The Book of Romans, Part 21 – The Promise of the Spirit

[Study Aired December 5, 2023]

Rom 9:1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 
Rom 9:2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 
Rom 9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 
Rom 9:4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 
Rom 9:5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. 
Rom 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken no effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: 
Rom 9:7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 
Rom 9:8 That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. 
Rom 9:9 For this is the word of promise, at this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son. 
Rom 9:10 And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; 
Rom 9:11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) 
Rom 9:12 It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger.
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

In our previous studies of Romans 1-8, we have been shown that we are all sinners and have come short of the glory of God. God is transforming us from glory to glory. The old man in us must be destroyed so that the new creature being formed in us can grow in faith. We are being freed from the law of sin, death, the old covenant, and are receiving a new law, the law of Christ. Paul is using the law and the Old Testament prophets as types and shadows to explain the law of the spirit. He explains that we are being freed from the dominion of sin by the transformation taking place within us if Christ be in you. Our new life is life in the spirit and the old is passing away. Christ brought a greater law which does away with the old. This process is impossible for the old man to complete. We must be born again of the spirit to obtain salvation. The new man is being saved from the death of the age to come and is given life in this age. God’s ultimate plan has always intended to destroy the old man and create the new man. This is accomplished through judgment and much tribulation. The old man does not seek death but cannot resist death. 

In our exploration of Romans 1-8, we’ve seen the profound truth is that all of us are sinners, falling short of the glory of God. The transformative work of God is evident as He moves us from one degree of glory to another. A critical aspect of this transformation is the necessity for the old man within us to be dismantled, paving the way for the growth of the new creature being fashioned in us. We are breaking from the law of sin and death, the old covenant. In its place, we are embracing a fresh set of principles—abiding by the teachings of Christ, known as the law of Christ.

Paul is teaching us that the law and Old Testament prophets are to be used as symbolic representations, foreshadowing the law of the spirit. The liberation from the dominion of sin is not achieved through external means as the law of Moses tells us but through an internal transformation. Our new existence is one lived in the spirit, and the former is gradually fading away. Christ, in His coming, ushers into a superior law, rendering the old obsolete. This transformative process is unattainable for the old man; it necessitates a spiritual rebirth for salvation to be realized.

The new man is experiencing deliverance from the perils of the age to come, a plan that aligns with God’s ultimate intention to abolish the old man and bring forth the new. This significant journey takes place amid intense challenges, a path that the old man neither actively pursues nor can ultimately endure. 

Rom 9:1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 
Rom 9:2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 
Rom 9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 
Rom 9:4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 
Rom 9:5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. 

In Romans 9:1-5, Paul expresses his deep concern and sorrow for his fellow Israelites. Despite being an Israelite himself, Paul recognizes the spiritual realities that transcend mere lineage. Building on the foundation laid in Romans chapters 1-8, where Paul outlines the power of God’s grace, the destruction of the old man, and the emergence of the new man in Christ, he now applies these principles to his kinsmen according to the flesh.

Rom 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken no effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: 
Rom 9:7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 
Rom 9:8 That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. 

Romans 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Romans 2:29 and Romans 9:6-8 share a common theme regarding the true identity of God’s people. In Romans 2:29, Paul speaks to the concept of circumcision of the heart, emphasizing that genuine Jewish identity is rooted in spiritual transformation rather than outward rituals. Romans 9:6-8 expands on this theme, discussing the distinction between physical Israelites and true Israelites in a spiritual sense. Paul argues that authentic belonging to God’s lineage is not determined solely by physical descent but requires faith and a spiritual connection. Together, these passages underscore the importance of internal, spiritual transformation and faith as the defining factors of one’s identity in God’s eyes. Circumcision of the heart is spoken of throughout the scriptures.

Deuteronomy 10:16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

Philippians 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

Colossians 2:11-12 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

The gospels share the same concept.

John 1:12-13 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Matthew 3:9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

John the Baptist’s words challenge the notion that physical descent from Abraham guarantees spiritual privilege. God can raise up children to Abraham from unexpected sources, emphasizing a spiritual lineage.

Revelation 2:9 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

This verse highlights a distinction between those who claim to be Jews outwardly and a deeper, spiritual reality. Our identity goes beyond physical lineage and is tied to a relationship with God.

Paul continues by giving us the Old Testament types and shadows.

Rom 9:9 For this is the word of promise, at this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.
Rom 9:10 And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;
Rom 9:11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) 
Rom 9:12 It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger.
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

In this passage, the promise is given to Sara that she will have a son, symbolizing the selection of the elect of God. Abraham’s first son is rejected, drawing a parallel to the rejection of the old man. Esau is also rejected, while Jacob is chosen, symbolizing the chosen status of the new man. These events serve as types and shadows, representing the rejection of the old man and the election of the new man.

As those having circumcised hearts, we, the true Jews, are the elect of God. Through this election, we are being prepared to serve as the kings and priests of Christ. The process involves continuing in His word, keeping his commandment, and enduring until the end. In doing so, we become descendants of the promise originally given to Sara.

Joh 15:8-17 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another.

As Israel and Jacob were chosen, we were chosen by Christ. The flesh profits nothing. Just as Paul hoped that his kinsmen of the flesh would come to see the error of their ways, we also hope for mankind to have their hearts changed. We know that will take place in the ages to come so we groan for the Lord to come swiftly.

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. 

Rom 8:22-23 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

In conclusion, Paul’s expression of concern for his fellow Israelites in Romans 9:1-5 he emphasizes the spiritual transformation, circumcision of the heart, and being chosen by Christ culminate in the understanding that our identity is rooted in a relationship with God, transcending physical lineage and rituals. This study offers a comprehensive perspective on the elect’s journey incorporating Old Testament types and shadows to illustrate profound spiritual truths.

Joh 4:19-26 (BBE) The woman said to him, Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers gave worship on this mountain, but you Jews say that the right place for worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said to her, Woman, take my word for this; the time is coming when you will not give worship to the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You give worship, but without knowledge of what you are worshipping: we give worship to what we have knowledge of: for salvation comes from the Jews. But the time is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will give worship to the Father in the true way of the spirit, for these are the worshippers desired by the Father. God is Spirit: then let his worshippers give him worship in the true way of the spirit. The woman said to him, I am certain that the Messiah, who is named Christ, is coming; when he comes he will make all things clear to us. Jesus said to her, I, who am talking to you, am he.

(Key verses: Genesis 50:1-3)

God is the only Creator of all things, including the evil and the darkness:

Isa 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil [Hebrew: ra]: I the LORD do all these things.

Gen 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil [Hebrew: ra].

Even the wicked were made by Him for Him:

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked [Hebrew: râshâ] for the day of evil.

