to say ‘see how works justifies’]. So- to me- Paul would be saying ‘no- I’m not contradicting James- we both believe/teach the same thing’. If the letter was written by Barnabus- then it also is a masterpiece- because Barnabus might be trying to bridge the gap between Paul and James. We read about this tension in Acts chapters 13 and 15. This chapter is certainly not showing us how to obtain stuff [money- etc.] thru faith- because look at the examples- ‘Moses chose to suffer- and reject the wealth of Egypt- BY FAITH’- ‘SOME WERE TORTURED- SUFFERED- CUT IN HALF- by faith’- ‘CHOOSING TO not be delivered- because they had faith’. We also see the heavenly city- as the goal of the patriarchs- they were all waiting for THE CHURCH- the city that the apostle John spoke about in the book of revelation. The writer says ‘if they were mindful of the city they came out of [a reference to the law covenant- meaning if the Jews kept clinging to the law- the ‘city they came out from’- they will have a hard time moving on- into the New Covenant revelation of Messiah]. I didn’t quote verse 2- but we could teach modern physics from that one [the bible says all things were made from something invisible- modern physics has come to that reality in the 20th century- yet this verse was penned 2 millennia ago]! By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. So yeah- lots of good stuff in this chapter- but the main point is these ancients were justified by faith- the example of Noah and Abraham actually use that very language- salvation/righteousness [it’s a bit clearer in the King James Version- the above verses are from the NIV]. Yes- the writer is saying ‘everything is based on faith- and even our ancestors were justified by faith- they did all these things because they believed God- and God saw their faith- in action- and they too were made righteous- by faith’. By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient. And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning;[e] they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. CHAPTER 12: END NOTES- A HEAVENLY CITY. DON’T BE SAD, HE’S TREATING YOU LIKE A SON. NO REPENTANCE- OUTSIDE OF CHRIST THAT IS. CULTURE SHOCK IS HARD ON US ALL. ‘Wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses [all the heroes of the last chapter!] let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us’ a few practical things. Paul compares the journey to a marathon, not a sprint! The patient runner who paces himself will receive a reward. The sprinter will look good at the start, but you never see him again! I have been blessed by so many gifted people over the years. Some who were on radio, or were doing some type of ministry for the Lord. The gifts and callings were truly on these people. A few years would go by and they were no where to be found. Where did they go? Some of them jumped on the latest ‘Christian movement’ [I am not against movements from God, I just feel we get enamored by them and give up on the main thing the Lord has called us to] some walked away from the Lord. I have come to realize that God will put certain things in you from the early days, things that he predestined for you to fulfill before you were born. These are the things that you should be faithful to. Don’t abandon the original calling, it’s still there! You can spend your whole life leaving one ‘track’ and ‘sprinting’ in another. But God wants you to stay on the original course and run it with patience. It might not seem as glamorous or exciting as the newest race in town, but at the end you will receive a reward. ‘Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him ENDURED the cross, despising the shame and is set down on the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that ENDURED such contradiction of sinners…and ye have forgotten the exhortation that speaketh to you as children [remember what we said about this type of privileged language in Hebrews? It is speaking to Israel] my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art REBUKED of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons’. Now, for many years I read this just like you. That God was telling Christians that he disciplines them. True enough. But in context what is Paul saying here? He spent 11 chapters ‘reproving’ Israel. He told them that all the sacrifices and wonderful holidays and family traditions are no more. That Messiah has fulfilled it and you can’t keep doing it. Now, how would you feel if some know it all preacher came along and totally dismantled your whole way of worship? And you knew in your heart he was right! You would take offence. You would feel like you just got ‘chastened’ up and down and all over. Your initial reaction would be ‘this is too much correction in one letter, I am tired of reading it!’ so Paul is telling Israel ‘Don’t take all this reproof the wrong way, Gods intent is to get you to move on with the program. He loves you guys; don’t forget that scripture [Old Testament] says ‘who God loves he chastens’ hey, God is just dealing with you as children who he loves’ get it? ‘We have had fathers of the flesh that corrected us…shall we not much rather be in subjection to the father of spirits and live?’ Paul is saying ‘you guys want to live [eternal life] then you need to submit to the correction the father is giving you’. ‘For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness’ Now, God does chasten believers for the purpose of holiness. Scripture says ‘those who have suffered in the flesh have ceased from sin, that they should no longer spend the rest of their days in the flesh pursuing the desires of the flesh, but the will of God’ ‘before I was afflicted I went astray, but after I kept thy word’ ‘thou in faithfulness hath afflicted me’ ‘though he were a son yet learned he obedience from the things he suffered’ ‘the captain of our salvation was made perfect thru suffering’ [the last 2 are in this letter, the others are some where in scripture, I just quoted them off the top of my head. As you can see I have some familiarity with this subject! Ouch] In context Paul is saying to Israel ‘you have tried to attain holiness thru legalistic means, by keeping the law [Romans 9-the last few verses] but until you submit to Gods chastening, and have faith in God, you will not truly have his ‘holiness’ [righteousness]. So God is disciplining them thru this letter so they will ‘believe and become righteous’ as opposed to staying in the old system of law. ‘Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous [old brother Paul, he sure knew how to understate things!] nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of RIGHTEOUSNESS to them that are exercised [or exorcised! Just kidding, but it can feel like this at times] thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down…and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame [broken] be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed’ David said ‘restore to me the joy of your salvation that the bones which YOU HAVE BROKEN may rejoice’ The danger of chastening [both for Christians and Israel] is that we get so broken that we never fully recover. Paul is telling Israel ‘I know it’s been hard on you guys to hear so much rebuke. Don’t walk away totally discouraged. There is a danger that you might respond to Gods correction the wrong way. Lift up your hands, shake off the depression, and let yourselves be healed. God wants to restore you!’ ‘Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for HE FOUND NO PLACE OF REPENTANCE though he sought it carefully with tears’. This is another reason why reading Hebrews in context is important. One of the themes of this letter is ‘if you miss out on it now, you can’t repent later!’[Chapter 6]. We know that Pauls other letters to the churches leave open future repentance for those who have sinned. In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians we see this being done. But in Hebrews the idea is ‘if you pass on the Cross, you can not find repentance thru any other means. There is no other place for repentance’. So this is the reason why Hebrews has this theme of ‘no future repentance’ thru out the letter. Paul is certainly not telling Israel that if they decide to repent and accept Christ at a future date, they can’t! But he is saying ‘if you pass over this sacrifice of Christ, all the other ‘sacrifices’ and means of repentance that are contained in the law will have no future effect, remember Esau!’ ‘For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched…but ye are come to Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem [the church]…and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Able’ Here Paul comes back to a ‘scarlet thread’ that runs thru out this letter. He says ‘hey, you think the first covenant was a fearful thing, watch out! If you disregard this covenant [Jesus blood] then you have gone against something that is much greater than the law’. Also the ‘blood of Able’ cried out from the ground for vengeance, the blood of Jesus cries out from heaven for mercy and forgiveness! It ‘speaks’ better things than that of Able! ‘See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth [Moses and the law] much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him which speaketh from heaven’ again Paul repeats themes he hit on earlier in this letter. He says ‘Moses spoke Gods Word [law] to you from an earthly mountain and place, you are come to a heavenly mountain [Sion-spiritual Jerusalem] and Jesus is speaking to you from heaven. This is much more strict than he who spoke from earth’. ‘Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom that can not be moved, let us HAVE GRACE, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire’ Though Paul doesn’t say it [I think he should have!] but this alludes to the ‘God’ of Moses day, who did not consume the burning bush, compared to the ‘God’ of today [new covenant] who will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire! This fits in with the theme of a harsher punishment for those who reject the covenant of grace as opposed to those who rejected the covenant of law. I know these themes are not popular, but this is clearly the way Paul is presenting them. I also am not saying the ‘God’ of the Old Testament is different from the ‘God’ of the new [this is the heresy of Marcion! I think that was his name. He was an early Christian heretic who comprised the first canon of scripture for a ‘new testament’ it included basically Paul’s letters, and he taught that The God of the new testament was different from the God in the old] but Paul is presenting the new covenant in a way that says ‘don’t neglect this new way of salvation, those who do will receive a harsher judgment than those who rejected the law’. END NOTES- A HEAVENLY CITY. DON’T BE SAD, HE’S TREATING YOU LIKE A SON. NO REPENTANCE- OUTSIDE OF CHRIST THAT IS. CULTURE SHOCK IS HARD ON US ALL. Once again we see the contrast between ‘he that spoke from earth’ [Moses- the law]- and he that ‘speaks from heaven’ [Jesus covenant is more strict- to those outside of it and reject it- because he has heavenly authority- Moses had earthly]. Hebrews 12:25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: The writer says ‘don’t be sad- God disciplines every son who he receives’- though this certainly applies to Christians- Hebrews 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: Hebrews 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Hebrews 12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? Hebrews 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Remember this- though the message of grace and Jesus as the Messiah is wonderful- especially to us Gentile believers- Yet- it was indeed a cultural shock to the 1st century Jew- Why? Even though Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophets- yet in order for the Jewish person to accept this [Like the apostle Paul] He had to accept a real cultural change in the religion he practiced from his youth- He was being asked to stop the animal sacrifices- to ‘move on’ from the Law covenant- and to embrace Christ. Now- in reality- it would be the fulfillment of all that was contained in the law- but it’s often hard for anyone to ‘move on’ from former religious practices that are embedded in his culture. So- in context ‘Don’t be sad- God is disciplining you- showing you new stuff- and it’s tough for sure- but he does this with all the sons he receives’. We also see the promise of the heavenly city- As opposed to the earthly one. Hebrews 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, Hebrews 12:23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, The writer is speaking about the church- and how both Jew and Gentile are part of this spiritual community coming down from God out of heaven. And again we see the warning- of no repentance- for those who keep sinning. I stress that this is never taught to the Gentile churches- as a matter of fact the Apostle Paul wrote the Corinthians- about a sinning brother- sleeping with his father’s wife [his step mom]. And In the 2nd letter- this brother repented- and Paul exhorted the church to receive him back into fellowship. But to the 1st century Jew- still not fully in the covenant- he says ‘Hebrews 12:17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. In keeping with the theme of the letter- Jesus is now the only acceptable means of repentance- and if you reject him as the Messiah- and continue in sin- then yes- there is no repentance. [parts] ACTS 1- Luke, the writer of this book, feels the need to document the ongoing work of Jesus and his revolution. He already wrote a gospel and believes this to be the beginning of the story. In essence, the reality of Jesus and his resurrection are just the start, we have much more to do and become on this journey. Most writers jump to chapter 2. We have churches and music groups called ‘Acts chapter 2’. Why does Luke seem to wait till chapter 2 before getting to ‘the good stuff’? Chapter one records the 40 days of Jesus showing himself alive after his death. Luke feels this singular truth to be important enough to simply stand alone [I do realize the early letters did not have chapter and verse divisions like today]. The real physical fact of Jesus bodily resurrection is without a doubt the foundational truth of the gospel. The outpouring of the Spirit and the whole future of the church depends on the reality of the resurrected Christ. Paul will write the Corinthians and tell them if the resurrection were not true then they are the most miserable of all people. Luke tells us Jesus gave instructions for the Apostles to wait at Jerusalem for the Spirit. They will be witnesses of him to all the surrounding nations after the Spirit empowers them. We also see Peter emerge as the key spokesman for the group. He quotes freely from the Psalms and reads their own history into the book. He sees the prophetic verse from David on ‘let another take his office’ as referring to Judas betrayal and death. They cast lots and choose Matthias as the one to replace Judas. Peter shows the importance of Judas replacement to come from one that was with them thru out the earthly time of Jesus. Someone who saw and witnessed Jesus after the resurrection. Scholars have confused this with the ‘ascension gift Apostles’. Some scholars have taken the truth of the early Apostles having the criteria of being actual witnesses of Jesus, and have said ‘therefore, you have no Apostles today’. Paul will teach in Ephesians that after Jesus ascension on high he gave gifts unto men ‘some Apostles, others Prophets, etc.’ The New Testament clearly speaks of Apostles as an ongoing gift in the church. Barnabas will later be called an Apostles [Acts 14:14] as well as many other references in the original Greek using the same Greek word for Apostle. But here we find Peter seeing the need to replace Judas. Other scholars think Peter might have jumped the gun. They see Paul’s apostleship as the possible person the Lord picked out as the replacement. You do find Paul referring time and again to his Apostolic authority as one ‘born out of due time’ who saw Jesus on the Damascus road. If Paul was simply an ascension gift Apostle, why would he refer time and again to his authority based on being a witness who also saw Jesus? It’s possible that Paul was in this group of ‘Apostles of the Lamb’ who had extra authority based upon their testimony of being eyewitnesses. So in chapter one we see that Jesus appeared for 40 days giving instructions to the early leadership and told them to wait at Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We see the incarnational purpose of God, Jesus was and continues to be the express image of God to man. He was not some ‘phantom’ like the Docetists will claim, but a very real physical resurrected Lord. Luke begins the early history of the church with this reality being important enough to stand on its own. ACTS 2- The Apostles are gathered together in the upper room. As they continue in unity and prayer the Spirit of God comes upon them like a rushing wind. There appear ‘cloven tongues’ like fire above each of them. Why this image? Why not ‘ears’ or some other sanctified body part? God is going to give supernatural power to the words that they will speak. In a few chapters we will read how an angel will supernaturally deliver Peter from prison and say ‘go, speak the words of this life’. These tongues are a precursor to the tremendous fire that will be loosed from their lips. James says the tongue is a little member but boasteth great things, it has the ability to start fires. Jesus said he came to earth to ‘start a fire’ and how he wished it were already burning. Here he gets his wish! Now the Apostles and early believers experience the gift of tongues. They begin speaking and prophesying in the unknown languages of all those who are gathered together to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. God ordained this event to be strategically done at this time. All the surrounding regions heard the believers speak the ‘wondrous works of God’ in their native tongue. Peter stands up and delivers a scathing message! He basically tells Israel ‘this is that which the prophet Joel spoke about’ he goes on and says this outpouring is part of Gods predetermined plan to pour out his Spirit on all flesh in the last days. He speaks of divine manifestations [dreams, visions] and carries the prophecy right to the end of the age. He then speaks the gospel of Christ and tells Israel ‘this is the Jesus you killed’. Wow, these guys are bold. Peter leads them to faith in Christ, their public baptism is the immediate sign of their willingness to be identified with Jesus and 3 thousand Jews become believers this day. Now, what is the church? This corporate group of first time followers do 4 basic things. They ‘continue in the Apostles doctrine and breaking of bread and prayers and share their goods with all in need’[true fellowship]. This early community was a brotherhood who actually gave priority to the teachings of Jesus passed on to them from the Apostles. Don’t miss this! Many will develop all sorts of practices and beliefs that ‘make up church’. Some will justify extra biblical beliefs under the guise of ‘the Apostles doctrine’ as in if it were something totally contrary or not known thru the gospels or the writing of scripture. Paul will tell Timothy to stay true to the traditions he passed on to him. But I want to focus on the fact that the Apostles doctrine was not something different then the basic instructions Jesus left us in the gospels. Paul will add to this basic body of Christian doctrine thru his letters to the churches, as well as the whole New Testament. But we do not see a bunch of strange or unknown doctrines that come from this time period. The basics are mentioned above. I do want to stress the fact that this early expression of church life had no ‘Pastor’ in the sense of their gatherings being a time where a singular authority figure had oversight of the entire community. They had strong leaders to be sure, but would avoid the Protestant idea of Pastor. They had no church building or belief in a strong liturgy. The ‘breaking of bread’ was a common meal where they all shared together in a real life setting. And of course their giving was radical, it was not ‘a tithe’ and it was done to meet the real needs of the community around them. All these elements are basic to what the New Testament church is. A functioning society of people in whom Christ Spirit dwells and who see themselves as a real spiritual community of people. As we progress thru out the history of the church as seen in Acts we will never lose this basic mindset. It will be carried into the epistles of the New Testament and remain the best idea of ‘local church’ as found in the first century. There is a trend going on right now in Evangelicalism that says ‘lets return to the ancient practices of the church and see what we can find’. As an avid reader of church history I am not totally against this movement, but I do see a danger in thinking ‘the ancient practices’ are the 2nd or 3rd century development of liturgy and Eucharist and other early ideas, and by passing the ‘real ancient’ story in the book of Acts. To put it simply, some of the Protestant and Evangelical ‘practices and beliefs’ that have developed since the reformation are ‘ancient’. I believe we all have a long way to go, but the ‘low view’ of the Lords Table [low as opposed to ‘high church view’. Though I personally believe in the Lords table as a memorial, not as the actual Body and Blood of Jesus. Yet I personally don’t like referring to such an important practice as low!] seems to be the true ancient practice as seen in Acts. The absence of the Priest officiating over the altar is no where to be seen in the actual ‘church’ setting. This ancient church is really a simple brotherhood of believers having all things common and having the resurrection of the Son of God as the central organizing principle of their lives. [parts] The Donatists taught that the Sacraments were dependent upon the ‘holiness’ of the Priest who ministers them. That if you were in a Parish where the priests were bad- lived in sin- rejected a holy life- then if you were Baptized by these men- that the Baptism didn’t ‘stick’. The Donatists formed there own break away church in the 3rd century- and a few very influential men would join the group. A well respected early church father- Tertullian- eventually joined their ranks. Augustine argued against the Donatists teaching- and taught that Gods grace- and the grace given to believers thru the sacraments were not derived from the holiness of any priest or preacher- but if a believer in good conscience received the sacraments- that that’s what really counted. Saint Augustine is one of the titans of church history- he is loved by Protestants and Catholics alike. He is famous for his belief in the doctrine of Predestination [that those who are saved were chosen by God before they were born] and for this reason he is loved by the original protestant theologians [Luther, Calvin, etc.] He also taught a very ‘Catholic’ form of Ecclesiology [church govt.] and is well loved by many Catholics as well. The Catholic Church refers to him as the Doctor of Grace- later on in the 13th century we will meet Saint Thomas Aquinas- who the church refers to as the Angelic Doctor. Both of these men played a major role in the development of western thought and Augustine made an effort to distinguish true Christian thought from the philosophy of Neo Platonism which was very strong in his day. When reading Augustine [he wrote a lot] you need to be careful to distinguish some of his earlier writings from his later ones. Early on you still see forms of Platonic thought in Augustine- but as the years rolled by his thinking progressed more and more towards historic Christian thought. For those of you who are interested- the Confessions of Saint Augustine is considered one the classics of Christianity- you can pick up a short version at most good bookstores- it’s well worth the time to read. www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com [parts] The church has debated for centuries on whether or not Philosophy should be taught to Christians. One of the early church fathers- Tertullian- said no- his famous quote is ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens’. Meaning what does Philosophy have in common with Christianity [Athens- Greece was the seat of philosophy in Jesus’ day]. For the most part- the early church fathers would embrace the study of philosophy- and try to make arguments for the Christian faith by presenting Christianity as ‘thee’ philosophy that best answers the questions of man. These early Christian thinkers are called Apologists- men like Justin Martyr are in this class. Apologist is a word we use to describe those who defend the faith- it comes from the Apostle Peter’s letter in the N.T. where Peter says ‘give an answer to those who ask you about the faith’. In the Greek language- the original language the N.T. was written in- this phrase is talking about a defense- an ‘apology’ in the sense of ‘making the case’ not in the common sense of apologizing. In the book of Acts- chapter 17- we read the famous sermon of the apostle Paul- given at Mars Hill. He was in Athens at the time- and he was debating with all the philosophers of the day. He tells them ‘as I was looking around town- I saw that one of your altars is addressed to The Unknown God’. He would go on and declare unto them that this Jesus is the true God- the one raised from the dead. Paul also said ‘in Him we live and MOVE and have our being’. Kind of a popular verse quoted by preacher’s today- but we often overlook the significance of the MOVE part. I mean- why say we MOVE in him too? Paul was a smart guy- he knew these children of Socrates questioned where motion came from [Remember Thales?] So he was basically saying ‘I am declaring to you the one true reality- the true 5th Element- the missing God particle from your system’ and he went on and preached Christ- being raised from the dead. Paul knew that you can’t really do true philosophy- to grapple with the questions of life and being and ‘motion’ without realizing that God is indeed the ultimate answer to all things. Even Peter Singer- who claimed that you don’t need God or religion in order to do Ethics- even he unknowingly quoted Jesus in attempting to give a basis for his Philosophy- yes- he quoted a God- one unknown to him- just like the altar at Athens- but a God never the less. An inescapable 5th element- the missing part to the whole puzzle. www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com [parts] Let’s do a little more on Eschatology [end times stuff] today. Over the last few weeks these things have been in the news because of the Harold Camping prediction and you have heard various news folk- as well as believers giving their slant to all the popular verses that deal with the subject. Some media people were quoting ‘no one knows when the last day will happen- not even the Son, only God’. Then you have had a few other popular verses seep into the flow. The main portions of the bible that deal with the end times are Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. John’s gospel does not have an ‘end times’ discourse- possibly because he covers the subject in length in the book of Revelation. The main gospel on the subject is Matthew- Mark’s gospel seems to be a shorter compilation possibly taken from Matthew. By ‘taken’ I mean Mark was a scribe/recorder- he was the personality we see in the book of Acts- John Mark. If you remember- he had a falling out with the Apostle Paul and Mark ‘went home’ while Paul took Silas and they embarked on the great missionary journeys of the Apostle. You don’t hear that much about Mark after the ‘falling out’ but we know that Mark would later pen the 2nd gospel and he was also a recorder [secretary] for the Apostle Peter [might be important to remember this- if I get to it?] So anyway mark seems to have borrowed from Matthew [some scholars think the familiarity between the gospels should be attributed to another unknown common source- referred to as Q- I prefer to simply see it as the writers being familiar with what the other writers were writing- and in the 1st century you did not have Plagiarism as we do today- where it would be illegal to copy something verbatim from another writer- that’s why Mark- who also probably penned 2nd Peter- not as a Plagiarist who used Pseudepigraphy- writings by authors who pretended to be someone else- but as a scribe who was familiar with the other source documents of the time. 2nd Peter has come under scrutiny because chapter 2 seems to have borrowed heavily from the letter of Jude. At some spots it looks like a direct copy. But as Peter’s scribe- it would not have been out of the ordinary to have included- verbatim- a passage from Jude and to have attributed the entire letter to Peter. Or Peter might have simply been familiar with Jude's letter and it would not have been wrong according to 1st century writing standards to have done this. But skeptics in our day try to use this to say the bible is a forgery- so that’s why it’s important to be familiar with the debate and to have a good response.] Okay-lets at least try and start a little end times stuff. Matthews 24 begins with Jesus and the disciples walking away from the Temple and Jesus says ‘see all these buildings- truly I tell you that there will not be left one stone on top of another’. The disciples then ask Jesus ‘when will this happen- and what will be the sign of the end of the age/world, and the sign of your coming’. Now- this sets the stage for the entire scope of the answer. Jesus told them one thing ‘the temples coming down some day’ and they ask a few things. Some scholars believe that the entire answer Jesus gives- about the end of the world and the coming tribulation- some teach that all these things did happen by A.D. 70- that’s when the Roman general Titus [future emperor] attacked the city of Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. Jesus prediction about ‘one stone not being left on another’ was fulfilled to the tee because the temple stones were overlaid with Gold and the looters burned the stones to melt the gold and in the process they literally laid every stone out. In the Matthew discourse Jesus also warned the disciples that ‘when you see these things beginning to happen- let those in the city flee to the mountains’. As Titus made his way towards Jerusalem some early communities took his words literally and did use the mountains as a place for protection. The community at Qumran hid their writings in ‘the mountains’ that overlooked the Dead Sea- some 2 thousand years later these writings [scrolls] would be discovered- those are the Dead Sea Scrolls of today- one of the greatestarchaeological finds of history. And there were Jewish believers at Jerusalem who did indeed flee to the mountains and they escaped the slaughter. So there certainly were things that Jesus spoke about in his 'end times’ teaching that were fulfilled in the 1st century. But what about the other famous portions? As various media persons were quoting a few famous parts of this discourse [this is the 4th famous discourse known as the Olivet discourse in Matthew- 5 famous long sections of Jesus’ teaching] it would help us to know the entire context of the discourse [which includes chapter 25 by the way]. One of the famous verses is ‘when you see the fig tree putting forth leaves- you know that summer is near- so when you see these signs you know the end is near’. In American evangelicalism this verse has been made popular by men like Hal Lindsay who teach that the fig tree is ALWAYS a symbol for the nation of Israel and therefore Jesus was saying that when Israel becomes a nation again [which happened in 1948] that within ‘a generation’ the end will happen. This view uses a few other verses to come to this conclusion. Jesus famous ‘this generation will not pass away until all these things happen’ and a few other scriptures. Simply reading the chapter in context does not seem to be saying this at all. The parallel passage in Luke says ‘and all the trees’. It seems like Jesus is simply saying ‘just like when you see a tree blossom- so when you see these signs know that the time is near’. There really is nothing in the actual text to indicate that this is speaking about 1948. But because of these verses having been used like this many preachers have tried to date the coming of Christ within ‘the generation’ from1948. Lindsey put out a book saying that 1988 was a ‘special time’ why 88? 