Ephesians (Program #37) – The Gifts Perfecting the Saints

There is a wonderful passage in the 68th Psalms that says : when Christ ascended to the Father after His resurrection, He took with Him an offering of all the redeemed sinners, those that had previously been held captives to sins, Satan even death. These redeemed ones were His offering to the Father

Listen to Psalms 68:18 “You have ascended on high; You have led captive those taken captive; You have received gifts among men, Even the rebellious ones also, That Jehovah God may dwell among them.”

The apostle Paul quoted from this verse in Ephesians 4, but he adds to it, making clear that the Son has now given these ones back to the Body, the Church, even to mankind as gifts.  The gifts that Christ had given to His Body that is our topic today.

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Zechariah (Program #7) – The Visions of Consolation and Promise (6)

God cares about His chosen people and God is for His chosen people that through all His judgments He will perfect them and punish those who oppose His people. This is the last program dealing with the eight visions in the book of Zechariah. In chapter 6 we see another vision of God’s judgment on unrighteousness and also His judgment on His people. The judgment on His people is for the purpose of perfecting them so God’s full and eternal purpose may be accomplished. But His judgment on those nations that come against Israel, His people is referred to Israel in this case because we’re talking about the Old Testament prophet Zechariah, but it applies God’s people in every age. God wants to perfect His people so He can accomplish His goal of producing the Body of Christ. But Israel now is under a lot of opposition from a lot of different nations, kingdoms and peoples. So God is judging these people and protecting and perfecting His people in those judgments.

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Proverbs (Program #8) – The Detailed Precepts for Man To Live a Proper Human Life (3)

The book of Proverbs is full of wisdom but the real purpose of Proverbs is to cultivate our new man. Yet many people come to the book of Proverbs seeking wisdom to help them and improve their old man, their natural life, to improve their “self”. But the problem is no matter how much we improve our “self”, we still according to the Lord’s word in Luke 17:33 we need to deny our “self”. We need to take up the cross and follow the Lord. So at best we’re perfecting our “self” that we need to deny. But if we have the light and we see Proverbs in a proper way, we can see the benefit of the book of Proverbs is to help us to cultivate our new man.

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