Blog Archives
Genesis (Program #101) – Being Transformed (8)
We are going to see Jacob for the second time set up a pillar in Bethel. In the first instance in chapter 28, he was associated with a wonderful dream…
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John (Program #52) – Life in Resurrection (3)
The seeking ones among God’s people need to know the Lord as life, and they need to experience Christ as life, and they need to study the Bible in the way of life. It is for those seekers that we commend the life study of the Bible. Listen and enjoy Christ as life.
The Gospel of John is simply profound. It’s simple. The words, the vocabulary, the expressions appear so simple. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was God. The Word became flesh. But, it’s profound also. If you’ve had the opportunity to follow us through the heart of chapters 14 through 17, you perhaps have some sense of appreciation of the profound depths of the Gospel of John.
The Gospel of John is a Gospel of life and building. We need to really dwell on these two crucial words: life and building. Life is God Himself. Life is Christ. He said “I am the life”, “I came that you may have life”, and “life is the Spirit.” Eternal life is not merely an eternal state of existence in another realm. Eternal life is God dispensed into us. It cannot reasonably be denied that the Gospel of John is the Gospel of eternal life.
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Genesis (Program #100) – The Builder of the Pillars—The Skillful Hiram (2)
As we look at the second of a two-part message dealing with Hiram, the builder of the pillars in 1 King. This is really a life study of Genesis but we are taking a short detour through 1 King to really explore this matter of the one person in the Old Testament record named by name as being involved in the actual construction of God’s House, God’s Temple.
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John (Program #51) – Life in Resurrection (2)
We should treasure the way the Lord has ordained to be present with us now. May the Lord really open our eyes: that what is precious to God, that is the invisible, indwelling, pneumatic Christ, would also become precious to us.
In John 20 as in the Gospel of John as a whole, we see the Trinity both in His essence and in His economy. The Divine Trinity is a trinity of essence eternally that is the Father, Son, and Spirit coexist and co-inhere in the Godhead eternally. This is the Trinity in essence. But in order to have the fulfillment of God’s economy, the essential Trinity must function as the economical Trinity to pass through the process in order to, on the one hand, enter into God’s people, and on the other to bring God’s people, now redeemed and regenerated, into God. By the time we reach chapter 20, we have at least the initial completion of this process in which the very God who became a man and died for our redemption, in resurrection became the Spirit, so that, economically speaking, the Father, Son, and Spirit may indwell us.
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John (Program #50) – Life in Resurrection (1)
John 1:14 says, the Word became flesh. That means the Word, who was God, became something that He previous was not. When God came out of eternity into time to accomplish His plan, He became flesh. In this sense, God did change.
When we cover these two aspects (God being unchanging and God having changed), what we’re touching is the mystery of the Divine Trinity. So, what we need to do is look at the entire Bible and just say Amen to whatever the Bible says about the Triune God. On the one hand, you know people uses this verse Malachi 3:6, which says that God changes not. And, this is true. But of course, if you look at the context of Malachi 3:6, it’s talking about that God changes not in his principles, in the way that He deals with His people. But also, we know that the Bible shows that God in His eternal being is unchanging. The Bible reveals that the Triune God, the three of the Godhead. On the one hand, they are distinct. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are eternally distinct, but they also co-inhere. That means that they mutually indwell one another. The Father is in the Son. The Son is in the Father. The Father is in the Spirit. more…
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Genesis (Program #99) – The Builder of the Pillars—The Skillful Hiram (1)
We had several programs dealing with the pillars related to the House of God. Today’s program is somewhat a parenthesis focusing on one man, identified by name in the Bible as a pillar builder. He is really the only person involved with building the temple that we know by his name. Why is this significant?
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John (Program #49) – Life Processed for Multiplication (4)
Let us all let the wind blow where it wills. And, instead of trying to systematize or schematize the experience of the Spirit, let’s experience the Spirit for the carrying out of God’s economy, letting God truly be God.
John 20 is in many respects, a chapter of realization or actualization. By using these terms, I’m trying to say, that in this chapter we have the reality in actual experience of what the Lord revealed concerning His process elsewhere in the Gospel. He made it emphatically clear in chapters 14 through 16 that He needed to go, that is, die on the cross, and come again, that is come into the disciples as the pneumatic Christ in order to indwell them. He had, as the first half of the Gospel emphasizes, become flesh and tabernacled among human kind. But, God’s goal is to be in His chosen and redeemed people, not merely among them.
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Genesis (Program #98) – Being Transformed (7)
Today another program on the pillars for God’s House, that we first saw in Genesis 28 and I am sure for many, it may seen somewhat strange that we’ve devoted so much time, so many broadcast seems like rather an obscure item in the divine revelation…
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John (Program #48) – Life Processed for Multiplication (3)
I really like this marvelous term here. “Go tell my brothers.” In the Gospel of John, He was with these disciples a lot, but He never referred to them as brothers. He always called them either by name or referred to them as friends. But, after His resurrection for the first time, He calls them brothers.
In this Gospel, the presentation of the crucifixion is really more complete and more meaningful than you have it in the other three Gospels. First, the account here brings out the two aspects of the Lord’s death by mentioning two substances, which came out of the Lord’s side when the soldier pierced Him. When the soldier pierced Him, out came blood and water. The blood of Christ there is to answer to our need for the dealing with sin. The blood of Christ cleanses us from every sin. And, the water that came out is really meeting the need for our life. Water in the scripture is often a picture of life. There’s the water of life that’s in the book of Revelation. And, there’s the water that flowed out of the rock in the Old Testament. So, water really means life, the imparting of life.
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Genesis (Program #97) – Being Transformed (6)
We’ve had several programs recently that have focused on Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28. Today’s program is going to deal specifically with one item that appeared in that dream; the pillar. A very crucial part of this dream.
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