God would continue to make promises to Abram, throughout his life, but so far, God has promised him:

The Abrahamic Covenant—Gen. 12:2–3

(1)      I will make a great nation from you; This would be the nation Israel, which will be the central nation in both the Tribulation and the Millennium. .

(2)      I will prosper you; Abram personally became very prosperous. Gen. 13:2

(3)      I will make your reputation great; Abram became well-known in the land of Canaan. Abraham and Moses are 2 of the most well-known Jews of history. And, during Abram’s day, he became known to kings (Gen. 14) and great armies (Gen. 21:22–33).

(4)      You will be a blessing; Jesus Christ would come from the line of Abram. Through Jesus Christ, all men are blessed.

(5)      I will bless those who bless you; Nations, peoples and individuals who have treated the Jews graciously are so treated by God. This has been true throughout human history.

(6)      I will curse those who curse you. Nations, peoples and individuals who have persecuted the Jews, or even have spoken disparagingly of them, are cursed by God.

In 2 short verses, written thousands of years ago, one of the most dynamic factors of history is clearly laid out, and fulfilled as history plays out, over and over again.

Let’s look at the final 2 promises made by God to Abram, 4000 years ago.

“I will Bless Those who Bless you;

and I will Curse Those who Curse you.”

Examples from Ancient History:

1.       The Amalekites

          a.       As the Jews march toward the Land of Promise, after spending nearly 40 years in the desert, they are viciously attacked by the Amalekites. Ex. 17:8

          b.       Joshua, Moses’ general, led the Israelites against Amalek and defeated them. Ex. 17:9–13

          c.        Because this is the first people to attack Israel as a nation, God told Moses to be certain to record this incident, because He would blot out Amalek completely. Ex. 17:14 Num. 24:20

          d.       Amalek has vanished from history. Even archeologists cannot find anything which can be clearly associated with the Amalekites.

2.       The Assyrians

          a.       In the ancient world, the Assyrians became one of the eminent empires of that day.

          b.       For 200 years, their army was undefeated, and they, along with the Phœnicians, controlled the world’s iron market (and its application to weapons manufacturing).

          c.        Their kings are well-known to ancient historians: Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, Sargon, Sennacherib, Esar-Haddon and Assur-bani-pal.

          d.       As they began to decline as a nation, God sent Jonah to them to evangelize them in 754 b.c. (a mission Jonah rebelled against, because he hated the Assyrians).

          e.       However, anti-Semitism began to fester in this empire (even though the Assyrians were a Semitic people—i.e., descended from Shem). In 739 b.c., they threatened Judah for the first time. Jonah’s evangelization had about a 15 year effect, upon one generation of Assyrians.

          f.        Essentially what happened was, many Assyrians were saved under the ministry of Jonah, but there was no dissemination of Bible doctrine. They had no truth to take them from being evangelized to becoming a nation with a subset of mature believers, which would have helped to guide the nation away from anti-Semitism.

          g.       Although there were a myriad of reasons for the fall of the Assyrian empire, the chief cause was their unrelenting anti-Semitism. Jonah hated the Assyrians and it irked him to evangelize them; but that hatred was a two-way street. So, even though many Assyrians responded to Jonah’s message, their anger toward the Jews overtook this evangelical movement in a very short period of time.

          h.       Isaiah, of the Bible, records a very unusual incident. The Assyrians had invaded Judah in 701 b.c. and were about to take down Jerusalem. However, they launched a psychological attack first, where the Rabshakeh (a trained propagandist for the Assyrians) taunted the Jews, warning them of their imminent defeat (Isa. 36:20), in hopes of crushing their spirit. Although the leaders of the Jews were ready to surrender, the people of Jerusalem held fast on the wall. The Assyrians prepared for war, intending to attack the next morning. Then something unusual occurred. The Angel of the Lord [Jesus Christ in His preincarnate form] went out and He struck down the camp of the Assyrians, all 185,000 of them, so that, when they [the Israelites] awoke, they [the Assyrians] were all dead corpses (Isa. 37:36).

          i.         As you may well imagine, you will find that incident recorded in the Bible, but not in any of your ancient history books. However, in the 3^rd Volume of the 1965 Edition of The Cambridge Ancient History, we read the following: The disappearance of the Assyrian people will always remain an unique and striking phenomenon in ancient history. Other, similar, kingdoms and empires have indeed passed away, but the people have lived on. Recent discoveries have proved it is true, and have shown that poverty-stricken communities perpetuated the old Assyrian names at various places, for instance on the ruined site of Ashur, for many centuries, but the essential Truth remains the same. A nation which had existed two thousand years and had ruled a wide area, lost its independent character. To account for this two considerations may be urged. First, even in lands where, as Gibbon has remarked, the people are of a lustful complexion, the Assyrians seem to have been unduly devoted to practices which can only end in racial suicide . . . No other land seems to have been sacked and pillaged so completely as was Assyria; no other people, unless it be Israel, was ever so completely enslaved.

This quotation came from R. B. Thieme, Jr.’s book Antisemitism, ©1974, pp. 21–22. Portions or all of this quotation can also be found here:

http://sermons.logos.com/submissions/89651-Anti-Semitism#content=/submissions/89651

http://www.jaas.org/edocs/v13n1/yildiz.pdf (p. 16, footnote).

http://www.enotes.com/topic/Assyrianism (footnote)

http://www.betnahrain.net/1History/Parpola1.htm

3.       We could also examine the Syrians, Phœnicians and Philistines for additional evidence of God cursing those who curse Israel.

Examples from Modern History:

4.       Spain

          a.       The king and queen of Spain, Ferdinand V and Isabella I, desired to make Spain into a purely Catholic nation.

          b.       Spain was more or less divided at that time into Christian Spain and Moorish Spain; the former controlled by Catholicism and the latter a mixture of Catholics, Christians, Jews and Moslems.

          c.        Previously, Spain had been a refuge for the Jews, but in 1482, the Inquisition began (however, it was not full-blown at that time).

          d.       Torquemada, who apparently originated the inquisition, demanded the expulsion of all Jews in 1492, but Pope Sixtus IV told him no.

          e.       So, Spain simultaneously was a world power, sending out explorers all over the globe; and beginning a persecution of the Jews (among others).

          f.        By 1569, Jews had been mostly expelled from Spain and Western Europe, as this anti-Semitic Inquisition began, and with that began the sharp decline of many western European nations, including Spain.

          g.       This quotation is from the Columbia Encyclopedia, from p. 1863 of its 1950 edition: The expulsion of the Jews deprived Spain of part of its most useful and active population. Many went to the Levant, to the Americas, and to the Netherlands, where their skills, capital, and commercial connections benefited their hosts....Jewish scholars such as Maimonides had a major share in the development of Christian scholasticism..

http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/S/Spain-history-muslim-spain-and-the-christian-reconquest.html R. B. Thieme, Jr. references the actual encyclopedia that this quotation comes from.

5.       Great Britain, German and the United States could all be examined so show a correlation between the rise and fall of Germany, the rise and decline of Great Britain, and the rise of the United States, all occurring simultaneously to these nations and their positive or negative attitudes toward the Jews.

The principle that God would bless those who blessed the Jew and curse those who curse the Jew, is stated outside of the Bible. We read in the 14^th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol 13, p. 51: It is a noteworthy fact of history that great conquerors—Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon—have always treated the Jew well; On the other hand, lesser men, endowed with narrower outlooks, have failed to recognize the Jew and have sought to crush him. But such Procrustean methods are contrary to nature and tyranny, whether toward the Jew or toward any other [group of people] and this has never secured permanent results. The same policy of religious unification has characterized subsequent dynasties from the Assyrians to the Romanovs, and the same fate has overtaken them The Jews have always survived their disappearance. I am quite certain that this quotation was scrubbed from more modern editions.

I took this quote from R. B. Thieme, Jr.’s study of Jeremiah, lesson #96. This quotation can also be found here:

http://sermons.logos.com/submissions/89651-Anti-Semitism#content=/submissions/89651 and elsewhere on the internet, as well as in Bob’s book Anti-Semitism.

The examples of historical anti-Semitism came from R. B. Thieme, Jr., Anti-Semitism; ©1974 by R. B. Thieme, Jr.; pp. 15–22, 31–36. This 150 page book examines these histories in much greater detail and may be obtained from Berachah Church without charge (713-621-3740).

http://www.rbthieme.org/publicationsalphabeticallistings.html provides a complete list of booklets available from Berachah.

This phenomenon, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, is examined on several websites, and many examples from modern and ancient history are given; one of the best is:

http://sermons.logos.com/submissions/89651-Anti-Semitism#content=/submissions/89651

http://www.churchisraelforum.com/CH_11_Blessing_or_Cursing.htm is also a reasonable page on this particular topic, of nations which have been both blessed and cursed based upon their relationship with the Jews. I do not know enough about this website to either endorse or disparage the other materials found there.

The will of God is a topic which seems to baffle a lot of believers, and it shouldn’t. For me personally, it has always been one of the simplest aspects of the Christian life. Knowing the will of God for me has always been fairly simple. It is obeying the will of God which is much more difficult for me.

