Jude (Program #5) – The Basic Structure of the Epistles of Peter and Jude (1)

Through the centuries believers and Bible scholars alike appreciated the epistle of Peter for giving us a clear presentation of God’s government. Surely this point is the subject of these books. But woven through out Peter’s epistles as well as the epistle of Jude is a basic structure, a central line of focus that if we neglect will leave us far removed from the reality of living a life that is actually under God’s government.  It’s this basic structure of these three books that is our subject for the final two programs.

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1 John (Program #32) – The Virtues of the Divine Birth to Practice the Divine Love (5)

All of the apostle John’s writings in the Bible stress the divine birth through which the divine life is imparted into the believers.  In his gospel he says you must be born again.  In chapter 3 of his first epistle, John says,  3:9 “Everyone who has been begotten of God does not practice sin.” And once again the stress is on the divine birth.  But in chapter 5 he gets even more specific about not just the fact of the divine birth, but the location of the divine birth. When he says,  5:4 “For everything that has been begotten of God overcomes the world;”

Why does he change everyone in chapter 3 to everything in chapter 5?   The answer reveals very much about the key to overcoming not just sin and the world but all of the negative things surrounding us in our day to day living.

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Malachi (Program #3) – Jehovah’s Dealing with the Sons of Jacob

Malachi 4:6 tells us, “And he will turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.” This verse talks about the Lord’s warning about the day of His coming.

Malachi’s ministry is focused entirely upon the condition of the priests and the sons of Jacob. In other words, it is the condition of the people of God and their service to God as priests and in their living as God’s people before Him is what is central and crucial in the coming of the Lord Jesus the first time.

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1 Peter (Program #9) -The Full Salvation of the Triune God and Its Issues (7)

In chapter one of his epistle Peter contrasts our former way of living or literally our manner of life which was vain with our present manner of life, we should be holy. Vain of course means empty, without meaning.

Well, all of us must surely confess that our life before we were regenerated were categorized by sin. But Peter points out that even more our life were vain, empty and without purpose. Yet we had been called to a holy manner of life.

14: “..Do not be fashioned,” Peter writes, “according to the former lusts in your ignorance;”

15 “But according to the Holy One who called you, you yourselves also be holy in all your manner of life;”

How can we have such a living, such a manner of life that becomes holy? Peter’s further word in this chapter becomes a very great help to us.

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Jeremiah (Program #21) – The Principle of Being One with God

Let me ask you, “What is sin?” As you ponder this great and universal question and before you begin enumerating any number of transgressions that would easily fall into the general category of sin, please consider that the Bible makes a clear distinction between “sin” and “sins”. Sins are the by products of the principle of sin. So, once again let me ask, “What is sin”? Well if we drop our own speculations and restrict our consideration to the clear revelation of the Bible, we realize that sin is fundamentally a matter of leaving God and doing something by ourselves and for ourselves. In other words, sin is to take anything other than God as our unique source. He desires to be the source of our life, of our living and even of our satisfaction. Any departure from taking Him as our source is sin and it will unavoidably result in innumerable sins. In that light, now let’s consider these verses from the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis 2:9, 16-17 “And out of the ground Jehovah God caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, as well as the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely … But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

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Song of Songs (Program #10) – The Four Stages of Spiritual Experience in Song of Songs

To enter into the real intrinsic significance of the Song of Songs, we have to first understand that this lovely, short, poetic love story is actually a detailed portrait of the lover of Christ’s personal and intimate experience of Him. The full experience of the believer is shown in the four stages in the book of Song of Songs beginning with pursuing Him, then experiencing the cross and dying to the self, followed by living in ascension and becoming a new creation, and finally responding to the highest call to Christian life – to pass through the veil of the flesh, to dwell in God Himself and allow Him to dwell in us. If we have a clear view of these four stages, we will not only fully understand this book, but we will have priceless understanding that will sustain us through our whole Christian life.

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Song of Songs (Program #9) – Sharing in the Work of the Lord

There are many ways to study the Bible. We may study it from a historical perspective or from a theological doctrinal perspective or we may study it as a book of moral precepts or as a pattern for our living. Surely the Bible is a book of truth but preeminently, the Bible is also a book of life. “I have come that you might have life”, the Lord Jesus said in John. And also in John He said, “The words that I speak are spirit and are life”.

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Song of Songs (Program #6) – Living in Ascension by Discerning the Spirit from the Soul

The theme of the book in the Bible with the title “Song of Songs” is satisfaction of satisfactions. This book portrays the four stages in the experience of the lover of Christ and can be summarized by the following four sections:
1) A lover of Christ should be one who is attracted by His love and drawn by Him in His sweetness to pursue after Him for full satisfaction.
2) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him to be delivered from the self through his oneness with the cross of Christ.
3) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him to live in ascension as the new creation of God in the resurrection of Christ.
4) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him more strongly to live within the veil through His cross after the lover’s experience of His resurrection.

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Colossians (Program #42) – One Position, One Life, One Living, One Destiny, and One Glory With Christ

On one hand, Christ is mysterious, He is at the same time sitting at the right hand of God in the heavenlies but also simultaneously dwelling in us. He’s also practical. He not only saves us eternally, but He wants to become our very living, that is to live Himself out in our everyday life. We’ve been treated to a marvelous view of Christ in the book of Colossians for many weeks now. And as we near the end of this memorable life-study, we want to come back to a few key passages to be nourished and enlightened once again.

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Colossians(Program #38) – In Christ and According to Christ

What does it mean to be “in Christ”? Many places in the New Testament, especially in the letters of Paul the Apostle, use this term. Well, the easiest answer is to say that according to the facts, whatever is true of Him is true of us. For example, we died in Him and we were made alive in Him. As I said, these are the facts. But, what about our experience?  If we’re regenerated, born again. Then without doubt, we have these divine facts as our spiritual history, but we may not have a corresponding experience: being in Him and living according to Him.

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