1988 was 40 years [biblical generation] from 1948. Then some changed the biblical generation to 70 years- which makes this decade real important. The problem with all these dates is there based on a faulty premise- that Jesus was saying that within a generation of the ‘fig tree blooming’ the 2nd coming will take place- he never said that. As far as I can tell 1948 plays no significant role. Of course Israel becoming a nation again at that time was a great thing- but as a date to begin setting off some type of spiritual clock- that’s not in the bible. Okay- maybe I’ll do a few more of these over the next few days. Try and read these chapters the next few days and get a feel for the overall meaning [the context] when we become familiar with the overall meaning of the passage- it keeps us from getting lost in the Fig Tree ones. www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com THE RAPTURE? I spoke with a friend yesterday about the Harold Camping prediction that obviously failed. They know someone who is really into Camping and that person was being set up for the disappointment. On CNN they had a Baptist preacher who warned against this type of date setting- yet he spoke confidently about ‘the Rapture is the next event on Gods calendar- followed by the 7 years of great tribulation’. I’m sure this fine pastor felt like he was providing a balanced voice compared to Camping’s date setting- yet I felt his interpretation was almost as ‘bad’ as what Camping was doing. Why? My first introduction to ‘the Rapture’ came as a new believer who started attending a fine Baptist church- they were an ‘Independent, Fundamentalist, Pre-millennial’ Baptist church – and yes- they managed to fit all this on the sign! The standard teaching says that in the New Testament there are 2 separate events that make up the 2nd coming. The first event is called The Rapture- that Jesus secretly comes all the way back to the earth and stops short in the sky [his feet don’t touch the ground] he ‘catches away’ all true believers [normally the Catholics, Orthodox and other historic churches get ‘left behind’] and then begins a 7 year tribulation period. After the tribulation you have the other part of the 2nd coming- called the Revelation of Jesus- some Christians say this happens after 3.5 years of tribulation- others after the 7 year period. Some say Jesus comes back after a 1000 year literal reign on earth [post millennial] others say before [pre- millennial]. And then you have various ways they interpret the end time judgment- some say you have what’s called ‘the Bema seat’ a separate judgment for believers- and then the ‘Great White Throne judgment’ the general judgment of the wicked. O.K. does the bible specifically teach that the Rapture event is a separate event from the 2nd coming? No- in my view the bible does not teach this. Now- I’m sure that most of my Protestant readers are surprised that I hold to this view, because in American Evangelicalism this view is almost like the Trinity- in some circles it divides the true believers from the heretics. Classic Christianity does not hold this view- this idea became popularized the 1800’s under a man by the name of John Nelson Darby and the idea spread to America in the 1900’s- primarily thru the revivalist strain of Christianity- and the ‘bible school/conference’ movement. The historic churches just stuck with the classic idea that there will be one second coming- and there will be a resurrection and final judgment. I pretty much fall into this category myself. You would be surprised how much thought has gone into this idea- I mean you have entire schools of thought- who call the other side heretics- just because they believe a 3.5 year tribulation as opposed to a 7 year one. The word rapture comes from the Greek phrase used in Paul’s 1st letter to the Thessalonians- chapter 4. That’s the rapture chapter. The apostle says that Jesus will return and catch up [catch away] the believers into the air- they will forever be with God. This event is biblical- I believe it will someday take place. I simply believe this event to be the 2nd coming- not another event that you would define as the rapture. I believe if you simply read the 2nd coming passages in the New Testament- that you would see this to be the most acceptable view. Jesus actually says ‘after these things [the great tribulation] then the sign of the coming of the Son of Man appears in heaven’ and he goes on to say ‘one will be taken- the other left’. It seems pretty clear to me that the event where ‘one is taken- another left’ takes place ‘after these things’ Jesus actually gives us the time table. To be fair- the other side has many-many ways to ‘get around’ these verses- I just feel that after all is said and done- that the best way to view The Rapture is to see this event as the actual 2nd coming. I have written a lot about this over the years [under the End Times section] and my purpose today is not to ‘prove’ whose view is right- I have found those tasks to be next to impossible. My point is if a believer [or group of them] chooses to break away from the historic church’s position on anything, then you need to think thru it very carefully. Most classic Christian churches have had very wise and knowledgeable men who thought long and hard before they articulated doctrine. This is not to say that the majority view is always right- but it’s simply a safe guide to stick with the majority Christian view most of the time. I’m very aware of the minority report when it comes to the Rapture doctrine- I just feel like the portions of scripture that are used to ‘prove’ the doctrine are not strong enough to overthrow the classic belief. The plain teaching of the New Testament is that there most definitely will be a Second Coming- and this event does not take place in 2 stages- the Rapture is the 2nd coming. www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com VERSES- Acts 1:1 The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,Acts 1:2 Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: Acts 1:3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: Acts 1:4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. Acts 1:5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. Acts 1:6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? Acts 1:7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Acts 1:9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. Acts 1:10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Acts 1:11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Acts 1:12 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey. Acts 1:13 And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. Acts 1:14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. Acts 1:15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,) Acts 1:16 Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. Acts 1:17 For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. Acts 1:18 Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. Acts 1:19 And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood. Acts 1:20 For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take. Acts 1:21 Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Acts 1:22 Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection. Acts 1:23 And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. Acts 1:24 And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, Acts 1:25 That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. Acts 1:26 And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Matthew 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. 2 Corinthians 3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Psalm 85:8 I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations 11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: 12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? Kings 19 Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Proverbs 4:26 Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations Proverbs 30:5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations [these are the verses for the video made 11-11-18] November 18, 2018 « November 17 | November 19 » Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 158Reading 1DN 12:1-3 In those days, I Daniel, heard this word of the Lord: "At that time there shall arise Michael, the great prince, guardian of your people; it shall be a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until that time. At that time your people shall escape, everyone who is found written in the book. "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace. "But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever." Responsorial PsalmPS 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11 R. (1) You are my inheritance, O Lord! O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup, you it is who hold fast my lot. I set the LORD ever before me; with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed. R. You are my inheritance, O Lord! Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices, my body, too, abides in confidence; because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption. R. You are my inheritance, O Lord! You will show me the path to life, fullness of joys in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever. R. You are my inheritance, O Lord! Reading 2HEB 10:11-14, 18 Brothers and sisters: Every priest stands daily at his ministry, offering frequently those same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But this one offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God; now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool. For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin. AlleluiaLK 21:36 R. Alleluia, alleluia. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to stand before the Son of Man. R. Alleluia, alleluia. GospelMK 13:24-32 Jesus said to his disciples: "In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. "And then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in the clouds' with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky. "Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the gates. Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. "But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." 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We live in an online world- yet- there is only one internet- meaning if it ever goes down- the only access to the teachings are what others have copied or downloaded- so feel free to copy and download as much as you want- it’s all free- Note- I have many web sites- at times some question whether I’m a ‘bot’ because I do post a lot. I am not a ‘bot’- I’m John- so please- if you are on the verge of deleting something- my contact email is [email protected] - contact me first- thank you- John 2ND SAMUEL 3 [Homeless friends]
2Samuel 3:39 And I am this day weak, though anointed king; and these men the sons of Zeruiah be too hard for me: the LORD shall reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness. https://vimeo.com/197398198 2nd Sam. 3 [homeless- Gal.] https://youtu.be/SUdkwD2Tx-A 2nd Sam. 3 [homeless- Gal.] https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/12-26-16-2nd-samuel-3some-homeless-friends.zip ON VIDEO .Bobby talks .Kingdom principles .Joab’s revenge .David’s heartache .Leadership thru difficulty .Blinded by the Light- You lost that loving feeling .Galatians review .David’s dynasty [gentiles are coming!] PAST TEACHING I DID- [links- verses below] NOTE- as I reviewed the video I realized it picked up a few songs from the radio the guys had on at the park [good songs by the way]. But- YouTube usually mutes those [copyright thing] so I’ll also upload to vimeo and WordPress- if the YouTube video is silent- you should be able to hear it on the others] Here are the 2 chapters I talked about on Today’s video- I wrote this years ago- Haven’t even reviewed it- but hopefully it’s consistent. (918)2ND SAMUEL 3- Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, king of Israel. He accuses Abner of sleeping with one of his fathers concubines [second wife type thing]. And Abner, the military leader who for the most part propped up Ishbosheth as a puppet king for his own sake, gets irate and says ‘who do you think I am that you accuse me like this? I am not some dog that you can mistreat! I will now turn over the kingdom to David. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even be a king!’ and Ishbosheth remains stunned and silent. What happened here? When men join a ‘team’ [church-organization] out of jealousy and competition, they see themselves as helping the leader as a by-product of there own selfish motivations. We often see churches/organizations compete with one another like professional ball teams ‘how many games did your team win this season/ what was your average attendance this year?’ and stuff like that. When ministry leaders/staff see their ‘church’ from this type of perspective, then as soon as the leader offends you, you respond like Abner ‘how dare this guy speak to me like that! Doesn’t he know if it weren’t for my support he wouldn’t even be here!’ Now, I am not defending either side in this scenario, I feel for the most part that both of these responses/attitudes are not found in the churches of the New Testament. Because the churches in scripture were communities of believers who lived in your city. They weren’t established along these corporate ideas at all. Now Abner goes to David and tells him ‘I am now with you [people can be fickle!] and will do my best to bring all Israel to you’ David makes the deal and Joab, David’s military man says ‘what did you do? Abner was here simply to spy on you, his motives are wrong!’ Joabs brother was killed earlier by Abner himself, Joab was not willing to make peace with Abner. After all there is only room for one military commander, and Joab is not about to accept a demotion for this late comer to the party. Joab calls Abner back and kills him. David hears what happened and washes his hands from the whole matter. In this chapter we see how the motivations and selfish intentions of people cause strife. I feel the whole scenario of ‘whose side are you on, which ‘local team’ [church] is your team?’ leads us into these types of positioning and intrigue. In the New Testament you did not see Paul interacting this way between the local churches [communities of believers] he was establishing. For the most part he was teaching them to be faithful to the gospel and would only exercise apostolic authority when things got out of hand. He would appeal to his proof of who he was by saying ‘I am the one who brought you the gospel in the first place, don’t listen to these false teachers who are drawing you away from the truth’. But you did not see a dynamic of ‘are you supporting my apostolic ministry or not? If you are not faithful to my ministry then I no longer have time for you’. These limited ideas cause us to compete with one another. Abner and Joab were men who wanted self advancement and recognition, they aligned themselves with various leaders for their own purposes, this is not the family mindset that Jesus will instill in his future leaders. (920)2ND SAMUEL 4- Ishbosheth hears of Abners death and falls into a state of fear and depression. Even though Ishbosheth was the king, Abner was the power behind the scenes. He is lying on his bed at noonday [a bad thing to do! Start your day early and don’t sleep until the evening, this would eliminate most of the sleeping and anti anxiety pills that are prescribed today]. Two of Ishbosheths men come in and kill him while lying down on the job. They cut off his head and bring it to David. They assumed David would rejoice over this act of vengeance. After all don’t you feel good when God avenges you? Jesus taught us not to rejoice over our enemy’s downfall. Scripture says God sees it and it displeases him. David was not happy about the news and killed the two guilty messengers. In this chapter we also see Mephibosheth, a son of Jonathan who is lame. The story goes that when he was 5 years old and the news of Saul and Jonathans death came back, that the nurse fled and dropped him and he has been crippled ever since. Some of us have had ‘crippling’ experiences that have permanently sidetracked us. Now Jesus is the master at healing people who can’t walk. In John’s gospel he asks the lame man ‘do you really want to be healed’ and Jesus heals him. Sometimes we allow past experiences to permanently affect our future. Have you ‘been dropped’ by somebody who was supposed to take care of you? Have any of your inner circle betrayed you while ‘lying on your bed at noonday’ [in a position of intimidation and weakness]? I want to exhort you to let Jesus heal you. Jesus told the blind guy to go ‘wash in the pool of Siloam’. Siloam means ‘sent’, you have been destined to be sent on a mission from God. ‘Get out of the city and dwell in the fields, there I will deliver you from the enemy’ [bible!] I think some of us have been waiting for perfect conditions before we act, God says get out of the bed while there’s still time. If not you are in danger of ‘losing your head’ [losing the authority of a leader]. Here’s my complete Samuel study [videos and text]- https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-samuel/ PAST LINKS- TEACHING [verses below] https://ccoutreach87.com/2016/12/26/galatians-1/ VERSES- 2Samuel 3:1 Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker. 2Samuel 3:2 And unto David were sons born in Hebron: and his firstborn was Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess; 2Samuel 3:3 And his second, Chileab, of Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite; and the third, Absalom the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur; 2Samuel 3:4 And the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith; and the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital; 2Samuel 3:5 And the sixth, Ithream, by Eglah David’s wife. These were born to David in Hebron. 2Samuel 3:6 And it came to pass, while there was war between the house of Saul and the house of David, that Abner made himself strong for the house of Saul. 2Samuel 3:7 And Saul had a concubine, whose name was Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah: and Ishbosheth said to Abner, Wherefore hast thou gone in unto my father’s concubine? 2Samuel 3:8 Then was Abner very wroth for the words of Ishbosheth, and said, Am I a dog’s head, which against Judah do shew kindness this day unto the house of Saul thy father, to his brethren, and to his friends, and have not delivered thee into the hand of David, that thou chargest me to day with a fault concerning this woman? 2Samuel 3:9 So do God to Abner, and more also, except, as the LORD hath sworn to David, even so I do to him; 2Samuel 3:10 To translate the kingdom from the house of Saul, and to set up the throne of David over Israel and over Judah, from Dan even to Beersheba. 2Samuel 3:11 And he could not answer Abner a word again, because he feared him. 2Samuel 3:12 And Abner sent messengers to David on his behalf, saying, Whose is the land? saying also, Make thy league with me, and, behold, my hand shall be with thee, to bring about all Israel unto thee. 2Samuel 3:13 And he said, Well; I will make a league with thee: but one thing I require of thee, that is, Thou shalt not see my face, except thou first bring Michal Saul’s daughter, when thou comest to see my face. 2Samuel 3:14 And David sent messengers to Ishbosheth Saul’s son, saying, Deliver me my wife Michal, which I espoused to me for an hundred foreskins of the Philistines. 2Samuel 3:15 And Ishbosheth sent, and took her from her husband, even from Phaltiel the son of Laish. 2Samuel 3:16 And her husband went with her along weeping behind her to Bahurim. Then said Abner unto him, Go, return. And he returned. 2Samuel 3:17 And Abner had communication with the elders of Israel, saying, Ye sought for David in times past to be king over you: 2Samuel 3:18 Now then do it: for the LORD hath spoken of David, saying, By the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, and out of the hand of all their enemies. 2Samuel 3:19 And Abner also spake in the ears of Benjamin: and Abner went also to speak in the ears of David in Hebron all that seemed good to Israel, and that seemed good to the whole house of Benjamin. 2Samuel 3:20 So Abner came to David to Hebron, and twenty men with him. And David made Abner and the men that were with him a feast. 2Samuel 3:21 And Abner said unto David, I will arise and go, and will gather all Israel unto my lord the king, that they may make a league with thee, and that thou mayest reign over all that thine heart desireth. And David sent Abner away; and he went in peace. 2Samuel 3:22 And, behold, the servants of David and Joab came from pursuing a troop, and brought in a great spoil with them: but Abner was not with David in Hebron; for he had sent him away, and he was gone in peace. 2Samuel 3:23 When Joab and all the host that was with him were come, they told Joab, saying, Abner the son of Ner came to the king, and he hath sent him away, and he is gone in peace. 2Samuel 3:24 Then Joab came to the king, and said, What hast thou done? behold, Abner came unto thee; why is it that thou hast sent him away, and he is quite gone? 2Samuel 3:25 Thou knowest Abner the son of Ner, that he came to deceive thee, and to know thy going out and thy coming in, and to know all that thou doest. 2Samuel 3:26 And when Joab was come out from David, he sent messengers after Abner, which brought him again from the well of Sirah: but David knew it not. 2Samuel 3:27 And when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gate to speak with him quietly, and smote him there under the fifth rib, that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother. 2Samuel 3:28 And afterward when David heard it, he said, I and my kingdom are guiltless before the LORD for ever from the blood of Abner the son of Ner: 2Samuel 3:29 Let it rest on the head of Joab, and on all his father’s house; and let there not fail from the house of Joab one that hath an issue, or that is a leper, or that leaneth on a staff, or that falleth on the sword, or that lacketh bread. 2Samuel 3:30 So Joab, and Abishai his brother slew Abner, because he had slain their brother Asahel at Gibeon in the battle. 2Samuel 3:31 And David said to Joab, and to all the people that were with him, Rend your clothes, and gird you with sackcloth, and mourn before Abner. And king David himself followed the bier. 2Samuel 3:32 And they buried Abner in Hebron: and the king lifted up his voice, and wept at the grave of Abner; and all the people wept. 2Samuel 3:33 And the king lamented over Abner, and said, Died Abner as a fool dieth? 2Samuel 3:34 Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters: as a man falleth before wicked men, so fellest thou. And all the people wept again over him. 2Samuel 3:35 And when all the people came to cause David to eat meat while it was yet day, David sware, saying, So do God to me, and more also, if I taste bread, or ought else, till the sun be down. 2Samuel 3:36 And all the people took notice of it, and it pleased them: as whatsoever the king did pleased all the people. 2Samuel 3:37 For all the people and all Israel understood that day that it was not of the king to slay Abner the son of Ner. 2Samuel 3:38 And the king said unto his servants, Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel? 2Samuel 3:39 And I am this day weak, though anointed king; and these men the sons of Zeruiah be too hard for me: the LORD shall reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness. ________________________________________ Amos 9:10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us. Amos 9:11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: Acts 15:13 And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: Acts 15:14 Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. Acts 15:15 And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, Acts 15:16 After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: Acts 15:17 That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. http://www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg https://twitter.com/ccoutreach87 https://plus.google.com/108013627259688810902/posts https://vimeo.com/user37400385 john chiarelloFollow On https://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_logo http://johnchiarello.tumblr.com/ http://johnchiarello.thoughts.com/ Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on- Thanks- John.# Advertisements Occasionally, some of your visitors may see an advertisement here, as well as a Privacy & Cookies banner at the bottom of the page. You can hide ads completely by upgrading to one of our paid plans. UPGRADE NOW DISMISS MESSAGE Share this:RelatedSunday sermon Samuel Kings 15 PUBLIC SAFETY WARNING FOR CORPUS CHRISTI TEXAS! Exposing the rampant criminal corruption in corpus Christi Texas.
Did CCPD cop rob the bank? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkL1ZUIoiqs Update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZj8l-K_jEU Bank robbery update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I78ByhKZ7tE&t=98s Did CCPD steal the gun- and lie about it? https://youtu.be/Ci_pjRanW5E The South Texas crime syndicate- bad cops! https://youtu.be/9JIpsbLoWHQ . [New below] Blog- www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg?view_as=subscriber Other sites- https://ccoutreach87.com/links-to-my-sites-updated-10-2018/ [Links to all my sites at the bottom of this post] NOTE- Every so often some of my sites think I am Spam- or a Bot- I am not. My name is John Chiarello and I post original content [all videos and text are by me]. I do share my past posts from my other sites- but it is not spam- Thank you- John. NEW- 11-21-18 Today I will make a ‘special post’- the last few days I have been speaking on subjects- and actual events- that speak to the unbridled criminal corruption in Corpus Christi and South Texas. None of these events are new- except the possible bank robbery that happened yesterday- by a CCPD officer. Note- I say POSSIBLE- Because the picture looks like a cop I know personally. But either way- all the other accounts about the actual criminal activity from local law enforcement are indeed true- and have been documented by me before. It was reported to me that a person handed over a cell phone to mayor Joe McComb which had child porn on the phone. The phone belonged to a CCPD cop- the same one who seems to look like the bank robber. It was reported to me that the mayor contacted Chief Markle- and the cop said the phone was stolen- yet did have child porn on the phone. It was reported to me that the cop was demoted from detective to patrolman because of SOME STUFF on the phone. How can SOME STUFF deem a demotion- yet the child porn was never investigated? I also talked about incidents involving me and my children- yes- how local law enforcement repeatedly broke the law in targeting my kids! This was documented by me over the past few years. All the incidents I recounted today on the videos are simply my own personal experiences with CCPD- I have no idea how many other criminal acts have been committed by them and other law enforcement in the area. I do believe south Texas- Corpus Christi- is a real danger to those thinking of moving or starting a business here- there are many reasons besides the ones I noted in his short section. I think I added the right links to the right videos- I posted all these videos the past 2 days to both facebook and Youtube. Yes- some might get offended at the language on some videos- but that is not my intent. What frustrates me is this has been going on for so many years in Corpus Christi- And my experience tells me that even if a cop did a bank robbery- the authorities in this city would do all they could to cover it up. Or to have the guy retire- then maybe let it go away- They have done this with others in the past. This type of out and out rampant corruption and criminality is a real and present danger to any thinking of coming to our area- plain and simple. There are many other instances I did not mention on these short videos- abuse of homeless- homeless being targeted and brutally assaulted by current officers on the department- on and on. They all know who they are- some have risen the ranks- and I guess to them it is a joke? Our city has potential- but until the citizens realize what a problem we really have in Corpus Christi- Then we simply recommend avoiding the area all all costs. To those who have children in the higher education facilities - we recommend transferring them to San Antonio or another area where they will be safe. International businesses should look at other Ports to do business with- whether it be Port Lavaca just north- or true professional Ports like where I grew up as a kid [Off the Hudson river]. Ok- I need to post this as soon as possible- John P. S.- I have met the cop mentioned above- and his wife- multiple times over the past few years. I don’t know them well- but I do know them. It was the officers wife herself that relayed the information about the child porn on the phone! Why? I don’t really know- but the cops wife was the one who said her husband [the cop] later said the phone was stolen and therefore they did not hold him accountable for the child porn. She too was the one that said her husband was demoted because they found other ‘bad stuff’ on the phone. Now- how in the ‘hell’ do you think I should take this?- This is the same CCPD cop that looks like the bank robber? You tell me chief Markle? He is also thought to have set his truck on fire- because he could not make the truck payments- I am not sure if he is being investigated for this as well- but if this is true- then arson would be another crime- besides all the others! 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We live in an online world- yet- there is only one internet- meaning if it ever goes down- the only access to the teachings are what others have copied or downloaded- so feel free to copy and download as much as you want- it’s all free- Note- I have many web sites- at times some question whether I’m a ‘bot’ because I do post a lot. I am not a ‘bot’- I’m John- so please- if you are on the verge of deleting something- my contact email is [email protected] - contact me first- thank you- John SAMUEL- REVELATION- KINGDOMS
Micah 6:9 The LORD’s voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. https://youtu.be/rODWjOdfrRc Samuel- Revelation- Kingdoms https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/12-24-16-2nd-samuel-1-2-revelation-kingdoms.zip ON VIDEO- .White robes .1st resurrection .Syria- Libya .World Issues .World history .Obama was right .American- French revolution .Lady Liberty? .Reason rules! .Ultra- Montanism .Renaissance .Reformation- rise of the nation states .Notre Dame .Enlightenment .Freud .Peasants Revolt [16th century] .Some founding fathers were deists .We were English colonies .Did the Amalekite kill Saul too? .Abner and Joab .Pray for all in authority NEW- [past links- verses below] 1- Samuel- Revelation 2- Diogenes SAMUEL- REVELATION I talked about a lot of different subjects on today’s video- and I will try and add some past teaching below on some of it [Past Links section]. In short- at the end of my Samuel study https://ccoutreach87.com/samuel-links/ we saw the death of king Saul- and in 2nd Samuel 1-2- we see the response of David who will ascend to the throne. When David hears the news- of not only the death of Saul- but of his best friend Jonathan- Saul’s son- He laments- but also gives us a brief ‘song’ of praise- He recounts how they were valiant men- swift and strong- 2Samuel 1:23 Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. He recalls the noble parts of their lives. He does not rejoice over the fact that Saul’s death leads to his rise to the throne- but instead shows the same respect for the position [anointing] Saul had- even after death. God will secure David as the new king- yet there are divisions right from the start. Abner will anoint one of Saul’s surviving sons as king- 2Samuel 2:8 But Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul’s host, took Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim; 2Samuel 2:9 And made him king over Gilead, and over the Ashurites, and over Jezreel, and over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, and over all Israel. And Joab will be the ‘commander’ for David’s men. They engage in an initial battle- and sure enough David’s men defeat the ones who follow Abner- 2Samuel 2:14 And Abner said to Joab, Let the young men now arise, and play before us. And Joab said, Let them arise. 2Samuel 2:15 Then there arose and went over by number twelve of Benjamin, which pertained to Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David. 2Samuel 2:16 And they caught every one his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow’s side; so they fell down together: wherefore that place was called Helkathhazzurim, which is in Gibeon. 2Samuel 2:17 And there was a very sore battle that day; and Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel, before the servants of David. God is showing his favor on David right from the start. Yet- it is sad- because this battle will claim the lives of God’s people- it was an ‘in house’ fight- if you will. On today’s video I also discuss the imagery we see in Revelation ‘thrones- and they sat upon them- and judgment was given to them’- Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The people of God who have overcome do indeed have authority in the earth- not thru violence- like David of old. But thru the Word of our testimony- And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. By walking In righteousness [white robes] and doing justice- what is right. Revelation 19:8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. Revelation 19:14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. This redeemed community- those who have part in the ‘1st resurrection’- have power over the ‘2nd death’- Revelation 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. They are indeed ‘priests to God and Christ’. A position that we who believe- do indeed already have- 5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, 6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Rev. 1 In a way- our David- Jesus- leads us into battle- but not like his forefather king David- in an actual violent war. But violence thru a sanctified life- radical followers of the Lamb who lay down their lives for a higher purpose- Matthew 11:12 [Full Chapter] And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. We are untied with Christ- we are indeed that heavenly city coming down from God out of heaven- Revelation 20:9-a And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city Revelation 21 [Full Chapter] And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. The world- and its systems- resist the community of God- 2 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision. Since the first days of the church- she has represented that which is just and right [not always seen thru the events of history]. But the church- the people of God- are where God resides- and we read that the world – it’s systems ‘encamp around us’ and ‘fire comes down from God out of heaven- and devours them’. Revelation 20:9-b and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. The victory we have is in our union with Christ- the fire of God came down on the early church- and their power was in the things they spoke- they proclaimed Jesus as Lord- Acts 2:1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. Acts 2:2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Acts 2:3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And in their willingness to lay down their lives for the kingdom- Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved nottheir lives unto the death. So too- we have the fire of God upon us- his Spirit and power are still alive today. The world fights against this witness- but they will never be able to overcome it- it will eventually reach them – impact them- if you will ‘devour them’- KJ21 And the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. ASV And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. AMP The Light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it or overpower it or appropriate it or absorb it [and is unreceptive to it]. Jn. 1:5 Not in a vengeful way- but in a way that will bring them also to the Cross- Romans 14:11 [Full Chapter] For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. They too will need to pass thru the fire- God’s purpose will not fail- he wills the redemption of all mankind- Revelation 20:9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. We- the redeemed community- the ‘1st fruits’ have experienced this fire already Luke 3:16 John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: and the church Jesus founded- will ultimately prevail- Matthew 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 2- DIOGENES- I think I mentioned him on today’s video [I am writing this before I review the video and add the bullet points]. In the study of philosophy- he is not known for deep thought- or new ideas. He lived in the 5th century B.C. – died in the 4th in the biblical city of Corinth. Diogenes believed in ‘living with less’- he was known to have slept in a ceramic pot- he lived and ate on the streets- and was basically like many of my homeless friends. Yet- he felt in doing this he was a sort of ‘prophetic’ sign to the world around him. He is believed to be the first to refer to himself as a ‘cosmopolitan’- meaning a man of the world- and not identifying with any one city. He was born at Sinope- [Modern day Turkey] traveled to Athens- the main center of wisdom/philosophy. Attended the lectures of Plato- and interrupted them He disputed Plato’s interpretation of his teacher- Socrates. And had a memorable encounter with Alexander the Great. The story goes [there are a few versions of it- maybe more along the line of myth] that Alexander wanted to meet with Diogenes- and he heard he was in town [Corinth] so Alexander went to meet him. Upon arriving at the spot- he greeted Alexander and told him he would fulfill any request that the Cynic asked. Diogenes replied ‘Move over- you’re standing in my sun light’. It is said that as Alexander left- and made the statement ‘If