The Doctrine of the Will of God

1.       There are three categories of will:

          1)       Divine will, which is also known as sovereignty. Job 1:12

          2)       Angelic will. Job 1:9–11 Isa. 14:12–14

          3)       Human will. It is important ot recognize that you have free will and that you are not simply a product of your genes and your environment. This explains why even identical twins are never identical. Gen. 3:1–7 Isa. 53:6

2.       The will of God for the human race:

          1)       For the unbeliever, God’s will is salvation. 2Peter 3:9: The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance [= a changing of the mind toward Jesus Christ]. God wills for all men to believe in Him. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved (Acts 16:31a).

          2)       For the believer, God’s will is spirituality. Ephesians 5:18: And do not be drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. That is in the imperative mood, which means, Be filled with the Spirit is a mandate. Furthermore, for the believer, God desires for us to grow spiritually: Grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—2Peter 3:18). This is also a mandate, as we have the imperative mood here as well.

          3)       Therefore, for us as believers, God desires for us to name our sins to Him in order to restore fellowship with Him (1Cor. 11:31 1John 1:9); and for us to learn the Word of God in a church which teaches the Word of God (Heb. 10:25) under the authority of a pastor-teacher (Heb. 13:17). Simply obeying the will of God in these 2 things sets up a believer for always being in the will of God (when he chooses to be).

          4)       Jesus has promised that becoming a believer and discipleship under Him is not a difficult or burdensome thing. “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke on you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28–30).

3.       God desires for us to grow into spiritual adulthood. This can be illustrated with you and your children. You want your children to grow up to become independent, productive adults. When you first put little Jimmy on a bicycle with the training wheels, and you are behind him, keeping the bike balanced, pushing it, the last thing you want is, for this to end up being the norm for bike rides for Jimmy. What you desire is, after awhile, that the training wheels are removed and that he will no longer require you to be behind him, pushing and balancing the bike. God is the same way—ideally speaking, He wants us to progress to become spiritual adults, able to direct and organize our own lives. The term R. B. Thieme, Jr. used for this is, spiritually self-sustaining. We do not outgrow God any more than we dissolve our relationship with our parents when we grow up; but God wants us to become spiritual adults. This is a matter of free will on our part.

4.       The humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ had free will.

          1)       No free will in mankind would imply no free will in the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hyper-Calvinism teaches that there is no true free will in man, but they never follow this out to its logical end, which would be that Jesus Christ, in His humanity, lacks true free will.

          2)       The basic principle of Divine Guidance, however, is based on the fact that man possesses volition (free will) of the soul.

          3)       Matthew 26:42 is an example of Jesus Christ expressing His free will: Again a second time having gone away, He prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to pass away unless I drink it, then let Your will be done." Jesus did not want to go to the cross. In His humanity, He prayed not to have to go to the cross. Going to the cross involved suffering which we cannot imagine, and God the Holy Spirit makes certain that we know, Jesus, in His humanity, did not want to do this. However, He became obedient to the point of death, even the death on a cross (Philip. 2:8).

          4)       The Lord’s free will, in principle, is expressed in Hebrews 10:7, 9a: Then I said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God, as it is written of Me in the scroll of the book.” Then He added, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” (Psalm 40:7). Jesus Christ willingly placed Himself under the authority of the plan of God the Father; this was a choice which He made in His humanity.

          5)       It only makes sense for Jesus to have free will in His humanity if we have free will. These things are either both true together or both false. Otherwise, Jesus Christ is not true humanity.

5.       Free will, foreknowledge and predestination (this point is parenthetical, to explain the relationship between these things).

          1)       There is one stripe of Christian theology (hyper-Calvinism) that does not believe in human free will. They believe that, not only is God sovereign, but that His sovereignty controls our choice to believe in Jesus Christ. They point to predestination to explain this. They may quote Eph. 1:11 to support this position: In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, Who works out all things according to the counsel of His will. This theology is wrong, although the verse is, of course, correct.

          2)       God has a plan, and His will (sovereignty), our will and angelic will are all a part of this plan.

          3)       God foreknows all things; that is, He knows every single free will choice that will be made by man or angelic being in advance.

          4)       His plan is based upon His foreknowledge. The best illustration of this is, you and your children. Throughout the young life of your child, you make plans upon how to train him correctly and how to bring him up right. Your child has free will, and you adjust your plans in such a way as to consider his free will. The fact that you, as a parent, know what your child is going to do in certain situations, is called foreknowledge (in a limited, human way). That you anticipate the choices of your child and make plans which anticipate those choices, that is predestination and the divine decrees (again, in a limited, human sense). A good illustration of this is the way that we discipline our children—we may spank this one, sternly talk to that one, and ground another. We apply the discipline which we believe is appropriate and might have the greatest affect upon the child’s behavior. That is an application of limited human foreknowledge.

          5)       We do all of this imperfectly; we do all of this apart from knowing each and every choice our children will make. However, God knows each and every choice that we will make and He makes this a part of His divine decrees.

          6)       All of this occurs simultaneously, but is presented to us logically in Rom. 8:29–30: For those whom He foreknew, [those] He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.

          7)       Logically, it works like this. God foreknew us, therefore He predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son (which is His plan, the divine decrees). Since we are predestined (foreknowledge and predestination occur in eternity past), God must call us in time. When we respond with positive volition (remember, God foreknew us, so He knew in eternity past that we would respond to His call), we are justified (God declares us positionally righteous because Jesus died for our sins). Then, in time and in eternity future, God will glorify us, with the result that we will be conformed to the image of His Son).

6.       There are 3 categories of the will of God as related to the human race. An example of all 3 types of will are illustrated by Balaam:

          1)       Directive will of God. Numbers 22:12: God said to Balaam, "You shall not go with them. You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed." The King of the Moabites wanted to hire Balaam to curse the Jews and God told him not to go.

          2)       Permissive will of God. Numbers 22:20: And God came to Balaam at night and said to him, "If the men have come to call you, rise, go with them; but only do what I tell you." Balaam had, by that time, decided that he would go, in violation of God’s directive will. Therefore, God had plan B, which is what He wanted Balaam to do, if he went to the King of Moab.

          3)       Overruling will of God. In this example, Balaam wants to do one thing, and God overrules what he wants to do. Balaam wanted to curse the Jews and God did not allow him to do this. Numbers 23.

          4)       So you do not misapply this, this incident does not mean that God will ultimately overrule all of your bad decisions. This is simply a classification of God’s various wills. Man quite obviously will commit sins and God will allow man’s free will to function. Therefore, you do not get to make a bad decision and then turn around and blame God for that bad decision that you made. To illustrate this, 99% of parents do not want their children to take drugs, and they will do what they can to keep them from taking drugs. However, if a kid starts using drugs, he cannot turn around and blame his parents for this bad decision. Therefore, if you marry the wrong person, take the wrong job, go to a church where you do not grow spiritually, this is all on you; it is not God’s fault.

7.       What we need in order to ascertain Divine guidance.

          1)       Knowledge of the Word of God.

                     (1)      Psalm 32:8: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. God pays attention to us and His will is ascertain from being taught.

                     (2)      Proverbs 3:1-6: My son, do not forget My teaching, but let your heart keep My commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Do not let grace and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart, so that you will find grace and success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, learn to know Him, and He will direct your path. We are not to depend upon our own thinking, but we are to endeavor to know Him, and, as a result, He will guide us.

                     (3)      Isaiah 58:11: And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. This is a promise, and the mechanics are stated in the previously cited verses.

          2)       Yieldedness, which is the filling of the Holy Spirit.

                     (1)      Romans 6:13: Do not present parts of your body to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and every part of your body to God as instruments for righteousness. The word present in this verse means to proffer; to provide; to place a person or thing at one’s disposal; to place yourself under orders to. The Christian life is not some one-shot decision that you make when under great duress or under some sort of emotional or social coercion; it is a minute by minute set of decisions which you make each and every day of your life (the tense of this verb in the Greek indicates continuous action). .

                     (2)      Romans 12:1–2: I appeal to you therefore, members of the royal family, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [which means, place yourself under orders to God] as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world [= the cosmic system], but be transformed by the renovation of your mind [the key is what occurs in your thinking], that by testing you may discern what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. Note that you need to have your thinking renovated in order to know what the good and acceptable will of God is. Furthermore, there is periodic testing. That is spiritual growth; when God tests the Bible doctrine in your soul. Notice first and foremost that the transformation which we go through occurs by the renovation of our thinking (which is exactly what is occurring right now, as you read this and if you believe it).

                     (3)      Ephesians 5:17-18: Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Notice that the two key features are: knowledge of doctrine (understand what the will of the Lord is) and the filling of the Holy Spirit.

                     (4)      We get out of fellowship with sin; we get back into fellowship by naming these sins directly to God. 1John 1:9: If we admit [cite, name, acknowledge] our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Faithful means that God does this every time; just means that forgiveness does not violate God’s character (Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins, so God is just in forgiving us our sins). Cleansing from all unrighteousness means that God forgives us for our unknown sins as well as the sins which we name to Him.

                     (5)      As we advance is the Christian life, by the filling of the Holy Spirit and knowledge of Bible doctrine, we experience spiritual growth, which leads to spiritual maturity. This, in fact, is what God commands us to do. Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2Peter 3:18a). As we grow spiritually, we become more grace-oriented. James 4:6: He gives more grace. Therefore, He has said, God resists the arrogant but He gives grace to the humble [or, grace oriented] (Prov. 3:34).