The belief that evil and death are not God’s creations is given to satisfy the idols of the unbelieving carnal heart which holds on to false doctrines such as the so-called fall of man and that God’s creatures can come up with evil on their own through their fabled “free” will. The scriptures are clear that man was never a perfect sinless creature, and there is only one free will, which belongs to the Father, who works “all things” 100% after His counsel (Gen 1:2; Gen 2:7; Gen 2:25; Psa 51:5; Ecc 6:10; Isa 63:17; Jer 18:4; Rom 8:20):

Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.

Since the scriptures declare God to be the only Creator of all things, including the darkness and evil, it is hard for many to understand how these works of God can also be classified under the words “very good” and “perfect”:

Gen 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Deu 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

God’s perfect plan for the first Adam is one of the best hidden mysteries in scripture, and few can see how darkness, evil, and even death, can be part of that “very good” plan. God is indeed not busy with a restoration plan, but with His original perfect plan. For those who are given the faith to grasp the truth in God’s word, it is clear that God is in the process of making the Adam in His spiritual image through Jesus Christ. God appointed Jesus Christ to be the Saviour (making whole/Completer/Finisher/ Perfector) of all who were made in the first Adam before the creation (Heb 12:2):

1Jn 4:14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

1Pe 1:18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
1Pe 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
1Pe 1:20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

It was not an afterthought or an emergency rescue plan of God that Jesus would come in flesh to be the Saviour of the world. It was part of the perfect plan of the Father that the first Adam would first live an earthy life in bondage to darkness and death, and through this evil experience learn obedience to eventually receive perfection (Joh 1:1-14; 1Jn 2:16; 1Co 15:45-50):

Heb 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
Heb 2:10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Heb 2:11 For both he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,

Heb 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he [Christ] also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
Heb 2:15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Heb 5:8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.

God purposely established death to be an important part of our spiritual development to which most are still blinded:

Ecc 3:11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

God is achieving this death and blindness through the spirit of the world in each person created in flesh, which is totally the opposite to the spirit of God:

1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Rom 8:5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
Rom 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

The earthy man was created a “wretched man” who lives with death, and this acknowledgement is vital to our salvation and peace:

Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25a I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord…

In our last discussion we touched on this theme of death as it is used to conclude the book of beginnings, namely Genesis. God indeed declares the end from the beginning, and in this sense we know that death is part of God’s “very good” counsel:

Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.

Death gathers us to our people

The Hebrew word for death is “mûth”, and of all the books of the Old Testament it is in the book of Genesis where this word appears second most – 78 times following behind the book of Numbers with 81 times. Genesis ends by detailing the deaths and burials of two of its most important characters, Jacob and Joseph. First we read that Jacob was “gathered unto his people” in death:

Gen 49:33 And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.

We also discussed how these details about Jacob’s death helps us to understand how we are all born spiritually dead within this marred physical existence and are gathered to the first Adam in that sense (Gen 2:7; Jer 18:4; Rom 5:12; Rom 8:20; 1Co 15:22a).

We also are gathered to Christ and His people through death, which makes death yet again such an important aspect in the salvation process. Dying daily (with Christ) to this physical Adam with all his attachments in us and putting the flesh under our feet is how God ordained that we can find Jesus Christ and also be gathered to Him and His people (Mat 16:24; Luk 12:50; Act 2:38; Act 8:16; Rom 6:1-4; Rom 13:11-14; Gal 3:27):

Mat 10:38 And he that takes not his cross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me.
Mat 10:39 He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it.

1Co 15:31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

We discussed that we, like Jacob, also “gather up [our] feet” to rule with Christ to “put all enemies under [our] feet” (Heb 2:8; Rev 1:17):

1Co 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

1Co 15:57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We also touched on the truth that all physically dead people “are perished” having no knowledge or remembrance of anything:

Psa 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee [God]: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

Psa 115:17 The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.

Ecc 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
Ecc 9:6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Even those believers who have died already are still “asleep in Christ” and “are perished”:

1Co 15:17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
1Co 15:18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

It is only at the coming resurrection, the first resurrection, that God’s elect will also finally receive the fulfillment of being “gathered unto [God’s] people” when the fullness of God’s spirit and immortality is given (Rev 20:4-6):

1Co 15:51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
1Co 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
1Co 15:53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1Co 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
1Co 15:55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

Another aspect of death is seen after the death of Jacob in Egypt:

“Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.”

Gen 50:1 And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

Death is a devastating reality, but God in His mercy has devised means through which He works to give us victory over everything in this life, even death. One of the things God designed to help us handle the death of a loved one is the aspect of mourning. Throughout the scriptures we see how this is portrayed, and we also see different facets of mourning (Gen 23:1-2; Gen 37:34-35; Exo 33:4; Num 20:29; Deu 34:8; 2Sa 1:11-12; Job 1:20-21; Isa 22:12; Eze 27:30-32; Mat 2:18; Act 8:2). Mourning is a vital part of the healing process which God instituted after death or when other heart-breaking events occur in our lives. Just as the book of Genesis is full of death, it is also filled with mourning in various applications. For example, when Adam and Eve discovered their physical naked condition and that God’s sentence of death will be fulfilled in them, they initially thought they could hide from God and His judgments:

Gen 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

It was King David who also confirmed this natural desire in us to hide or escape when our natural man is confronted with his earthy condition through pain and death:

Psa 55:4 My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.
Psa 55:5 Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.
Psa 55:6 And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.
Psa 55:7 Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. Selah.
Psa 55:8 I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.

Mourning expresses our natural inability to confront our old man and all the evil associated with it. It is through God’s judgment, His “terrors” to the flesh, that God actually brings His life, truth and righteousness to us (Job 31:23; Isa 10:33; Isa 26:9; Jer 32:21; 2Co 5:11):

Deu 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

For the natural man it is impossible to understand and to accept that God’s perfect works include His judgment. All things are from God, and our flesh wants to avoid God and His judgment because it cannot see the road to true happiness and joy. Flesh believes it deserves blissful pleasures, glamorous entertainment and constant thrills as if that is not also a gift from God which He gives freely to them who can give Him glory in all things (Ecc 6:2). Mourning and weeping is something the flesh wants to avoid at all cost. Jesus sounded the warning for all to hear:

Luk 6:25 Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.

It is also the wisdom of God through Solomon who wrote these words when he also was in mourning over a wasted life:

Ecc 7:2 It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.

Jesus came to earth to show us the way to life, because even Jesus was not unknown with sorrow and grief when He walked in His earthy house of flesh:

Isa 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Isa 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Recognising and acknowledging our spiritual poverty in flesh

The words of Jesus concerning the blessedness of mourning confuse the natural mind:

Mat 5:4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Mourning associates with the initial shocking revelation that the flesh is a temporary creation and needs a spiritual conversion when our old man is replaced by the new man in Christ. This conversion is initiated when we are shocked, and we mourn when we find out that our spiritual Bridegroom is not in the bride chamber when we follow “Christ after the flesh” (Act 2:16-20; Act 9:1-9; 2Co 5:16):

Mat 9:14 Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?
Mat 9:15 And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bride chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.