I were not Alexander- I would be Diogenes’. How true- well we will never know for sure. He did live at a time- and in a place- where the famous philosophers would come from. He believed rejecting wealth- and the comforts of life- were a statement against the society of his day. He purposefully challenged the ‘normal’ way of life- by being different- and at times- vulgar. It is said that he carried a cup- for drinking. And he saw a young boy one day- drinking from the brook with his hands. He then threw away the cup- realizing that ‘the god’s’ had given to men the basic things to survive- and he really did not need all the material things of life. Like I said at the top – he is not known for his great thinking ability- but he was respected by the stoics- a later school of thought that embraced some of his ideas- and PAST POSTS- LINKS[that relate to what I taught on today’s video] https://ccoutreach87.com/samuel-links/ https://ccoutreach87.com/protestant-reformation-luther/ https://ccoutreach87.com/hebrews-updated-2015/ https://ccoutreach87.com/western-intellectual-tradition/ https://ccoutreach87.com/overview-of-philosophy/ HISTORY OF EVERYTHING- 3 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Heb. 11:13 https://youtu.be/qJ5mLkAvdbQ 3minute tour https://youtu.be/VZcQte2_7kU 3 History of everything https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/6-24-16-3-history-of-everything.zip MY LINKS- https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/06/18/history-of-everything-1/ https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/history-of-everything-2/ https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/romans-updated-2015/ ON VIDEO- .Animal shelter .Brexit .CNN- what’s worse- Golf talk- or actual golf? .See Hahn .Do you know the way to San Jose- I mean Diego .Church- world history .Alexandria Egypt .Florence Italy .Renaissance .Luther and Erasmus .Wittenberg .Saint Ann- save me! .Saint Augustine .Hippo North Africa .French Revolution .Holy Roman Empire .Anglican Church .Puritans .Bloody Mary .Skewed Polls . CNN- Martians or Golf? Yesterday I wrote on the Brexit- https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/2016/06/25/the-well-john-4/ and don’t want to rehash the whole thing again. But Today’s video goes a bit more in depth on the whole subject. The history of man- and his desire to have an independent state [country]. From the era of the Reformation https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/protestant-reformation-luther/ – to the Puritans coming to America- to our breaking away from ‘our king’. Yes- we too were Brits at one time- British colonies to be specific. And we didn’t like Parliament taxing us- without representation. So- we didn’t just ‘vote’ to have the Brits off our back- we shot and killed them! When president Obama sided with Cameron [the British Prime minister] and sort of threatened ‘if you break away- you will be at the back of the line as trading partners’. This upset the Brits- because it was coming from a country- that broke away from them! But it is in the nature of man to want his own- independent- country. In the bible- we see this accomplished- not by might- Jesus had some men on his team- who were called Zealots. The wanted a radical revolution- but Jesus said the kingdom was not about physical violence. But we would gain our ‘independence’ by him going to the Cross for us. We would then be beholden to no earthly empire- but become strangers and pilgrims in the earth- we would be citizens of a heavenly kingdom. So yes- all people lean towards independence- and it seems like the Brexit will expand to other EU nations. Whether that’s a good- or bad thing- time will tell. But it seemed kind of condescending for the American media- and president- to give them a lecture on how they were a bunch of bigoted rebels- when we continue to celebrate every July 4th. Get it? PAST POSTS [verses- news links- below] THE CROSS https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/1-30-16-devil-went-in.zip https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/1-28-16-the-cross.zip https://youtu.be/pNQPQXvK3PU The Cross https://youtu.be/1FiOQ0GVPA0 Fix it https://youtu.be/Ag22VN7G2IU Hayden case https://youtu.be/AbKv3FxqiEs Simple man https://youtu.be/hnGmk0Lr32I Devil went in ON VIDEOS- Note- I’ve commented on the Hayden case the last few weeks. At the end of this post I pasted some of [parts] I have taught in the past how some of our Founding Fathers were influenced- heavily- by Enlightenment thinking. Thomas Jefferson is the best example. Why is this important? On my previous post [Plymouth Rock] I tried to show the role that religion played in the founding of our country. Yet- at the time of the Continental congress [The first meeting was in 1774- the 2nd was in 75. The Declaration was approved in 1776] some of our founding fathers were leaning towards Deism [Ben Franklin- etc.] and the wording of the Declaration of Independence [below] was written more along the lines of Enlightenment thinking [also strong influence from the writing of John Locke]. The phrase ‘we hold these truths to be SELF EVIDENT’ was indeed a contrast from the traditional view of the church. Believers do indeed believe in ‘self-evident’ truths [Romans1-2] but in context- this term challenged the historic thinkers of the church. I add this to simply show that Thomas Jefferson [who wrote the Declaration- at the young age of 33] added language that was in a sense- a ‘compromise’. John Adams- Jefferson’s colleague in the congress- would later be challenged in a presidential run by Jefferson. The accusations flew- and Adams supporters said the beliefs of Jefferson would be the downfall of Christianity in America! Why did they make this accusation? Because the Enlightenment thinkers were indeed challenging some of the core beliefs of Christianity in the 18th century. Jefferson spent 5 years in France- right at the time of French Revolution [remember the post I did recently on it?]. The French Revolution was indeed a ‘revolution’ against the church in a way. Many Americans in the colonies were shocked by the bloodshed of the French Revolution. Yet Jefferson sided with it- and even wrote in support of some American merchants who were rebelling against paying their debts here in America. This outraged John Adams. Eventually Jefferson would serve on the cabinet under President Washington- and he would conflict with Alexander Hamilton over the direction of our New Republic. Jefferson felt that Hamilton wanted to give too much power to the Federal govt. [Federalism] Eventually Adams and Jefferson would be on opposing sides- of just about everything! Adams was a good friend of Jefferson during the continental congress in Philadelphia. Jefferson was the representative from Virginia- he was not an eloquent speaker- but he gained the respect of the other representatives. He was seen to be a hard worker- When the drafting of the Declaration came up- Benjamin Franklin turned down the job- and it was given to Adams and Jefferson. Jefferson wanted Adams to do it- yet Adams [Jefferson’s senior] recognized the great skills of his younger colleague- And Jefferson went to work. Yet their friendship was strained over the years- and at the end of their lives they became friends again. Jefferson would become the 3rd president of the U.S. And his legacy remains with us today. It has been said that our country is founded upon a Creed- We- as Americans- give our assent to a creed. And that creed- was penned By Thomas Jefferson. A preacher stopped at a tavern [Inn] In Virginia for the night. The story goes that he spoke with a stranger while there- they talked about mechanics- and the minister thought the man was an engineer. They then spoke on various subjects- and the preacher saw the stranger was knowledgeable in many fields. They finally spoke about religion- and the minister thought ‘he must be a preacher too’. The next day he asked who the man was- it was Thomas Jefferson. How did Jefferson gain all this knowledge? At the age of 6- he was reading the books from his father’s library. He learned Latin and Greek- on his own. His dad died when Jefferson was 14. He eventually went to the college of William and Mary- and became a dedicated student. It was said that 15 hours out of every 24- he was reading/studying. Jefferson kept this up throughout his life. He had a large library at Monticello- his home on a mountain in Virginia. One of his slaves [yes- slaves] said whenever someone had some question- Jefferson was well able to answer the question- and refer to one of his many books. Jefferson was the 2nd largest slave holder in his county- owning more than 200 hundred slaves at one time. Yet- he tried to enact legislation to outlaw slavery. He even added some language at the continental congress about it. The other representatives from the 13 colonies rejected it. He also tried to pass laws in Virginia against slavery. Yet he himself had them- how could this be? It even violated his own words in the Declaration ‘All men are created equal’. Many historians differ on why/how this could be. In the end- Jefferson was like all of us- he was able to articulate noble ideas- yet he himself struggled to fully live up to them. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson- Declaration of Independence. [PARTS] [parts] PARABLE OF THE TREES https://youtu.be/UoxX9_2VlcE Parable of the trees https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/5-5-16-parable-of-the-trees.zip ON VIDEO- .Cruz had a bad day .JFK conspiracy- solved! .CCCF- Pastor Don .Navy stuff .Politics .Trump- Hillary- Sanders .VA doctor .Notre Dame n Mexico .Popes .Catholic stuff .Vatican 1-2 .Liberation theology .Ex- cathedra .French Revolution .Syllabus of errors [parts] FAKE CLOCK? https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/9-29-15-fake-clock.zip ON VIDEO- .Was it a fake clock? .Joan of Arc .Montanism .Russia, Syria and U.S. .Eugenics .Agincourt .Planned parenthood JOAN OF ARC- I mentioned her on the video- and did a document search of my past teaching- and realized I never wrote about her. So- Joan was part of what we call the mystics- these were Christians who had supernatural experiences with God. The common life movement was big into this- the most famous being Thomas A Kempis. I have his famous book ‘the Imitation of Christ’- a classic. So- Joan was a young Catholic girl who had visions and related some of the things I’m teaching in revelation to what she felt God showed her. She claimed Michael the archangel appeared to her. She convinced a prince from France that God told her to fight the English [they raided northern France]. And to everyone’s surprise- she won! She actually dressed in White armor and road a White horse into battle [all images we see in the book of Revelation]. Joan was tried for witchcraft and heresy and burned at the stake in 1431- at the age of 19. Yet she remained a popular figure- and the Catholic Church canonized her as a saint in 1920. BATTLE OF ANGICOURT- One of the more famous battles of the 100 years’ war- Henry the 5th defeated the French in Northern France against great odds. The use of the Longbow by the English played a major factor giving the reality that the French outnumbered the English. Yet when it was all said and done England took ground from the French and France lost around 6,000 men- English troops about 400. The battle took place on October 25th- 1415. [parts] In 1687 Isaac Newton published the bombshell book, ‘Mathematical principles of natural philosophy’ [Gravity]. It was a bombshell not only in the scientific sense- but for those who were looking to expel Christianity from society. In France you had the Encylopedists- people who advocated for an atheistic world view. In their minds- the Church was part of the ‘old world’ and as man advances- he needs to realize that the church itself is a hindrance. Now- Newton showed us that the world [cosmos] operates more along the lines of a machine- with set principles- and not so much by ‘the power of God’. This is a classic mistake that many make- they look to the natural laws of ‘nature’ and say ‘see- this explains everything’. Actually- not. But anyway- the French revolutionaries wanted change- and change they got. Near the end of the 18th century- emboldened by the American Revolution- they stormed the Bastille- and it was the beginning of the age of Progress. The Bastille was a former fortress- that became an infamous prison in France. It was believed that many freedom lovers were held captive there. Actually- upon breaking in- there were only about 7 criminals held- but it still became the standard for Revolution. King Louie tried to institute reforms- but they did not go far enough. Eventually Napoleon Bonaparte takes control- and he tried to form an agreement with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Priests and churches were attacked during the time of the French Revolution- and the great Notre dame university had a lady representing ‘reason’ on the altar. The churches were turned into ‘houses of reason’ and girls dancing in the streets represented a sign of Liberty for the French. But the liberty they were talking about was not in the same sense as the American Revolutionaries. The French were being ‘liberated’ from Christianity- as well as the oppression of the nobles and Priests. So- the famous gift from the French to America [1886] the Statue of Liberty- might have meant something a bit different than what we understand today. The statue itself was of the Roman goddess ‘Libertas’. The church came thru a period where they showed how reason and religion do not contradict one another. Many of the great thinkers/philosophers were indeed believers. Yet some in Christianity felt there was a danger in too much reliance on reason and rationality. We refer to this as Pietism- Men like Philip Spener and Count Zinzendorf played a role in helping believers return to a more spiritual communion with God. The famous Methodist founder- John Wesley- was effected by the witness of the Moravian Christians on one of his journeys back and forth to America. Wesley and George Whitefield were coming to America and spreading revival by their preaching- on one occasion John Wesley was on board ship- the seas were rough- John feared for his life. Yet he noticed the Moravian brothers had no fear. He later asked them why they seemed to be fearless at the possible point of death. They told Wesley they had true assurance they were saved by Christ-and there was no need for fear. Later John Wesley had an experience at a meeting on Aldersgate St. – they were reading from a Romans commentary- notes from Martin Luther. And the story goes Wesley felt his heart ‘strangely warmed’ and he saw this as a conversion experience. Wesley never intended to start the Methodist Church [as his movement later became known in the states] – he simply wanted to revive the ‘dead faith’ of his fellow Christians in the Anglican Church. Yet eventually- thru men like Francis Asbury- the Movement Wesley started would spread thru America and eventually become a separate denomination. PAST POSTS- Alexander sought to implement the ideals of his teacher- he wanted to unify the known world under one people/culture- a belief that Aristotle held- a sort of ‘unified theory’ [Einstein] that would seek to bring all learning/knowledge together under one supreme [Divine] principle. Alexander’s experiment was called Hellenization- which was the Greek worlds attempt to impose Greek culture/language on all their conquered enemies- and at the same time allow them to hold on to the their own culture too. Alexander did amazingly well at this experiment- at the young age of around 24 he had accomplished most of his mission. The cities were a sort of composite of Greek culture mixed in with their own culture- this is where we get the modern term Cosmopolitan. Alexander died young and his kingdom was divided between 4 generals- one of them- Ptolemy- would himself make it into the history books because of his keen intellect. The system of cosmology developed under him would last [and work!] until some 17-18 hundred years later when it was overthrown by the Copernican revolution during the time of Copernicus and Galileo. Alexander’s generals would do their best to carry on the system of Hellenization- and other nation’s generals would keep the system going even after Greece fell. One of them- Octavian [Roman general] makes it into the history books by another famous name- Julius Caesar. Alexander established a great library in the Egyptian city of Alexandria [named after him] and many of the great writings were preserved during this time. The writings of Aristotle would be discovered again during the time of Thomas Aquinas [13th century Catholic genius/scholar] and this would lead to Scholasticism [a peculiar school of thought developed/revived under Aquinas] and give rise to the Renaissance. Okay- before the birth of Christ- the Jewish people resisted the imposing of Greek culture upon them- you had the very famous resistance under the Jewish Maccabean revolt- where the Jews rose up and fought the wicked ruler Antiochus Epiphanies- and till this day the Jewish people celebrate this victory at Hanukah. Eventually Rome would conquer the Greek kingdom and the Jewish people were allowed to keep their culture and temple- yet they were still a people oppressed. Hassidism [getting back to the beginning] developed during this attempt to not lose their Jewish roots- the Pharisees of Jesus day came from this movement. Alexander was pretty successful in his attempt to unify language- even though the bible [New Testament] was written by Jewish writers- living under Roman rule- yet the original bible is written in the Greek language. Bible scholars till this day study the Greek language to find the truest meaning of the actual words in the bible [I have a Greek Lexicon sitting right in front of me]. It would take a few centuries before a Latin version appeared on the scene [the great church father- Jerome- would produce the Latin Vulgate]. Yet it would be the re- discovery and learning of the Greek texts [under men like Erasmus- and the Protestant Reformers] that would lead to the Reformation [16th century] and other movements in church history. The Jews had various responses to the empires that ruled over them during various times. Alexander the Great instituted Hellenization- a sort of cultural compromise over the people he conquered. They could keep their religious/cultural roots- but would be subservient to Alexander and Greek rule. Some Jewish people rejected any compromise- we call them the Essenes- they moved out of town- so to speak, and lived in what we refer to as the Qumran community. This was a few centuries before the time of Christ- and this was where the Dead Seas Scrolls were found in the 20th century. A Bedouin boy was looking for his goats- threw a rock in a cave right off the Dead Sea- and that’s how we found the scrolls. The scrolls might have been hidden there by the Essenes- Now- when my friends asked me about them- I told them that it’s been a while since I read up on any of this- but to the best of my memory the thing that made them significant was the fact that they were very old manuscripts- from the bible- and they backed up what we had had all along. [parts] (1404) UNLESS I AM CONVICTED BY THE TESTIMONY OF SACRED SCRIPTURE OR BY EVIDENT REASON [I DONOT ACCEPT THE AUTHORITY OF POPES AND COUNCILS, FOR THEY HAVE CONTRADICTED EACH OTHER], MY CONSCIENCE IS CAPTIVE TO THE WORD OF GOD. I CANNOT AND I WILL NOT RECANT ANYTHING, FOR TO GO AGAINST MY CONSCIENCE IS NEITHER RIGHT NOR SAFE. GOD HELP ME. AMEN- Martin Luther. This was the statement from Luther after previously questioning himself over his revolt in the church. The day before he was brought before the council and given the chance to recant his books. He acknowledged the books were his and said he needed time to think about recanting; Luther seriously questioned whether or not his revolt was going too far. The humanist Erasmus would write scathing criticisms against the Catholic Church, but would not join Luther in what he thought was a rebellious schism. It’s interesting to note that the pope of Luther’s day was actually quite a good pope [Leo] in Luther’s correspondence with him Luther regrets that the reform is happening under such a good pope. Luther will eventually call him the anti Christ! The interesting thing to note is in the midst of all the action and debate, Luther himself had questions. There were times when he thought other reformers were going too far. At one point Luther left the safety of a secluded castle hideout to return to the university at Wittenberg and reign in the radical teachings from the self proclaimed prophets who were teaching a total rebellion against the entire government of Germany; Luther said if the reformers do this, they will be siding with those who oppose law and government, things ordained by God. When the famous Peasant’s Revolt took place, Luther sided with the state and used harsh language in putting down the revolt. Many rebels saw Luther as the leader of their cause; they were shocked and disappointed when Luther would not join in their revolt. In all Christian controversies and debates there is always the danger of certain groups going too far in their view of things. While teaching on the true nature of the church [community of people] I have noticed that some mistake this teaching and embrace a radical anti clericalism and ‘anti church building’ mindset to the point where they are going to extremes at certain times. I admire Luther for his stance, after giving serious thought to whether or not he should recant and go the route of Erasmus, he chose to stay true to his conscience and lead the German reform movement till the end. In the current day, both Protestants and Catholics need to look at the past reasons for the protests, and allow room for unity where room exists. But to also acknowledge that there still exist official doctrines/statements from both sides that are quite difficult to reconcile; it is possible for Christian communions to work things out and truly achieve a greater degree of unity than what we have had in the past, but it’s also important for all sides to have a working knowledge of the differences. At the end of the day Luther sided with his conscience and what he felt to be true, the other side felt the same way- when working towards unity as believers we need to keep this in mind. (1400) IF I HADN’T DONE WHAT I HAVE DONE AMONG THEM, WORKS NO ONE HAS EVER DONE, THEY WOULDN’T BE TO BLAME. BUT THEY SAW THE GOD SIGNS AND HATED ANYWAY… THEY HATED ME FOR NO GOOD REASON- John 15, message bible. This is the chapter where Jesus tells us he is the vine and we are the branches; the father is the main gardener. If we remain-abide in him we will bring forth fruit, if we do not ‘remain in him’ we are cut off and burned. In Johns other writings [1st John] he speaks about those who did not [parts] (1235) 2ND CORINTHIANS 12- Before I get into a long history discussion with you guys, let’s hit a few verses. Paul says ‘when I was with you, did I gain a profit from you, take advantage of you?’ or ‘when I sent Titus, did he gain a profit from you?’ He then goes on and says the fathers lay up money for the kids, not the other way around. He says he has spent out of his own pocket for them, and he will continue to do so. He says he does all this so people won’t have the excuse ‘he’s just in it for the money’. Notice, Paul himself did not have the common mindset we see in ministry today. Often times financial appeals are made from Paul’s writings in Corinthians, these appeals often say ‘we are not asking for ourselves, but for you’ it is put in a way that says it would be wrong to not take money from people. That in some way not taking an offering would violate scripture. Paul flatly said he did not take money from them for personal use, nor would he. When the modern church uses Paul’s other sayings in this letter to appeal to giving, we need to share ‘the whole counsel of God’ not just a few verses that fit in with what we practice. Now, Paul speaks about being caught up into ‘heaven’ [Gods realm-Paradise] and hearing truths from God that were not lawful for men to speak. He states that God gave him truth that came from Divine revelation. If you skip a few pages over in your bible, you will hit Galatians. In the first chapter he says how after he was converted he did not confer with the other leaders at Jerusalem, but received teaching straight from God. Let’s discuss what revelation is, how we come to know things. The last few centuries of the first millennium of Christian history you had the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ which was a political/religious union of church and state. Under the emperor Charlemagne the territories of the empire were vast. Those who came after him did not have the same control over the regions that were vast. Eventually you had a form of rule arise that was called Feudalism; the sections of the empire that were too far to benefit directly from Rome would simply come under the authority of the local strongman [much like the present dilemma in Afghanistan, I think it’s time to get our boys out of that mess]. People would come under the authority of a ruler and he would lease out land to the citizens and they would benefit from his protection. The citizens were called Vassals and the land was called a Fief. At one point king John of England would do public penance in a disagreement he had with the Pope and all of England would become a Fief under the rule of the Pope. Now, this would eventually lead up to the development of the strong nation states, an independent identifying with your state/region as opposed to being under Rome and the papacy. This type of independence would allow for the 16th century reformation to happen under Luther. If it were not for Frederick the Wise, the regional authority in Germany where Luther lived, he would have never had the protection or freedom to launch his reformation. Luther also had the influence of being a scholar at Wittenberg. Around the 12th-13th centuries you had the first university pop up at the great cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The word university simply meant a co-operative effort from two or more people. It applied to many things besides learning. It was also during this time that the church began to develop a system of harmonizing Christian doctrine; she began to do systematic theology. The writings of the Greek philosophers [Aristotle] were rediscovered after centuries of them being hidden, and the great intellectual Saint Thomas Aquinas would wed Aristotle’s ideas with Christian truth. This became known as Scholasticism. Aquinas believed that men could arrive at a true knowledge of God from pure reason and logic. But man could not know all the truths about God and his nature without ‘special revelation’ [the bible and church tradition]. All Christians did not agree with Aquinas new approach to Christian truth, the very influential bishop Bernard would initially condemn Aquinas over this. Bernard said ‘the faith that believes unto righteousness, believes! It does not doubt’. The Scholastic school taught that the way you arrive at knowledge was thru the continuous questioning and doubting of things until you come to some basic conclusions. These issues would be debated for centuries, and even in the present hour many argue over the issue of Divine revelation versus natural logical reasoning. Tertullian, an early North Afrcian church father, said ‘I believe because it is preposterous, illogical’ he became famous for his saying ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens’ meaning he did not believe that Greek philosophy should have any part with Christian truth. Origen, his contemporary, believed the other way. So the debate rages on. Why talk about this here? Some believers ‘believe’ in a type of knowledge called ‘revelation knowledge’ they mean something different than the historic use of the term. Historically ‘revelation’ meant that which God revealed to us THRU THE BIBLE, not something outside of the bible. For instance, the first canon of scripture put together was by a man called Marcion. His ‘bible’ contained the letters of Paul and parts of :Luke. He believed the revelation God gave Paul was for us today, not the Old Testament or the historical gospels. He was condemned by the church as a heretic. The point being some took Paul’s writings about receiving knowledge from God as an indicator that what God showed Paul was different than what the church got thru the other apostles. In point of fact the things that God revealed to Paul, or to you or me; all truth is consistent, it will not contradict any other part of Gods truth. Paul’s letters are consistent with the gospels, not in contradiction. When believers cling to an idea that their teachers are sharing ‘special revelation’ or a Rhema word that is somehow above the scrutiny of scripture, then they are in dangerous territory. Paul did appeal to his experience with God as a defense of his gospel, but he backed up everything he said with Old Testament scripture. God wasn’t ‘revealing’ things to Paul that were outside of the realm of true knowable ‘truth’. You could examine and test the things Paul was saying, he wasn’t saying ‘because God showed it to me, that’s why I’m correct’. So in today’s church world, we want all the things we learn and believe to be consistent with what the church has believed thru out the centuries. Sure there are always things that are going to be questioned and true reform entails this, but beware of teachers who come to you with ‘revelation knowledge’ or a ‘Rhema word’ that goes against the already revealed word of truth. VERSES- 2Samuel 1:1 Now it came to pass after the death of Saul, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had abode two days in Ziklag; 2Samuel 1:2 It came even to pass on the third day, that, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul with his clothes rent, and earth upon his head: and so it was, when he came to David, that he fell to the earth, and did obeisance. 2Samuel 1:3 And David said unto him, From whence comest thou? And he said unto him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped. 2Samuel 1:4 And David said unto him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, That the people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also. 2Samuel 1:5 And David said unto the young man that told him, How knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan his son be dead? 2Samuel 1:6 And the young man that told him said, As I happened by chance upon mount Gilboa, behold, Saul leaned upon his spear; and, lo, the chariots and horsemen followed hard after him. 2Samuel 1:7 And when he looked behind him, he saw me, and called unto me. And I answered, Here am I. 2Samuel 1:8 And he said unto me, Who art thou? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite. 2Samuel 1:9 He said unto me again, Stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me: for anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me. 2Samuel 1:10 So I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen: and I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither unto my lord. 2Samuel 1:11 Then David took hold on his clothes, and rent them; and likewise all the men that were with him: 2Samuel 1:12 And they mourned, and wept, and fasted until even, for Saul, and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the LORD, and for the house of Israel; because they were fallen by the sword. 2Samuel 1:13 And David said unto the young man that told him, Whence art thou? And he answered, I am the son of a stranger, an Amalekite. 2Samuel 1:14 And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the LORD’s anointed? 2Samuel 1:15 And David called one of the young men, and said, Go near, and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died. 2Samuel 1:16 And David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the LORD’s anointed. 2Samuel 1:17 And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son: 2Samuel 1:18 (Also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow: behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.) 2Samuel 1:19 The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen! 2Samuel 1:20 Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 2Samuel 1:21 Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil. 2Samuel 1:22 From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty. 2Samuel 1:23 Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. 2Samuel 1:24 Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. 2Samuel 1:25 How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. 2Samuel 1:26 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. 2Samuel 1:27 How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! ________________________________________ 2Samuel 2:1 And it came to pass after this, that David enquired of the LORD, saying, Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah? And the LORD said unto him, Go up. And David said, Whither shall I go up? And he said, Unto Hebron. 2Samuel 2:2 So David went up thither, and his two wives also, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail Nabal’s wife the Carmelite. 2Samuel 2:3 And his men that were with him did David bring up, every man with his household: and they dwelt in the cities of Hebron. 2Samuel 2:4 And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. And they told David, saying, That the men of Jabeshgilead were they that buried Saul. 2Samuel 2:5 And David sent messengers unto the men of Jabeshgilead, and said unto them, Blessed be ye of the LORD, that ye have shewed this kindness unto your lord, even unto Saul, and have buried him. 2Samuel 2:6 And now the LORD shew kindness and truth unto you: and I also will requite you this kindness, because ye have done this thing. 2Samuel 2:7 Therefore now let your hands be strengthened, and be ye valiant: for your master Saul is dead, and also the house of Judah have anointed me king over them. 2Samuel 2:8 But Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul’s host, took Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim; 2Samuel 2:9 And made him king over Gilead, and over the Ashurites, and over Jezreel, and over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, and over all Israel. 2Samuel 2:10 Ishbosheth Saul’s son was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel, and reigned two years. But the house of Judah followed David. 2Samuel 2:11 And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months. 2Samuel 2:12 And Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Ishbosheth the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon. 2Samuel 2:13 And Joab the son of Zeruiah, and the servants of David, went out, and met together by the pool of Gibeon: and they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool, and the other on the other side of the pool. 2Samuel 2:14 And Abner said to Joab, Let the young men now arise, and play before us. And Joab said, Let them arise. 2Samuel 2:15 Then there arose and went over by number twelve of Benjamin, which pertained to Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David. 2Samuel 2:16 And they caught every one his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow’s side; so they fell down together: wherefore that place was called Helkathhazzurim, which is in Gibeon. 