8.       The principle of spiritual growth: as a believer in Jesus Christ, you can choose to remain an infant (child, or adolescent) believer, or you can choose to grow spiritually. Where you presently work, there was some training to get you to the point where you are now. If someone had picked you up as an infant, and assigned you your present job, it is quite likely, as an infant, that you would be unable to perform the duties assigned to you. Assuming that you have personal integrity when it comes to your job, then your maximum production is dependent upon your age, schooling, maturity and training. The same is true of the Christian life. As an infant believer, you are saved and will spend eternity with God, but, insofar as the plan of God goes, you are nearly worthless. If you have chosen not to grow spiritually (and, let me make it clear, that is a choice that you make), then you will never amount to much spiritually. Your production will be minimal or nonexistent. Only a believer who has doctrine in his soul and who remains in the Spirit for extended periods of time actually does anything worthwhile in the plan of God. Your spiritual growth or your lack of spiritual growth is a personal choice that you make each and every day.

9.       The will of God for the Christian here on earth.

          1)       God wants us to think like He thinks. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philip. 2:5). See also Rom. 12:1–2

          2)       We need to know what God wants us to do. This can be determined by obeying all of the mandates found in the New Testament epistles.

          3)       The geographical will of God, which is closely related to our study of Abram. Where does God want Abram to be? In the land of Canaan or in the land of Egypt?

10.     The mechanics of the will of God is revealed in Acts 11:

          1)       Guidance through prayer. Acts 11:5: "I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me.” I need to say something about prayer, because this is the most misunderstood and misused gift of God. Let me give you an analogy to help explain how prayer is misused: a hammer is a fantastic tool. You can use it to pound in nails and to remove nails. When I go to work, I always carry a hammer. However, you do not use a hammer when you want to cut off a 6' piece of 2x4. You use a saw. Believers without doctrine use prayer as their primary tool—in fact, as their only tool—and they try to use it for everything (“You want me to saw those board there? Good, because I brought my hammer.”). Most of the time, when someone wants to know something or to discern God’s will, they pray. Depending upon their predisposition and emotions at the time, after praying a lot and working up some emotion, they then go ahead and do exactly what they wanted to do in the first place (with some exceptions, of course, who do the opposite of what they want to do). When you are faced with a decision, do not expect to pray and for God to tap your left shoulder for no and your right shoulder for yes. God speaks to us and guides us through His Word. Most of the time, if you are growing, God is guiding you to make whatever decisions need to be made. However, if you are not growing, then God puts in front of you serious decisions which make you recognize that you do not have enough doctrine in your soul to make these decisions.

          2)       Guidance through the thinking. Acts 11:6: Looking intently on this, I observed. And I saw the four-footed animals of the earth, and the wild beasts, and the creeping things, and the birds of the heaven. If you understand principles from the Word of God, then you can properly evaluate the circumstances that you are in.

          3)       Guidance through the Word. Acts 11:7-9: And I heard a voice saying to me, “Peter, rise up, slay and eat.” But I said, “No, Lord, because never has anything common or unclean entered into my mouth.” But a voice answered me the second time out of the heaven, “What God has cleansed, you do not make common.” Hopefully, it is clear to you that God does not periodically speak to us out of heaven. However, His words in this passage represent the words found in the Bible (also called, by the way, the Word of God).

          4)       Guidance through providential circumstances. Acts 11:11: And, behold, at once three men stood at the house in which I was, having been sent from Caesarea to me. There are things which are going to cause you to take certain steps in your life. Personally, I had to move in order to find a job, and the places I wanted to move to, had no jobs available. The place I considered moving to, but did not really want to move to, is Houston; and, of course, every door opened for me to move here. Therefore, you may find yourself spinning your wheels in city A, and God is simply guiding you to city B. Or, you may get a job offer out of town, and the is God’s way of saying, “Move to that town.”

          5)       Guidance through the filling of the Holy Spirit. Acts 11:12: And the Spirit said to me to go with them, not discriminating. And these six brothers also were with me, and we went into the man's house. Just as God the Father does not speak to us audibly out of heaven, God the Holy Spirit does not tell us what to do audibly or through our emotions. However, when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, then we are in His will (we are doing what God wants us to do).

          6)       Guidance through fellowship and comparison of data. Acts 11:13-15: And he told us how he saw an angel in his house, standing and saying to him, Send men to Joppa, and send for Simon who is surnamed Peter, who will speak words to you by which you and all your household will be saved. And in my beginning to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, as also on us in the beginning. One of the things which I have observed is, believers who have the opportunity to gather with others but choose not to, tend to get a bit wacky. This is even true of those who take in doctrine regularly. Maybe it is the academic discipline of listening to teaching with others, but it tends keep believers more balanced.

          7)       Guidance through recalling Scriptures. Acts 11:16: And I recalled the Word of the Lord, how He said, John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit. You have to know the Word of God in order to remember the Word of God. It is not legitimate, when you are in a jam, to grab your Bible, close your eyes, and put your finger on some miscellaneous verse. It is legitimate to go to the Bible for guidance, and look up this or that particular subject (or, far better than this, get the teaching of your pastor on MP3 on that particular topic). It is legitimate to google promises of God so that you can find a promise which applies to your situation. However, it is far better to have this information in your soul as a result of good Bible teaching (which is more difficult to find than you may realize).

11.     Young believers, immature believers, and carnal believers and the will of God: simply put off big decisions until you have grown spiritually. For most people, this means daily Bible doctrine for a year (or 2 or 3) before they ought to make a decision like, getting married, getting divorced, changing jobs, moving, etc. In any case, do not allow yourself to be bullied into some particular course of action. 1Cor. 7:18–28

12.     Young believers, immature believers, and carnal believers and the will of God: avoid cults or churches where other members of the church attempt to bully you into some course of action. When pastors or others inside the church tell you what to do outside of the church, and enforce this in some way, they are out of line. A pastor can certainly teach what you ought to do (do not commit adultery, for instance), but once your walk out the doors of your church, you make the decision before God to do these things or not. There should not be some kind of pressure applied to you (e.g., social ostracism, or assigning someone to disciple you, etc.). If there is any kind of pressure for you to do something within the church (give your testimony, confess your sins before others, pray in front of others, speak in tongues, come forward for any reason, give money, etc.), then you are in the wrong church. A pastor and deacons must maintain some semblance of order in a church, taking into account that this is a gathering of dozens (hundreds or thousands) of sin natures; but whatever you are required to do within the church building ought to be related to the teaching of the Word of God, your personal privacy and the privacy of others. So, if you are a disturbance during the teaching of the Word of God, a pastor may go so far as to chew you out or have you removed; because this impacts the ability of others to be taught. However, if there is pressure put upon you to, say, get baptized in front of everyone, that is a different matter. There, the pastor has exceeded his authority.

13.     Do not confuse legitimate authority with someone bullying you into a course of action.

          1)       Parents have authority over their children, so if you are under the roof of one or both of your parents, they do have the authority to tell you what to do.

          2)       Employers have authority over employees on work-related matters.

          3)       In the armed forces, commanding officers have authority over their subordinates.

          4)       The coach has authority over his team, the teacher over his students, etc.

          5)       The pastor over the congregation with respect to what goes on inside of the church in order to maintain academic discipline to teach the Word of God. That is, the pastor cannot tell you that you must go out and witness to 10 people this week, nor can he assign a spiritual mentor to invade your privacy, but he can certainly tell you to shut up if you are a disturbance during the teaching of the Bible.

          6)       We are all subject to legitimate authorities, and we need to obey those authorities. Rom. 13:1–7

          7)       Furthermore, let me add a little application. You ought to have figured out that, your behavior and actions are between you and God. No one in a church has the right to bully you into some course of action, even if the end result is avoidance of sin. The free will decisions which you make are significant, but not if you are simply going along to get along.

          8)       However, you may have a morals clause where you work. That is legitimate, and you have to obey this morals clause if you choose to work for that school district, business or company. As an example, if you are a school teacher, and you are involved in gross immorality, then a school district ought to be able to remove you as an employee. That is not an invasion of your privacy, as you are not just a teacher of young adults but an example to them.

          9)       More application: you can choose to allow people to invade your privacy for your own good, e.g., interaction with a sponsor if you belong to Alcoholics Anonymous or some similar organization. You have made a choice to give them this authority over you.

14.     Summary Points: How to be in the will of God and how to remain in the will of God.

          1)       You need to be in fellowship, which is achieved by 1John 1:9: If we name our sins, He [God] is faithful [i.e., He does it every time] and just [God operates within His Own essence] to forgive us our sins [these are the sins we name] and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [these are sins which we do not name].