We mourn because we discover we are guilty of the blood of all the prophets and even the blood of Jesus:

Mat 23:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

Mat 26:27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it.

The revelation of Jesus through His spirit starts with this unveiling of our old man and the complete understanding of our flesh with its earthly connections and deadly convictions and beliefs (2Th 2:1-4). As we did not choose our physical condition, we also do not choose this conversion process, but the Father in His love drags us to see the Christ, and that road goes through much tribulation and groaning (Joh 6:44; Joh 15:16; Act 14:22; 1Pe 4:12; Rev 15:6-8):

Psa 31:9 Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.
Psa 31:10 For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.

Rom 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

2Co 5:4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

“Godly sorrow” versus “the sorrow of the world”

There is a type of mourning that is not acceptable to God:

Deu 14:1 Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.

When we have a lack of spiritual insight, we also have no idea of the estate of the sons of man or what death entails (Ecc 3:18; Rom 8:5-8). We will also not know how to mourn properly for one’s dead. Job, who suffered the death of his ten children together with all his physical riches, could not see the stumbling block of self-righteousness and death in his own heart. He did not know how to mourn properly as he was contending with God and wanted to disannul God’s judgment which actually, in the end, revealed this sad state of his heart to him (Job 40:1-8). Those who know the doctrine of Christ, also know that it takes a long time of contending with God to finally reach the point where we learn how to lay our hand upon our mouths. Then we learn that “the end of a thing [is better] than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit” (Ecc 7:8-9):

Job 40:3 Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
Job 40:4 Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
Job 40:5 Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.

Pro 14:16 A wise man feareth [God], and departeth from evil [his dead old man]: but the fool rageth, and is confident.

There is a difference between how the world mourns and how the child of God mourns as we also see in the way the Egyptians mourned the death of Jacob. First, we see the need for embalmment of a corpse:

Gen 50:2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.
Gen 50:3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.

In its negative application, embalmment is a type of preservation of the flesh, and this is how the world also remains attached to their dead. Even some disciples of Jesus prepared Jesus’ body after His death for burial (Mat 27:57-59; Joh 19:39-40). Naturally we cannot let go of the fleshly shadows and the images of the world. Although the carnal mind also has limited spiritual insight, having a heaven or mind which can make abstractions, even making “fire [to] come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men”, the carnal mind cannot move to the level of applying the spiritual things in themselves (Luk 21:17-19; Rev 1:1-3; Rev 13:13-14):

1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The time period for embalmment of Jacob’s corpse in Egypt lasted for forty days, which again shows our natural attachment to flesh – the number four, which indicates the whole, combines with the number ten which signifies the “perfection” of flesh or our faith in our own works (Eze 1:5; Mat 7:22-23; Rev 7:1; Deu 4:13). It is also said that the Egyptians mourned the death of Jacob for seventy days:

Gen 50:3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.

Joseph later called for a seven-day period of official mourning for Jacob’s families when they reached the borders of Canaan. This difference in the number of days is very insightful, as the world’s mourning shows so much more pain and affliction because of their blindness:

Gen 50:10 And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.

The positive application of this embalming process and the preparation for burial is seen in how we treat the body of Christ, the church, in their time of dying to self (Mat 26:6-13; Joh 12:3-8):

Gal 6:1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
Gal 6:2 Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

It is indeed the “meek in heart” which are “poor in spirit” that will mourn truthfully as they hunger after righteousness:

Mat 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Mat 5:5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Mat 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

The sorrow of the world indeed “worketh death” but Godly sorrow brings about a change in our hearts and in our actions:

2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.
2Co 7:11 For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

—————-

[The author may be reached for questions or comments at glgroenewald@gmail.com]

Detailed studies and emails relating to these foundational themes in Scripture are available on the www.iswasandwillbe.com website, including these topics and links:
Live While We Are Dying
Rev 14:13-20
Ecc 7:1-9 “The Day of Death”
Gathered Unto His People
Is The Flesh Being Sown Our Physical Death?
The Meaning of The Power of Death

Video Links

Job 12:14 Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
Job 12:15 Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
Job 12:16 With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.
Job 12:17 He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.
Job 12:18 He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle.
Job 12:19 He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty.
Job 12:20 He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged.
Job 12:21 He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.
Job 12:22 He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
Job 12:23 He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again.
Job 12:24 He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
Job 12:25 They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.

Introduction

Job has just expressed his exasperation with the elementary understanding his “miserable comforters” are expressing in their efforts to condemn him and to hold him responsible for the suffering he is enduring at the hands of the Lord. Both Job and his ‘comforters’ agree that Job’s loss and his destruction are the work of the Lord. All three of his comforters have agreed that such a catastrophe as Job has endured is, to them, proof positive that Job is a sinner of the lowest degree. The words of Zophar were especially sharp and condemning:

Job 11:6 And that he would shew thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is! Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.

It is true that the word ‘deserveth’ is not in the Hebrew, but the tone of all three of these men, who are types of us all while we are in Babylon, implies that we all truly believe that we are responsible for our own sins and that therefore we are deserving of the judgments we receive at God’s hands. The fact that this is a universal human trait is demonstrated graphically for us in the question the disciples asked of our Lord regarding a man who had been born blind.

Joh 9:1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
Joh 9:2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Joh 9:3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

That is how we all first think. To this very day we all must struggle to remind ourselves that God is working all things after the counsel of His own will, and that no man is responsible for his own actions.

Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
Pro 20:24 Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?
Jer 10:23 O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

So why then was this man born blind? The answer from our Lord himself is that any sins committed by either this man or his parents had nothing at all to do with this man being born blind. When Christ said “Neither this man sinned nor his parents”, He is not saying that this is the first family in the history of mankind who was not “marred in the hand of the Potter”. What He is doing is answering their question about why this man was born blind. In other words, He is telling us that our spiritual blindness has nothing to do with our sins, and He is also telling us that Job’s afflictions had nothing to do with Job’s sins. That is why we are told up front that in human terms the man Job was ‘a good man who loved God and hated evil’.

Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

So the man who Christ healed is a spiritual type of all of us. He was born blind for one reason and for one reason only; “that the works of God should be made manifest in him”. Mankind is born spiritually blind, “that the works of God should be made manifest in him”.
That is the message of the book of Job, and that is how God is dealing with Job and with you and with me. The only reason for all of our afflictions and trials, in the final analysis, is “that the works of God should be made manifest” in Job and in us all. We are all born spiritually blind for that very reason.
Christ gives us the lesson of the book of Job in this one parable:

Mat 13:45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
Mat 13:46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

We must all ‘sell all we have’ and buy the field which contains the pearl of great price. This parable alone might lead us to believe that we willingly sell all we have to obtain the kingdom. But this is not the only parable about the kingdom. The very next parable tells us that there is a dragging process that must be endured before we are made willing to sell all we have to obtain the kingdom of God.

