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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2 Corinthians (Program #40) – The Minister’s of the New Covenant (13)

2 Corinthians chapter seven is very unique in the New Testament. It’s hard to find even a thread of teaching or doctrine in this chapter. But rather we are allowed into Paul’s heart to touch the deep and intimate feelings that he has regarding the believers in Corinth.

7: 3…”you are in our hearts...”
7:4… “I am filled with comfort, I overflow with joy in all our affliction.”

This is the apostle, fully restoring and fully reconciling those whom he had previously rebuke for their many failures and sins in his first epistle to the Corinthian church.

Although we may only see his tender emotional feelings been expressed here. Under all is his strong desire for the church in Corinth even all the believers and the entire body of Christ to be brought up to the standard that he revealed in another of his epistle, Ephesians. Ephesians 4:16

16 “..all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”

To see this link between 2 Corinthians 7 and God’s eternal purpose in Ephesians is rare glimpse into the depth of the riches in God’s word.

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Leviticus (Program #20) – The Law of the Meal Offering

Psalm 36:9 says, “For with Thee is the fountain of life/ In Thy light we see light.” The Old Testament offerings from Leviticus when properly applied in our New Testament walk with the Lord will bring us to experience Christ as the very fountain of life. This life brings us into the light, God’s light. In His light, we see even more clearly our true condition and how short we are and how in need we are of the very Christ God has provided us to be our offering, to bring us more into God’s presence.

The meal offering is the wonderful offering for us to enjoy Christ which is related to the cycle of life, and that is related to our walking in the light. God is light!  This really is the Christian life – we walk in the light, God shines in us, this leads us to enjoy Christ as the offerings, then we have more life and this life brings us more light and we get more shining, more brought to Christ as our offering…

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Leviticus (Program #17) -The Sin Offering Christ for the Sins of God’s People (3)

In this universe there are only two sources, God is one source and His enemy Satan is the other.  Most often we find ourselves somewhere in between these two sources and usually not conscious of being under the influence of either one.  We may think that we are basically neutral doing our best to do good but occasionally slipping into sin.  But in fact there is no neutral, everything we do, everything we think, say or even feel has its origin in one or the other of these two universal sources.  To be free not just from sin but from the very source of sin is the focus of the offerings presented to us in Leviticus.  Especially when we see the spiritual applications of these offerings that are developed in the pages of the New Testament.

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Exodus (Program #107) – The Altar of Burnt Offering (4)

The first item that a person encountered when entering the outer court of the tabernacle in the Old Testament was the altar of burnt offering.  It was here that he brought an offer, his offering to Jehovah on account of his own sins and trespasses.  Bible teachers have long realized that this picture of the altar points to the very cross of Jesus Christ, where Christ offer Himself up to God for the sins of the people.  But within the altar was a grate, a bronze where the fire was burn, where the offering was actually consumed.  What does this grate represent and how about the four bronze rings on the corners of the grate?  If the altar is a clear type, so are these inner components, a much more mysterious type of Christ’s redemption.

Today we want to come back to this matter dealing with the altar and particularly this bronze grate that was the inner component of the altar.

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Romans (Program #11) – The Gift in Christ Surpassing the Heritage in Adam

We praise the Lord for His redemption, that He redeemed us judicially, but there is much more. He wants to save us day-by-day in His life by the dispensing of His life into us. This is the much more Christian life.  Our salvation begins with God forgiving us of all of our sins, but His full salvation includes much more than this. It includes His life freeing us from the power of sin.

This is a tremendous life-study because we move into a significant new section of Romans.  So far, we’ve seen God’s condemnation and His justification. The first few chapters of Romans unveil God’s condemnation on mankind generally, then on the self-righteous particularly, then we see His condemnation on the religious specifically, and finally on all the world totally. more…

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Luke (Program #53) – The Man-Savior’s God-man Living (1 & 2)

Here is an interesting point to ponder; in creating the entire universe, God took only six days, resting on the seventh. Yet when it came time to redeem and save man, He spent thirty-three and a half years, living a genuine human life before going to the cross.

Why would all that time needed for redemption and salvation? Could He just  miraculously appeared as a man and died the next day or next month to accomplish our redemption?   Well, the salvation that this Ones came to accomplish was more than just as a sacrifice to save us from our sins. This One had to live the life of the first God-Man in order to save us, not just to the heaven, but as the Bible says, save us to the uttermost.

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Mark (Program #42) – The Death and Resurrection of the Slave-Savior for the Accomplishment of God’s Redemption (4)

As Jesus was hanging there on the cross for six agonizing hours bearing the reproach of man and the judgment of God, He did so as a genuine man. Yes, He was unique among all mankind in that He was without sin even of Himself, but His humanity was the same as ours in every other way.

Yet at the same time He was also God and despite the fact that for the final three hours of His suffering, God as the economical Spirit had to forsake Him, while He took upon Himself the sins and transgressions of every man.

Yet intrinsically and essentially He was and still is God.  This is Christ Jesus, the Lord our Savior. The immortal Who put on mortality.  And this mysterious and marvelous God Man died a death that accomplish what no other death could ever accomplished.

His death accomplish far more than just the forgiveness of sins as we will see today. And in addition to dealing with all the negative things, His death also release the divine life to create the New Man, the New Creation and ultimately to bring in the kingdom of God.

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Mark (Program #36) – The Preparation of the Slave-Savior for His Redemptive Service (10)

It’s no coincident that the Lord Jesus final night before His death was also the Jewish Passover. The Old Testament Passover commemorated the sacrificing of a spotless lamb for the shedding of blood to atone for the sins of God’s people.

That Old Testament type signify that one day God would send the real spotless Lamb to be offered up as an eternal sacrifice not just to atone for sins but to accomplish a full redemption for all who believe.

1 Cor. 5 tells us that Jesus was that perfect spotless Lamb, the fulfillment of the Passover. And so on that more significant night the Lord Jesus shared the final Passover feast with His disciples but then He prepared another feast, at feast that would replace the passover. For all those who believe until He comes again to receive all His redeemed ones and feast with them anew in His kingdom.

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Ezekiel (Program #9) – The Throne Above the Clear Sky

The book of Ezekiel opens this way – “Now in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth of the month, while I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God” (Ezekiel 1:1). Included in these visions of Ezekiel are many things from the natural realm that were used to describe things in the spiritual realm. These things are deep but we can understand them through the natural things that Ezekiel gives us as pictures. Today we come again to the clear expanding firmament that is over the heads of the four living creatures. This awesome crystal as it’s referred to in the Bible is actually a picture of the spiritual sky that all of us as believers desire and are capable of being under. How to stay under the clear sky in our fellowship with God is our topic today.

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