          2)       You need to be growing spiritually. This does not mean that you reduce the number of overt sins in your life or that you speak a holy language now and again (Amen, God willing) or that you become more and more involved at your church (teaching Sunday school, acting as a deacon, etc.). Spiritual growth is achieved by the daily intake of the Word of God taught by a doctrinal pastor-teacher. Grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (2Peter 3:18a). Grace is the grace system which God has provided. All believers in Jesus Christ are given the means and the opportunity to grow spiritually, regardless of geographical location. 99% of the time, this will be learning under the ministry of a doctrinal pastor-teacher (I provide a list of them here: http://kukis.org/Links/thelist.htm). Many of these pastor-teachers, if they are outside of your geographical area, provide an online MP3 ministry, where you can download (or order) previous lessons and listen to the teaching of the Word of God without any financial obligation. Many of them will provide these lessons by sending them to your home by mail. If you are relatively near to any of these churches, then that is where you ought to go.

          3)       If you are not in the geographical area of any of these churches, then you need to operate under normal academic discipline when listening to a lesson. You don’t surf the internet, you do not text, you do not do housework, nor do you do anything else which takes your concentration away from the message that you are listening to. Ideally speaking, if you live within driving distance of a doctrinal church, then that is where you need to be when the church doors are open.

          4)       The short explanation is, as long as you are in fellowship and growing, then you will be in the will of God.

          5)       Now, let’s say that you are a new believer or a believer who has decided to get with God’s program and to start growing, and you face a momentous decision (to get married, to change jobs, to move elsewhere). If you face this as a new believer or as a believer just about to get with doctrine, then you choose not to change your status until you know enough doctrine in order to make this decision. 1Cor. 7:18–24.

          6)       If you are at city A and God wants you to be in city B, do not worry. God will make that happen. Where I was raised up, I had studied God’s Word for about 5 years, but I was spinning my wheels career-wise, and it did not seem as if that would change anytime in the near future. I began exploring my options in other cities. On my list of 3 cities to move to, #3 on the list (and, way, way down from #2) was Houston. I thought of moving to Houston because Bob Thieme was teaching Bible doctrine there. However, this was so far down the list from my 1^st and 2^nd choices. In any case, every door closed to me for my first two choices; and door after door after door opened for me for choice #3. God did almost everything necessary to move me in that direction.

          7)       When it comes to your day-to-day life, God has things mapped out. You have a job or school that you go to, which takes up perhaps 9–10 hours of your day. You do this job (or attend this school) as unto the Lord. That is, you function as if you are working for God, and you remain faithful in all respects, whether anyone else can see what you are doing or not. You have a couple of hours that you spend eating, an hour for Bible teaching, and a few hours for relaxation. If you stay in fellowship all of this time, or get back into fellowship when you get out, then you are in the will of God.

          8)       If you do not have a job or school, then (1) you spend 9 or 10 hours of every single day looking for a job or (2) you set your sights to moving to a different city or to a different state. If you have begun to listen to a particular pastor from the list I provided, then you seriously consider packing up all that you own and move to the city where he teaches (obviously, it is normal to seek out job opportunities in that city by phone and by the internet and then you go there for interviews). God uses your lack of opportunity in city A to get you to move to city B. God allows man to enact foolish political policies, which negatively impact a particular geographical area, to move some believers from point A to point B.

          9)       Gathering together with other believers is extremely important. Heb. 10:25 exhorts us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. I have known a lot of believers over the years, many of them squared away on doctrine. However, when they go off on their own—they make no attempt to gather under the authority of a well-qualified pastor-teacher or as a group—they get goofy, and I can name a whole host of believers I have known in my life who stopped gathering under this sort of authority, and got goofy. Personally, I gather with believers under the ministry of R. B. Thieme III every time the church is in session, and, on off-nights, listen to his father’s teaching. Even though I clearly understand what God’s will is for my life, that does not mean I no longer need to study under my pastor’s authority.

Again, the key to being in the will of God is to be in fellowship, to grow spiritually, and to carry out your duties in life (at your job, in school, or in the home) as unto the Lord.

This is taken, in part, from http://www.divineviewpoint.com/Gods_will_your_life.pdf (Buddy Dano’s website) and edited and appended. Also used as a reference: http://rbthieme.org/Divine_Guidance.pdf which is an online booklet which I strongly recommend, if this is an area of the Christian life where you want more information.

R. B. Thieme Jr., the former pastor of Berachah Church in Houston, had 2 great general achievements in his career: he laid out and explained the mechanics of the Christian way of life; and he developed an updated theological vocabulary.

R. B. Thieme, Jr. developed the doctrine of the faith-rest drill early on in his ministry. The term faith rest describes the way of life of the believer in the Old Testament and faith rest is one of the spiritual mechanics in our lives as believers in the Church Age. Let me reemphasize that Abram is not living by faith-rest at this time.

The Doctrine of Faith-Rest

1.       Definition of faith-rest:

          1)       You place your trust in God, in His Word, in His promises or in Bible doctrine, and you step back and allow God to keep His Word, or fulfill His promises, or vindicate the doctrine which is in your soul.

          2)       The believer must be in fellowship and have a true object for his faith. That is, what he believes must be true. Believers are constantly placing their faith in things which are false and which are not promised by God.

          3)       Whether in the Old or New Testament, the believer must have no unconfessed sin in his life (when you name your sins to God, any unknown sins are forgiven as well—1John 1:9).

          4)       The believer has to know a promise or some of the promises of God; or they must know true and correct Bible doctrine toward which they can exercise faith. A baby believer can no more use the faith-rest technique than allow his spiritual gift to function properly.

                     (1)      As an aside, having been saved and then living for 10 or 20 years, does not mean you have gone from being an infant believer to being an adult believer.

                     (2)      Spiritual growth is always a matter of time, grace and doctrine (2Peter 3:18).

                     (3)      No one is born again spiritually mature, and no one reaches spiritual maturity simply because they believe in Jesus Christ, and then live for a few years (or, live for a few years and attend church). There is a parallel to this in the growth of a child. If a child is raised without soul stimulation, then they do not grow. Wild children or children raised in closets or cages without the stimulation of their thinking and verbal skills do not grow; and past a certain age, will never mature properly. Such children who are rescued at age 10 or 15 never develop a normal vocabulary; they never develop normal social skills. Similarly, your brain has to be regularly stimulated by Bible doctrine, or you do not grow spiritually.

                     (4)      Although church is designed as the environment for our spiritual growth, attending a church does not guarantee spiritual growth.

                     (5)      You cannot grow in a church that does not teach spiritual mechanics.

                     (6)      For most Christians, they think that spiritual growth is, sanding off the rough edges of their personality and improving their moral behavior. The former will often improve your relationship with other people and the latter will make your life better, but neither of these things are the means of spiritual growth. I am not saying that either of these things are bad or that you ought not to do them; they are simply not the means of spiritual growth.

                     (7)      At best, your spiritual life will be mostly ineffective and hit or miss.

                     (8)      In many churches, most Christians are simply taught to be moral. There is absolutely nothing wrong with morality—it is commendable—but it is not the Christian way of life. Morality will improve any person’s life—believer and unbeliever alike. Morality will improve the nation in which you live, but morality does not commend you to God.

          5)       You need to have enough doctrine in your soul to know whether or not you need to act. In a hopeless situation, you need to stand back and watch the deliverance of God. However, there are times when you must act. The example R. B. Thieme Jr. has used innumerable times is, if you need a job, you do not find a park bench and go sit there and wait for God to drop a job on your lap. That is not faith-rest. A soldier at war who is trusting in God does not rush the enemy head-on without cover, time after time after time. Nor will he sit in a fox hole and wait for God to destroy the enemy with a lightening bolt. The soldier functions as per his training, but with his full faith in Jesus Christ, his Deliverer. The key in faith-rest, when you must act, is that your trust is in God’s faithfulness, not in your actions.

          6)       Most of the time, the application of the faith-rest technique occurs in a time of testing. God sends you problems or difficulties or testing, and you respond to these difficulties by applying the faith-rest technique. Again, you may be required to act or you may be required to sit still; but, if it is the former, you recognize that the results depend upon God, not upon the clever actions which you take.

2.       Introductory verses:

          1)       And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him (Heb. 11:6).

          2)       We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2Cor. 4:18).

          3)       Trust in Jehovah with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding (Prov. 3:5).

          4)       We walk by faith, not by sight (2Cor. 5:7).

3.       Whether we like it or not, faith is an integral part of the Christian life. However, it is important to note that most of us have great faith. A learned scientist who knows some of the great intricacies of a single cell (no one knows all of the functions of a single cell), may simultaneously believe that this cell spontaneously generated from non-living matter, despite its great complexity. That requires tremendous faith on his part, and he may even try to pass off spontaneous generation as the only reasonable scientific theory for the existence of that cell. Since a biologist could write his doctoral dissertation on one single living cell (and still not tell us everything there is to know about that single, living cell), it takes tremendous faith to believe that cell just happened. My point is, everyone has faith, Christians and non-Christians alike.

4.       Although this may seem elementary, faith must have an object. You cannot just have faith in some nebulous, undefined spiritual thing. In fact, you must have more than just faith in some sort of God-entity. Faith requires specific objects and specific promises to place our faith in. Furthermore, for your faith to have any spiritual impact, these things you place your faith in must be true.

          1)       This is related to one of the great spiritual problems in the United States. How many times have you heard someone say, “I am spiritual, but I am not religious”? This either means that they have some general feelings about some other, ethereal force out there—in some cases, this is mother earth—and in the few cases where such a person has some well-defined concepts of spirituality, it is often just plain weird.