Mat 13:47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:
Mat 13:48 Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.
Mat 13:49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
Mat 13:50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

These parables are not opposing each other. What each parable does is to provide just a little more information about how the kingdom of God is formed within us.

Luk 17:20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

The book of Job and the apostle Paul demonstrate how they “suffer the loss of all” things to gain Christ.

Php 3:7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Php 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

Job simply could not get the pieces of the puzzle together. His life and all of his incredible trials were actually suffered and were lived out for our admonition and Job would never in this life come to understand what exactly the Lord was doing. But he also knew that the day would come when God would reveal His plan to all mankind. Peter tells us this was the case.

1Pe 1:9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
1Pe 1:10 Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:
1Pe 1:11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.
1Pe 1:12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

Peter and the apostle Paul reveal to us that the hope and the final outcome of the ages, “Christ in you”, had not come to anyone in the Old Testament, but it has rather ‘come upon us’.

1Co 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends [ Greek – telos, the outcome, the end product] of the world [ Greek – aions, ‘the ages of this world’, Eph 2:2] are come.

Here is some of that ‘diligent searching’ Peter speaks of as it was done by Job. For our admonition, Job is acknowledging the sovereign hand of our Lord in the kingdoms of this world. Job eventually came to see that God’s judgments and all of his suffering were for his good, but according to Peter, he knows that there is something more that he does not understand.

Job 12:14 Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.

Throughout the rest of this chapter Job is speaking only of the destruction of the sinner who we all are to begin with. Job’s destruction typifies the death of our old man. When Job says, “He breaks down and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening”, Job is not thinking of others. He is thinking of himself, his own “old man” as God’s enemy experiencing God’s wrath:

Job 19:11 He hath also kindled his wrath against me, and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies.

We know he is thinking of himself because when he is later remembering how his life was before God came to destroy him, he tells us this:

Job 29:19 My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch.

The Hebrew word for ‘opening’ is ‘pathach’, and it is the same Hebrew word translated ‘spread out’, when Job is describing his life when God had Satan hedged out of his life.
But knowing the wrath of God upon our “old man” is essential for the salvation of all of those in whom Christ would dwell. Jeremiah has the same lamentation as a type of the death of our “old man”.

Lam 3:1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
Lam 3:2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
Lam 3:3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
Lam 3:4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
Lam 3:5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Lam 3:6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
Lam 3:7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
Lam 3:8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

Notice how similar Job’s lamentations are to the lamentations of Jeremiah. There is no mention of salvation in either of these passages in Job or in Lamentations. So the repentance of our old man is not a “godly repentance unto salvation”, but it is rather a begrudging ‘sorrow of this world unto death’, and it has “no place” in the kingdom of God, but is rather “the sorrow of the world [ which] worketh death”.

2Co 7:9 Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.
2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.
2Co 7:11 For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

Heb 12:17 For ye know how that afterward, when he [ Esau] would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

Esau was physically ‘firstborn’, and in a natural sense “would have inherited the blessing” ahead of Jacob like Reuben, Joseph’s brother, who would have inherited the blessing if he had not lain with His father’s wife and had not sold his brother into Egypt as a slave.
Abraham himself lamented having to relinquish his own firstborn of his flesh:

Gen 17:18 And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!

Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman is contrasted with Isaac, the son of the freewoman (Gal 4:21-31). Esau is contrasted with his brother, Jacob, and Reuben is contrasted with his brother Joseph, typifying the old man of the flesh who precedes the new man of the spirit.
Judas is the type and shadow Ishmael, Esau, and Reuben, who all experienced the sorrow of this world. But it was “the sorrow of the world [ which] works death”. Judas realized he had ‘betrayed an innocent man’, but instead of expressing godly repentance and asking for forgiveness and turning himself over to God’s judgment, Judas demonstrates for us “the sorrow of the world”. He sees his sin, but then he takes matters into his own beastly hands, and he judges himself unworthy of forgiveness, and he adds to his sin by murdering himself.

Mat 27:3 Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
Mat 27:4 Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.
Mat 27:5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

God wants our old man to die. He is intent upon the destruction of the “man of sin” within us. But He will be the one to judge our “old man”, and He will have our ‘old man’ to “die daily” at the hands of “Christ in you”. God wants our old man to be ‘crucified’ daily and to offer himself up as “a living sacrifice”.

1Co 15:31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Rom 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

The stories of Ishmael, Esau, Reuben, Judas and Job all serve to demonstrate just how loathe is our old man to relinquish the throne of our hearts. “Oh, that Ishmael might live before Thee” is exactly what we all cry out to God. Our ‘old man’ of our flesh would rather die, and so he must, because:

1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

So Job continues describing what God was doing to him as the type of our old man:

Job 12:15 Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.

God’s Word’s are typified by water. They can be taken away and dried up, and they can come in such volume and velocity as to destroy our rebellious “old man” within us.

Gen 6:17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
Job 28:4 The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant; even the waters forgotten of the foot: they are dried up, they are gone away from men.
Isa 19:4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts.
Isa 19:5 And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.

Zec 10:11 And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.
Isa 3:1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,

“The whole stay of water” means that all of God’s Truth has been removed away from us while we are less than wholehearted in our obedience to God.
While the drying up of the waters can and does destroy Egypt and Assyria, the types of our old man, at the same time our new man is being saved from death. In other words, our salvation depends upon the death of Egypt within us.

Jos 2:10 For we have heard how the LORD d ried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.
Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Job’s lamentation of his old man continues.

Job 12:16 With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.

Notice that Job did not say ‘The truthfully informed and the deceived are His’ but rather he is informing us that “the deceived and the deceiver are His”. This Truth concerning God’s total sovereignty over “all things” (Eph 1:8) is even more graphically demonstrated for us in God’s own bold words:

Eze 14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Eze 14:10 And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him;
Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

“The deceived and the deceiver are the Lords”, and “the punishment of the [ false] prophet shall be as the punishment of him that seeks unto him”.

Job 12:17 He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.

It is we who are obeying the foolish counsel of our own corrupt flesh:

Pro 5:22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
Pro 5:23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

Under these circumstances we are still living in the bondage of spiritual ‘Egypt’.

Isa 19:11 Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?
Isa 19:12 Where are they? where are thy wise men? and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.
Isa 19:13 The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.
Isa 19:14 The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.

All of our great counsel given by our ‘ancient and honorable… old man’, and all of our own judgments are revealed for the foolishness they are by the Truth of the Word of God. But even then we are blinded by “the pride of life”, and we cannot see or understand what He is telling us.

Pro 16:5 Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.

“The pride of life” is the life’s blood of our old man, and it must be spilled, and our old man must be destroyed by God Himself.

Isa 9:13 For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.
Isa 9:14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
Isa 9:15 The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.
Isa 9:16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
Isa 9:17 Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

When we live our lives believing lies, those lies hurt us more than we realize. We are given a description of the pain and the ruin that “the tail… prophet that teaches lies” wreaks upon us in Rev 9:

Rev 9:10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

Isa 9:16 does not contradict Isa 63:17. Instead Isa 9:16 reveals how God goes about ‘causing us to err from His ways’. Isa 9:16 is in complete accord with Ezekiel 14:9-10.