2Samuel 2:17 And there was a very sore battle that day; and Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel, before the servants of David. 2Samuel 2:18 And there were three sons of Zeruiah there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel: and Asahel was as light of foot as a wild roe. 2Samuel 2:19 And Asahel pursued after Abner; and in going he turned not to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner. 2Samuel 2:20 Then Abner looked behind him, and said, Art thou Asahel? And he answered, I am. 2Samuel 2:21 And Abner said to him, Turn thee aside to thy right hand or to thy left, and lay thee hold on one of the young men, and take thee his armour. But Asahel would not turn aside from following of him. 2Samuel 2:22 And Abner said again to Asahel, Turn thee aside from following me: wherefore should I smite thee to the ground? how then should I hold up my face to Joab thy brother? 2Samuel 2:23 Howbeit he refused to turn aside: wherefore Abner with the hinder end of the spear smote him under the fifth rib, that the spear came out behind him; and he fell down there, and died in the same place: and it came to pass, that as many as came to the place where Asahel fell down and died stood still. 2Samuel 2:24 Joab also and Abishai pursued after Abner: and the sun went down when they were come to the hill of Ammah, that lieth before Giah by the way of the wilderness of Gibeon. 2Samuel 2:25 And the children of Benjamin gathered themselves together after Abner, and became one troop, and stood on the top of an hill. 2Samuel 2:26 Then Abner called to Joab, and said, Shall the sword devour for ever? knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end? how long shall it be then, ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren? 2Samuel 2:27 And Joab said, As God liveth, unless thou hadst spoken, surely then in the morning the people had gone up every one from following his brother. 2Samuel 2:28 So Joab blew a trumpet, and all the people stood still, and pursued after Israel no more, neither fought they any more. 2Samuel 2:29 And Abner and his men walked all that night through the plain, and passed over Jordan, and went through all Bithron, and they came to Mahanaim. 2Samuel 2:30 And Joab returned from following Abner: and when he had gathered all the people together, there lacked of David’s servants nineteen men and Asahel. 2Samuel 2:31 But the servants of David had smitten of Benjamin, and of Abner’s men, so that three hundred and threescore men died. 2Samuel 2:32 And they took up Asahel, and buried him in the sepulchre of his father, which was in Bethlehem. And Joab and his men went all night, and they came to Hebron at break of day. Revelation 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. Revelation 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, Revelation 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Revelation 20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Revelation 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. Revelation 20:7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, Revelation 20:8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. Revelation 20:9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. Revelation 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Revelation 20:11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. Revelation 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. Revelation 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Revelation 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Psalm 2:1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? Psalm 2:2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Psalm 2:3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. Psalm 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision. Psalm 2:5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Psalm 2:6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. Psalm 2:7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Psalm 2:8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Psalm 2:9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Psalm 2:10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Psalm 2:11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Psalm 2:12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. http://www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg https://twitter.com/ccoutreach87 https://plus.google.com/108013627259688810902/posts https://vimeo.com/user37400385 john chiarelloFollow On https://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_logo http://johnchiarello.tumblr.com/ http://johnchiarello.thoughts.com/ Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on- Thanks- John.# Advertisements Occasionally, some of your visitors may see an advertisement here, as well as a Privacy & Cookies banner at the bottom of the page. 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Blog- www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg?view_as=subscriber Other sites- https://ccoutreach87.com/links-to-my-sites-updated-10-2018/ [Links to all my sites at the bottom of this post] NOTE- Every so often some of my sites think I am Spam- or a Bot- I am not. My name is John Chiarello and I post original content [all videos and text are by me]. I do share my past posts from my other sites- but it is not spam- Thank you- John. The next few weeks [Today is 11-16-18] I will be posting my 2nd Samuel study- this intro is for both 1st and 2nd Samuel- you can find the 1st Samuel study [Links n Videos] on my websites. (882)1ST SAMUEL; INTRO, CHAPTER 1- Originally the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel were one volume. When the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament was made [the Septuagint] they were added with 1st and 2nd Kings and were called ‘The books of the kingdoms’. In order to keep this volume from becoming too big, they were divided into the present divisions. In chapter one we see the family of Elkanah and Hannah [and wife #2 Pininnah!]. They go up to the Tabernacle of the Lord in Shiloh to worship the true God. Hannah has no children while wife # 2 does. This becomes a point of contention and jealousy between the two wives. Hannah pours her heart out to the Lord and makes a vow. She tells the Lord if he gives her a son that she will dedicate him to the Lord. Eli the priest sees Hannah praying silently [her lips moving but hearing no voice] and he assumes she’s drunk! Why? Was she stumbling and acting drunk? No. It was because he thought she was mumbling [speech] like a drunk. In Acts chapter 2 the same thing is assumed. Those who received the outpouring of the Spirit were thought to be drunk. Why? Were they stumbling and falling? No, once again it was a speech thing. They were speaking all types of unknown languages [known to the various groups there that day] and people thought they were acting like drunks when they can’t talk clearly. I emphasized this because it’s common today for renewal movements to associate the Spirit with people actually stumbling and driving in a drunken type state. While I don’t want to be dogmatic and say this can never be of God, yet many of these believers will use the Acts chapter 2 example to justify their belief. Act’s 2 does not teach ‘being drunk in the Spirit’ in this manner. Now the Lord hears Hannah’s request and she gives birth to Samuel. She keeps him until he is weaned [2 or 3 years old] and then she honors her vow and dedicates him to the Lord. She actually gave him up to become a full servant of God at Shiloh. It was not an easy vow to keep. As we go thru this book we will cover lots of interesting history. Samuel will become a mighty prophetic leader in Israel. He will be the one to introduce king Saul as Israel’s first king. The last verse in Judges says ‘there was no king in the land in those days, every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes’. It’s common to think this means God punished Israel for not having a human king. In actuality God will tell Israel that they were rejecting his kingship over them by wanting a ‘king like the other nations’. We will learn that God did not originally intend for Israel to have a singular human king. The description from judges simply shows us that sinful people, who reject God’s law, will go astray. In these instances a king can bring some sort of stability and government. The kings of Israel will serve in this capacity. (884)SAMUEL 2- Hannah gives great praise to God for Samuel. This prophetic utterance is a lot like Mary’s ‘Magnificat’ in Luke chapter one. She says ‘God brings low the rich and helps the poor’. This week we had one of the worst financial disasters in U.S. history [9-2008]. It could have been worse, the government took over some major financial [and insurance] institutions. One of them was A.I.G., a major insurer. A day or so before they were taken over I asked my wife ‘did you take out the girls trust money’. We had a lot of money for our girls in the company [lets say between 50 and 100 thousand dollars]. My wife says ‘no, not yet’. I was a little perturbed to say the least. My wife is the trustee for the girl’s accounts, and I have been telling her for about a year to take the money out. So the day she makes the request all the talk on the financial shows is ‘will A.I.G. declare bankruptcy today’? I was upset. Another day went by and they said ‘overnight they will declare’. And we still didn’t get the money. Well the government stepped and basically took the company over and we got our checks. I was talking to my homeless buddies and they were somewhat aware of the crisis, but they could care less. Their lives were not tied up in these systems. They were still going to live the way they were living for most of their lives. Trusting God daily to meet their needs. It made me think of Hannah’s prayer. Also we see the first use of the word ‘Messiah’ [anointed] in the bible. ‘God will strengthen his king and exalt the horn of his anointed’. I read this yesterday and was quoting it all day. It’s appropriate that Mary uses this prophetic utterance while speaking of Jesus, the Messiah. The sons of Eli the priest are wicked. They are robbing the people and sleeping with the women at the tabernacle gate. Scripture says ‘the people abhorred the offering of the Lord’ because of their abuse. For many years I heard ‘if people are offended because the church emphasizes money so much, well let them be offended’. I never really questioned this reasoning. Then I began to see how the majority offence to unbelieving friends and family was the money issue. While most of the pastors were well meaning, they seemed to not realize that we do have a responsibility to not offend in the area of offerings. The apostle Paul adjusted his ministry in such a way that he would not allow the churches to support him while he was with them. [Not just Corinth either, but Thessalonica and Ephesus! Read Thessalonians and the chapter in Acts that deals with the Ephesian elders- 22?] The point being the church bears much responsibility to how the world views us in the area of offerings to God. Eli’s sons abused the system to their own benefit and the people began to despise the whole concept of ‘church and money’. A prophet will pronounce judgment on Eli’s household and Samuel will ‘grow in favor with God and men’. Just like Jesus. Samuel is a type of Christ who knew his prophetic/priestly destiny from a young age. Jesus was in the Temple questioning the leaders at the age of 12, Samuel was serving the Lord at an even younger age. (885)SAMUEL 3- Samuel is laying down at night and hears someone call him ‘Samuel’. He thinks it’s the voice of a man [Eli] and he goes to him and says ‘what’s up, why did you call me’? Eli tells him he didn’t call him. This happens 3 times and finally Eli realizes that the Lord is speaking to Samuel [though Samuel doesn’t realize it!]. Eli tells Samuel to simply reply ‘speak Lord, for thy servant heareth’. Sure enough the Lord returns and reveals to Samuel that he is going to judge Eli’s house and dynasty. Eli asks ‘what did the Lord tell you’? And Samuel tells it all. A few things. First, it’s possible for gifted young prophetic people to mistake men’s leadership for God. In Samuels’s case the Lord purposely bypassed human leadership. Even leadership that was God ordained to a degree! When we become over dependant on human leadership God will shake up the apple cart. Also Eli was still mature enough to direct Samuel towards the Lord. He knew it was not his job to mediate this gift. He could have been jealous and said ‘well, I guess you need to ignore the voice. After all who do you think you are trying to hear God while bypassing the official channels’. But Eli directed Samuel to the Lord. Also this chapter says ‘God let none of Samuels words fall to the ground’ all the people from Dan to Beer-Sheba knew that Samuel was a prophet. I have said in the past that true ministry does not seek fame and recognition. This does not mean that these things won’t happen! Often times God will elevate a prophetic gift while the person themselves are not seeking it. Jesus was a great example of this. He said in John’s gospel ‘I don’t seek the recognition from men, I know what’s in man’. What was in man? The same people who were extolling him would be part of the crowd who would yell ‘crucify him’ later on. The vanity of men’s glory is a shameful thing. Yet Jesus became the ‘most famous’ prophet in the history of the world. Samuel had a divine mission to accomplish, he was well recognized as a prophet sent from God for a particular season. Even Eli [the recognized official leadership] saw something special with Samuel, he was humble enough not to stand in the way. (886)SAMUEL 4- DOES TRUE SCIENCE BACK UP BIBLICAL CREATIONISM? The reason I stuck this in here is because this chapter deals with the Ark of the Covenant [the box that ‘contained God’ or his ten commandments!]. I want to deal with the biblical revelation of Gods character and how it relates to creation. Do you remember the Indiana Jones movies? The Raiders of the Lost Ark. They showed a view of the Ark of the covenant as God being this super energy/light force that if ‘unleashed’ would completely decimate everything around it. Sort of like an Atomic bomb. The biblical account of creation is that in the beginning [of time and all matter and everything else, except God] that all you had was this self existent all powerful being who is Spirit [not matter]. And that by a singular act of speaking he created all matter and everything else in our universe. This concept was rejected by philosophers and scientists for over 2 thousand years. Even Saint Thomas Aquinas, the premiere apologist of the Catholic Church, believed that the universe always existed. He chose to defend God from the idea of ‘prime mover’. That is God is the initiator of all motion. He accepted the basic belief that the universe always existed. So you had the biblical world view, as seen in those who said ‘all matter and existence came into being at a point in history where God [this being of infinite energy and light] spoke and unleashed his creative power’. The majority scientific view was ‘this is impossible’. The 20th century will go down in history as the century that made the most breakthroughs in scientific thought up until the present time. Michael Faraday [the 19th century] would unlock certain keys that would become the groundwork for Einstein’s breakthrough in Physics. Up until that time all science treated energy and matter as separate fields. Faraday discovered that light itself was a beam of energy. He discovered Electro Magnetism. Einstein had an obsession with light as a little boy. He wanted to know what it was, how it functioned. Einstein’s famous theory E= MC 2 combined energy and matter in a way that was revolutionary to the scientific world. For the first time science would view energy and matter as co related fields. What worked in one field was true for the other. His theory stands for ‘Energy = Matter times the square of the speed of light’ C represents the speed of light- 670 million miles per hour! Einstein unlocked a tremendous secret that was hidden to the world of science up until his day. He showed that time itself is relative. Until that time Newton’s view was if you could actually travel at the speed of light and ‘catch up’ to the end of a beam of light, that it would still be moving away from you at the speed of light. Einstein believed this didn’t make sense. But the laws of physics up until his time did not leave room for a reasonable explanation. His breakthrough idea was that if you could actually catch up to the speed of light, you would theoretically be at a point where time stood still. These concepts seemed ridiculous before. The only place where you would find such silly ideas as ‘time being no more’ or as ‘all matter came into existence by this supreme light force’ were in the ancient biblical texts. So true science was getting closer to biblical revelation, not the other way around. Now Einstein’s theory meant that if you not only caught up to the speed of light, but actually surpassed it, what would happen? The energy used to surpass the speed of light would turn into density, matter. So you would actually be able to get matter [Hebrews 11] from ‘things that are not seen’ [immaterial]. This theory also meant that if you could unleash the potential energy from matter, you would be unleashing one of the greatest forces known to man. The Atom Bomb. Einstein’s theory has been measured and been proven to be true. As hard as it is to wrap your mind around, studies have shown that things do not age as fast when traveling at high rates of speed for extended periods of time. Einstein’s theory has made possible the belief that all things came into existence at a specific point in time. This supreme being of light and energy had the potential to create all the matter in the universe in a matter of seconds. This ‘super fast light being’ also transcends time, a thing thought to have been impossible in the past. Einstein enabled man to come closer to the ‘stuff of God’ more than at any other time in history. One other thing, Einstein’s theories break down right at the point of ‘singularity’. The exact moment of creation. Hey, God isn’t going to let you see it all without having some faith! NOTE- I am not advocating Pantheism here [the belief that the universe and the creation itself are actually God]. Light and energy [power] and ‘Logos’ [The Greek word for ‘Word’] are all descriptions of God, that he himself uses to reveal himself to finite man. But because he is the creator of light and energy and all things, he is revealed to man by his creation. But God himself is a personal self existent being. In his revelation of himself thru Jesus Christ he also exists in a bodily resurrected state at the right hand of the majesty on high. (887)SAMUEL 4 CONTINUED- Okay, let’s finish it up. In this chapter we see an important historical event, the capture of the Ark of the Covenant [the box that held the 10 commandments, not Noah’s Ark!] The children of Israel fight with the Philistines and take a loss of 4 thousand men. They go back to camp and regroup. They decide to take the Ark of God and involve it with human warfare. A big mistake! This speaks of the sad history of the crusades and other mistaken ideas of ‘holy war’. God does not involve himself in mans efforts of domination thru power. So the Philistines hear that the Ark is in the battle and they fear. ‘Oh my God, this is the God of Israel who defeated the Egyptians’. They knew the history of Israel and how the God of Israel was great. The battle rages and Israel takes a greater loss of 30 thousand men. Plus the Ark is captured and the two sons of Eli are killed. The runner runs back to Shiloh [the headquarters of the Ark, where the tabernacle of Moses still stood] and brings the terrible news to Eli [the high priest]. Eli hears about the Arks capture and falls back and breaks his neck and dies. One of the daughters in law to Eli goes into labor and delivers a boy. She names him Ichabod, which means God’s glory has departed. She did this because the Ark was taken. The Ark represented Gods glory and presence among the people. It seems as if Israel began to treat it in an idolatrous way. Sort of like what happened with the brass serpent that Moses made in the wilderness. God has to step in and rebuke his people when they mistake the true worship of God with religious objects. The history of the Christian church has been divided over this for centuries. You can have religious art, it should not become a thing of worship. The iconoclast controversy of the Catholic and Orthodox churches have gone to extremes on both sides. At times believers would go into the ‘churches’ and destroy all the religious art they found. Others would hold to a view of icons [religious paintings] and statues that would seem to cross the line in areas of worship. I remember hearing a story about a prophet who stood up in a church meeting and said ‘thus saith the Lord, I have judged this church and people. My glory is no longer here. I have written ‘Michelob’ on your door posts’. Well, after he sat down he realized he mistook the word ‘Michelob [beer]’ for ‘Ichabod’. He then stood up again and said ‘Thus saith the Lord, I meant to say Ichabod’. (888)SAMUEL 5- The Philistines take the Ark back to their cities and every city the Ark is taken to experiences judgment. They get ‘tumors’ [hemorrhoids!] and rats. At one point they put the Ark in the ‘house of Dagon’ [a false idol. A fish head type thing with a human body] and the next morning their idol is found lying at the feet of the Ark. They set him up again and low and behold, the next morning the fish god is found at the foot of the Ark with his head and hands chopped off! Hey, if your god started as a fish and turned into a stump, then it’s time for a new god! Eventually they decide to send the Ark back to Israel. Let’s do a little history at this point. The Ark of God is the box that contained the 10 commandments. God had Moses make a box to put the tablets in [the 2 tablets that the commandments were written on]. The reason destruction will happen to those who ‘peak in the Ark’ is because the cover of the Ark was called ‘the Mercy seat’. This was the place where the high priest would make a yearly atonement [the Day of Atonement] for the sins of the people. The sacrificial blood was placed on the cover to be for a covering of sin. The Ten Commandments represented Gods Holy character, and the only way he could dwell with the people was on the basis of this atoning blood [a type of Christ]. When you remove the cover [the mercy seat] in essence you are causing the absolute righteousness of God to come into contact with the absolute sinfulness of man. That’s why those who peak in it are destroyed. Now the Ark was originally carried around with the tabernacle system in the wilderness. A sort of movable tent that was set up and taken down as God willed. A mobile piece of furniture. When the children of Israel came into the Promised Land it was placed in Shiloh. After it’s capture and return [which we will read about in the coming chapters] it will eventually be placed in the city of Jerusalem under King David’s rule. This tent that David puts it in is referred to as ‘David’s tabernacle/tent’. It will be a type of the new covenant ministry of Jesus. The tent of David will have no tabernacle structure like Moses tabernacle in Shiloh. There will be no veil or holy of holies or any other impediment to God’s presence. All you have is the Ark and the mercy seat. This showing us that in Jesus priesthood [typified by David’s kingly/priestly ministry] all you need is Jesus atonement and Gods glory. All have equal access to God, not just the priestly class [or another way to put it is all are priests!]. So as we progress thru these books keep your eyes open to the prophetic pictures that are being painted by the Spirit. All scripture testifies of Christ. He is the underlying figure that the Spirit is continually pointing to. (889)SAMUEL 6- The Philistines are reeling under the judgment of God. They call a meeting of their priests and diviners, and they ask what they should do. Their ‘religious’ leaders advise them to send the Ark back to Israel and make an offering. They were to make gold images of their judgments, rats and tumors, and place them in a box with the Ark and send it on a cart being pulled by two cows. They would take the cows calves and bring them home, but place the cows and cart on a road to Beth Shemesh. If the cows go down the road, they took it as a sign from God. Sure enough the cows take the Ark to Beth Shemesh and dump the cart in a field belonging to Joshua. Israel rejoices that the Ark is back and sacrifices the cattle with the wood from the cart. Their joy is short lived. They peek in the Ark and are destroyed. They removed the ‘Mercy seat’ [see last chapter-#888]. Over fifty thousand men from Beth Shemesh are killed. They decide to send it to the men of Kirjath Jearim. Over the years I have seen this story used in various ways to justify different ‘ways of doing church’. Some taught how God judged Israel because they didn’t follow the prescribed methods of Ark handling. We will see this happen with David and his men later on. Then the teacher would relate how important it is for us to follow Gods prescribed method, but then teach ‘Gods method’ is their various slant on how ‘we should do church’. I see some good stuff from this story, but I don’t see it in that light. The Philistines were advised by their own pagan priests ‘don’t harden your hearts like Pharaoh’. The story of Gods miraculous intervention in Egypt became lore of the day. All the surrounding nations knew that you don’t mess with the God of Israel. God didn’t destroy the men of Beth Shemesh because they didn’t fully follow prescribed law [though later on this will be part of the problem with David’s men] but they died because they took themselves out from under the covering of Gods mercy as represented in the Mercy seat [the lid on the Ark]. A few years back a famous believer, Reggie White [former football pro.] was known for his Christian faith. He was later influenced by Muslim teaching and made the statement ‘I am going directly to God, without a ‘go between’ [meaning Christ]’. He obviously was influenced by Muslim teaching and was coming out from the ‘covering of Christ’ [mercy seat]. Sadly, Reggie tragically died not too long after this from a sickness. He died in the prime of his life. I do not want to judge Reggie. I simply want to show you the danger of sinful men [all of us!] trying to approach a Holy God without the ‘mercy seat’ [Cross]. The men of Beth Shemesh removed the covering, and they suffered for it. (890)SAMUEL 7- The Ark arrives at Abinadab’s house in Kirjath Jearim, it will remain there until David retrieves it [it was there for around 100 years in total-1100 BC- 1004 BC]. Samuel calls the people to repentance and makes intercession for them at the same time. This leads to great victory over the enemy. Jesus ‘lives forever to make continual intercession for us’. We need to combine repentance and dependence upon Christ’s mediation in order to gain victory. This chapter also has the famous name ‘Ebenezer’ that makes it into the history of the church. Both songs and churches will use it in their names. Martin Luther King preached at Ebenezer Baptist church. This stone was simply a rock of remembrance for the victory of God. It spoke of Gods help for man. Jesus is the ultimate ‘stone/rock of defense’ for man. Scripture says ‘there is no rock like the Lord’ ‘Jesus is the precious stone, all who believe will be delivered’. The imagery of Jesus/God as a rock of defense is all throughout scripture. We see Samuel as the key leader of Israel and scripture says he judged them at this time. He lived in Ramah and ‘rode a circuit’ between the various cities on a rotating basis. He was the first ‘circuit rider’! The circuit riders were the famous American evangelists during the 19th century. As the Puritan east coast churches were becoming well established in the original colonies, there was a need to reach out to the West [and south] with the gospel. The circuit riders were the evangelists who traveled to various areas preaching the gospel and establishing churches [The great Methodist Frances Asbury became famous for his circuit riding and church planting]. During this time you had the famous ‘camp meetings’ where many believers from all over would gather at these outdoor ‘brush arbors’ and hear the gospel preached and commit their lives to the Lord. Over time the more staid Reformed churches of the east coast would view the ‘camp meeting’ brothers as a little ‘un hinged’. You would also have some of the ‘Spirit led’ groups condemn the old time reformed brothers as ‘unconverted’. There was a tendency to lean towards one side or the other. The various Quaker [shaker] type groups would emphasize the Spirit being premiere in all Christian understanding. While this is of course true, this in no way means believers do not learn thru the normal means of study and reading. Some of the more ‘Spirit minded’ believers would come to view the more ‘head knowledge’ brothers as ‘unconverted’. One of the worst cases was the Ann Hutchison controversy. She was a believer who began teaching under the ‘Spirits guidance’ and would give the impression that the more refined ministers were not of God. She would ultimately pay with her life for her beliefs. NOTE- The terminology of ‘New lights’ versus ‘Old lights’ was often used to describe the different emphasis between these 2 camps. There was a brother by the name of Davenport who would travel around and accuse all of the old time preachers as being unconverted. While it is possible for a minister to have never truly made a strong commitment to Christ, to paint them all with this broad brush was very unbalanced. (891)SAMUEL 8- Samuel’s sons are appointed as judges over Israel [leaders]. They are wicked, just like the sons of Eli. I find this interesting, Samuel was a product to some degree of his ‘spiritual elder’. Even though Samuel himself was a righteous man, yet he passed on to his kids the same leadership style that he tutored under. The children of Israel come to him and request a king ‘like the other nations’. It is important to see that God states clearly that this is not part of ‘the original plan’. God will tell Samuel that this desire for human leadership, along the lines of other ‘gentile nations’ is rebellion. Jesus will tell the disciples ‘the gentiles exercise lordship over one another, it shall not be like this with you’. Israel wanted to be dominated by a king! God tells Samuel to show them what they are asking for. And then goes thru a long list of things ‘he will take the best of your people and use them for self advancement. He will require a tenth of all you have. He will build a legacy for himself and his name by using you as resources to attain a personal goal of achievement’. In essence the lord is warning them that when you raise up human leadership in a singular way [one king] that violates the plural mindset of scripture, then you inevitably will become a servant to human institutions and purposes. I find it interesting that the Lord mentions the tithe and how this will arise as a result of wrong ideas on what leadership should be. Historically the early church did not practice tithing. As the centuries rolled along tithing was originally instituted as a ‘tax’ from the church/state on the people to support the institutional purposes of the church/state. In essence the tithe/tenth did become a means whereby human government would obtain power and prestige among the gentile nations. The word of the Lord was true! [It’s okay for believers to give 10 % to the church on Sunday, the curse of the law on those who do not do this should not be invoked from Malachi. The appeal should be based on grace giving]. Israel will get her king, God will eventually use the Kings of Israel for his prophetic purposes. David and Solomon will be pictures of Jesus and his future rule. Just like the temple, God will initially tell David ‘who do you think you are trying to build a house for me’? [Thru the prophet Nathan] but will still use the temple as a prophetic type of the people of God being a ‘holy temple’. So the Lord will allow sinful man to obtain things contrary to his original purpose, and yet still be glorified thru these requests. Also the sons of Samuel went astray ‘after lucre’ [verse 3]. Just like Paul and Peters warnings in the New Testament ‘taking the oversight, not for filthy lucre’ ‘some have strayed from the faith while coveting money’ so Samuels boys fell to this temptation. I know it’s popular in today’s circles to simply overlook all these verses from scripture. Many sincere men do not see them because their ‘grid’ of interpretation won’t allow it. I just wanted to note how this theme of covetousness is a scarlet thread that runs thru out the entire body of scripture. (892)SAMUEL 9- This is a prophetic chapter that parallels the book of Acts to a degree. Remember when we did Acts I showed you how it seemed that Paul [Saul] from Benjamin might have seen some prophetic significance to the fact that he too shared the same name and heritage [Benjamite] as Israel’s first king? Here we see Samuel play a roll similar to Ananias [Acts 9] in hearing the lord give instructions concerning Saul. Both Paul and Saul were told to go into a city and receive instructions. The lord confirms his word to Samuel that ‘this is the man I told you about’. Both Ananias and Samuel have prophetic signs that confirm the sovereign choice of God. Saul in this chapter is seeking for his fathers lost donkeys. They are about to give up and Saul’s servant says ‘there is a man in the city who hears from God’. Samuel had a reputation of being a prophet [seer]. Seers [another word for prophet. There is some distinction between a ‘prophet seer’ and ‘prophet’. But they are basically the same thing in my mind] were able ‘to see’ into the future about things. Samuel is said to be able to ‘tell Saul the secrets of his heart’. His words ‘come to pass’. He has God communicating to him in a direct way. Samuel is like Agabus in the book of Acts. A prophet who experienced God in supernatural ways. Samuel confirms Gods call on Saul’s life and tells him ‘I have some instructions to give you’ [next chapter!] What role did Samuel play in Israel? He obviously functioned in a prophetic gift that not only predicted what would come to pass, but also gave direction and spiritual oversight to Gods people. The New Testament teaching on prophets clearly teaches that they are part of the functioning ministry of the church. There have been many heresies and mistakes and even cultic ‘prophets’. But the basic teaching in scripture is they are a God ordained ministry that never passed away. We should approach prophets as we do pastors or teachers or any other gift. Are they stable in the faith? Do they have a good grasp of scripture? Good character? All the same principles that apply for Elders. The idea that after the canon of scripture was complete there were no more apostles or prophets has no scriptural support [read my section on apostolic, covering, shepherding]. Both church history and scripture support the ongoing role of prophets in the church. Now, I really doubt that all the fine brothers who declare themselves as prophets are. Some are learning about the gift. Some are functioning at various prophetic levels. But the