          2)       Exactly Who and What God is, is undefined to those who claim to be spiritual but not religious; or they define God’s weirdly, based upon nothing in particular. A friend of mine used to see death as a melting pot, and that in death, he would just fall into this great universal melting pot of existence of some sort. It was quite fascinating, because he could not really even articulate what he believed in—and what he believed in changed from time to time—but he expected me to have specifics which I believed in and for the reasons to be carefully researched.

          3)       So, simply having faith is meaningless, since everyone has faith. Simply having faith in religious ideas or philosophical principles is equally meaningless, if these things are not true.

5.       The principle of the faith-rest technique:

          1)       One description of the faith-rest technique is found in Heb. 4:1–3: Therefore, while the promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear so that none of you should miss it [the opportunity to enter into God’s rest]. For, indeed, we have had the gospel proclaimed to us, even as they [in the Old Testament] [did]; but the Word did not profit those hearing it, not having been mixed with faith in the ones who heard. For we, the ones believing, enter into that rest—just as He said, As I swore in My wrath, they will not enter into My rest,—though the works had come into being from the foundation of the world. Simply hearing truth is one thing, but the truth by itself does you no good. You have to hear it and believe it.

          2)       The most fundamental promise of entering into God’s rest is found in Matt. 11:28: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This is faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. In salvation, our faith has a specific object and that object is Truth (“I am the way, the Truth and the life; no man comes to the Father, but through Me.” (John 14:6).

          3)       However, we also have this same principle which is applied in our lives as those who have already believed in Jesus Christ. The example to which the writer of Hebrews refers back to is the Exodus generation who had believed in Jehovah Elohim, but every time that they faced a crisis situation, they did not mix the promises of God with faith (Heb. 3 gives us this context). Heb. 3:7–11 Because of this, even as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, there where your fathers tempted Me, testing Me, and saw My works forty years. Because of this, I was angry with that generation and I said, ‘They always go astray in their heart [thinking]; and they did not know My ways [they did not know and understand Bible doctrine];’ so I swore in My wrath, They will not enter into My rest." (Psalm 95:7–11). Heb. 4:2 For, indeed, we have had the good news proclaimed to us, even as they did, but the Word [of God] did not profit those hearing it, because they did not mix [this Word] with faith in the ones who heard [the teaching of doctrine]. This all refers to Gen X of the Exodus generation. These were the adults who left Egypt. They would die in the desert before God took their children into the land of Canaan (The Word of God did not profit those hearing it [Gen X], because they did not mix the Word with faith).

          4)       Therefore, it takes two things: you must hear the teaching of the Word of God (truth) and then you must mix this teaching with faith—that is, you must actually believe it. This is true in the realm of salvation and in our daily Christian lives.

          5)       We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. We also live our lives doing essentially the same thing—believing in divine truth. For we walk by faith, not by sight (2Cor. 5:7).

          6)       The principle of the faith-rest technique was a part of Old Testament mechanics: You [God] keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in Jehovah forever; for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength (Isaiah 26:3-4). When I am afraid, I will trust in you (Psalm 56:3).

6.       The mechanics of the faith-rest technique:

          1)       Whether in the Old or New Testaments, the believer must be in fellowship for spiritual function of any sort; if you are out of fellowship by committing a sin, then you must first name this sin to God. 1Cor. 11:31 1John 1:9 Psalm 51:4

          2)       The believer must have something in which to believe. Therefore, we must know the promises of God, the essence of God and/or the doctrines of the Bible. Faith requires an object, and that object must be true and accurate.

          3)       When faced with a problem, a time of testing or some difficulty in life, the believer places his faith in an applicable promise of God or a doctrine from the Bible.

          4)       This may or may not require action on the part of the believer. Each situation is different. Let me illustrate this with you and your child:

                     (1)      You are teaching your son to swim, and, as a part of this, you want him to jump into the water where you are. He has to trust you as he jumps into the swimming pool where you are standing. That requires action on his part.

                     (2)      That same child depends upon you for safety at home. In this case, the child does nothing. He doesn’t add extra locks to his windows, nor does he set up motion detectors in his room or keep a loaded gun on his night stand next to his Barney books. His trust is in you to keep him safe (quite obviously, doing these things would never occur to most children, because their faith in you for their safety at home is so strong). In this illustration, the child does not act.

7.       The key to faith-rest is moving towards being occupied with Jesus Christ. Being occupied with Christ means that you will automatically apply the faith-rest technique to any appropriate circumstance. Psalm 37:4–7a Eph. 4:11–16 Heb. 12:1–2 This comes from learning the Word of God and growing spiritually.

8.       As you become occupied with Christ, you view your life and the circumstances of your life in the light of eternity. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has set eternity in their heart, without which man cannot find out the work that God makes from the beginning even to the end (Eccles. 3:11). Israel is delivered by Jehovah with everlasting salvation. You will not be ashamed nor disgraced to all eternity (Isa. 45:17). For so says the high and lofty One Who inhabits eternity, and His name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, even with the contrite and humble of spirit [= the grace orientated believer]; to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones (Isa. 57:15). Spiritual growth leads to seeing life in the light of eternity: But grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity (2Peter 3:18).

9.       Faith-rest was the Old Testament system of spirituality. One used rebound in order to get back into fellowship and faith-rest to live their lives. The consistent use of faith-rest was associated with a believer becoming mature in the Old Testament. Abraham and Daniel are examples of this. Gen. 17:15–27 Rom. 4:18-21 Dan. 6:1-22 Heb. 11:33

10.     In the Church Age, we use faith-rest, but we are given much more than Old Testament believers. We have the filling of the Holy Spirit and the complete Word of God.

11.     The present application and Abram and his lack of faith rest:

          1)       We are studying Abram and what God has given him And Jehovah had said to Abram, Go out from your land and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great; and you will be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and curse the one despising you. And in you all families of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. 12:1–3).

          2)       Once Abram travels to the Land of Promise, God tells him, “I will give this land to your seed.” (Gen. 12:7b).

          3)       Here is how Abram has failed:

                     (1)      God has never told Abram, “You know, if times get tough, then you need to move over to Egypt until things are good again.” Yet, Abram goes to Egypt.

                     (2)      In order for God’s promises to come to pass, Abram must survive long enough to have children with Sarai, his wife. Therefore, there is no reason for Abram to leave the land of Canaan and there is no reason for Abram to lie to the leaders of his host country about anything.

          4)       In other words, what Abram is not doing is applying faith-rest to his situation.

12.     Positive examples of believers correctly applying the faith-rest technique in the Bible:

          1)       In Gen. 14, Abram will intentionally assault an army much larger than his own in order to rescue his nephew Lot. Although Abram faces a great army, he advances against this army because that is the right thing to do. He shows no concern for his personal safety.

          2)       In Gen. 15, God reiterates His promises to Abram and Abram had believed Jehovah, and God credited his account with righteousness (Gen. 15:6).

          3)       When God was laying judgments upon the Egyptians for not letting the Israelites leave, to go into the Land of Promise, one of the judgments was against the firstborn. In order to protect their own families, the Jews were instructed to kill a lamb at midnight, for each household, and apply the blood of that lamb to the top and sides of the entryways of their homes. The Jews believed God and they followed His instructions, and their families survived. Ex. 11:1–12:13. This function of faith-rest required the believers in Jehovah Elohim to act. For some of them, this was their initial trust in Jehovah Elohim.

          4)       Moses, Joshua and Caleb in Num. 13–14 (to be discussed in more detail below under the next main point).

13.     Negative examples of believers applying the faith-rest technique in the Bible (i.e., they fail to mix the promises of God with faith):

          1)       With regards to God’s promises, Abram was not supposed to act on these promises in order to make them true. In Gen. 16, Abram will act in order to make God’s promise to him come true, and he had sex with his wife Sarai’s slave girl (encouraged by his wife, no less).

          2)       The Exodus generation is probably the greatest example of those who continually failed to trust God and His promises. Through the Abrahamic Covenant, they knew that God had promised them the land of Canaan, even though they were living in slavery in Egypt. They called out to God to deliver them from this slavery, and God sent them Moses. God promised Israel (through Moses) that He would lead them out of slavery and into the Land of Promise (Ex. 3:15–22). Once this all came to pass, exactly as God had promised, the children of Israel found themselves in he desert following Moses, and facing many tests. The first is the bitter water test at Marah in Exodus 15. In order for the Israelites to travel from the desert to the Land of Promise, a land given them by God, they would have to survive the trip. This means that they would need a huge amount of drinkable water, even though they would travel in a desert. However, when faced with some undrinkable water (called bitter water), these Jews, who had just observed several tremendous acts of deliverance by God, fell apart and began to complain and fret over their situation.

          3)       These same Jews faced a no food and a no water test at Meribah in Ex. 16–17. They failed again.