Eze 14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Eze 14:10 And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him;

Both Isa 9 and Ezekiel 14 tell us that God uses our leaders to deceive us, just as He used Satan as ‘His hand… put forth and afflict Job’.

Job 2:4 And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
Job 2:5 But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.

How does God “put forth [ His] hand” to afflict Job?

Job 2:6 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.
Job 2:7 So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

So if we are ‘dying daily’ or if we are being ‘crucified with Christ’, then it is all “the Lord’s hand” which is working it all “after the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11).

Job 12:18 He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle.

Kings are not normally thought of as being in bonds. What Job is telling us is that God ‘looses the authority’ of kings and places those kings who once ruled and wielded authority, under the authority of others who God has ordained to rule and wield authority over them, as the type of the new man taking the rule over the old.

Isa 45:1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;

Verse 17 tells us that the king’s counselors are spoiled, and his judges are made fools. Verse 18 reveals that we, as that ‘king’, are stripped of our authority over our old kingdom and are clothed with the clothes of a slave. Under those circumstances verse 19 is almost redundant.

Job 12:19 He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty.

Rom 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

Our “old man… stands upon and the dwelling place of our ‘old man’ is built upon the shifting sands of “the pride of life”, and the fall of that man and of his house will be very great:

Mat 7:26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
Mat 7:27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
Rev 13:1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

In time we will ‘stand upon the Rock’, and we will ‘build our house upon the Rock’, but we all stand and build upon the sand first. So Job continues:

Job 12:20 He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged.
Job 12:21 He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.

As we saw earlier, the lies we believe are sent to us by prophets who the Lord Himself has deceived. It is the Lord who has “mingled an evil spirit in Egypt”, and it is He who has made us to err and has ‘removed the speech of the trusty and taken away the understanding of the aged’. Evil is not a creation of the devil as we have been told, and the sins we commit are not of our own will, but are being worked “after the counsel of His own will, governed by ‘the law of sin… in our members’, and in complete and total accord with His purpose. It is not kings who decide to be evil rulers. That too, is a work of God alone.

Job 17:4 For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt them.
Job 32:9 Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment.

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Pro 21:1 The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

It is revealed right here in this book of Job, that ‘the king’s heart’ is ‘turned to do evil’ before it is ‘turned to righteousness’.

Job 7:20 I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?

Job 35:1 Elihu spake moreover, and said,
Job 35:2 Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God’s?
Job 35:3 For thou saidst, What advantage will it be unto thee? and, What profit shall I have, if I be cleansed from my sin?

The fact is that we are told that Job is a good man who loved God and hated evil. So his sin, his self- righteousness, our self- righteousness, is one of those “deep things of darkness”, which we must all, in our own appointed time, come to see within ourselves and repent of thinking that we can take credit for anything, good or evil, that we have done.

Job 12:22 He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.

Many of us have been taught that these bodies of flesh and blood will somehow become eternal ‘spiritual flesh’. But God “brings to light the shadow of death” by revealing to us that this life in this flesh is itself “the valley of the shadow of death”, and these bodies of flesh and blood are nothing more that “the body of this death” from which we must be saved.

Psa 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Joh 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Joh 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

So according to our own Savior, there is no such thing as ‘a spiritual body of flesh’. The apostle Paul agrees with our Lord:

Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Here are a few verses which demonstrate how God “discovers the deep things out of darkness:

Dan 2:22 He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.
Psa 139:11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
Psa 139:12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
Heb 4:13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

“The darkness and the light are both alike unto thee” does not mean that God considers good to be the same as evil. Rather we are simply being told that “all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him” who creates both the light and the darkness (Isa 45:7).

Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

God is indeed the creator of both the good and the evil, but he is calling light out of darkness and making good come of evil. He alone, as God, is capable of doing that.

Gen 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

“God meant it unto good”. The “it” is the evil that Joseph’s brothers committed against him in selling him into Egypt as a slave. That evil and all evil of all time is ‘meant by God unto good’, and He alone will bring that to pass in His own time.
In the meantime “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”.

Mat 6:34 Take therefore no [ anxious] thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

It is all by God’s own design:

Job 12:23 He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again.

“There has never been a righteous nation” simply because “there is none that doeth good”.

Psa 14:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psa 14:2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
Psa 14:3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

So the worst despots of history were never ‘loose cannons’ with which God was struggling to cope. They are all, rather like Satan himself, nothing more than “vessels of dishonor” and were in the final analysis God’s own sword, to work out His own plan and His own purpose.

Psa 17:13 Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down: deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword:
Psa 17:14 From men which are thy hand, O LORD, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.

All nations are ruled by evil men, within and without. But they are no problem for an almighty God who in reality is working all things in all nations “after the counsel of His own will”.

Isa 40:15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
Isa 40:16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
Isa 40:17 A ll nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

Daniel informs us that God gives the rule of the nations to “the basest of men”.

Dan 4:17 This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.

So inwardly and spiritually we are being told that we are all just naturally ruled by our basest instincts. Outwardly we are made to understand that all of our presidents and all the prime ministers and kings and rulers and dictators of all the nations of the earth are there by God’s own decree, and simply cannot be in that position and at the same time be men with the mind of Christ and have the kingdom of God within them.

Joh 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world [ Greek – aion, “this present evil age”]: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.
Gal 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world [ Gr – aion, age], according to the will of God and our Father:

In the end we will all be very grateful that He has seen fit to deliver us from these dying, corruptible and depraved clay vessels which we call bodies of sinful flesh and blood, which cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

Job 12:24 He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.

We are all ‘shapen in iniquity, conceived in sin… born as lost sheep in need of a Savior’. Of ourselves we do not know what produces the peace and happiness which we all so very much desire. This is the truth of what we know about how to become peaceful and happy:

Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Isa 59:7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
Isa 59:8 The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
Isa 59:9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
Isa 59:10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

Job’s perspective on the condition of our natural man is in complete agreement with King David, and with Isaiah. We “stagger like a drunken man [ and] We grope for the wall like the blind”.

Job 12:25 They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.

This is always the same the message for what must come upon our “old man”. It is the very trials of Job for which we are repeatedly admonished to “praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” and ‘be thankful for His works’.

Psa 107:21 Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
Psa 107:22 And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.
Psa 107:23 They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
Psa 107:24 These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.
Psa 107:25 For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
Psa 107:26 They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
Psa 107:27 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.
Psa 107:28 Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
Psa 107:29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Psa 107:30 Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
Psa 107:31 Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

So we end this chapter without one positive word for the fate of our old, first man. Job, as the type of that old man, sees nothing but death and destruction for himself as ‘the enemy of God’. But as is always the case, it is through the death of that old, first man Adam, and through his destruction, that the glorious new man, made in the image of the Son of God, is being birthed “in earthen vessels”.