office carries a lot of weight with it. I see Martin Luther King as a prophetic voice to our nation. He actually spoke of his death in a prophetic way the night before he was assassinated. There are also prophetic voices in history who spoke to their nation and people at crucial times. Alexander Solzenitzen [Russia] would speak out against repressive regimes. But we need to understand that the basic revelatory element of the prophetic [to be able to see and know things supernaturally] was included in the biblical gift of the prophet. (893)SAMUEL 10- Samuel anoints Saul with oil. He gives him very specific prophetic direction ‘you will meet 2 men, then 3. They will be carrying 3 loaves of bread and give you 2’. Very particular information. Saul will meet a company of prophets and prophesy with them. The scripture says the Lord changed Saul into another man thru this prophetic experience. Once again we see not only the significance of Israel being under the divine direction of the prophetic [thru Samuel]. But his prophetic office also opened the door for a ‘whole company of prophets’ having freedom to function in their gifts. Over the years I have found it interesting to see how easy it is to live your entire Christian experience in different camps. Some of the more refined brothers [Reformed, Orthodox] have a great advantage in the field of intellectual pursuit [which is a good thing!] but might not be aware of the sector in the church that deals with the prophetic. The prophetic ministry has grown and even produced some fine intellectual material [some bad stuff too!] The point is we need to try and be aware [at least have a working knowledge] of the many streams that operate in the Body of Christ. You might not agree with a lot of the doctrinal positions that these various groups hold to, but as members of Christ’s church they do represent a certain sector of the church. Saul will follow thru and see all the prophetic signs come to pass in one day. Samuel instructs him to wait for him to come and publicly recognize him as king. After 7 days Samuel comes to town and Saul is hiding. He feared all the things that were coming upon him. Samuel finds him and publicly recognizes him. Also Samuel told the people that their choice of a human king was rejection of God. Some of the people are glad about Saul, others despise him from the start. There is a strange dynamic that I have seen at work over the years. When individual personalities and goals pit themselves against other people’s visions, there seems to be a division that is not healthy. I have had good friends who wanted to publicly join and be identified with ‘my ministry’. I would simply tell them ‘there really is nothing to join, we are simply believers trying to live out the Kingdom of God’. Then other pastors would see that some of the homeless people that they are working with have become ‘joined’ to us in a strong relational way. Then I would sense a kind of mindset that would say to the homeless person ‘well, if brother John has such good influence with you, maybe you should be with him instead of us’. They would not say this in a bad way, just in a way that is prevalent in the present mindset of ‘doing church’. I see all these divisions as silly, they come from an idea of local church that has many various ‘local churches’ [Christian ministries] as seeing themselves as independent entities who are trying to instill loyalty in people. ‘Are you with us or against us’ type attitudes. In Saul’s case he had friends and enemies right from the start. When individual personalities and agendas [which God warned them about!] become preeminent in the minds of the people [contrary to the corporate comminutes as seen in the local churches in scripture] then there is a natural tendency to take sides. (894)SAMUEL 11- Saul will face his first major test. Nahash the ammonite comes up against Jabesh Gilead, a fellow tribe in Israel. He encamps against them and the men of Jabesh say ‘make a deal with us and we will be your servants’. Nahash says ‘under one condition, all your men need to have their right eyes poked out’. ‘Oh, is that all’. Sure enough Jabesh says ‘well, let us think about it. Give us seven days respite that we can send messengers to all the coasts of Israel. Maybe they will come and help. If not, then sure, we are willing to lose the eyes’! Now the messengers go to all Israel, and Saul hears the story. The scripture says he got angry and Gods Spirit came upon him. Saul will eventually become known for his temper. He will make rash decisions out of anger and jealousy. I want you to see that part of his anger was actually God ordained. Sort of like a Jehu [king of Israel] who rode furiously. Or a John the Baptist who took the Kingdom by force and violence. Saul was initially scared to become the king, God gave him a degree of righteous fury to be able to enter the fray without fear. Now Saul sends word back to Jabesh ‘by the time the sun is hot tomorrow, you will have help’. He takes these oxen and cuts them in pieces and sends the parts to the rest of the nation ‘whoever doesn’t come and help. God so help me, I will do this to your oxen too’! [ It would have sounded better if he said ‘so will I do to you’. But Saul is still kinda new at the prophetic stuff]. So Israel rallies, Saul splits the men into 3 groups [did he get this idea from Gideon’s army?] and they storm Nahash and save Jabesh. A few things. Saul is better at this king thing then originally thought. The men are so overjoyed that they say ‘hey, who were those guys that rejected Saul the other day? Lets go and slay them’. Saul steps in and acts righteously and says ‘no, today is a day of great victory, we will not kill our own men’. Saul had the potential to be a good king, he will succumb to pride and jealousy down the road. Also the men of Jabesh were in trouble. They were running out of options. They were contemplating losing their eyes for heavens sake! ‘Just give up part of your vision’ was the threat. The enemy often intimidates us because of the vision/purpose that God places on our lives. If he can just get us to ‘lose the vision’ and live in bondage [servitude] he will be happy. What did the men of Jabesh do? They simply bought some time ‘give us 7 days respite and we will see what we can come up with’. There are times in the journey where we simply need ‘7 days of rest and rethinking’. When you are right up against a seemingly impossible struggle, it’s hard to see any light. You simply need to be able to sit back and tell the Lord ‘give me a little season of rest, help me refocus on some things’. Do a little regrouping and reconnecting to the original purpose. Don’t think you need to come up with an answer on day One! Often times the stress and pressure of the initial attack is too much for you to think clearly on day one. Don’t make major life changing decisions while under stress. After the 7 days pass, you will be able to review the counsel from the Lord and see if the situation has improved. Make your decision then. (895)SAMUEL 12- Samuel is getting old. He calls the people together and reviews his life before them. His defense sounds a lot like Paul’s defense to the Ephesian elders in the book of Acts [chapter 20]. Samuel tells the people ‘all the time I have been with you, did I ever take your goods to enrich myself? Did I use my authority in a way to advance myself?’ he basically witnesses before the people that he was not in this for self gain. He also reviews the history of Israel. He reminds them of their past and how the Lord delivered them from Egypt. It is important to see that although Samuel was a great prophet who operated in tremendous gifts, yet he saw the need to also ground the people in history and doctrine. He knew the importance of remembering past events. Both the Passover and the Lords Table are Divine instances of ‘remembrance’ that God has ordained for his people. Samuel will once again rebuke them for rejecting God by choosing a king. He will call down thunder and rain during their wheat harvest as a sign of Gods anger. The people see this and fear greatly ‘pray to the Lord for us Samuel, we have sinned’. He encourages them and tells them ‘even though you have done lots of wrong stuff, yet it’s not too late to turn to the Lord from this day forward and make a course correction’. In all reproving and correcting we need to always leave room for repentance. Some will never change the way ‘they think and act’ [message bibles version of repentance] but we need to understand that this is the goal of all correction and judgment. Samuel tells the people he will ‘not cease praying for them’ and continue to teach them well. Jesus told Peter ‘if you love me, feed my sheep’. John says ‘this is how we can tell we love God, when we love his kids and obey his commands’. What is Jesus command? ‘Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and might. And thy neighbor as thyself’. Samuel realizes that his faithfulness to God is directly related to his treatment of Gods people. Though he is a gifted prophet, yet he prays and teaches and remains consistent in the more mundane areas of ‘the ministry’. I have found that God looks for faithfulness in the mundane things before he honors the more flagrant gifts. It’s good to have the ability to speak or prophesy or sing for the Lord, but the need to be a consistent intercessor for God’s people takes priority. Samuel taught them history. He oversaw the problems and situations they went thru. He did not become wealthy from the people. He served the lord faithfully from his youth. Hannah gave him to the Lord at a very young age, God took what was given and made the most out of it. (896)SAMUEL 13- DON’T RETREAT TOO MUCH! In this chapter we see the famous story of Saul offering a burnt offering at Gilgal. He was supposed to wait for Samuel and he got impatient and offered it himself. Samuel tells him that the Lord will judge him severely for this and raise up a man after his own heart [David]. In the beginning of the chapter we see Saul and Jonathan separate into 2 camps, Saul keeps 2 thousand men and Jonathan a thousand. Jonathan is a capable warrior and has some good victories. The Philistines say ‘enough is enough!’ and mount a counter attack. They muster so many resources that Israel fears. They retreat into the rocks and hills, some go back over the Jordan! I read a recent Christianity today article that had one of the leaders of the Emergent Movement speaking with one of the more Reformed defenders of the faith. It was a sincere meeting between two seemingly opposing camps. The Emergent brother questioned the Reformed guy ‘what did you tell the people about what was taught in the first thousand years of Christianity before Anselm’? Anselm is the great Christian theologian who is often credited for ‘coming up’ with the ‘theory of Penal substitution’. Now, I love church history and do understand that this is an idea that many good men have espoused, that Anselm came up with the doctrine of Penal substitution. The point I want to make is this fundamental doctrine was taught by the first century Apostles. Our scripture is filled with the doctrine of Penal substitution! So in these cases I think the Emergent brothers have ‘retreated too much’. In their honest and good efforts of changing the way the church interacts with society, they have damaged their movement by doing stuff like this. Challenging too many core beliefs of the faith. In essence they went ‘all the way back over the Jordan’. The Philistines learn a trick from Israel and divide up into three groups and send out ‘raiders’ my King James says ‘spoilers’. They begin chipping away at the confidence of Israel. Saul has 600 men left with him and they are all trembling. Saul himself must be in tremendous doubt about his own life. He just received a strong rebuke from Samuel. He might have been preparing for the worst. But we will find out that there are still more battles to be won, Jonathan will make his dad proud of him. (897)SAMUEL 14- Saul and the people are hiding in fear, Jonathan tells his armor bearer ‘Lets go up to the enemy and show ourselves. If they tell us ‘come here’ we will take it as a sign from the Lord and fight. God can save by many or by few’. They go up and defeat around 20 men in half an acre of land. The scripture says the enemy trembled and the earth as well! It seems like the Lord shook things up, literally! [Another reminder of the book of Acts]. Saul and his people see the enemy fleeing and can’t figure out what’s happened. He takes a quick roll call and realizes Jonathan is gone. They figure out what has happened and enter the fray. The people pursue the enemy and have great victory. Saul says ‘let no man eat today until the sun goes down’. He begins making community wide decisions that are harmful to the people. Jonathan doesn’t hear this rash decision and eats some honey. The people are shocked. They know the curse of Saul. They finally win the battle and they seek the Lord for further instructions. God is silent. Saul figures it’s because there is sin in the camp and they find out that Jonathan was the one who ate the honey. Jonathan says ‘yea, I did eat it, and now I must die’? Sort of like ‘what a stupid and rash thing for you to have said! The people were all tired and drained because of following your singular ideas that were pronounced to the whole community. They would have gained strength if they simply did what was natural and ate when they were hungry’. Saul honors his stupid agenda over his own son and says ‘that’s right, you must die’. He was more willing to kill his son then to admit he was wrong. The people stand up with one voice and say ‘no way Saul, Jonathan has won a great victory. You will not get away with this’! What happened here? Was Saul so inherently evil that he couldn’t help himself? I think what we see here is the result of the mistake for Israel to have wanted a king like the other nations. When the church historically began to be centered around singular authority figures [monarchial episcopacy] you began to loose the freedom and health of the people of God to ‘feed themselves when hungry’. They began to become dependant upon the institutional church to tell them about God and his truth. Eventually you would have the modern expression of highly entrepreneurial ministries that would find well meaning Pastors trying to make corporate wide decisions in ways that were absent from the local churches in scripture. When the people of God lean too heavily on the gifts and leadings of one man, there is a tendency for the leader to come up with goals and decrees that are contrary to the full purpose of God. It is inherent in man to set goals and make broad decisions. That’s not wrong in itself. But the people of God in scripture are formed along the lines of a community of people, not a 501c3 corporation. So the well meaning Pastors have a natural tendency to say ‘what decisions should I make for the church this year? What goals and dreams should we put before the people’ and this inevitably leads to entire communities of believers being too focused on the singular directions of well meaning men. I think Saul simply came up with things to say because he felt he needed to exert leadership. God’s people really didn’t need Saul from the start! As far as I can see from reading the New Testament, the only corporate ‘goal’ or project that Paul would put before the people was his collecting of money for the poor. Now of course there were many spiritual goals of growth and becoming mature believers who praise and glorify God. But I don’t see any other ‘project’ that Paul was regularly laying before the people to join. No structure in the churches of scripture where Paul would say ‘Now Corinth, when I come back next year lets see 50 house churches, reaching 48 % of this region. And oh yes, lets raise this much money for this project’. Much of the modern church is too centered around these types of pleas. The many well meaning men who are operating out of good intentions for the most part are ‘just doing what kings [leaders- C.E.O.’s] are supposed to do’. The fundamental flaw is God never originally intended for his people to be structured along these lines. Many up and coming believers are seeing this and coming out of these limited structures. They are telling Saul with one corporate voice ‘you wont get away with this anymore’. [‘Saul’ in this scenario is not your individual Pastor, who for the most part is probably a good man who loves God. But ‘Saul’ is speaking to the whole concept of modern pastoral ministry that is absent from the churches in scripture]. (898)SAMUEL 15- Samuel instructs Saul to go and wipe out the Amalekites. He goes and conquers the city but saves the sheep and oxen and other valuables. Samuel confronts Saul and says ‘you disobeyed the Lord by not totally destroying everything’. Saul says ‘Well, we saved the good stuff so we could sacrifice it to the lord’. Samuel tells him ‘to obey is better than sacrifice’. God wanted obedience more than religious worship. The writer of Hebrews quotes David in the Psalms ‘sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a Body hast thou prepared me’. Jesus obedience to the father by dying on a Cross trumped the sacrificial system of the law. Saul messed up the picture! Samuel calls for king Agag, the Amalekite king who Saul captured. Agag thinks ‘great, they aren’t going to harm me now. After all the Pastor wants me’! Well surprise, Samuel takes out his sword and hacks old Agag in pieces! Saul must of thought ‘Gee, I really messed up this time. I never even knew the Pastor carried a blade’. A few things. Over the next century or so [if the Lord tarries] I believe the church is going to go thru a type of modern reformation. Today we see many well meaning believers ‘sacrificing’ their time and money and lives into a system of church that is fundamentally disconnected from the picture and nature of church as described in the New Testament. Now, I am not calling for an iconoclastic tearing down of all church buildings! But if the American church stopped all new building programs [finish the ones that are in transit, but no more!] and if we all began actually, daily giving of our time and resources to helping the poor and reaching out to the lost. We would need a hundred years at least in order to bring the balance back to the New Testament [where over 90 % of all giving was charitable]. Jesus and the disciples practiced a lifestyle where all were responsible to lay their lives down for the gospel. There are actual commands in scripture that say ‘you who are not working, get a job so you can have something to give away to those who are in need’. These are real commands that should be ‘obeyed’. But what we have taught Gods people is if they work real hard and sacrifice [as compared to obeying !] then they can put lots of money in towards the next project or building or whatever. Now some of the resources being gathered in this way are used for good things, but the underlying problem is we have given the average saint the impression that this way of sacrificing is more important than actually obeying. I cant tell you the number of believers who simply do not see it as their personal responsibility to ‘give to him that asks of you’ ‘how does Gods love dwell in you if you see a brother in need and don’t help’ ‘if you do it to the least of these my brethren you do it to me’. But there is not a single command in all of the New Testament to bring a tithe for the purpose of building a church facility. Now, it’s okay to build them to a degree, but are we teaching people that this type of sacrificial giving [towards the machinery of modern ministry] releases them from the primary command to obey? The church will go thru a rethinking of what church means, as we travel along this road we need to obey more than to sacrifice. (899)SAMUEL 16- Samuel is coming from the recent ‘hacking incident’ of king Agag, and the Lord tells him to go to Bethlehem and anoint a new king. Samuel is afraid ‘what if Saul hears about it? He will kill me’. Notice, Samuel feels intimidated and fearful. When he gets to Bethlehem the scripture says the Elders were all in a panic, they said ‘are you come in peace’? Hey, they just heard about the hacking incident, word spreads fast when a prophet straps it on with some pagan! They must have been thinking Samuel was on a warpath. He tells them he is come in peace and wants to sacrifice with them and worship. As a little aside, when you have prophetic ministers in a city, it’s only natural that Elders [pastors] are going to feel intimidated. Why? Are prophets better men? No, but the prophetic operates under a different type of anointing. Don’t forget you already saw Samuel gain a reputation among the people because of his strong prophetic gift. Sometimes pastors can feel intimidated ‘geez, that guy hit the nail on the head. I hope he doesn’t call me out by name too!’ Samuel doesn’t ‘call them out’ but says ‘hey Elders, where all in this together. Let’s worship God’. Samuel finds David and anoints him. Saul is battling with all sorts of personal issues [evil spirit]. Even his close associates can pick up on it. The servants recommend for Saul to get a worshipper who can play music and minister to Saul. They tell him ‘yeah, there is this guy named David. He’s real good at playing music. Plus he is a valiant and mighty warrior’. We often see David as a ‘mamby pamby mamma’s boy’ at this stage of his life. But scripture says he already built up a reputation as a fighter. David takes the job and becomes a musician for Saul. A few thoughts. In this chapter we see Gods Spirit [anointing] leaving Saul and going with David. David himself in Psalms pleas with the Lord ‘take not thy Holy Spirit from me’ after his sin with Bathsheba. Let me encourage some of my Pastor friends. It’s easy to read stuff like this, or for some ‘prophet’ to pronounce stuff like this to a pastor. I really don’t see applying this scenario to modern day ministers. God’s Spirit in the Old Testament was operating differently than today. Only one king at a time could have the ‘kingly anointing’. When the Spirit left Saul for David it was because God was only anointing one person for the job. Today, while it’s possible for a pastor/minister to mess up and ruin his ministry, I still wouldn’t apply stuff like this in too much of a personal way. Sort of like ‘The Lord must have left me and now he’s chosen so and so on the other side of town’. The Lord ‘doesn’t leave you’ in this way under the New Covenant. Paul said the gifts and callings of God are without repentance, in context he is speaking of natural Israel, but you can also apply it to believer’s gifts today. How much God uses you does depend on your willingness and obedience to his call, but don’t think he left ‘your church’ and went to the other one down the street! [he hasn’t written ‘Michelob’ on your door! See entry 887] (900)SAMUEL 17- David goes down to the battle front and hears Goliath mocking God. The Philistines are confronting Israel and they have their champion giant [almost 10 feet tall! Like the Roman emperor Maximus, he was huge] Goliath. David hears the enemy challenge Israel day after day and he decides to take him on. Saul tells him ‘you can’t do this, you are too young and inexperienced, he is a man of war from his youth’! David insists that he is able, he killed a lion and bear while defending his fathers sheep, why not ‘this uncircumcised rascal’! Saul says ‘fine, hears my armor’. David tries it on and realizes it’s not his style of armor. He goes back to the simplicity of a sling and stone. He goes out to the battle, Goliath can’t believe his eyes ‘did you send me some mammas boy with a stick? I am not some dog that you can tame with a stick’! Oh really? David says ‘sir, not only will I win this thing, but I will remove your stinking pagan head from off that 10 foot frame and feed you and your buddy’s carcasses to the animals’! Old Saul must of been thinking ‘what in the world did we get ourselves into’? Sure enough the battle begins and David runs up to the giant and sinks a stone into his head. He stands over him and severs his head with his own sword. Now the poor Philistines heard the whole conversation and didn’t want to hang around for the rest of David’s mission statement to be fulfilled. They fled! Israel pursues and has a great victory. A few things; David show us the necessity and simplicity of warfare. Jesus taught the disciples that they had what it took to carry out the mission. He warned them not to fall for the wrong headed idea of ‘God has called us to start an organization, and the organization will accomplish this noble task’. After all the years of befriending and working with the homeless and down and out. I realize that many well meaning believers will see the needs of people, but then want to ‘put on Saul’s armor’ to effect change. Try and start another mission ministry, or make others aware of the problem. I have found the biggest need to be that people are simply not willing to actually give their time and substance and get involved. Jesus told the disciples ‘don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this, you are the equipment. No special appeals for funds!’ [Message bible]. We get lost in trying to put on Saul’s armor [lot’s of complicated ministry ideas] when Jesus says ‘just use the stone and sling that I have given you’. The church of Jesus needs to realize that the power to effect society is in the hands of simple followers, truly the meek will inherit the earth. (901)SAMUEL 18- David is accepted by Saul and seen as a hero. Upon his victory over the giant all the women begin praising and worshipping in the streets with tambourines and musical instruments. Why this exuberant awakening of the women of Israel? It seems to me that David’s skill as a warrior/worshiper brought a degree of respect to the ministry of praise and music that might have been lacking up until this time. Even though the Lord instilled worship as an intricate part of warfare [Judah=praise], yet it seems likely that being a musician during a time in Israel’s history where violence and war were respected might have been seen as a less than noble pursuit. So David restored a sort of freedom and respectability to praise. Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, becomes ‘linked’ to David in a strong way. Some advocates of the gay lifestyle have actually tried to use this scripture to defend the gay lifestyle, but it seems to simply be saying that Jonathan and David became best of friends. What might have caused this initial bonding? Don’t forget Jonathan himself was a warrior who was willing to lay it all on the line against great odds. He already confronted the enemy single-handedly and won! It’s possible that during Goliaths 40 days of mocking and tempting Israel that Jonathan said ‘I’ll do it dad’ and Saul would have never allowed his own son to face the giant. If so then the victory of David was even sweeter to Jonathan than the others. David begins receiving praise from the people because of his wisdom and skill on the battlefield. Jealousy arises in Saul and he tries to kill David with a spear. This begins the history of Saul trying to kill David on various occasions and David’s noble responses. Never trying to hurt Saul himself. Let’s end this chapter with a re-cap of the open type worship that is happening with the women under David’s ministry. It is much like the taboo that Jesus broke in the gospels. Jesus ministry was revolutionary in the way he welcomed and allowed women to be an open part of his ministry. The other written works of the day did not see women from this open standpoint. This is one of the proofs used to defend the canonicity of the scripture. If the stories were all being made up, then you would never include women in this way. Because it would tend to discourage others from believing the story! Jesus broke barriers, David’s ministry and rule will be a picture of the restoration of the dignity and usefulness of women in society. David’s Psalms were actually the song book of the nation. These songs were written during the time of David’s ministry in Jerusalem when the tent of David was the only thing containing the retrieved Ark of the Covenant. A type of the open access that would come to all people under the future ministry of Jesus. David was not only a great warrior, he was a passionate worshipper of his God. (902)SAMUEL 19- Saul puts out the word to his men ‘if you see David kill him’! Jonathan tells David ‘go hide in the field and I will go out where you are and speak on your behalf to my father. Then I will come and tell you all the words he has spoken’. Jonathan speaks well to Saul on David’s behalf and David is restored back into the presence of the king. I see Jesus intercession ministry here. Jesus goes to the father on our behalf, we ‘rest in a hiding place’ [in Christ] while he speaks well of us to the father. He ‘gives us the words that the father has given him’ [Johns gospel] and we are restored back into the ‘presence of the king’. But in David’s case the restoration doesn’t last long. David will flee to Samuel in Ramah, Saul sends his men to get David. Each time they show up they are confronted with this prophetic weapon of intercession in the hand of the lead prophet, Samuel. Samuel is prophesying over a company of prophets and Saul’s men ‘fall under the Spirit of prophecy’ and prophesy too! This happens with 3 different groups of men until Saul himself comes. The same thing happens with him. The ministry of prophecy testifies of Christ. The gift itself is a Divine mechanism in the community of God that protects/defends Gods anointed king [David/Jesus]. Samuels’s gift was meant for more than just personal fulfillment, a ‘my ministry’ mentality. He was overseeing a company of prophets and instilling this dynamic into the broader community of Israel. In the church today prophets should function along the lines of building into the broader community for the overall benefit of the church. There have been good men who have operated in the prophetic gift for many years. They have raised up younger prophetic ministries under them and have lived very effective prophetic lives for many years. It is sad that many in the Body of Christ have no idea of this entire section of the church. Because of abuses and flagrant bad doctrine, many simply live their entire lives without ever experiencing the prophetic aspect of Christ’s church. In this story we see the prophetic ministry, under Samuel, playing a key role in the life of Gods people. NOTE- One example of a modern day prophetic ministry that has been stable and has launched many young prophets would be Bishop Bill Hammon out of Florida. He has been around for years and has had a very influential ministry over the lives of many good young men. (904)SAMUEL 20- David is on the run, he tells Jonathan ‘why is your dad trying to kill me? I have done nothing wrong!’ Jonathan tells David that he knows nothing about it, it must be a rumor. David says ‘no, your dad knows you like me, he isn’t telling you because he thinks you will reveal it to me’. Jonathan says ‘my dad does nothing unless he reveals it to me’. A type of Jesus in John’s gospel. David says ‘I’ll prove it. Tomorrow is a feast day, I am supposed to sit at the kings table. Instead I will hide in the field for 3 days [a type of Jesus in the grave] and when you are eating with Saul, if he says ‘where’s David’ and gets irate, then the cat is out of the bag’. So the plan is launched and Saul holds the dinner. On day two he asks Jonathan ‘where’s old David today, I noticed he has been missing’. Jonathan says ‘Oh, I let him go to his home town for a special family thing’. Saul says ‘thou son of that rebellious women’! You think he went for the bait? Sure enough Jonathan confirms to David that he was right and they make a covenant to always respect and protect each other and their future kids. This will come back to David down the road when he spares a relative of Jonathan. Saul confronted Jonathan and said ‘why are you protecting David? As long as he lives you will never be established’. Saul knew that Jonathan’s success was dependent on David’s downfall. Jonathan was very noble, he didn’t see the success of another Israelite as something to compete with. Leaders often fall into this trap of comparing their ‘ministries’ with so and so. I feel the wrong idea’s of local church breed this attitude. When we see ‘local church’ as the various independent Christian businesses that are all trying to accomplish tasks, then this breeds this competitive spirit. When we see ‘local church’ as the entire family of believers in our city [Jonathans family mindset] then we will overcome the spirit of competition. (905)SAMUEL 21- David is fleeing from Saul and he goes to the priest at Nob. The priest wonders what’s up. David tells him he is on a special assignment from the king and he and his men need food. The priest tells him the only food available is the consecrated bread that is only for God and the priesthood. David convinces the priest to let them eat and David asks ‘do you have any weapons here’. The priest says ‘I have the sword you used to kill the giant’ David says ‘great, that will work just fine’. Jesus used this story to describe himself and the disciples [Mark 2]. One day Jesus and the disciples were going thru the grain fields and the disciples picked the grain and ate it on the Sabbath. The Pharisees said ‘your disciples are breaking Gods law by picking it on the Sabbath’. Now, to be honest they were breaking the over extended ideas that the religious Pharisees came up with thru their legalism. But Jesus still used this example as a defense. He says ‘have you not read what David and his men did? They ate the ceremonial showbread that was not lawful, only the priests could eat it’. David and his men are a symbol of Jesus and his men. While it is true that the bread was only lawful for the priests, David is a king/priest who gets away with doing ‘priestly things’ because of his picture of Christ. Scripture says he put on an ephod [priestly garment] which only priests could do. David functioned before the open Ark in Jerusalem. He did things that other kings were punished for [Saul, Uzziah]. Jesus in essence was saying to the Pharisees ‘I am the new priest/king from which all future law and worship will be measured by. Me and my followers are not under the law, the law serves us’! In Christ we are free from the guilt of the law, we live above legalism and follow the master. David and his men were acting like priests and kings contrary to the economy of their day. David was a type of Jesus whose future priestly ministry would ‘out trump’ the law. (906)SAMUEL 22- David escapes to the cave at Adullam. As he is in hiding the scripture says ‘when his family and friends heard where he was, they gathered to him’. Notice, David is beginning to enter into a time of rule and authority. He was already anointed by Samuel, but this is where the rubber meets the road. He already won some battles, but that was still under Saul’s reign. Now he’s on his own. It’s not that easy! Sort of like when the sparring partners turn pro and think ‘I can whip the champ, I’ve done it already in the ring’. But then when they get in for real, it’s another story. The prophet Gad tells David ‘don’t stay in the place of hiding, get out and go to Judah’. Judah is a place of praise. When we are on the run and are not sure what’s going to happen next, we have a tendency to ‘go into hiding’. Now, sometimes it’s good to find a place of rest and hiding, but these are not permanent positions! We eventually need to escape to a place of praise. At this point David’s men are at around 400 strong, just the right number to start a movement! I believe we all have the potential to be ‘church planters’. If you have the tools to effectively speak into at least 400 people on a consistent prophetic basis, then you can do it! Hey, start a blog, it’s free! Now Saul finds out where David’s at and goes after him. He tells his men ‘why did none of you take my side, or feel sorry for me? Can David give you stuff like I can?’ The brother was making campaign promises for heavens sake! Notice how fear and paranoia were affecting Saul’s mind. He was having a pity party. He is told by one of his men how the priests at Nob helped David, and Saul calls for them and kills the entire company of priests. One son escapes, Abiathar, and tells David what happened. David takes him under his wing. A few things, when we are in the battle and are not sure what’s happening, we have a tendency to draw back. Now, it’s fine to have a period of rest and renewal, it’s just not supposed to be a permanent place! You also have to fight some battles first. We live in a day where people want to ‘be retired’ at the age of 21! I like the commercial I saw a few years back, the parents are at their son’s college graduation and they ask him ‘so son, what’s next’. The boy compliments his dad on his sweater vest and says ‘I think I am just going to retire and move back home’. Let me challenge you, get out of the place of fear and anxiety and by Gods grace start a revolution. You leaders who are reeling because of the battle, enter into Judah. Begin praising God again like in the early days. I just finished a prayer time, I incorporate lots of thanksgiving when praying for stuff. Do you have a regular time of thanking the Lord on a consistent basis? When leaders feel overwhelmed and ‘in the cave’ it’s easy to forget praise. I adjure you ‘get out of the cave and flee to Judah’! (907)SAMUEL 23- David hears that the Philistines are fighting against another town, he asks the Lord ‘Lord, should I go and fight against them’? This is the beginning of David’s secret campaign against the enemy. As he flees from Saul he also fights the enemy secretly. Now the Lord says ‘go, fight them. I have given them to you’. Now his men are scared, they tell David ‘geez, we are in distress now, in our so called ‘home land’ and you want us to go and fight on foreign ground’! One of the characteristics of Gods heroes of the faith was a willingness to uproot and travel ‘to a place that God will reveal to you’ often times you have no idea where you are heading! You just start the journey in faith [Abraham- Hebrews 11] and learn as you go. Now David’s men caused David to ask the lord again ‘Lord, are you sure you want us to do this’? The Lord reaffirms the plan. Sometimes we need confirmation for the mission. It’s alright to have second thoughts, as long as you obey at the end! Remember Jesus teaching on the 2 sons? One said ‘yes father, I will obey’ [Jews] and didn’t. The other said ‘no, I wont obey’ [gentiles] and later obeyed. David stumbled a little here in doubting the first word, but the lord said ‘that’s alright son, I will give you some reassurance.’ David goes and Saul finds out and traps him in some town. David seeks the Lord and the Lord says ‘yes, Saul is coming and these people will turn you in’. David flees and Saul surrounds him. Then Saul hears word that the philistines have invaded their land and Saul leaves the area. Sometimes we get into situations where we truly don’t have what it takes to win. Even though David is God’s anointed man, yet he would not have been able to withstand Saul at this early stage of his ‘ministry’. God realizes what we can handle, sometimes we survive because the Lord divinely manipulates the circumstances to our advantage! In this case David would have been thinking too highly of himself if he thought ‘well, I am up here with the big boys now, I can take him’. God might be using you in a special way, this doesn’t mean you are advanced enough in everything to ‘go it with the big boys’. Wisdom allows us to recognize whether or not we should take on all the tasks that we think are needed. I enjoy studying from many other web sites and reading books and hearing good teaching. But there are obvious times where I realize ‘geez, was this brother really called to speak to such a large sector of the church at this time in his growth’? It’s not demeaning, we just need to recognize that all battles are not our battles. Sometimes the Lord says ‘David, you really can’t handle this fight right now’ and he diverts a possible tragedy. (908)SAMUEL 24- Saul heard that David is at Engedi, he pursues him. When they get in the area Saul goes into a random cave to ‘use the restroom’. Lo and behold, this just happens to be the one cave that David and his men are hiding in! David’s men tell him ‘see, the lord has delivered your enemy into your hand’. David secretly cuts a piece of Saul’s robe off. As Saul leaves the cave David reveals himself and bows to the ground and tells Saul ‘see my father, today I had the chance to kill you, but instead I spared your life. Why are you listening to all the rumors that people are saying about me?’ Notice, Saul was being fed gossip about David, and this was affecting David! We need to overcome the reality that part of the cost of ministry is people are going to lie about you and other people will believe it. Yes, Jesus did say this was part of the cost ‘if they spoke falsely about me, then they will about you. But when this happens rejoice! For this is also what happened to the prophets’. Hey, if you want to run with the big boys, then this is part of the price. Now David’s men also were affecting his thinking ‘Look, now’s the chance to get your enemy. After all if God didn’t want you to get even he would have never brought Saul into the cave’. Leaders have to be worried about their own men’s advice as well! It’s hard to walk this fine line at times, but true leadership listens to council and should err on the side of mercy. This is a good rule of thumb. Saul tells David ‘forgive me son, this day you have proven me wrong. Surely you will eventually become the king’. Saul goes home and David goes back to the stronghold in the wilderness. David realized that no matter how many times the lord would defend him against Saul, that Saul would be a permanent obstacle. Why? It’s in mans nature to want to retaliate against change. Especially change that involves a removal of authority that was at one time used by God! Saul was not the original intent of God [or David!] but once God’s people traveled down the road of kingship, God did use this mode of authority. Now Saul did become addicted to power. Even though leaders have good hearts and mean well, when there comes a change of authority [like the movement of communal church where there no longer is the role of ‘the pastor’] this challenges leadership at its core. Even if leaders become convinced that a change is coming [like Saul recognizing David’s destiny] still the sinful nature of man will come back and rears it ugly head. David knew that Saul would be back on his trail soon. (909)SAMUEL 25- THERE ARE MANY SERVANTS THESE DAYS WHO BREAK AWAY FROM THEIR MASTER! We see the death of Samuel and the story of David and Nabal. When David was on the run with his small army, he had provided shelter for Nabal’s men while in the fields. So David figures it’s time to cash in on the goodwill that he showed to Nabal’s men. He sends some servants to Nabal’s house to remind him of the favor that was done, and to humbly ask ‘can you in return show us some favor and provide us with some supply’? Nabal is considered a fool and replies ‘Who is this David, another one of the many rebels of this day?’ and Nabal refuses to help. Now David hears of the response and decides ‘I have had it! Let’s strap it on’. On the way to wipe out Nabal the servants of Nabal tell his wife Abigail what happened. They speak well of David and Abigail quickly puts together a supply and sends it to David. She averts the disaster that was imminent. The next day Nabal hears what happened and falls into a stroke type condition and dies within a few days. David takes Abigail to be his wife. I sort of see in Nabal a type of response to the new authority structures that God is raising up in the kingdom. David of course is a type of Jesus, but we also see all leadership types in David. In the present system of ‘local church’ there is a legitimate challenge to the ‘old type pastoral model’. Now, some in the past have challenged leadership out of rebellion. But there are very scriptural questions to the development of the one man leadership model that prevails in today’s idea of church. It is easy to mistake these challenges as ‘another rebellious movement like the others of days gone by’. During the reformation of the 16th century you also had this response. But there actually are real times of change and upheaval that come from God. Nabal stuck David in a category of ‘another one of those rebellious types’ but his judgment was way off. Nabal did not act righteously in this challenge to Godly authority. He used ‘rebellion’ as a false defense of his unwillingness to give David and his men their due. There are good men who are seeing the legitimacy of the present challenges to the old authority structures. But then there are others who are not even willing to give a fair hearing to the ‘David’s’ and just assume all new ideas are acts of rebellion. This can breed dangerous responses from both sides. Out of frustration David, who was right in this case, almost committed an act of retaliation that would have forever scarred his ministry. Nabal realized what a foolish judgment he had made and lost his life over it. It would have been better if the old guard recognized the legitimacy of the new guard and tried to hammer out an amicable solution. (910)SAMUEL 26- Saul pursues David in the wilderness of Ziph. David hears that Saul is still on his trail, and he tells his men ‘who wants to go down with me and see if we can spy on Saul’? Abishai goes. They sneak into Saul’s camp and find the men sleeping, they steel Saul’s spear and water supply. They go to the other side and yell ‘what’s up, why couldn’t a man like Abner protect Saul’? David reveals the stolen stuff and Saul realizes that once again David had the chance to kill him but let him go instead. Saul goes thru the whole ‘you are a better man than me’ thing. But the problem is no matter how many times God vindicates David, Saul still goes after him! I think David would have preferred for Saul to really learn the lesson instead of just making these worthless treaties. It’s like signing these treaties with North Korea on nuclear stuff. Then a few years go by and they say ‘well, you caught us, we were cheating’ and then we go and sign another one! David wasn’t putting much stock into Saul’s words. David also says ‘if God has told you to get me, than explain the reason, I will try and make any fault right. But if it’s these gossiping people that have turned you into my enemy, then let them be cursed’! Notice, it wasn’t just the fact that Saul was pursuing David, it was the reality that David’s secret enemies were the deceivers behind the whole thing. It’s like David has more respect for Saul, because he at least is open and willing to confront him publicly. But the troublemakers spend all their time poisoning the minds of others against you. They are too scared to confront you themselves. Bunch of wimps! Once again Saul recognizes Gods calling on David ‘you will do great things and prevail’. David is Gods new order of leadership, Saul is stuck in the old school. It was obvious that Saul was never going to transition and live peaceably with David as the king. Saul had his ways and he basically was going to live out his days functioning in the comfortable patterns of kingship that he was familiar with. He also could see the writing on the wall. He saw that David had the lord helping him, he was still humble enough to have glimpses of clarity. Being able to see the future and what God was going to do. Saul just couldn’t get to a point where he would peacefully accept the new king. (911)SAMUEL 27- David realizes that as long as he stays in the area, Saul will never change. He goes to Achish, king of Gath, and asks if he could stay there. David is given Ziklag and it becomes a permanent possession for Israel. David recognized that no matter how many efforts he made to show Saul that the rumors about him were false, that this was going down a dead end trail. Sometimes we need to simply ‘walk away’ from some stuff. It’s not like David was hating Saul, he just recognized that all his efforts to try and get Saul to approve of him were vain. Jesus told the Pharisees that they were seeking glory and acceptance from men. He said those who seek to please men in this way could not please God. He challenged their core reason for being ‘in the ministry’. They wanted to be accepted and successful in the eyes of others. They did not realize that their ideas of ministry strayed so far from the intent of God. Jesus showed them that if their motivation was how others viewed them [they loved to make long public prayers and show themselves to be spiritual] then God was no longer in it. David quit trying to spend so much time and effort in getting Saul to like him, he fled to Gath. Now the king of Gath is overjoyed to get such a talented member ‘on staff’. He believes David is now with him as opposed to Israel. We will see later that this trust he places in David blinds him from David’s real motives. The king’s men will advise against using David in a key battle against Israel. Leaders need to be careful in seeing the talents and gifts of people as simple additions to their ministries. Because we live in a day where church and ministry are so intertwined with corporate ideas, this leads to a dynamic of pastors looking for ‘the best men I can find’. In actuality Jesus was seeking the worst! Now, I realize Paul wanted good men to work with him and he rejected those who would quit half way thru the task. But don’t view ministry thru the lens of ‘great, David is now with me instead of Saul’! In Gods kingdom we are all equal as brothers and sisters, we should not allow the talents and gifts of others to cause us to favor them more than others. David stayed in the philistine’s area for around a year and a half, sort of like Paul’s time at Corinth. The whole time he is secretly fighting the enemies of Israel while Achish thinks he is fighting against Israel. Notice also that Ziklag became a permanent inheritance in Israel. A city that David didn’t even fight for! Sometimes when we simply recognize the transitions that God is leading us into, we yield and at the same time take ground. I used to make decisions quickly, recently I had to make some ministry decisions. Changes that I would have preferred not to have made. In the old days I would have jumped thru these changes without really waiting on the Lord. Or I would have persisted to not change and struggle along the sure path. But now I try and wait and decide as a few days go by. If things look like the new direction is the way to go, then I go with it. David left the territories of his homeland for a while, he hooked up with Achish and during this seeming distraction he possessed some territory peacefully. Sometimes we need to relax during the distraction, and allow the lord to give us some easy land. (912)SAMUEL 28- Saul prepares for battle against Achish. The philistine king thinks David is with him. Saul seeks God and doesn’t receive an answer by ‘dreams or prophets’. Saul expected to get some kind of supernatural sign. Samuel is dead, but he released a prophetic mantle/anointing into the community that showed the people that God can reveal himself in these ways. Saul goes to a witch who works with familiar spirits, a thing forbidden for Gods people! I have had friends ask me about reading the horoscope and going to palm readers. God forbids his people to dabble in sorcery and witchcraft, don’t do it! Saul manages to bring back Samuels spirit from the grave and Samuel rebukes Saul and tells him he and his sons will ‘be with me tomorrow’ [dead!]. Saul is reproved for two things. He didn’t fully obey God, and he refused to carry out judgment/justice [when he was supposed to wipe out Amalek]. I have seen many well meaning men in ministry. Good people who mean well. Ministry can be a tough thing. When people feel intimidated they have a tendency to not want to ‘execute judgment’. To only teach and preach good things, never dealing with error or blatant heresy. God wanted Saul to obey AND do judgment. Not judgment in a wrong way, but a willingness to see things that are out of alignment and to deal with them. God wants truth, truth in love, but truth. When Gods leaders get to a point of both obedience and justice, then we will experience his presence in a strong way. (913)SAMUEL 29- The philistines go up against Israel. David is with his men and Achish, king of Gath, wants him to join the battle. The other kings say ‘what in the heck were you thinking? You can’t bring David to fight against Saul. What better opportunity than this will he ever have to reconcile with Saul? Surely he will kill us and reconcile!’ Now, Achish disagrees and says ‘David’s been with me for a while and he has been perfect’ actually not. David was secretly fighting the enemies of Israel all along. We have already seen David’s penchant for trying to vindicate himself. How many times has he taken opportunity to say ‘see Saul, I had the chance to get you but I didn’t’. Achish tells David ‘sorry David, I trust you but the other kings don’t’ David makes this defense and says ‘why, what have I done’ [he knows what he’s done! Achish doesn’t]. So David goes back and the philistines proceed without him. I really think David was going to do what the kings thought. He probably was going to try and reconcile with Saul one more time. In this case the other kings had it right. Scripture says in the multitude of counselors there is safety. Achish was so enamored with David’s skill that he wasn’t thinking clearly. The council of others was right. Also David would have interfered with this battle, this is the battle where Saul will lose his life and David will take over as king. In essence David’s idea was to eventually reconcile with Saul and Israel and have a wonderful time of transition. God had other plans. The time for David to step up to the plate and rule was now. Not a few more years of trying to ‘make things right’. Samuel and David mourned for Saul and over did their loyalty to him. God told Samuel at one point ‘quit crying about it son, I have rejected the man. Get over it for heavens sake!’ David’s good intentions were well meaning, but God had another plan. It wasn’t going to work as smoothly as David wished. (914)SAMUEL 30- David returns from the battle lines and finds out his town was sacked by the Amalekites. They took everything and spared the lives of the women and children. David’s men see the disaster and cry bitterly. They have a deacon board meeting and contemplate stoning him to death. Things were bad, David encourages himself in the Lord. He asks the Lord ‘should I go after them and try and recover our families’? The Lord says ‘go, you will recover all’. David pursues and gets his people back and kills the enemy. Four hundred young men escape. The same amount of men that went with David, 200 stayed behind out of weakness. Why did the 400 Amalekites flee? It’s possible that the Lord used these 400 survivors to spread the word about David’s fierceness. This battle was pumped up, David showed no mercy! After they return, the 400 man army of David despises the 200 who stayed behind and say ‘we will give you your families, but no goods!’ They treated them as lesser men. David would have none of it and says ‘we can’t withhold the things the Lord has freely given us [freely you have received, freely give- Jesus] but we will treat everyone alike’. I see the New Testament ministry of giving and sharing as a community here. What happened in this chapter? David experienced a tremendous possible loss this day. His men were at the lowest point of ‘the ministry’. All seemed lost, they even feared the loss of their families. The Lord does restore to David that which seemed gone for good, and David’s men regroup. All this happens at the next to the last chapter of Samuel. In the next chapter Saul dies and David becomes king. Everything seemed hopeless right before the greatest victory of all! David was soon to enter into his prophetic destiny in God. There is a theme in scripture that goes like this ‘right before, and right after great victories there are great trials’ geez, that means there are always trials! Yes, to a degree this is true. I also want you to have a biblical perspective on what it means to ‘recover all’. The church went thru a stage where we learned all the verses on ‘the enemy must repay 7 fold’ and other themes on ‘all the years the locust hath eaten will be restored’. I like and have used these themes in my own life over the years to claim victory. But I want you to see from an eternal perspective. The theme of the New Testament is one of eternal rewards. Not so much focused on ‘what we get here and now’ but on us having a ‘better reward in heaven’ [Hebrews]. Those of you who have lost loved ones, finances [we just had a tremendous stock market crash 10-08]. What if I were to tell you ‘you are not really much worse off than those who haven’t lost all’. In a few short years all our loved ones will be gone. We will have lost control over all of our wealth and riches. We will all be gone [in the natural!]. But yet there awaits a real future resurrection where we will all get our loved ones back. Where we will reap eternal rewards for a life well lived. In the eternal perspective we do ‘recover all’, all isn’t lost! I want to encourage you today to believe God to restore some things in the here and now. Yes, God can bless you and restore to you wealth and health and family and many good things. And for those who have lost some of these things permanently, God will restore to you real soon. (915)SAMUEL 31- The Philistines pursue Israel and Saul and his sons are killed. Saul tells his armor bearer to kill him, the armor bearer is afraid to do it. So Saul falls on his own sword. The enemy takes Saul’s body and cuts off his head and they pin him and his sons up on a wall for public humiliation. The inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead hear of it and they get his body and give him a proper burial. David will soon become the king. It’s kind of a sad way to end 1st Samuel. Saul and his sons really die, Jonathan was killed. A true warrior with a pure heart. I think we need to recognize the danger involved with the kingdom. There are times where men and woman of God have come under attack and have fallen. A few years back there were a few public scandals of believers who fell. Some just go away, others try and get back into the ministry. Often times there is no real facing up to the issues and an honest appraisal of what happened. I think many of these believers would be helpful if they wrote a book or shared openly about their struggles and difficulties. But the church has a tendency to cover up the real dangers involved in the ministry. Also Saul commits suicide. There are few suicides in scripture. We know Judas killed himself as well. If I remember right there is a Psalm that speaks of the sword of your enemies entering into them! A basic reality of a curse that comes upon those who fight believers [Gods anointed ones] that they will die at their own hands [or you don’t have to ‘get them’ yourself!]. Jesus taught us to not resist and take out vengeance on our enemies. It seems as if in both of these cases [Saul and Judas] that they fell victim to this judgment from God. How should we view this? Jesus and David were Gods ‘anointed ones’. Can we say that those who challenge present authority structures are rebelling against ‘Gods anointed’? This challenge has been made many times over the years. The two great divisions of western Christianity, the ‘Great Schism’ of 1054 [where the Eastern church- Orthodox, split from the Western branch] and the 16th century Reformation. Both had to do with believers resisting what they felt to be unscriptural authority as seen in the doctrine of apostolic succession thru Peter to the Popes. In both of these cases the ‘rebels’ were considered to be resisting ‘Gods authority’. I see it a little different. In Saul’s case he actually was the old order authority who was resisting change to the ‘old way’. God was bringing in a new anointed one thru David, and Saul was fighting the change. And of course Judas was coming against Jesus, who would institute the most radical change to mans approach to God that would ever come on the scene [in essence Jesus was eliminating the old order priesthood and making all believers priests!] I feel that these truths can apply to the current of change in our day. As the people of God transition from an ‘old order’ idea of leadership, to a more communal concept, both sides need to have respect and appreciation for each other. The new order [organic ecclesia] needs to appreciate all that the old order accomplished, and the old authority structures need to see the writing on the wall. 2ND SAMUEL (916)2ND SAMUEL 1- David returns to Ziklag after recovering everything and a messenger from the battle with Saul comes thru. David asks ‘what happened at the battle’? David hears for the first time that Saul and Jonathan died. He asks for details and the Amalekite tells the story of Saul’s death. This story is a little different from the one previously recorded. In the previous chapters Saul is said to have fallen on his sword. Here the Amalekite says ‘I saw Saul wounded and he asked me to slay him. He was at the point of death so I killed him to take him out of his misery’. Some feel this is a lie, that the brother was trying to make himself look good by fudging. I think he might be telling the truth. After all if he were trying to make himself look good, you probably wouldn’t say ‘I killed a wounded guy’. Either way he tells the story. David responds in anger ‘why do you think your bragging about this is noble! You killed a leader who God used mightily’ and David instructs his men to kill him. David finishes the chapter with a song of praise and remembrance for Saul and Jonathan. He extols their virtues in battle ‘swift like eagles, strong like lions’ and he invokes Israel to mourn for the great loss. I see a noble thing here. Even though Saul was rejected and his leadership style was being removed, yet the ‘new order’ [David] refused to despise the reality of the good times that were initiated under Saul. He still showed respect for ‘the old order’. Many times in studying church history you read of ‘the dark ages’. The centuries that are between the institutional period of Christendom and the renaissance/reformation era. Often times this period is looked at as a period of ‘no value’. But in reality there were some spiritual things that came forth from the ‘old order’ that were of great value. The desert fathers and other great Christian mystics. The reality that the church became the sole arbiter in many international disputes of the times. Yes there were some bad things, but good stuff too! David was smart enough to begin his dynastic rule with crediting his former enemy with the respect and honor he deserved. (917)2nd SAMUEL 2- David inquires of the Lord if he should go up into the cities of Judah. The Lord tells him to go to Hebron. David becomes the king of Judah and rules from Hebron for 7.5 years. From this point on the southern portion of Israel will be referred to as ‘Judah’ and the northern tribes are called ‘Israel’. Abner, king Saul’s commander, anoints another son of Saul as the king of the other tribes. So you have Joab, David’s commander and Abner, the military leader of the opposing king. Joab and Abner meet up on the field. Abner suggests a sort of competition between the men. A fight ensues and good men die needlessly. Joab pursues Abner and his men and Abner winds up killing a brother of Joab. He did not want things to escalate to this degree! He tried to spare the brother, but in self defense he killed him. Abner tells Joab ‘stop chasing us, why should there be more bloodshed between us, we are all brothers’? I see here the ‘innocent’ spirit of competition that got out of hand. When God’s leaders begin comparing the skills of their people against the skills of others, then people become pawns on a ministry chess board. Competition is a deadly thing that exists in the church, the lines between successful corporate ideas and Gods communal church have been blurred for a long time, this causes us to be vulnerable to this type of thing. Joab and Abner retreat and go home. David becomes king of Judah in Hebron. He will eventually consolidate the kingdom under his rule [he will reign for 33 years out of Jerusalem. A type of Jesus, who walked the holy land for 33 years until the Cross] and the kingdom will split again under Solomon’s sons rule. The divided history of the northern [Israel] and southern [Judah] tribes are seen as a judgment from God for various reasons thru out Israel’s history. For the most part the kings of Judah are better than the kings of Israel, but they will both have good and bad kings over time. I see a picture of the historic divisions of Christianity thru this history. Eventually you will have some who feel they have a ‘more pure religion and priesthood’ under the Orthodox and Protestant expressions of Christianity [I too hold to this to some degree] but yet God will eventually rebuke Judah as being worse than her northern ‘sister’! As we teach the Old Testament in the years to come I will try and trace these developments as we get to them. (918)2ND SAMUEL 3- Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, king of Israel. He accuses Abner of sleeping with one of his fathers concubines [second wife type thing]. And Abner, the military leader who for the most part propped up Ishbosheth as a puppet king for his own sake, gets irate and says ‘who do you think I am that you accuse me like this? I am not some dog that you can mistreat! I will now turn over the kingdom to David. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even be a king!’ and Ishbosheth remains stunned and silent. What happened here? When men join a ‘team’ [church-organization] out of jealousy and competition, they see themselves as helping the leader as a by-product of there own selfish motivations. We often see churches/organizations compete with one another like professional ball teams ‘how many games did your team win this season/ what was your average attendance this year?’ and stuff like that. When ministry leaders/staff see their ‘church’ from this type of perspective, then as soon as the leader offends you, you respond like Abner ‘how dare this guy speak to me like that! Doesn’t he know if it weren’t for my support he wouldn’t even be here!’ Now, I am not defending either side in this scenario, I feel for the most part that both of these responses/attitudes are not found in the churches of the New Testament. Because the churches in scripture were communities of believers who lived in your city. They weren’t established along these corporate ideas at all. Now Abner goes to David and tells him ‘I am now with you [people can be fickle!] and will do my best to bring all Israel to you’ David makes the deal and Joab, David’s military man says ‘what did you do? Abner was here simply to spy on you, his motives are wrong!’ Joabs brother was killed earlier by Abner himself, Joab was not willing to make peace with Abner. After all there is only room for one military commander, and Joab is not about to accept a demotion for this late comer to the party. Joab calls Abner back and kills him. David hears what happened and washes his hands from the whole matter. In this chapter we see how the motivations and selfish intentions of people cause strife. I feel the whole scenario of ‘whose side are you on, which ‘local team’ [church] is your team?’ leads us into these types of positioning and intrigue. In the New Testament you did not see Paul interacting this way between the local churches [communities of believers] he was establishing. For the most part he was teaching them to be faithful to the gospel and would only exercise apostolic authority when things got out of hand. He would appeal to his proof of who he was by saying ‘I am the one who brought you the gospel in the first place, don’t listen to these false teachers who are drawing you away from the truth’. But you did not see a dynamic of ‘are you supporting my apostolic ministry or not? If you are not faithful to my ministry then I no longer have time for you’. These limited ideas cause us to compete with one another. Abner and Joab were men who wanted self advancement and recognition, they aligned themselves with various leaders for their own purposes, this is not the family mindset that Jesus will instill in his future leaders. (920)2ND SAMUEL 4- Ishbosheth hears of Abners death and falls into a state of fear and depression. Even though Ishbosheth was the king, Abner was the power behind the scenes. He is lying on his bed at noonday [a bad thing to do! Start your day early and don’t sleep until the evening, this would eliminate most of the sleeping and anti anxiety pills that are prescribed today]. Two of Ishbosheths men come in and kill him while lying down on the job. They cut off his head and bring it to David. They assumed David would rejoice over this act of vengeance. After all don’t you feel good when God avenges you? Jesus taught us not to rejoice over our enemy’s downfall. Scripture says God sees it and it displeases him. David was not happy about the news and killed the two guilty messengers. In this chapter we also see Mephibosheth, a son of Jonathan who is lame. The story goes that when he was 5 years old and the news of Saul and Jonathans death came back, that the nurse fled and dropped him and he has been crippled ever since. Some of us have had ‘crippling’ experiences that have permanently sidetracked us. Now Jesus is the master at healing people who can’t walk. In John’s gospel he asks the lame man ‘do you really want to be healed’ and Jesus heals him. Sometimes we allow past experiences to permanently affect our future. Have you ‘been dropped’ by somebody who was supposed to take care of you? Have any of your inner circle betrayed you while ‘lying on your bed at noonday’ [in a position of intimidation and weakness]? I want to exhort you to let Jesus heal you. Jesus told the blind guy to go ‘wash in the pool of Siloam’. Siloam means ‘sent’, you have been destined to be sent on a mission from God. ‘Get out of the city and dwell in the fields, there I will deliver you from the enemy’ [bible!] I think some of us have been waiting for perfect conditions before we act, God says get out of the bed while there’s still time. If not you are in danger of ‘losing your head’ [losing the authority of a leader]. (921)2ND SAMUEL 5- David consolidates the northern and southern tribes and they find unity thru his reign [in Christ 2 are made one- Ephesians]. Israel says ‘we are part of your bone and flesh’. Wow, what a picture of the New Testament church. Jesus actually uses these exact words when speaking of himself after his resurrection ‘bone and flesh’. David takes the capital city of Jerusalem. He defeats the Jebusites who are mocking his ability. Scripture says ‘David dwelt in the fort and called it the city of David. And he built round about from the surrounding areas and inward’. I have been quoting this for 15 years now. I saw it as a personal word to me when moving to Corpus Christi. The principle is God will give you a home base of operation, and from that base you establish and branch out to the surrounding areas. Sort of an apostolic calling, Paul did this in the book of Acts. David ‘perceived that the Lord had established him for the sake of his people Israel’. David understood that the Lord gave him special favor, not for his own benefit but for Gods people. Other scriptures speak of God telling his people ‘remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you. The Lord hath given you rest and this land. Your wives and little ones and cattle shall remain in the land that the Lord gave you, but you shall go before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valor, and help then until the Lord establishes them like he did for you’ [The word to the children of Israel who received the territories before crossing the Jordan]. God establishes leaders [and saints!] so they can branch out and have the security to move forward. All of us live in areas of the world where a mission field is right outside our door. If people simply reorganized their lives around the priorities of Jesus as seen in the gospels, we would have a great impact in society. But instead we are inundated with this political class warfare message that estranges us from the ones Jesus died for. God blessed David with wealth and affluence. He was to use this great influence for ‘the least of these my brethren’. (922)2ND SAMUEL 6- David attempts to retrieve the Ark and bring it to the new capital city of Jerusalem. On the way back one of the brothers tries to steady the ark as it was about to fall. They were carrying it on a ‘new cart’ with oxen pulling it. This was not the way the law prescribed carrying it! This was the formula that the Philistines used earlier. So David’s man touches the Ark and is killed. They leave it at another brother’s house for three months and the brother is blessed, David goes and retrieves it. This chapter doesn’t say what changed, but obviously David went back to the law and used the prescribed manner this time around. As he enters Jerusalem with it there is this joyous picture of everyone leaping and dancing and praising the Lord. Sort of like the triumphal entry of Jesus [Gods ‘fleshly’ ark, who had all the fullness of God dwelling in his physical body!] to Jerusalem when the people shouted ‘Hosanna’. David places the ark in a tent/tabernacle that he personally made for it. I wrote earlier how this was an open tent that had no barriers between the ark and Gods people, a contrast between Moses tabernacle where God and the people were separated [law versus grace type thing]. David’s wife mocks him because he took off his royal robes and wore an ephod [priestly garment] and danced and humbled himself before the Lord. David says ‘I will even be more lowly than this’. His wife is barren for the rest of her life as a judgment for mocking David. What ever happened to the ark? Well let me give you some history. The ‘story’ [tradition] says that when the queen of Ethiopia visits Solomon to see his wealth, that eventually he ‘marries’ her and they have kids. The queen goes back to Ethiopia and supposedly takes the ark from Solomon as a gift. The Ethiopian orthodox church claims to have it in the main ‘church’ in Ethiopia. Because of this history all the Ethiopian churches have replicas of the ark in their buildings as well. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is one of rich tradition. They are technically not considered ‘Catholic’ [western] or ‘Orthodox’ [eastern]. They are part of the church who are sometimes referred to as Oriental. This referring to the historic churches [not necessarily Oriental in geography] who never accepted the traditional churches belief in certain expressions of the Trinity and the relationship between Jesus and God. They stuck with the Arian view of Jesus deity and are not considered ‘orthodox’ in this area. As the centuries developed and various barbarians who were raiding the empire were converted, they also believed in a Christianity that would be more aligned with this type of belief. Now, I know Christians do not consider this to be correct doctrine, but I am simply sharing the history with you. I am not siding with their belief! We really have no idea where the ark is today, to be honest it doesn’t matter. We ‘see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the purpose of dying, and he was raised again for us’! [Hebrews]. We have the real McCoy! (923)2ND SAMUEL 7- As David’s house is becoming established, he says to himself ‘I live in this great cedar house, and God is dwelling openly in this tent. I know what I will do; I will build a house/building for God also’. Good intent, bad imagery! David tells the plan to Nathan the prophet and Nathan says ‘go, do all that is in your heart’ and everything seems fine. That very night the Lord appears to Nathan in a vision and rebukes the whole scheme ‘Have I ever asked for someone to build me a house? All the years of journeying with my people, don’t you think if I wanted to dwell in some temple that I would have already done it!’. Basically Nathan and David get reproved big time. Why? Up until now God ‘dwelt’ in 2 separate tabernacle/systems. The Mosaic one was a type of law and separation between God and men. You had the classic veil separating God from the people. The ‘holy of holies’ [back room] was a type of mans separation from God because of mans sin. Now, after David retrieved the ark and brought it to Jerusalem. He set it up under an open tent called ‘the tent/tabernacle of David’. From this vantage point you had a beautiful picture of the future Messianic reign under Christ [of whom David is a symbol] where the people would all have open access to God. In essence ‘no more veil’. So even though David’s intentions are good, he is messing up the image. God still confirms his calling on David and his family/dynasty and we see one of those dual messianic prophecies that speak of Solomon and Jesus at the same time. God says he will raise up a permanent throne thru the loins of David and David will have a never ending rule. For this to happen someone obviously needs to be born from the lineage of David who will ‘have the power of an endless life’ [Hebrews]. Gee, I wonder who that could be? God’s intricate plan of salvation that is contained in these Old Testament books, written many years before Christ, couldn’t have been some made up 1st century story. It would have been impossible to have coordinated all the prophetic portions of scripture that tie together in Christ. Even the original writers and readers of Israel’s history could not have seen the unfolding of prophetic events that were to be fulfilled in Christ. We finish the chapter with David praising God and recognizing in humility that God has spoken about his family and purpose for ages to come. David sees that God is calling him to something greater than just being a human king, having a brief political history. God has plans for David even after David’s death! God spoke of David’s ongoing effect thru his seed [kids] that would continue for many generations to come. God wants all of us to live with a kingdom [not human!] legacy in mind. Paul the apostle built a gentile church that has lasted for 2 thousand years, he was a man of humble means. He left behind no edifice or bulky institution. But his ‘seed’ [spiritual kids] have outlasted him for many generations to come. [see 1st Kings study, chapter 3- entry 1050] (924)2ND SAMUEL 8- As David extends his rule he allows the defeated territories to maintain a level of self governing. The military principle is defeat [demoralize] your enemy, but don’t totally wipe him out. Either put a puppet king over them [Israel’s enemies will do this to her down the road!] or allow the ruling leaders to stay under tribute. Why do this? Some feel our country violated this principle in the present war with Iraq [2008]. The pundits say ‘why did Bush dismantle the Iraqi army, they should have simply allowed them to remain under U.S. rule’. First, the talking heads would have never been satisfied. I could hear Chris Matthews now ‘why in the world did Bush leave the army in place! Doesn’t he know that they were infiltrated with terrorists?’ But David allowed the defeated areas to exist under his rule. He wiped out some of their men, but not all. I think the modern concept of ‘extending Christ’s rule’ thru church planting can learn some lessons here. In the first century ‘church planting’ was the simple process of preaching the gospel to regions of people. Those who believed were baptized and continued in the apostle’s doctrine and the ways of Jesus. The first century ‘church planters’ were not trying to provide buildings and weekly ‘preaching services’ and long term dependence upon the Pastoral ministry. For the most part these new converts were to ‘self maintain’ under the direction of more grounded brothers in the Lord [elders]. This allowed for the ‘conquered territories’ [conquered by the sword of the Spirit, not the sword of man!] to function relatively easily on their own with out a lot of heavy financing and building programs and all sorts of stuff that the modern concept of ‘church planting’ has brought along for the ride. David simply put troops in these conquered cities [Jesus sent them out 2 by 2] and these areas of people understood that they were servants to the king! They paid tribute [I would associate this with the New Testament doctrine of giving as a community, not the Levitical tithe] and the Davidic kingdom [gospel] could spread rapidly in a short period of time. David had men working along side him; priests and scribes and stuff. He did ‘justly’ and ruled with integrity. He exemplified the character of a true leader, but did not back down from his God given authority. God established him as a leader in Israel. The boy did his job! (925)2ND SAMUEL 9- David inquires if there are any sons of Jonathan still alive, he wants to keep his oath to Jonathan that he would treat his offspring well when he became the king. Sure enough they find out that Mephibosheth, the crippled son, is still alive. David tells Ziba, former servant in Saul’s house, to become the servant of Mephibosheth. Later on we see Ziba speak badly about Mephibosheth; he will tell David that he was unfaithful to his rule. It’s possible that Ziba resented this new position of servitude that David put on him and his house. We read stories in the New Testament how the mercy Jesus shows to certain groups of people [lame and crippled and poor] will create a dissension among the others. David’s treatment of Mephibosheth is much like Jesus treatment of the down and out. David honors this lame boy, he allows him to sit at the kings table [Jesus in the parables calls people to ‘his dinner banquet’] and he outwardly, publicly associated himself with the sick and disabled. Truly David is fulfilling his role as a type of Christ. The jealousy of Ziba [down the road] reminds me of the story of Haman in the book of Esther. Haman was this wicked brother who hated the Jews. He particularly loathed this brother named Mordecai. This Jew refused to bow down as Haman rode by. Haman was close to the king [non Jew]. So Haman devises this plot to kill all the Jews and ultimately Esther saves the day [thus the name of the book]. But at one point the king asks Haman’s advice ‘what should I do for the man I respect and like so much’? Haman thinks the king is talking about him, so of course he says ‘Well, have him exalted to the highest position next to the king, let all the kings servants bow down and respect him…and on and on’. Haman thinks ‘Now I’ll get that rat Mordecai to bow!’ And the king says ‘sounds like a great idea, now go and make all this happen for Mordecai’. This was not Haman’s day. Jesus challenges our hidden agendas. How do we respond when other ministries excel? Do we secretly feel good when we hear about the failure of a ministry that never honored us? Do we root for the church we attend and kind of have an attitude of ‘we are doing better than the other guys’. All these attitudes violate the family mindset of the Body of Christ. When David, or Jesus or any other king show special favor to another subject, our ‘eye shouldn’t be evil because the king did what was his right to do with what was his’. David honored his former vow to his best friend Jonathan, he kept his word. (926)2ND SAMUEL 10- The king of Ammon dies and David sends messengers to show due respect. The son, who is now the new king, receives David’s men. But the princes of the land say ‘what in the heck were you thinking? Surely David has sent these men to spy on us’. Why would the princes say this? Possibly because the king treated David well when he was alive. He sent David materials and workers to help. Sometimes people resent it when they feel others are getting the favor that they really deserve. They poisoned the mind of the new king. Now he takes David’s men and shaves half of their beards off and cuts their robes in half. An act of public humiliation. David hears about it and the fight is on. Ammon requests help from Syria and Syria says ‘sure, why not?’. I’ll tell you why not, because the scripture says don’t get involved with fights and issues that don’t concern you, that’s why! Well David confronts the armies and wins. Syria winds up surrendering and making a treaty with Israel. What happened here? Once again we see the poor decision making of a younger king. He took the advice of the other princes who were speaking out of wrong motives and intentions. Solomon’s future son will do the same and it will lead to another division in Israel. Paul instructs Timothy [or Titus?] to not allow a novice to be an elder. Does this mean young men can’t be spiritual leaders? Not necessarily. Timothy was fairly young at the time of getting this instruction. But new believers [leaders] have a tendency to grasp doctrine and ideas that might not be totally wrong, but they have a tendency to emphasize them in a distorted way. How many times have I heard teaching on the ‘importance of money’, or some other single issue. The preacher will often defend his distortion by saying ‘look how many times this subject is mentioned in scripture’ not realizing that this in itself does not justify the wrong emphasis. For instance many of the times this subject is mentioned it is in the context of warning believers to not become side tracked with seeking wealth! I could start a doctrine on the importance of ‘water’ or ‘bread’. Look how often water is mentioned! We have it in Genesis and Revelation. Jesus speaks of the waters of life. And I could go on and on. But the fact that this subject is found in so many various ways, doesn’t mean we should exalt it into an idol. So young [new] believers do have a tendency to lift things out of proportion at times. The new king acted foolishly and the Syrians came along for the ride. Wisdom would have said ‘let the king of Ammon do what he thinks he should, we will sit this one out’. (927)2ND SAMUEL 11- David sends Joab and his men out to war. He stays home and takes a walk on his roof and spots Bathsheba. He sends a servant to contact her and he sleeps with her. He finds out she’s pregnant and the gears in his mind start moving. He calls her noble husband, Uriah, from the front lines of battle and pretends he just called him to inquire about the battle. He sends him home, hoping he will sleep with his wife, and then David will be off the hook. Sure enough Uriah is so noble that he refuses to sleep in his house when his men are in the battle. So David gives it a second shot and gets the brother drunk. He sends him home again and Uriah refuses to sleep with Bathsheba. So David calls for Joab, the lead commander of his army, and says ‘put Uriah in the front lines and draw back and let him die’. Something interesting happens. Joab carries out the plan but also allows some of David’s other men to die. Then he sends a messenger to tell David ‘we were at the front lines, close to a wall, and some of our guys were killed’. Joab tells the messenger ‘if David gets mad and says “what were you thinking by getting close to the wall? This is a basic mistake that should have never been made!”’ Joab says if David asks this, then say ‘Uriah is dead too’. It’s possible that Joab stuck it to David here for making him partake in his personal problems. Military men do not like carrying out personal political vendettas. Either way the messenger goes and tells David and David feels he covered up his sin. Of course we will soon find out the cover up didn’t work. Bathsheba does move in with David and they make plans for the coming baby. A few things; David was a great man, he followed God as a man ‘after Gods own heart’. David was also human. Hebrews says ‘every high priest taken from among men must make sacrifice for his own sin as well as the peoples’. I don’t want to excuse sin, but I want you to see that all of us have ‘feet of clay’. Modern ministry has a system where we present the best image of leadership to people. We feel this is part of the role of leaders. The scriptures show you ‘the good, the bad, and the ugly’. We just saw the ugly. (928)2ND SAMUEL 12- Nathan confronts David over his sin. He gives a parable about 2 men in a town, one owned lots of flocks and sheep, the other owned one precious lamb. The man with all the sheep had a visitor come to him in need. So instead of sacrificing his own sheep, he went and took the precious ‘only lamb’ from his neighbor. David is incensed over this injustice, he declares ‘This man will pay back what he did and also die for this sin’! Nathan says ‘you are the man’. David realizes he did this very thing with Bathsheba and Uriah. Notice how we have a tendency to be enraged over the sin and faults of others, but we make room for ourselves when we are guilty of the same things. Jesus confronted the religious hypocrisy of his day when he showed the Pharisees that they were guilty of lust and anger and jealousy, the same root causes of murder and adultery. They wanted strict judgment on others who were guilty of the same sins that they were guilty of. Also the fact that the man with one little lamb lost his favorite, this speaks of the great sacrifice of giving up the ‘only begotten Son of God’. Jesus sacrifice was great because the father gave his only Son. Now David receives the reproof from the prophet and Gods judgment is pronounced ‘the sword will never leave your house. From within your own family treachery shall arise. Your wives will be taken from you and publicly disgraced. The son from Bathsheba will die’. Very strict judgment indeed, yet the Lord says ‘nevertheless, I will spare your life’. This was something David did not leave room for in his earlier judgment on the sheep stealer! David mourns and fasts for the child’s life, but the child dies. David has another son with Bathsheba and his name is Solomon. One of the greatest/wisest kings Israel will ever have. A few things; in David’s earlier scenario he said the ‘sheep stealer’ should pay restitution. He wanted the man to right the wrong. In David’s case he killed the very man whom restitution should have been made to! In essence his sin was so severe that it actually cut off part of his future reconciliation. Unforgiveness towards others falls into this same category. God requires us to forgive those who have wronged us. We often do every thing else under the sun to get back on track, but we ‘eliminate’ the very person that stands in the way of total reconciliation! That person is often times the offender. Also at the end of the chapter David is told by Joab that he is on the verge of taking a city and David should come and finish the job so Joab won’t get the credit. David musters his forces and finishes the job. One of the hardest things to do in ministry/service is to regroup and move forward again. David had some very serious issues he had to deal with. The situation with Bathsheba was not going away. He couldn’t completely resolve this issue. But he still needed to function and carry out his responsibilities. Faithfulness means sticking it out even thru your own personal failures. Completing the task to the best of your ability. At one point they asked David ‘why were you grieving and fasting while the boy was still alive, and after he died you ate and functioned again’? David said ‘who knows, when the boy was alive there was a possibility that God would change his mind and let the boy live. After he died there was nothing else I could do’. Most of us would have been angry at God. David didn’t have all the answers, he knew Nathan was an accurate prophet. The things Nathan said were from the Lord. But David also was ‘from the Lord’. He too had a relationship with God. He depended on this relationship to guide him thru stuff. Maybe God would do something? David did not have all the answers. And when God didn’t do what he wanted, he didn’t take it personal. He moved forward the best he could. God showed tremendous mercy in allowing this sinful situation to produce a future king. Solomon was born from this turmoil and he was a great man of God. Look to the lord to bring forth wisdom from the failures in your life. The ‘first son’ might not have survived, but the second son just might be a prodigy. (929)2ND SAMUEL 13- In this chapter David begins reaping the judgment on his household. Amnon, David’s son, falls for Tamar. Tamar is the sister of Absalom, another son of David. David had kids from various wives, so you had sons and sisters who were not from the same mother. Amnon devises a scheme and sleeps with Tamar. Then he rejects her. Absalom is incensed over this. David hears about it but doesn’t deal with the problem. Two years go by and Absalom gets even. He tricks Amnon and his other brothers to come to his territory. Then he kills Amnon. Word gets back to David ‘all your sons have been slain by Amnon’. David thinks ‘surely, this is my punishment’. He mourns and is shaken to the core. Now, the report was false. It really wasn’t as bad as David thought. Leaders, don’t always believe the initial report. The first intuition might be wrong. It’s difficult for leaders to recognize that something needs to happen, and then to wait on the Lord for clear directives. Leaders often want action, so they will respond and act based on the initial report. It’s better to sleep on it for a few days. David finds out that all the sons are not dead, just Amnon. Absalom flees to another king and is gone for a few years. David is distraught over the loss of one son and the reality that the other son is estranged from him. Could David have prevented this whole scenario? Maybe not, we do know the Lord said a sword would be in his family. A division and fighting would arise from within. But David also failed in that when he heard of the situation he never dealt with it. Sort of like Samuel and Eli. Eli let his boys run wild and they ruined Gods house. Though the Lord ‘promised’ David would reap what he sowed earlier on, yet the reaping was not as severe as he initially thought. Absalom could have very well killed all the brothers, but the Lord only allowed a limited judgment. Sometimes we mess up and make wrong choices, remember; God is for us. He is on our side. All chastening and discipline are for our ultimate benefit. What good what it have done for David to have been totally wiped out? God was disciplining David and his family, but God was still on David’s side. (930)2nd SAMUEL 14- David is broken over the estrangement of his son. Joab realizes that the kingdom can’t function to its full potential under this strain. But he knows he can’t confront David himself. Why? Maybe it’s because of the nature of leaders. It’s a very rare thing for one leader to confront another leader over an issue. The natural response is to look for ways to justify ourselves. So instead Joab finds a ‘wise woman’ and gets her to put on this act for the king. She tells him this sob story about one of her sons killing the other one. She is a widow and is left with only one son, but all the other relatives want justice! They can’t forgive the only heir. Well David falls for this scenario again! He did this with Nathan and Bathsheba. So he tells the woman ‘God forbid that someone takes vengeance on the only son. Over my dead body…. on and on’. Now the woman says ‘can I say one last thing’? Knowing David’s history of getting trumped at the end of these things, I would have said ‘no maam, you’ve said enough already’. But David says ‘go ahead’. She tells him ‘you’re the man!’ [Ouch! I wonder if this woman was the wife of Nathan?:-)] So David realizes he’s been duped again. The woman says ‘O, you are so wise and smart and….’ Gee, for someone who is so swift, he sure falls for these stories a lot. David sends Joab to get Absalom and Absalom returns to Jerusalem but the king avoids him for 2 years. Finally he sees his son. All is not well, Absalom resents the fact that his father called him home but never really made things right. Joab is glad that David gave it a shot. And the nameless wise woman gives us a quote worth remembering ‘For we must needs die, and are as water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means [the Cross], that his banished [humanity] be not expelled from him [reconciliation]’. Couldn’t have said it better myself. (931)2ND SAMUEL 15- Absalom sits daily at the city gate and when the people come to the king, Absalom ‘steels their hearts’. He says ‘o, if I were the king I could do such a good job. I am better than the one God appointed’. Avoid trying to gain peoples acceptance by comparing yourself with others. God might use you to be an example in some way, but this is a matter of grace. Paul said he excelled more than the other apostles who were ‘in Christ’ before him, but nevertheless it was Gods grace that caused this to happen. Absalom slowly wins the hearts of the people and stages a takeover. Some men go willingly, others followed ‘out of simplicity’. They were led astray like sheep. Remember, when dealing with followers of groups who have ‘rebelled’ [classic cults] some have been raised innocently with their beliefs. Try and honestly talk to them and treat them courteously. God can give you an open door with them if you see them as people who have value and worth. We see David as a type of Christ in this chapter. He is forsaken by the city of Jerusalem and loses his following. He even ascends the Mount of Olives while weeping! He says ‘If God chooses to forsake me, so be it. But if he brings me back again [resurrection!] and allows me to see the Ark in Jerusalem, then let his will be done’. Jesus said ‘not my will, but thine be done’. The Father, who forsook his Son, did delight in him and ‘brought him back again’ to see ‘the Ark in the city of Jerusalem’. Jesus saw the tabernacle of God [Gods people, the dwelling of God] in ‘the city of God’ [the church is called the city of God that comes down from God out of heaven] and he was restored to his former place of exaltation at the fathers right-hand. David is reaping some stuff here. He makes some plans for a future return to leadership, but recognizes when it’s time to retreat. Now, I realize that God wants us to move forward and ‘take the kingdom by force’. But Jesus also gave us a principle; he said ‘when one king is facing another king. He sends out messengers to check out the opponent. If word comes back that you are really out of your league in this battle, then try and come to terms of peace if possible’. In essence there are times where taking a step back and re-evaluating is a wise thing. David plants a few spies in Jerusalem who will report back to him every now and then. David also finds out who his true friends are. Some follow him instead of Absalom, even though Absalom is the ‘hot ticket item’ at the time. These brothers who stick with you till the end are true friends, but they aren’t always the most encouraging. Thomas [one of Jesus disciples] says at one point ‘Lets go, we might as well follow him all the way to our deaths’. Thanks for the willingness to follow Thomas, but you think you could change the attitude a little! So David is doing the best with what he has, Gods people are surviving, but they are being used as pawns on Absalom’s chess board. Absalom looked good at the start, but he will not finish well. (932)2ND SAMUEL 16- As David flees Jerusalem, Ziba, the servant that was under Mephibosheth joins with him. David asks ‘what are you doing here? You should be home with your master’. Ziba says ‘as soon as Mephibosheth heard about the take over, he said “I will stay in Israel and become the new king, God will restore to me Saul’s throne”’. Now David believes it and says ‘I now put you in charge of all the household of your former master, it belongs to you’. Later on Mephibosheth will deny all of this. Its possible Ziba made this up for his own benefit. Leaders, be careful of advice from people with a personal agenda. They often make themselves look better than others. Now as David flees another enemy comes out and curses and throws stones at him along the way. This guy says ‘look at you now, you rebelled against the old king [Saul] and now you are receiving the just reward’. Now David responds with a Christ like attitude and says ‘let the guy curse me, I will not retaliate. Maybe God will look on this persecution and reward me’. One of David’s men wanted to ‘take his head off’. Gee, David has all types in his leadership circle! Did this guy who was cursing David misread the whole situation? Yes, but don’t forget we are reading this story from the real perspective, some people living at the time of David and Saul saw this new king [David] as a threat to the old ways. It’s only a few days after the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama won. Though there were many reasons for and against him, now that he won we ALL need to pray for him. But some of the supporters of McCain sincerely saw this ‘new kind of person’ as a rebellious threat to the ‘old order’. Sincere people who saw things from a different angle. So David’s accuser sees the story from a wrong lens. David was being judged by God, but not because he toppled the old order of King Saul. Back at Jerusalem Absalom listens to the advice of Ahithophel and sleeps with his fathers concubines. The advice was that when all Israel heard about it, they would realize that this rebellion was a real rebellion and the people would unite under his illegal rule. Scripture says Ahithophels counsel was like ‘hearing from God’ in those days. Leaders, be open to the counsel that is coming forth from particular streams at certain times. It is not only important for believers to ‘learn the bible’, but also to be able to discern the signs of the times. Specific things God is saying and doing in our day. If you were living in the 16th century the issue of the reformation was vital for every one who was a believer. Whether you were Catholic or Protestant, you needed to be up on the issues. Erasmus, the great Catholic scholar and humanist [not ‘secular humanist’] wrote insightful criticisms against his own church, yet remained within her fold. So matter what Christian tradition you align yourself with, you need to be aware of the seasons and purposes of God for your generation. In Absalom’s day, Ahithophel was the go to man. (934)2ND SAMUEL 17- Absalom is strengthening his position as the new king. Ahithophel, his chief counselor, advises to strike while the irons hot. He tells Absalom ‘let me gather a 12 thousand man army and quickly pursue David. I will come upon him and his men while they are tired and fearful, then I will kill David only and bring the people back to you’. Now, this advice was the best, but Absalom asks for the advice of Hushai also. He was the secret spy that was really on David’s side. He advises Absalom to wait and gather all the people and mount a broad attack. God put it in the heart of Absalom to believe the bad advice [bad for Absalom, good for David!]. So Ahithophel sees that his counsel is rejected, he goes and hangs himself! Once again we see the ‘sword of David’s enemies enter into their own heart’. Remember what we said earlier about this? So Hushai sends word to David about the plan and David responds accordingly. Leaders, understand the strategy of our mortal enemy [satan]. He wants to target you when you and your people are weary and tired. He wants to take you down more than any other thing. The bible teaches ‘smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered’. Now this is a Messianic prophecy with a lot of meaning, but one of the points is the lead ‘point man’ is usually the main target of the opposing side. How can we mitigate this factor? Practice plural leadership as much as possible. The new testament churches were not ‘run by a Pastor’ in the way we do it today. So adjust your leadership paradigm and bring it more into alignment with scripture. Also, spread ‘the wealth around’ [a recent key issue with the newly elected president, Barack Obama]. If you can get the wisdom and truth that God has communicated to you into the hands of many others, then you have accomplished a lot. Paul told Timothy ‘the things that you have learned and been assured of, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also’. This is true apostolic ministry. David will survive this rebellion against his kingdom, but if Absalom listened to the best counsel David would have been finished for sure. (935)2ND SAMUEL 18- David and his men regroup and mount a counter attack against Absalom. They divide into 3 groups and go for it. David tells his men ‘take it easy on Absalom’. Why? Understand that David is seeing the prophetic judgment upon his family that was a result of his own sin. I wonder how many times David saw the fulfillment of this former word [the sword will never depart from your house] thru the seeming insignificant acts of Absalom along the way. David felt guilt over this whole rebellion mounted by his son. Now the battle rages and David and his men kill around 20 thousand troops of Absalom. Word gets back to Joab that Absalom got his hair caught in some tree and is hanging in the tree. Joab says ‘why didn’t you kill him!’ the messenger says ‘God forbid that I should kill the king’s son! I heard the strict orders from the king for no one to take his life’. My King James Version says Joab responded with ‘I may not tarry thus with thee’ in today’s terms ‘I can’t waste time listening to your reasoning’. Joab goes and kills the king’s son. When I read thru this chapter earlier this morning I saw 2 possible things here. First, Joab and his history with David are one of Joab being a ‘bloody man’. He killed Abner against the king’s wishes, and now Absalom. Why in the world did David not remove Joab from this position earlier? One reason, Joab knew how to war. The boy was capable; he knew how to get the job done. In ministry [or business] loyalty is important; people need to be able to carry out the decisions of leadership. But loyalty in and of itself doesn’t cut it, you need skills and abilities as well. You say ‘that’s not fair’ well if you don’t have the skills go get them for heavens sake! Proverbs says knowledge is in the street corners calling out to the simple and saying ‘come, receive of my learning’. The resources are there, laziness prevents people from accessing them effectively. Now Joab also acted responsibly to some degree. He realized that Absalom would be a permanent threat to David’s rule, he killed him and saved many. Right after his death Joab blows the trumpet and the battle is called off. 2 Messengers run to bring the word to David. Ephesians says ‘blessed are the feet of those who bring the gospel’ Gospel simply means ‘good news’. In the New Testament this good news was the reality of Jesus death, burial and resurrection [1st Corinthians 15] but in the Old Testament it was simply the news from ‘the runner’. You could tell from the way the runner was running whether the news was good or bad. How? Say if your wife took a lotto ticket that said ‘you one a million dollars’ and said ‘I am going to ask the store clerk if it’s real’. As you are waiting in the parking lot you see her coming out of the store. Do you think you would be able to tell if the news was good or bad by watching the way she approaches the car? So this was what the king looked for as the messengers came running. If they bore good news their feet had this special pep to them. News gets back to David and he is broken over the death of his son ‘O Absalom, my son Absalom. Would God I had died in your place’ I always stop and meditate this verse every time I read it thru my yearly reading thru the bible. This contains the heart of the Father in redemption. A few more things; in this chapter it said that Absalom raised up a monument/pillar after ‘his own name’. Because he didn’t have any sons to carry on his legacy, he left ‘a thing’ that would honor his name after he died. Absalom didn’t simply have a rebellion issue against his father, he really wanted to build for himself a legacy. His motivations were self serving. Jesus warns the leaders of his movement not to approach ‘church and ministry’ with the same ‘gentile’ [worldly] concepts of leadership. The world often succeeds thru the motivation of greed and lust and power. It’s very easy to fall into the Absalom mindset and take it out on Gods people when the ‘pillar’ [the thing of ministry] doesn’t ‘go up right’. Many well meaning sincere men have been side tracked into seeking fame and acceptance by seeing ministry thru the lens of ‘I want to leave some institution that will bear witness to my name after I am gone’. Ministry, according to Jesus, does not operate along these lines. In Absalom’s obsession to become famous in the eyes of men, he went down a path that did leave a memorial to his name for generations to come. We just read it. (936)2ND SAMUEL 19- David sends word to the elders of Judah ‘why are you guys so late in receiving me back to Jerusalem as your king? I am your own kin for heavens sake!’ After the death of the rogue king Absalom, Israel came to her senses and began saying ‘you know, when David was our king things weren’t all that bad, now that Absalom is dead, what are we waiting for, lets call David back’. So David sends word back that he is reuniting with the people again. He also makes some strategic moves; he tells Amasa ‘when I get back, you get Joab’s job’ Ouch! David finally dealt with the talented, yet self willed commander of his men. On the way back one of the first guys that greets him is the same brother that cursed him and threw stones at him earlier. David lived to see the day of Gods vindication. The brother repents and David forgives him. Also the son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth, greets David with great joy. The first thing David says is ‘why didn’t you leave with me at the beginning?’ The earlier slander of Ziba stuck in David’s mind. Mephibosheth swares that Ziba tricked him. David forgives him and says ‘enough! You split the inheritance with Ziba’. Mephibosheth replies ‘Let him keep it, I don’t need the material wealth. I am just glad to be with you again’. The church does not see the reality of this test contained in scripture. There are times where ‘David’ does offer opportunities of self advancement that are simply a test to see what our motives are. In this case David rightfully gave material stuff to Mephibosheth, it was the maturity and character of Mephibosheth to say ‘thanks, but no thanks’. The scripture contains many examples of Christ followers forsaking things for his cause. Just because the bible ‘offers opportunities for wealth’ does not mean Gods best is for you to ‘go for the wealth’. Now that David’s back in Jerusalem, the divided tribes [Israel-10 tribes, and Judah] have a squabble. Israel says ‘Judah, who do you think you are in being the first ones to escort the king back, he is our king too’! And Judah replies ‘yeah, but he is our blood kin, David is from our tribe. We hold a ‘special’ relationship with him because of natural heritage’. It’s funny, these guys were on Absalom’s side a few days ago, now they are fighting over him! I kinda see Jesus and natural Israel in this story. The nation of Israel became offended over the fact that they were ‘blood heirs’ of the Jewish Messiah. They held to this ethnic pride that would be destroyed thru the Cross. It offended the natural mind to see this ethnic figure [in the historic mind of Judaism] to be accepted by ‘all the tribes’. They wanted him solely for their own purposes. So here we see Judah and Israel fighting over David, he will unite them both under his rule [Ephesians ‘the 2 are made one, Jew and Gentile, and God hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us] and Jerusalem will once again be called ‘the city of the great king’ [we are the ‘city that comes down from God out of heaven’ the bride, the Lambs wife!] (937)2ND SAMUEL 20- Now David comes up against another short rebellion. Sheba, a Benjamite, blows the trumpet and says ‘what part have we in David, every man for himself’. Sheba draws Israel away from her king and Judah remains loyal. David quickly tells his new commander, Amasa, ‘go and gather Judah together and meet me in 3 days’. He takes longer than 3 days and David says ‘surely this Sheba is going to be trouble’ and he sends Joab out too. What’s going on here? First, David removed Joab from the commander position and replaced him with Amasa. For whatever reason Amasa is taking longer to gather Judah, David is reading into it thru the paranoia of Sheba’s rebellion. Was Amasa turning against him too? David then turns to his former commander Joab and seems to be using him as the back up ‘go to man’. Leaders, if you changed the staff for a reason, don’t keep going to the former guy for advice. It only creates tension with the new team. If you think the new guy isn’t working well, then give him a little time and if you have to then go and make the change. But don’t simply give him a title and then undercut his job. Now Joab goes out after Sheba and finds Amasa and kills him. He then chases down Sheba into a city of Israel. Joab comes against the city and a wise woman says ‘why are you trying to destroy us, we are a special town in Israel’? Joab says ‘we just want Sheba’. Sure enough the woman says ‘wait a little bit’ and next thing you know Sheba’s head comes over the wall. You don’t want to mess with these Israeli women! So Joab gets his job back, thru violent means. David puts down this short rebellion. And he has to regroup big time. Leadership means being able to function in the midst of turmoil and inner strife and infighting. That’s part of the cost. There is a verse that says ‘rule thou in the midst of your enemies’. God doesn’t tell us ‘I will remove all the problems so you can rule’. He tells us ‘lead right thru all the stuff’! (938)2ND SAMUEL 21- After David gains back his kingdom, there is a 3 year famine in the land. David seeks the Lord about it. God tells him it is a result of the violence that Saul committed against the innocent blood of the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites were the people who tricked Joshua [Joshua 9] into staying in the Promised Land. After Joshua gave his word, they later found out that they were tricked. Well Saul obviously went back on this promise of protection and came against them. When ever there is a nation wide judgment, we need to see what the possible causes might be. We just elected a new president of the U.S. [11-08]. While there are obviously great historic realities to our new president being the first Black man to attain this honor, yet we also need to seek God over the way we treat the ‘innocent blood’ in our land. Barack Obama has already floated the idea that he will overturn the executive decision of President Bush on our foreign aid being used for abortions in other countries. To be honest it surprised me that he even floated this idea so soon. This is a direct contradiction to the statement he made at the forum at Rick Warrens church earlier in the year. He said he would work to reduce abortion and that the goal of reducing them would be part of his governing philosophy. He simply mislead us on this issue. Also the Gibeonites were ‘illegal aliens’ in the sense that they were the only people group allowed to remain in the Promised Land along with Israel. Our country has had open borders for many years. True, we do have procedures to go by if you want to come to our country. But we have previously promised ‘protection and safety’ to those who wanted to come. Much like the Gibeonites we began to resent the aliens in our midst. We now treat them with less respect and honor than was originally promised. We told the tired masses at one time ‘to come’ but now we want to build fences to keep them out. On both of these issues our country needs to seek God, we are just beginning a few years of very bad national economic times. For those who think this president [or any other!] has the ability to turn this economic disaster around, you are only kidding yourself. The next 4 years will not be good. We need to pray for our president and honor him, but in reality our economy is very bad. Also in this chapter we see David and his men fight the sons of Goliath, the giant who David defeated earlier in his life. Old enemies are resurfacing. David is in a battle with one of them and is almost killed. To the rescue comes Abishai, the brother of Joab. These were the brothers who gave David ‘hell’ all thru out his reign. Self willed, violent. This time David was grateful for the violent ability of these brothers. Sometimes we have to put up with people in our cities, areas. We might not always agree with their style. But when things get rough, we can count on them to get the job done. David and his men wipe out the rest of the giants sons and they tell David ‘you can’t war with us any more, it’s too dangerous’. David recognizes it’s time for a personal transition, he likes being in the battle front, but he is risking too much to think that time has not affected his ability. God leads us thru various stages of growth and development thru out our lives, the bible says ‘there is a time and season for everything’. We need to be able to follow the course as God directs. David was a true warrior, he did not want to adjust his procedure. Wisdom allows us to do what’s best for the overall community and not to please ourselves. (939)2ND SAMUEL 22- David exalts the Lord and mentions many themes that are found thru out scripture. He also says ‘the Lord has rewarded me according to the cleanness of my hands… he has recompensed me according to my righteousness’. Though David is renown for his sin with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband, yet we must see that David’s repentance was real. Ultimately David turned from his sin and God did bless him. We don’t want people to get the impression that repentance did not matter, in David’s case it made all the difference in the world. David also says ‘the Lord is merciful to those who are merciful…and hard with those who are hard’ Jesus says this in Matthew 5. David says ‘God took me and placed me in a large place’. One of the most frustrating things is to be operating from the wrong paradigm. Too often we leave the impression with young Pastors that their ‘job’ is to preach to 30 people a week for 30 years, marry them, bury them, perform the job of the ‘hired clergyman’ and this is what it means to be faithful. While I recognize that many well meaning men are functioning out of this mind set, yet God puts in people [all of his people, not just ‘full time ministers’!] a ‘large place’ to function out of. Now, when I say ‘large place’ don’t think building, think ‘the area, groups of people that I will influence thru out my life’. Scripture says God took David from ‘following the sheep’ [small pastoral mindset] to being king over the nation. God simply gave David great influence and stature for the sake of his people. Jesus said ‘you have been faithful over a little, I will now give you authority over 10 cities’. Are you frustrated because you are supposed to be ‘over 10 cities’ and are still dealing with ‘the little’? Be faithful to the day of small things right now, promotion comes from God alone. ‘You have made me the head of the heathen…strangers shall serve me. As soon as they hear me they will submit’. These are Messianic themes found elsewhere in scripture ‘ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession’. Jesus became the ‘head of the heathen’ he is Lord over the gentile nations, John calls this ‘the other flock’ in his gospel. God gave both David and Jesus authority for the benefit of people. What kind of people? The lost, down and out. Those who society rejected. God gives us authority for the ‘sake of the heathen’. Don’t see your ‘ministry’ as a gift to the ‘upper class’ only, spend some time ‘with the heathen’. (940)2ND SAMUEL 23- David recounts his life and the mighty men who were with him thru the ups and downs. He says ‘God raised me up on high, the anointed of God. He spake his words thru me’ Jesus was raised up ‘on high’ he was/is Gods anointed one [Messiah] and he spoke only the words that the Father gave him. Now David has some valiant men to mention. Some fought the enemy against all odds. One was in a lentil field and the rest of the people fled. This brother stood his ground and won! This characteristic is important for leaders; there are times where you must stand, even if the rest of your people are afraid! If you start running, then forget it, there isn’t a ‘snowball’s chance in Hades’ that the job will get finished. Also David was in the cave Adullam, and he longed for the water at Bethlehem. His 3 mighty men heard him and they secretly snuck out and broke thru the Philistines front line and got the water for David! A valiant deed. Then they bring it to David and he pours it on the ground! He says ‘God forbid that I should drink the water that you risked your lives for’. I don’t know about you guys, but if I were one of the mighty men, my next valiant act would be ‘watch me make the king drink water off the ground’. One of the brothers killed a lion in the snow. I grew up in New Jersey, when it’s freezing out its hard to carry out tasks. You really don’t want to fight battles and ‘slay lions’ in difficult environments. The mighty men were able to function well, even in harsh conditions. The rest of the chapter is simply the naming of all the others. A few things; God raises up leaders and ‘kings’ at various times in history [Luther, Calvin, Graham, etc.] these men make their mark on history with the help of many other valiant men. In David’s case one of the men saved him from sure death in an earlier fight with the giant’s sons. The point is we are not in this thing to make a name for ourselves or to think ‘I could do a better job than David’ [Absalom] and go and start our own ‘kingdom’. God places key people in key places at certain points in time. It is vital for all the ‘actors’ [those who act/function!] to be courageous, take risks as God ordains, and fulfill the mission to the best of your ability. There are times where leaders WILL HAVE TO LEAD! That means you sought God, you heard what he said, and you followed thru on it. Many sincere men try all sorts of ‘new ideas’ in an attempt to get something off the ground. A year goes by and they have a new idea their working on. What happened? Ultimately you have to lead. You have to follow thru on the directives that God gave you. The problem isn’t with the plan [most of the times] but it’s with the faithfulness to follow thru with the mission. David’s men had the character to stick things out when others fled. Sure, those who flee will be back to check things out every now and then. Don’t despise them, but you know who can be trusted with the next mission. These are the noble warriors who acted valiantly in the face of great odds. These are the ‘go to men’ if you will. (941)2ND SAMUEL 24- David numbers the people. Joab and his men tell David not to do it. Why? Well to be honest we really don’t know for sure, but let me give you my spin on it. The nation of Israel were very religious and sticklers for specific things. You see this development years later with the religious Pharisees, a tendency to focus in on specific instructions and these ideas becoming obsessive in their minds. All Israel knew the original promise that God made to Abraham. God told him that his ‘seed would be like the stars for multitude and the sand by the shore’ [Genesis 15] included in this famous promise were the words ‘go, see if you can count them’? It was understood that God was saying to Abraham ‘go, if you want to test me, try and count them’ [the stars]. It’s possible that the counting of the people was considered a taboo for this reason. Now David does count them and his ‘seer/prophet’ Gad tells him ‘you messed up, you have 3 choices of judgment that will come on you’. David picks the 3 day judgment under Gods hand and 70,000 Israelites die. The census David took showed that Israel had 800 thousand people, Judah 500 thousand [1.3 million total] without counting the women and children! So you can multiply this number by at least 3 to figure the actual size of the nation. God stops the judgment short and David builds an altar at the place where he saw the destroying angel. David also pleads with the Lord ‘why kill the people, let the judgment be on me and my family instead’. David shows the heart of Moses here. Also David had a ‘seer/prophet’ that was part of his ‘ministry team’. In the prophetic churches it is common to have real prophetic people [not flakes!] who are stable in the word, and also give good advice to the leadership. There are real life prophets/seers who function in the church and can play a key role in the future of the church. We end Samuel with David overseeing a large kingdom. The people were the prophetic fulfillment of Gods purpose in the earth at that time. The letter of Peter says we are Gods holy nation today. The Father promised the Son that he would give him ‘the heathen for his inheritance and the ends of the earth for his possession’. Just like David, the anointed king/priest of Israel, Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and sees the great multitude of people on the earth [and in heaven] that are the fulfillment of the promise of God to him. We are living proof of the faithfulness of God to his Son. 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We live in an online world- yet- there is only one internet- meaning if it ever goes down- the only access to the teachings are what others have copied or downloaded- so feel free to copy and download as much as you want- it’s all free- Note- I have many web sites- at times some question whether I’m a ‘bot’ because I do post a lot. I am not a ‘bot’- I’m John- so please- if you are on the verge of deleting something- my contact email is [email protected] - contact me first- thank you- John COLOSSIANS 4 [Links to all my sites at the bottom of each post]
Psalm 60:4 Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah. Colossians 4 videos- ON VIDEO .The runaway slave and his master .The door to speak .Demonstration of the Kingdom in power .The Barnabus- Paul and John Mark controversy .Paul claimed no ‘ownership’ [Copyright] for his letters- therefore the Word of the Lord went forth freely [He urged his letters be distributed and read in the early Christian communities- which functioned as an oral culture at first- then his letters would be re- copied and make up 13 books of the New Testament- almost half of the 27 books- if you count Hebrews- more than half- Pastors- Churches- stop copyrighting and selling the Word of God] .Finish the work God has called you to .Final thoughts Isaiah 48:16 Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me. OTHER VIDEOS [New below the video links] 4-27-18 Friends- Andy, James, Albert https://youtu.be/7IglDSszjrI 4-27-18 Furman- I teach about Jonah https://youtu.be/wLtiypnj3oo [Here’s my past teaching on Jonah https://ccoutreach87.com/jonah-links/ ] 4-27-18 Furman’s 1st message https://youtu.be/NMEg-K6_Cg0 4-28-18 The Word of the Lord to judge Manuel Banales https://youtu.be/hrHFHK4wn5A https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aocp2PkNEAGMgSUhD0ljpzOImVtQ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jzl4XBkvF_m9JjIJzpoc-Gx9HK2C8_BE/view?usp=sharing 4-28-18 Why did the Caller Times cover up the crimes of Judge Manuel Banales? https://youtu.be/3Wbc2py_IDQ 4-29-18 caller Times says Christians are uneducated- bigoted rednecks! https://youtu.be/KZVRil0clEw North Bergen [Burger King] https://youtu.be/4S5YHb2hea8 5-1-18 Caller Times unfair criticism of DA Mark Gonzales https://youtu.be/HbUmEvEl0EE Woke up- North Bergen [The first week I slept in the car- and filmed the journey so to speak] https://vimeo.com/267327913 5-1-18 Friends- Albert- James- Stephen- Reuben [Short healing testimony] https://youtu.be/MO_4CIYRJfI 5-1-18 Friends- Ray- Big Charlie n the 3 Pence coin https://youtu.be/2lawi5xxn_0 [Note – right after I made this video- on the 3 fold cord- and talked about ‘3’ signs- we had 3 earthquakes just north of Corpus Christi] https://www.caller.com/story/news/local/2018/05/01/three-earthquakes-were-reported-south-san-antonio-texas/570393002/ 5-2-18 Friends- Reuben- Albert [John 3] https://youtu.be/yYGbQg0Mbn4 Teaching Mark 2 in North Bergen- N.J. https://youtu.be/_SRevM8Tcs4 North Bergen- Gas trouble- 1 https://vimeo.com/267053010 Can’t pay? [ Gas pump- North Bergen] https://vimeo.com/267053138 Mike- North Bergen https://vimeo.com/267151505 Trump press conference- North Bergen https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aocp2PkNEAGMgSYJggwt2XhGjeMh Plane take off- heading to N.J- NYC trip https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hAc892XMrEN8VoT8hJGe19FF-TzGQt9P/view?usp=sharing I filmed this walking thru the Fairview cemetery right where I grew up [New Jersey] see some snow too https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aocp2PkNEAGMgSc_F1DPsqk240SO Plane landing at Newark [Liberty] airport in New Jersey https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zlfHQ9ZN-Ypef75ovboHKbN64P9oTkMO/view?usp=sharing North Bergen- New Jersey- Danny gives me a gift this day [He has since died] https://vimeo.com/267493156 Monkey with 3 tails- North Bergen New Jersey Christmas morning- waking up in the car after living 1 week in North Bergen- in the car https://vimeo.com/267701069 Amos 5:9 That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. NEW As we end our study on Colossians- we see some key figures who were helpers of Paul- carrying his letters to the various churches- Colossians 4:7 All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellowservant in the Lord Colossians 4:8 Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate, and comfort your hearts; We read about Tychicus in Acts 20:4 Acts 20:4 And there accompanied him into Asia Sopater of Berea; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus; and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/08/20/acts-20/ The was another carrier of this letter- Colossians 4:9 With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things which are done here. More than likely they were also carrying Paul’s letter to Philemon on this journey. Philemon was a slaveholder- who had a former slave run away. That slave was Onesimus- and in the letter to Philemon being carried by the slave himself Paul makes a strong argument for Philemon to forgive him and receive him as a brother- Philemon 1:8 Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, Philemon 1:9 Yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Philemon 1:10 I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: Philemon 1:11 Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: Philemon 1:12 Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: It’s important to see the history behind the letters- and the carriers- Because in the beginning of this chapter Paul himself talks about slaves and their masters- Colossians 4:1 Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven. Some believe Paul was justifying slavery- but the other letter his team was carrying on this journey shows us another view. Colossians 4:10 Aristarchus my fellowprisoner saluteth you, and Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, (touching whom ye received commandments if he come unto you, receive him;) We read of this helper in 3 passages of Acts- 19:29, 20:4 and 27:2- https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/08/09/acts-19/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/08/20/acts-20/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/11/06/acts-27/ Yes- he stuck with the apostle all the way to Rome. And one more note before we end- Paul speaks well of someone here- and Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, (touching whom ye received commandments if he come unto you, receive him;) In my study on Acts we saw him- and a split that took place because of him [Acts 15] https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/07/03/acts-15/ Acts 15:36 And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the LORD, and see how they do. Acts 15:37 And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. Acts 15:38 But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work. Acts 15:39 And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus; Acts 15:40 And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. This letter to the Colossians was penned about 12 years after this incident and it seems as if the rift was healed. Even Paul and his men had times of division- where some went one way- and Paul went another. Yet in time God would restore those divisions. Of course Paul does give a few practical teachings too- Colossians 4:2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Colossians 4:3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds Colossians 4:4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. On the video I gave some examples of what the door of ‘utterance’ means- It is an opportunity to proclaim truth- to speak it- not just to know it. I gave a few examples of how this works- even when speaking Truth to Power. I’ll add my various links and past teachings that relate to this post and end this study with the last 2 verses of the letter- Colossians 4:17 And say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it. Colossians 4:18 The salutation by the hand of me Paul. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Amen. As Paul penned this letter sitting in a jail in Rome- he admonishes all of us to finish the ministry we have received from the Lord. Ministry is not some occupation you feel called to- and than choose to make that a career. No- it is receiving the purpose that God had pre- planned for you from the start- sitting in a Roman prison and being faithful to the call. It’s a Prophet by the name of John who had his head taken off because he spoke truth to power. It’s carrying the message of the Christ of God who was born in a manger- left at the temple at the age of 12- Went on to call 12 men to follow him- one of whom would betray him and another who would deny him. It’s the message of a man who struggled in the garden- who the prophet Isaiah said was a man of sorrows- so tormented at times that he would be unrecognizable- Isaiah 52:14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: A message of a man who was unjustly tried- whipped severely- and hung on a Cross. His disciples feeling dejected- that all was lost. And then- he came back from the grave with the scars of his suffering still on him. Yes- he himself showed us what it meant to be faithful. And in the end- that’s what really counts. Amen. Zechariah 3:8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch. Daniel 7:18 But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. PAST POSTS COLOSSIANS [Links] https://ccoutreach87.com/2018/03/20/colossians-1/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2018/04/05/colossians-2/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2018/04/20/colossians-3/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2018/04/27/friends-4/ https://ccoutreach87.com/2018/04/11/friends-3/ Colossians 4:1 Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven. Colossians 4:2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Colossians 4:3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds Colossians 4:4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. Colossians 4:5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Colossians 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. Colossians 4:7 All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellowservant in the Lord Colossians 4:8 Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate, and comfort your hearts; Colossians 4:9 With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things which are done here. Colossians 4:10 Aristarchus my fellowprisoner saluteth you, and Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, (touching whom ye received commandments if he come unto you, receive him;) Colossians 4:11 And Jesus, which is called Justus, who are of the circumcision. These only are my fellowworkers unto the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort unto me. Colossians 4:12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. Colossians 4:13 For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea, and them in Hierapolis. Colossians 4:14 Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you. Colossians 4:15 Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house. Colossians 4:16 And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea. Colossians 4:17 And say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it. Colossians 4:18 The salutation by the hand of me Paul. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Amen. Philemon 1:1 Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer, Philemon 1:2 And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house: Philemon 1:3 Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Philemon 1:4 I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers, Philemon 1:5 Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; Philemon 1:6 That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. Philemon 1:7 For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother. Philemon 1:8 Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, Philemon 1:9 Yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Philemon 1:10 I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: Philemon 1:11 Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: Philemon 1:12 Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: Philemon 1:13 Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel: Philemon 1:14 But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. Philemon 1:15 For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever; Philemon 1:16 Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord? Philemon 1:17 If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. Philemon 1:18 If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account; Philemon 1:19 I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it: albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides. Philemon 1:20 Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord: refresh my bowels in the Lord. Philemon 1:21 Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say. Philemon 1:22 But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you. Philemon 1:23 There salute thee Epaphras, my fellowprisoner in Christ Jesus; Philemon 1:24 Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellowlabourers. Philemon 1:25 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. Acts 14:14 Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/06/14/acts-14/ Psalm 149 King James Version (KJV) 149 Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints. 2 Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. 3 Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. 4 For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation. 5 Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. 6 Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; 7 To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; 8 To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; 9 To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord. VERSES MY SITES Active sites- http://www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com [Main site] https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks https://ccoutreach87.com/ https://plus.google.com/108013627259688810902/posts john chiarelloFollow On https://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_logo http://johnchiarello.tumblr.com/ http://ccoutreach.over-blog.com/ https://www.reddit.com/user/ccoutreach87 https://ccoutreach87.jimdo.com/ http://ccoutreach87.webstarts.com/__blog.html?r=20171009095200 http://ccoutreach87-1.mozello.com/ https://ccoutreach87.site123.me/ http://ccoutreach87.wixsite.com/mysite https://corpusoutreach.weebly.com/ http://ccoutreach87.strikingly.com/ http://corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com/p/one-link_18.html [Link to past teaching] Inactive- work in progress https://ccoutreach87.joomla.com/ http://ccoutreach87.webs.com/ https://sites.google.com/yahoo.com/ccoutreach87/home Video sites [Can download my videos free of charge] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg https://vimeo.com/user37400385 https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive https://onedrive.live.com/?id=root&cid=8C01100DF9D82987 I no longer upload videos to this site- but there are many links to download here as well- https://ccoutreach87.com/ Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on- Copy text- download video links- make complete copies of my books/studies and posts- everything is copyrighted by me- I give permission for all to copy and share as much as you like- I just ask that nothing be sold. We live in an online world- yet- there is only one internet- meaning if it ever goes down- the only access to the teachings are what others have copied or downloaded- so feel free to copy and download as much as you want- it’s all free- Thanks- John. Advertisements Occasionally, some of your visitors may see an advertisement here, as well as a Privacy & Cookies banner at the bottom of the page. You can hide ads completely by upgrading to one of our paid plans. UPGRADE NOW DISMISS MESSAGE Share this:RelatedColossians 2 Colossians 1 Colossians 3 |
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