          4)       Literally a few months after they left Egypt, the Exodus generation stood at the entryway of the Land of Promise, and they could have taken the land. However, they did not, because they were afraid of the giants in the land. At least 3 men believed God and were ready to function according to His promises (Moses, Joshua and Caleb), and the rest of Israel did not believe God, despite all that He had done previous to this situation. Num. 13–14

          5)       God has these Jews cool their heels in the desert for the next 38 years, while He kills off the older generation (Gen X) and raises up a new generation of believers (the generation of promise). However, one of their first tests involves them facing another no water test, and even this new generation falls apart, and moans and complains, wishing that they had already perished in the desert (which reveals their lack of training by their parents). Num. 20

14.     Examples of the promises of God which we may claim:

          1)       Cast all your anxieties [or, cares] on Him because He cares for you (1Peter 5:7).

          2)       Delight yourself in Y^ehowah, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to Y^ehowah. Trust also in Him, and He will do this: He will make your righteousness go forth as the light, and your justice as the noon day sun. Rest in Y^ehowah, and wait patiently for Him (Psalm 37:4–7a).

          3)       Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all (Psalm 34:19).

          4)       Cast your burden on Yahweh, and he will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be shaken (Psalm 55:22).

          5)       No temptation has taken you except what is common to man, but God is faithful, Who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able. But with the temptation, He will also make the way out, so that you may be able to endure it (1Cor. 10:13).

          6)       There are websites on the internet which specialize in the promises of God. Just google “promises of God.” There are hundreds of promises that God makes to us in the Bible.

          7)       The antithesis of faith-rest is panic, worry, anxiety, and fear.

15.     A natural outgrowth of faith-rest are various doctrinal rationales. A doctrinal rationale is a general principle which is true.

          1)       The essence of God rationale: We understand the attributes of God; that He is Righteousness, Justice, Sovereignty, Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Veracity, Immutability, Love and Eternal Life. At any time, we can integrate our lives and our difficulties with God’s essence, and we are able to recognize that He must always function within the confines of His essence.

          2)       The plan of God rationale: God has an individual plan for every single one of us. We know that this plan is going to include difficulties. You might break up with your wife or girlfriend, you might lose your job, those near to you might die; you may contract a deadly disease; you might be forced to move to a new city where you know no one else. We all face a number of problems and difficulties in our lives. Sometimes these things seem to happen all at once, sometimes we go for months or years without dramatic difficulties; and sometimes, they just seem to happen, one right after another. The plan of God rationale tells us that God has a plan for our lives and during our lives, there will be difficulties, for which God has already made provision. Jesus teaches this in Matt. 6:25–33: "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

          3)       The policy of God rationale. God’s policy for the unbeliever is to provide them with salvation—if they believe in Jesus Christ, they will be saved. For he believer, God provides the means by which we may grow spiritually. Jesus said, “If anyone desires to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine [i.e., what Jesus Christ was teaching], whether it is of God, or I speak from Myself.” (John 7:17). When Peter tells us to grow in grace and the knowledge of God’s Word, that means that God has provided the means by which to do this. God does not give us a mandate which we cannot perform (policy of God rationale).

          4)       The “a fortiori” rationale: God has already done the most difficult thing on our behalf: He has provided us with eternal salvation. The a fortiori rationale means, if God has done the more difficult thing on our behalf, then we can trust Him to do that which is easier on our behalf. One specific example of a fortiori rationale is Rom. 5:8-9: "But the God demonstrates His own love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died instead of us. Much more, therefore, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be delivered from the wrath of God through Him." Jesus Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; therefore, now that we are in Him, we know that we will be delivered from the wrath of God. If God provides the greater in justification (imputation of perfect righteousness), it follows, a fortiori, that the justice of God can provide the less, the imputation of special blessings at maturity and thereafter. These special blessings, sometimes called supergrace blessings, glorify God in time.

          5)       Of the 4 rationales which I have given here, there is certainly some overlapping. For example, when I said that God will not mandate us to do something which we cannot do, I put this under the policy of God rationale; however, that is also related to God’s character.

16.     Applying the faith-rest drill does not always result in the outcome we desire. The outcome of any difficulty in our life is going to be in accordance with the plan of God and the outcome will always be consistent with God’s promises and the truth of the Word of God.

17.     To sum up:

          1)       Faith-rest is taking a promise of God, a divine principle or a divine rationale and placing our faith in that promise, principle or rationale.

          2)       We must be in fellowship in order for the application of faith-rest to have any spiritual impact.

          3)       Since all men have faith, there is no merit in simply having faith. The merit is in the object of faith. We must place our faith in that which is true.

          4)       At salvation, we used an elementary form of faith-rest: we placed our faith in Jesus Christ.

          5)       In using the faith-rest technique, we may or may not act. The serenity prayer (later adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous) comes to mind: “God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

          6)       The faith-rest drill is both a mechanic in the spiritual life and a means of growth. That is, God tests us with some pressure or difficulty, we apply the faith-rest technique (which may or may not require action), and we often experience some spiritual growth as a result.

Many others have presented the Doctrine of Faith-rest online:

http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/topics/faithrest.html

http://www.prairieviewchristian.org/downloads/written/prep/basic/frd.pdf

Online slide show on the faith-rest drill (with audio):

http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/61875/Building-Your-Faith-01%2FIntroduction

Abbreviated treatises of the Doctrine of the Faith-rest drill:

http://www.versebyverse.org/doctrine/fr-tech.html

http://www.lakeeriebiblechurch.org/Doctrine/html/FAITH_REST.htm

http://www.egracebiblechurch.org/faith_rest_life.htm

Here is a series of audio (MP3) lessons on faith-rest, which can be downloaded and listened to:

http://www.gdcmedia.org/MediaMins/archive_id.asp?seriesid=JSH&ClassIDStart=110&ClassIDEnd=117&Subject=Doctrine+of+Faith-Rest+Drill

A second series available online: http://www.bibleframework.com/lessons/faith-rest-drill/

The booklet on faith-rest can be ordered for free from R. B. Thieme Jr. Ministries:

http://rbthieme.org/the7.htm (or call 713-621-3740). They will also send a CD of mp3's on this same topic.

Faith-rest is another example where R. B. Thieme Jr. took a concept from the Word of God, gave it a name and then applied specific mechanics to this concept, mechanics taken from the Bible.

Other references:

www.jimbrettell.org/deeper/slmancom.doc

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1112625

Many of these are references to pastors who have brick and mortar churches, and most of whom provide teaching online as well. It is always my recommendation that you find your proper pastor teacher and get under his teaching ministry regularly (I believe that once a day for an hour is about right).

Communism, at some point in the mid 20^th century developed 45 goals to accomplish in the United States, so that they might take over our nation. These goals were read in Congress in 1963, in order for them to be made a permanent part of our American record. I will list of few of these below, as these communist objectives stand in stark contrast to the laws of divine establishment.

The Goals of Communism in America

Type

Goals

Political Goals

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

Infiltration

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

Attack upon Morality

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

Attacks upon Christianity

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

Remove us from our founding principles

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

Establish more centralized control

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

Attack Divine Institutions

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

These goals can be found on hundreds of websites:

http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm

http://www.resistnet.com/profiles/blogs/the-communist-takeover-of

http://www.divine-way.com/45_communist_goals_for_take_over_of_america.html

You will noticed that many of the keys to the destruction of the United States are related to the Bible, to morality, and to the divine institutions as established by the Bible.

I present this, because morality is part of what holds a nation together. The Ten Commandments are a code of freedom, a code which provides protections for a nation, a code which helps to maintain internal and external peace in a nation.

Acknowledgment: Insofar as I know, R. B. Thieme, Jr. originally developed this doctrine, although it has certain existed in bits and pieces by other theologians at other times. I am fairly certain that the vocabulary is his (one of Bob’s great contributions to theology is a new vocabulary). I also drew heavily from the works of Jim Brettell and Tod Kennedy (who took their notes, to some degree, from Bob’s teaching).

The Abbreviated Doctrine of the Laws of Divine Establishment

Introduction:

1.       R. B. Thieme, Jr.’s original definition was: Divine Establishment - God has ordained certain laws for the survival and freedom of the human race during the course of human history. Anarchy exists when segments of nations ignore these laws. The laws of divine establishment provide the freedom to fulfill the divine plan as ordained in the divine decrees under many types of government. The laws of divine establishment are designed and directed toward both believer and unbeliever. They operate from the fall of man to the second advent, as well as in the Millennium with some modification in compatibility with perfect environment.¹

2.       God, in his omnipotence, knew that the world would be populated by more unbelievers than believers, so he ordained a set of laws designed for the survival and freedom of the human race, which laws apply to both believers and unbelievers. These laws allow for believers and unbelievers to live their lives in an orderly fashion throughout human history.

3.       All men are born with a sin nature; and men have competing interests. The laws of divine establishment allow all men to coexist, believers and unbelievers alike, despite possessing a sin nature and despite competing interests.

4.       These laws also allow for the evangelization of the unbeliever as well as for the spiritual growth of the believer.

5.       The Angelic Conflict is resolved by our free will choices; therefore, human history must be allowed to play out.

6.       These laws allow for man to be freely evangelized (and for man to reject this evangelization) and for believers to conduct their lives as per the Word of God, as per the dispensation they find themselves in.

7.       These laws are designed to work within the framework of a variety of human governments.

8.       These laws are designed for the divine institutions of the human soul, labor, marriage, family and nationalism.

9.       God has provided certain divine laws, such as the authority of parents within the confines of the basic family unit in order to protect, care for, nourish, provide for, train, and discipline children to prepare them for life.