2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2Co 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

Next week we will hear Job continue to foolishly compare himself with his friends before telling them they are “forgers of lies” who if they were wise would simply shut up and be quiet.

Job 13:1 Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it.
Job 13:2 What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you.
Job 13:3 Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.
Job 13:4 But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.
Job 13:5 O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.
Job 13:6 Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips.
Job 13:7 Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?
Job 13:8 Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God?
Job 13:9 Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him?
Job 13:10 He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons.
Job 13:11 Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you?
Job 13:12 Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.
Job 13:13 Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.
Job 13:14 Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand?

Video Links

Act 1:8 But ye shall receive power [ Greek – dunamis, G1411], 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.

Introduction

I have been asked by several people to give a talk about what the scriptures reveal about fear and phobias. When I was first asked to do this, the first scripture that came to my mind was:

1Jn 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

That is not a condemnation of any of us. It is rather a revelation of all of us. Fear is common to all men, and this verse is couched in admonitions to love our brothers, because lack of love contributes to fear, and thinking of the needs of others is one of the greatest tools for fighting fear. When all you can think of or talk about is yourself, and your misfortunes, you are a miserable and terrified person. Here are the verses immediately following that verse:

1Jn 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
1Jn 4:20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
1Jn 4:21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

So the point the holy spirit is making here in 1Jn 4 is that there may be many things which can be done to fight fear, but none are any more important than loving your fellow man. The point is not that there are some people who are not perfected in love, but rather that none of us has yet been perfected in love, and we are all in need of remaining “sober and vigilant” against allowing any “root of bitterness” to spring up in our lives.

Heb 12:15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

There it is. It is a very plain warning which is given to us all. Beware that you do not allow ‘any root of bitterness’ to spring up and trouble you, because this is exactly what does happen, and it defiles many.’
So fear is actually something we all struggle with on a daily basis as we fight the self- centered beast we have come to recognize as that person right there in the mirror. Christ Himself dreaded the prospect of being murdered at the age of 33.

Mat 26:36 Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.
Mat 26:37 And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
Mat 26:38 Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.

Here is the Contemporary English Version of what happened with Christ here in the garden of Gethsemane.

Mat 26:36 Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. When they got there, he told them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”
Mat 26:37 Jesus took along Peter and the two brothers, James and John. He was very sad and troubled,
Mat 26:38 and he said to them, ” I am so sad that I feel as if I am dying. Stay here and keep awake with me.”
Mat 26:39 Jesus walked on a little way. Then he knelt with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, don’t make me suffer by having me drink from this cup. But do what you want, and not what I want.”(CEV)

I am, by no means equating Christ’s experience with a panic attack, but I am pointing out that Christ did face death as a young man. He had not lived to be 100 years old and His body was not worn out and tired, and He faced death just as you and I would under the same circumstances. It was a dreadful event, even for Him. He was ‘so sad he felt as if He were dying.’ So my point is simply that fear, and a sense of dreadfulness is common to all flesh under certain circumstances of life, even the flesh of Christ. Fear, according to scripture, is simply part of our Adamic life of “by nature being children of God’s wrath,” and as such living under the curse of terror for our disobedience.

Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Lev 26:15 And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:

That is all of us to a tee. So what is prophesied for such sinners?

Lev 26:16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

What these verses in Leviticus are saying is that your enemies will scare you with the false doctrines and false fears, like the doctrine of eternal hell fire, and like all the phobias of life, which, along with all the other false doctrines they will give you, will “consume your eyes, and cause sorrow of the heart,” so that you cannot see the truth and see that the terror with which they threaten you is nonexistent. But being blinded to that fact, you will work for those, your enemies, and ‘sow your seed’ with them, and as they themselves urge you, “give till it hurts,” “for your enemies will eat it.” In other words, your enemies thrive on your faith in their lies.
In other words, if you truly believe that you are about to be embarrassed in front of someone, or that you are about to smother, or choke or have a heart attack, or that you are about to die, it doesn’t matter that none of that is true, because in your mind something dreadful is about to happen, and you are living in terror. We are a society eat up with the “what if” syndrome that scares everyone with the very worst case scenario and sets the mind up to expect it. The Learning Channel, the History Channel, the evening news, the National Geographic channel all threaten us with dire predictions of global warming, the collapse of the country, the extinction of mankind, etc. Rest assured none of the predictions will occur.  God’s word is much more reliable than all the “gloom and doom” theories. Scripture tells us life will be still chugging along when Christ returns with the people of the nations “marrying and giving in marriage”, which shows us a continuation of the habits of our societies.
Terror is common to us all at our appointed time. That is the curse God pronounces upon us when we “despise His statutes” as we all do in our appointed time.
When I was asked to speak on this subject, I wondered just how prevalent completely unfounded phobias are in our modern society, so I did a little research and found this article from a magazine called Quality Health. I have excerpted these few paragraphs which I will read to you.

“By Emily Dillon
Reviewed by QualityHealth’s Medical Advisory Board

Do you have an irrational or excessive fear of something? If so, you’re not alone. According to the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education (APIRE), 7.8 percent of U. S. adults suffer from a phobia of some kind.

What Is a Phobia?
A phobia is defined as an abnormally emotional and physical response to an imagined or irrationally exaggerated fear. According to the American Psychiatric Association, symptoms of a phobia include but are not limited to:

• Feelings of panic, dread, horror, or terror.
• An understanding that the fear goes beyond normal boundaries and the actual threat of danger.
• Uncontrollable and automatic reactions that consume a person’s thoughts.
• Rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling, and an overwhelming desire to flee the situation.
• Extreme measures taken to avoid the feared object or situation.

The 5 Most Common Fears

According to medical professionals, phobias range from generalized fears of certain situations to irrational worries about specific objects, animals, or places. The following represent some of the most common conditions:

1. Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is defined as the abnormal fear of being helpless in a situation from which escape may be difficult or embarrassing. Those suffering from agoraphobia– an estimated 5 percent of the U. S. population—may avoid bridges, busy streets, and crowded stores. In extreme cases, patients may become so disabled that they refuse to leave their homes. Two- thirds of those who suffer from agoraphobia are women, and symptoms usually develop between late adolescence and the mid-30s. Most people suffering from agoraphobia develop the disorder after suffering from one or more spontaneous panic attacks. These attacks seem to occur randomly, making it impossible to predict what situation will trigger the next reaction. The unpredictability of the attacks trains a person to anticipate future attacks and avoid any situations that could trigger them.

2. Social Phobia
A person suffering from a social phobia fears being watched or humiliated while doing something in public. The feared activities can be as mundane as shopping at a grocery store or walking the dog. Many people suffer from a generalized social phobia, in which they fear and avoid social and interpersonal interactions of any kind (the most common being public speaking). Social phobias tend to develop soon after puberty and, if left untreated, can last a lifetime.