10.     These laws are designed to function from the fall of man to the beginning of the Millennium, and then throughout the Millennium with some adjustments (there will be perfect environment and Jesus Christ will rule the earth, which changes some things).

11.     Satan, of course, opposes these laws, and continues to oppose them in a variety of ways, offering up a myriad of false systems for mankind.

12.     These laws are imperfectly accomplished on this earth. However, an imperfect application of these laws does not give us the right to rebel against the authorities which are over us. Furthermore, their imperfect application preserves mankind.

13.     The laws of divine establishment provide for man the best system of freedom for all mankind.

14.     These laws of divine establishment are every bit as important as the law of gravity and just as predictable. If you drop something out of a tall building, it will fall to the ground; if you follow the laws of divine establishment, you will get good results for the human race. If you go against the laws of divine establishment, the end result will be bad for the human race (again, for believers and unbelievers alike).

15.     Because man has a sin nature and because Satan is the ruler of this world, there are man-designed and Satan-inspired systems which reject the laws of divine establishment. These include such institutions as anarchy, Islam, gay marriage, communism, socialism, etc. These examples are all attacks upon the laws of divine establishment, and therefore, they are attacks upon human freedom and upon the human race itself. Let me take communism and socialism as examples: communism kills far more people in peace time than nations do in wartime. Communism perpetually attacks human freedom, requiring all men to, at least publically, espouse the principles and goals of communism, or face grave inconvenience, suffering or even death; and, at best, re-education.

16.     Freedom guarantees inequality of outcomes. That is, a free population will experience great disparity of wealth, position and success. This freedom can be attacked in two primary ways: politicians who promise to have more equal results, and who then pass laws and regulations in order to achieve a more equal distribution of wealth. The second way this is attacked is by the wealthy who seek to preserve their wealth, power and position through a legal codification of their wealth (this could be establishing a caste system or inordinate favorable laws for those who are already wealthy and/or powerful). In the United States, this has come to e known as “too big to fail.”

17.     One area of great confusion is, the laws of divine establishment can function with an authoritative government, e.g., a monarchy. The laws of divine establishment can be perpetuated under a monarchy or destroyed by a monarchy; the laws of divine establishment can be perpetuated in a democracy or destroyed by a democracy. In other words, the actual form of government is not the key; the laws of divine establishment are the key to freedom.

18.     The overarching principles are: the laws of divine establishment preserve a national entity and freedom within that national entity; which allows people the freedom to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior or to reject Jesus Christ.

¹ Although I took this from http://www.bibledoctrinechurch.org/?subpages/GLOSSARY.shtml I found the same definition word-for-word on another website. My assumption is, this exact definition came originally from R. B. Thieme, Jr.

The 5 divine institutions (which are for believers and unbelievers alike).

1.       The human soul—every believer and unbeliever is given a human soul with volition, mentality, norms and standards, a conscience, and self-consciousness. We need to respect the human freedom of those around us. Our volition ends when it begins to infringe on the volition of others.

2.       Work is designed for the believer and unbeliever alike. Not only is it necessary in order to live (apart from those who depend upon others), but it is important to a person’s mental health. Everyone has come home from a hard day at work, where effort was expended and things were done, and there is some personal satisfaction in having done a good job. Those who live off of others (e.g., welfare recipients) rarely have the same personal satisfaction with their own lives. God’s first commandment to mankind included the phrase “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.” (Gen. 1:28b). In the next chapter, we read: And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden. And there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground Jehovah God caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food. The tree of life also was in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden. And from there it was divided and became four heads. And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to work it and protect it (Gen. 2:8–10, 15). Subduing the earth is work. After Adam and the woman sinned, God levied punishment upon them both, including: "Because you listened to your wife's voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'Do not eat from it': The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of difficult labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust." (Gen. 3:17b–19). Difficult work becomes a part of our judgment. Work is a necessity in the believer’s life, Paul tells Timothy, If anyone isn't willing to work, he should not eat (1Tim. 3:10b).

3.       Marriage between one man and one woman is designed for the human race. Men and women are dramatically different in makeup, and they are designed to be in balance with one another—yin and yang, if you will. Just as work was fundamental to Adam’s life, before he sinned and after he sinned, so is the institution of marriage. Adam had the woman before the fall and Adam had the woman after the fall. You will note that the first 3 divine institutions existed in perfect environment and in a fallen world. That is how fundamental they are to human existence.

4.       Closely related to marriage is family; and children have been shown to be far better off when raised by 2 parents as opposed to one. Children from a nuclear family (1 husband and 1 wife) are shown to be better adjusted, less likely to become criminals, drug users, alcohol abusers, or pregnant at an early age. This is a matter of statistics. You have heard over and over again, how there is an inordinate number of Blacks in prison. If you took the number of whites and Blacks in prison and chose from a similar sample with respect to the divine institution of marriage, there is virtually no difference between Blacks and whites. The strongest determining factor in criminal behavior is not race but parentage. A Black from a home with a mother and father is no more likely to enter into a life of crime than a Caucasian from a home with a mother and a father. The reason there is a disproportionate number of Blacks in prison, is because there are a disproportionate number of Black single parent families.

5.       The institution of separate national entities preserves freedom, isolates depravity, and best allows for evangelization and spiritual growth. The Declaration of Independence got this point exactly right: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.

Attacks against the 5 divine institutions:

1.       The soul of man is constantly under attack. Drugs and drinking destroy the soul of a person. If you have known people who have been addicted to hard drugs, you know that their souls have been changed by the drug. Recent studies have shown that marijuana use permanently alters the brain of children who use it (which is exactly what we would expect; what happens in the life of a youth can permanently affect him for all of his adult life).

2.       Work is always under attack. There are those who, in their desire to be nice to the downtrodden, set up huge bureaucracies of welfare, with the result that, huge numbers of people either do not work or work abbreviated hours so that they can receive welfare (or food stamps or section 8 housing). I had an internet discussion recently, where a woman has described her plight to me of being a young married woman with a child, and she and her husband are in their 20's, and, in order for them to stay in school, she thinks they will have to go on section 8 housing. They both work part-time, but they just don’t make enough money to get by. Well, duh! They are both going to school. The welfare state mentality makes people think that they deserve money from taxpayers in order to subsidize the life they want to live. These same people would not have the nerve go up and down their street each month, and explain their “plight” to their neighbors, and ask them to kick in some money every month so that they can make it. They understand that would be stupid and that most of their neighbors would deny them. Yet, this same couple thinks that government (i.e., taxpayers) ought to help pay their way.

3.       In America, it is clear that the concept of one man and one woman in marriage is under attack. People living together outside of marriage, men and women engaging in sex outside of marriage, and homosexual relationships are examples of attacks upon this institution.

4.       The concept of family has also been under attack for quite awhile. In the 1950's, we saw a plethora of television shows which reflected both the concept of one man and one woman marriages; and with this was always a family. Today, our government supports and encourages single-parent households (this is because, when you tax something, that something will decrease; and when you subsidize something, it will increase). Women do not have to be responsible for their personal choices because, if they end up becoming pregnant, they can kill the fetus, or have the baby and expect welfare and/or government mandated support from the father. Remove these options provided by a misguided government, and sexual morality would make a big comeback in society.

5.       Nationalism is under attack by the U.N., by international communism, by appeals to international or other-national laws, etc. The goals of global warming enthusiasts is an attack upon nationalism.

6.       There are principles based upon these 5 divine institutions which are for both believers and unbelievers:

          1)       Authority orientation: God has designed a system of authorities for the human race, which includes parents over children, teachers over students, coaches over players, policemen over citizens, the courts over citizens, business over labor, the CEO of a company over his top echelon, who, in turn, have authority over those below them, etc. Let every person be subject to higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, but the existing authorities have been ordained by God (Rom. 13:1). Spending one’s life bucking authority is the quickest and easiest way to have a miserable life. If you want to experiment with this, try bad-mouthing a policemen at a routine traffic stop. See how far that takes you in life.

          2)       Hard work. Consider the ant, you slacker! Observe its ways and become wise (Prov. 6:6).

          3)       Devotion and adherence to and protection of one’s mate, one’s family and one’s nation. This is taken to the natural end of, being willing to give one’s life to protect one’s wife, child or nation.

The Ten Commandments:

1.       Most of the Ten Commandments are designed for believers and unbelievers alike; including the exactitude given them by Jesus Christ.

2.       Although the Ten Commandments were given specifically to the nation Israel, they also provide an outline for the preservation of freedom in an nation.

3.       The first 4 commandments provide a basic spiritual code and the final 6 commandments provide a freedom code for believers and unbelievers alike.

4.       Paul tells Timothy: Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. Understanding that the law is not laid down for the just [believers] but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane [all categories of unbelievers and out-of-fellowship believers], for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted (1Tim. 1:8–11). This tells us that portions of the Mosaic Law are applicable to all mankind.

5.       Therefore, the Ten Commandments are a freedom code which describe what freedom is within a national entity, which is divine institution #5. In other words, these commandments protect me from you and you from me. These final 6 commandments also codify the Godly concept of private property.

6.       The first 3 commandments define the legal relationship between God and man, and are discussed in the complete doctrine of the laws of divine establishment.