3. Aerophobia
 A erophobia is the abnormal and persistent fear of flying. Aerophobics experience severe anxiety even though they know that flying isn’t risky enough to justify their fear level… In extreme cases, the patient’s anxiety about flying may be so extreme that it prevents him or her from air travel completely or causes the person to become physically sick, have panic attacks, or vomit at just the sight of a plane.

4. Acrophobia
Acrophobia, better known as a fear of heights,  [ can keep you from entering an elevator, an escalator, or even going up a flight of stairs.]

5. Claustrophobia
Claustrophobics, who fear of being trapped, may experience symptoms or panic attacks in cars, trains, planes, elevators, … and virtually any other confined space. It’s interesting to note that people who have panic attacks may, as a result, develop claustrophobia because they’re afraid they won’t be able to escape a situation if they have an attack. 

Phobias that persist into adulthood are rarely conquered without treatment. If you think you or a loved one may be suffering from a phobia, it’s imperative that you seek help. With proper treatment, which may include cognitive behavior therapy and/ or medication, the vast majority of phobia patients can overcome their fears and be symptom- free for years, if not for life.”

I used to believe that these phobias were just people who wanted attention, but the exact opposite is very often the case. Unwarranted fear is a very real curse upon the lives of many people.
Christ certainly did not suffer from unwarranted fear, but He certainly did suffer from the dread of what he knew was about to happen on the night he was apprehended by those who hated Him so. In Joh 14 Christ is speaking to His disciples on the night of His betrayal by Judas and His apprehension at the hands of the Jews. Judas and the Jews, of course, are really you and me. It is in these circumstances that Christ’s whole concern is for the welfare of His disciples. When we might think that He would be in need of comfort, He is instead comforting others with these words:

Joh 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Joh 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
Joh 14:17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
Joh 14:18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

Who is it who, through the Father’s holy spirit, is “with us to the end?”

Mat 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 [ Greek – aion, age]. Amen.

Christ had already laid claim to being the Truth when earlier in this same 14th chapter of John, He had told Thomas and the other disciples that they already knew the way to life because they knew Him:

Joh 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
Joh 14:4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
Joh 14:5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Joh 14:7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

If “no man come to the Father but by me,” then what is this verse saying?:

Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

That is right, Christ identifies Himself with the spirit of His Father. “Where I am you may be also” is not a promise which pertains only to the distant future. We are even now seated with Christ in the heavens, because He is seated at the right hand of His father in the heavens, and where He is, there we are.

Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Eph 2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly [ places] in Christ Jesus:
Eph 2:7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in [ his] kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

Christ is not claiming to be God’s spirit. What He is claiming is that God’s spirit has been given to Him, and that through God’s spirit Christ can come into us and dwell in us. Christ does, through God’s spirit, live His life in us. When He was in the flesh, He could not do that, but through God’s Spirit, Christ can and does live and dwell in each of us just as His Father dwells in Him. That is not a lie; that is the Truth. So He tells us:

Joh 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
Joh 16:14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
Joh 16:15 All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
Joh 16:16 A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.

Do you “see Christ” or do you see all kinds of “lying wonders,” which keep you worshiping that lying beast who is keeping you in fear and dread of life? Believe Christ and the Truth, and realize that the lies are false spirits telling you falsehoods which have no basis in the Truth.

2Th 2:9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

We can believe “him whose coming is after the working of Satan,” or we can believe this:

Joh 14:18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

It is through His Father’s spirit that Christ lives His life in us. Christ’s life was not a life of fear. Philip had just asked Christ to show all the disciples His Father, and this is what Christ said:

Joh 14:8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
Joh 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
Joh 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

Christ has just now revealed to us that His words are His Father’s works. In Christ’s mind His Father’s words are the same thing as His Fathers works. In other words, Christ’s words are His Father’s works in you and me. So, if Christ says “we will receive power after the holy spirit is come upon us,” then it is when the holy spirit comes upon us that “The Father that dwells in us does His works.”

What Are “The Works We Do?”

What power do we have when the holy spirit comes upon us? Well, we have the power that Jesus has because “as He is so are we in this world.” He has “sent us just as His Father has sent Him,” and we are promised to do the works Christ did, “and greater works than Christ did.”

1Jn 4:17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
Joh 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
Joh 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

If Christ’s words were physical words, then we could expect to do physical miracles in “greater” numbers and quality than Christ’s physical miracles. But “the words that I speak unto you” are not physical words, “they are spirit.” So it is a much better and lasting work Christ is doing in us because it is a spiritual, and therefore “greater work”, because He has returned to His Father, where He was before emptying Himself of His divinity and coming to this earth:

Joh 1:30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.
Joh 6:62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: t he words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

What works do we do to receive this power? Rest assured it is not physical work, and it is not of us.

Joh 6:28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

The work we do is “That ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.” Why should we “believe on Him whom He hath sent?” What benefit or power is there in believing the words of Christ, which are in Christ’s words spirit? Let’s look again at what Christ said when He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, while they were hiding behind shut doors in fear of their lives.

Joh 20:19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
Joh 20:20 And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.
Joh 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

“Peace be unto you… Then said Jesus again, Peace be unto you.” Peace is the opposite of fear. Those four words mean little more than a salutation to so very many. But those four words, “Peace be unto you” mean so much to so very few. Right there in those four words is “power over all the power of the enemy.” To have inward peace is what Christ called “all power in heaven and in earth.” Inward peace is worth more than all the outward physical miracles that Christ ever performed or ever will perform. Christ physically healed many thousands while he was walking this earth in a body of flesh and blood. It was the very people who had, just the day before, witnessed the miracles Christ had performed by both “healing their sick” and feeding the multitudes with “five loaves and three fishes,” who turned away and walked no more with Him after He told them that the physical benefits of physical miracles was not what mattered, and that the physical benefits of physical miracles upon the flesh “profited nothing.”

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Joh 6:66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

“From that time” was the day after that incredible miracle was wrought upon the whole multitude, and the reason they “walked no more with Him,” was because He had just informed them that the physical benefits of physical miracles had not and do not affect the heart.

Joh 6:26 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [ they] are spirit, and [ they] are life.

It is the spirit that affects and heals the heart, and Christ’s words are that spirit. These were the very people who had, only the day before, physically benefited from that miracles of physically “healing of their sick” and of eating of Christ’s supernaturally produced physical loaves and physical fishes. It was this very same multitude of whom Christ tells us in chapter 8 “You want to kill Me… because I tell you the Truth. That is the multitude who cried out for Christ’s crucifixion, and that is the extent to which the benefits of physical miracles will change the hearts of the multitudes, and that is why those who are so caught up in calling for the physical benefits of  physical miracles are so disgusted with these very words which caused them to turn their backs on Christ and ” go back, and walk no more with Him.”

Joh 6:26 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
Joh 6:27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
Joh 6:28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Joh 6:30 They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?
Joh 6:31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
Joh 6:32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
Joh 6:33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.

Christ had just given these ungrateful recipients of the benefits of his miracles the words of life: “This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He hath sent.” He had just chided them for wanting the physical benefits of physical miracles which had not changed their hearts, and their response was a request for the benefits of more physical miracles. These people had not simply been fed the loaves and fishes, these are the multitudes who Matthew tells us also had their sick healed that very same day.

Mat 14:14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.
Mat 14:15 And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.
Mat 14:16 But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.
Mat 14:17 And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.

When Christ said “give you them to eat,” He was speaking spiritually for your benefit and for mine. We know this is so because He tells us “the words I speak are spirit.” So this entire event of “healing their sick” and feeding the multitudes with fish that had been in the fire and bread which had also been baked in the fire was all done, not just for the benefit of the multitudes, but for the benefit of Christ’s disciples who He had promised to make “fishers of men.” The carnal multitudes “profited nothing,” but Christ’s words of spirit profit those who see them for what they really are; “They are spirit and they are life.”
These multitudes on the other hand, you and me at our appointed time, are the people who had their sick healed, had seen and experienced all the physical benefits of all of those miracles, and then when Christ told them that believing on and obeying His words was far more important than the physical benefits of His miracles, “they walked no more with Him.”
So what power then did those who stayed with Christ receive? Were they given the same power Christ was given to perform miracles for the physical benefit of the multitudes? Were they given the ability to do greater works than Christ by doing more and greater miracles? While there is no denying that the apostles were given the power to heal the physically sick, cast out the evil spirits which caused physical diseases and even, in the case of the apostle Paul, to raise up a dead man, let’s be intellectually honest and admit that it simply is not possible to say that is true of any of the twelve apostles or anyone else since Christ.

Joh 21:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

Those to whom it has been given to do ” the work of God, [ and] believe on him whom he hath sent,” realize that the physical benefits of physical miracles is not the focus of being given “power over all the power of the enemy.”

Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Luk 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

“Serpents and scorpions” have nothing at all to do with physical snakes and insects. They are Bible- speak for all the lies and false doctrines which have been oppressing God’s creation since the first ‘serpent’ told the first lie, which mankind still believes to this very day:

Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

That is a lie which makes us value this physical body and the benefits of the flesh over the true power of God’s spirit to set us free from all lies and to give us the peace of mind and the faith in His words, which produces that peace. That peace of mind and spirit is worth more than all the physical benefits of all the physical miracles produced by either Christ or any and all of His disciples of all time. The flesh profits nothing, and all the lies which teach that we will do the physical miracles and greater of our Savior, are manifestly false and serve only to seduce unsuspecting babes in Christ to yield themselves to a multitude of false doctrines which take away the very peace we have been given in Christ and believing on Him and His “words which are spirit and life.”

Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Believing on Christ is believing His words. In the very same chapter in which Christ had fed the multitudes, of which multitudes Matthew tells us “He healed their sick,” Christ also makes this statement. This is part of the statement which caused all of His disciples, whose emphasis was on the physical benefits of physical miracles, to “go back and, walk no more with Him.”

Joh 6:66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

“From that time” included these words from just a few verses earlier:

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth [ Greek, gives life]; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Here are the intervening verses:

Joh 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
Joh 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
Joh 6:66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

Was Christ saying that these people “believed not” that he could heal their sick and eat supernaturally produced loaves and fishes? Obviously not! They had just the day before had their sick healed and had witnessed and eaten of the loaves and fishes.

Mat 14:14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.
Mat 14:17 And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.
Joh 6:11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.
Joh 6:12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
Joh 6:13 Therefore they gathered [ them] together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.
Joh 6:14 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.
Joh 6:15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.

What is Christ saying? Is Christ saying that these people had not the faith to believe in healing revivals and the prosperity gospel? Absolutely not! That was the staple of these multitudes, just as it is the staple of the multitudes who follow Christ to this very day. These people had witnessed healing of their fleshly bodies, had witnessed Christ feeding thousands of people with five loaves and three fishes, and yet they were so carnal that they had conspired to force Christ to become their physical king.

Joh 6:15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.

The words of Christ, “the flesh profits nothing,” even if that flesh is physically healed and physically whole, were of no use to such carnal Christians at that time, and they are to this very day of no use to the babes in Christ who “come behind in no gift,” and “are yet carnal… babes in Christ.”

1Co 1:1 Paul, called [ to be] an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes [ our] brother,
1Co 1:2 Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
1Co 1:6 Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
1Co 1:7 So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:

But an inordinate emphasis on gifts which benefit the flesh, is the very sign of an immature Christian. So we are told of these very same Christians, something that is completely foreign to their doctrine:

1Co 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
1Co 3:2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [ to bear it], neither yet now are ye able.
1Co 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
1Co 3:4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

It is the healing of the physical flesh, which they insist upon and upon which is their every thought. It is the physical prosperity of the flesh which they insist upon and upon which they dwell. This is you, and this is me. The words that Christ speaks saying “the flesh profits nothing” are ignored and denied and literally despised, and they are replaced with a false doctrines which speak of physical healing apart from “dying daily,” and of physical prosperity apart from “selling all you have, to take up your cross and follow Christ.” These lies replace “the flesh profits nothing,” with phrases like “spiritual flesh.” It is a lie that will rob us of our peace and of our power over all the power of the enemy.

Joh 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Why is there “no good thing in the flesh?” Why cannot the flesh “perform that which is good?”

1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

So much for the orthodox false doctrine of a body of “spiritual flesh.”  “In my flesh dwells no good thing,” and lest there be any doubt Paul goes out of his way to drive this point home in second Corinthians:

2Co 5:16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more [ after the flesh].
2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

This afternoon we will see the difference between the words power and authority. The King James makes very little or no distinction between these two words, and actually uses them interchangeably, but they are different words with different meanings and we need to know what are those differences.

One of Willard’s greatest desires was that the body of Christ nurture each other, support each other and love one another. Please keep Bettie and all of Willard’s extended family in your prayers.
Willard was greatly missed at our conference, so it was a joyous event when Willard called us on Saturday afternoon. After that call, we recorded personal greetings to Willard and Bettie which we hoped he would get to see while he was recovering from his surgery. Deedle has been able to make these two short videos available.
Phone Call with Willard
Hello to Willard and Bettie

Here are the 2 latest conference talks Willard gave before his passing. Willard’s greatest desire during his life time was to bring the body together in such a way that we are truly tending the needs of the body as best the Lord has given us the ability to do. Please take a look at these audios/ videos to know what Willard wanted for us all.

Hamlin, PA – May 19-20, 2007
“What Is The Part of The Wife In The Church”  by Willard Rogers  11.9mb

Dallas, TX – February 5-6, 2007
“What Is Your Part In The Body Of Christ”  by Willard Rogers  13.2mb

Hamlin, PA – May 19-20, 2007
“What Is The Part Of The Wife In The Church” by Willard Rogers

Dallas, TX – February 5-6, 2007
“What Is Your Part In The Body Of Christ”  by Willard Rogers