7.       Commandment #4: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you will labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you will not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Ex. 20:8–11). This was a law to the Jews only, although there is application to us. Virtually all civilizations have a 7-day week, which is based upon God’s restoration of the earth in 6 days (whether they admit to this or not). This is because all civilizations have their original foundation in a 7-day week.

8.       The final 6 commandments define the relationship between men within a national entity, which are the essence of a code which provides freedom, protects property rights, and protects and preserves divine institutions #1–4.

9.       With the 5^th commandment, we begin to get into the laws of divine establishment, which ought to be carried over into all nations and civilizations. Commandment #5: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” (Ex. 20:12). Here, the relationship of the family is codified for all time, and the nation which obeys this commandment is assured of a longer continuation of the nation in which he is in. Paul affirms this commandment and adds that this is the first commandment associated with a promise of blessing from God (Eph. 6:1–2). This law is for all dispensations, and a nation which disobeys this is a nation which is on its way down (Communist nations which attempt to brainwash children from a very young age and which even turn children against their parents is in direct violation of this commandment).

10.     Commandment #6: “You will not murder.” (Ex. 20:13). This was one of the first commandments given to man after the flood (Gen. 9:6, where man was responsible to punish those who murdered with death). Murder represents the ultimate in the removal of another person’s ability to make free will decisions. This is an attack upon divine institution #1, and depending upon that status of that person, possibly divine institutions #2 and #3 as well.

11.     Commandment #7: “You will not commit adultery.” (Ex. 20:14). Adultery is forbidden in Rom. 7:2–3 and Heb. 13:4. It is an attack upon divine institutions #2 and #3. Marriage and family are divine institutions, which adultery can destroy.

12.     Commandment #8: “You will not steal.” (Ex. 20:15). Paul writes, in Eph. 4:28: Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. This commandment tells us that we have a right to own property. Private property is protected by Scripture. Sharing that property is a matter of free will.

13.     Commandment #9: “You will not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Ex. 20:16). Paul says that the law was designed for liars and those who perjure themselves in 1Tim. 1:10. Going to court can deprive a person of their volition or of their property; therefore, God expects us to tell the truth in court.

14.     Commandment #10: “You will not desire to take your neighbor's house; you will not desire to take your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.” (Ex. 20:17). This commandment is repeated in the New Testament. Jesus said to them, "Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man's life doesn't consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses." (Luke 12:15; see also Eph. 5:5). If a nation respects commandments 8 and 10, then there will be no welfare state and no socialized anything. Obviously, there would be no communism. These things are attacks upon private property.

15.     Commandments 6–10 represent establishment law for any orderly society and apply to both believers and unbelievers alike. When a society turns away from these laws, that society is crumbling from the inside.

16.     There are principles from the Mosaic Law which are brought into national law. Again, Paul wrote to Timothy: Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. Understanding that the law is not laid down for the just [believers] but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane [all categories of unbelievers and out-of-fellowship believers], for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted (1Tim. 1:8–11). The law is designed for many categories of unbelievers, and these are all associated with their personal sins.

The Purpose of the Laws of Divine Establishment

1.       To preserve the population of a national entity.

          1)       As an aside, it is clear that communism does not make any real attempt to preserve the population of the countries it rules. Both China and Russia murdered far more people during peacetime cleansings (both Stalin and Mao hold the record for the number of people killed by executive order).

          2)       North Korea today is a good example of a place where the government is doing very little to preserve its population. Many of them are dying of starvation under this repressive regime.

          3)       Muslim countries which are over 80% Muslim engage in either a cleansing process, to kill those who are not Muslim or to eliminate those who are not of the proper stripe of Islam.

          4)       Therefore, communist governments and Islamic countries cannot be seen as legitimate authorities.

2.       To preserve the freedom of the population of a national entity.

          1)       Again, we have the example of communism and socialism, where the government takes away private property and severely regulates the actions of the population.

          2)       Islamic countries dramatically regulate the individual freedoms of its citizenry.

3.       The laws of divine establishment preserve freedom so that people may believe in Jesus Christ (that is, so that there is legal evangelism within that country); and that people may grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Illegitimate governments, as already noted, forbid evangelism and true spiritual growth.

4.       Given the technology of today, there are a number of ways for people to be evangelized and a number of ways for believers to grow spiritually.

          1)       We may see on a televised football game, someone holding up the sign, John 3:16, and we google this on our iPods, read the verse (For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life), and, as a result, believe in Jesus Christ.

          2)       We may have some question about the Bible, go on the internet, and come to a website with the gospel, and believe in Jesus Christ.

          3)       We may learn a Christmas song for the choir (an act which is, unfortunately, less common today than it was 40 years ago) and believe in Jesus Christ because of the lyrics.

          4)       Although people can grow spiritually, to some degree, through the study of the Bible through websites or finding a pastor one likes, and listens to them on the radio, tv or internet; primarily, spiritual growth occurs in a local church that teaches Bible doctrine as often as the pastor is able to put it out (right now, that seems to be maxed out at 4x/week). Without other believers there to fellowship with, many Christians go off into some weird place (I have known a lot of believers who choose to grow outside of a local church, and even under the tutelage of an excellent pastor through MP3 files, they still get a bit weird).

5.       Because of the constant attacks of Satan, there will be an attempt, in every national entity, to keep man from the truth. This is why many schools no longer sing Christmas songs, it is why there are people who go nuts because there is a large cross erected on remote public property in New Mexico, and why there are people who are overly concerned over seeing the Ten Commandments anywhere near a courthouse. As a child unbeliever, I sang all of the Christmas songs, and yet understood nothing of what I sang. I recall shortly after becoming a Christian, coming to the realization that Jesus is God in the flesh. I also knew nothing about the resurrection, even though I celebrated Easter every year. Apart from the legal controversy, I would have never known about the cross in New Mexico, and, even though I have been in several courtrooms, I was oblivious to the religious symbols (if there were any). This is because, there was a proper time for me to be evangelized, and, at that point, I began to develop a better understanding of Jesus Christ and the Law (after I had believed in Him). Satan would like to remove all Christian symbols, if possible, relegate them all to churches, and then, simultaneously, denigrate churches, pastors and parishioners.

6.       This does not mean that the individual believer needs to be involved politically in his country in order for the laws of divine establishment to function. In a democracy, the believer should obviously vote, and therefore, be reasonably informed. However, whatever else is done politically is optional and sometimes to be discouraged (particularly if it interferes with one’s spiritual life).

7.       There will never be a national entity which conforms entirely to the laws of divine establishment, although the United States, for much of its history, has come very close (which is one of the reasons we have been greatly blessed).

8.       There will constantly be attacks against the principles of divine establishment in any nation where adheres to some or all of these laws.

9.       It is not our job, as believers in Jesus Christ, to spend a lot of our time remaking the nation in which we live. It is never the Christians job to whitewash the devil’s world.

Countries Which Reject the Laws of Divine Establishment

1.       The only time a believer is given the go-ahead to disobey the laws in whatever country he find himself is, with regards to evangelism and spiritual growth. And Peter and the apostles answered and said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29). Opposition to other attacks upon freedom are generally not a part of the Christian life, even in a communist country. For instance, Christians who live in a communist country may find it frustrating that they cannot freely speak against the current administration; but that is not an issue to the believer.

2.       When it comes to a full-out opposition to those who are in power, one needs to consider that very carefully. For instance, there are not many Rahab’s in the Bible (and she chose sides, probably knowing that God had given the Land of Promise to the Jews). The attack of the Jews upon Jericho was imminent. Joshua 2

          1)       Rahab is an example of a woman who legitimately betrayed her country and allied herself with the Jews against the city of Jericho.

          2)       It should be pointed out that American revolutionaries were not seeking to remove King George from being king over Britain; they were looking to gain independence for the United States. So, in this regard, they were not a revolution, in the strict sense. The revolution of the United States was, in essence, a war for independence.

3.       When it comes to living in an Islamic country or in a communist country, governments which are clearly anti-God and against the laws of divine establishment, one must behave circumspectly and determine one’s political life carefully. It is not up to us, as believers in Jesus Christ, to fix the government in this or that country. We are not called upon to whitewash the devil’s world. If you become involved in anti-government activities when living in an oppressive, anti-God government, you risk not only your life to probably not accomplish anything, but you also detract from your spiritual growth and the use of the spiritual gift. Paul lived in the Roman empire, which was very anti-Christian at that time, and yet Paul wrote: Let every soul be subject to higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, but the existing authorities have been ordained by God. So that the one resisting authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and the ones opposing will receive judgment to themselves. For the rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the bad. And do you desire not to fear the authority? Do the good, and you will have praise from it; for it is a servant of God to you for the good. But if you practice evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword in vain; for it is a servant of God, an avenger for wrath to the one practicing bad things. Because of this, it is necessary to be subject, not only on account of wrath, but also on account of conscience. For on this account you also pay taxes, for they are ministers of God, always giving attention to this very thing. Then give to all their dues: to the one due tax, the tax; to the one due tribute, the tribute; to the one due fear, the fear; to the one due honor, the honor (Rom. 13:1–7).

4.       In other words, 99% of the time, believers, even under the most anti-God, oppressive governments, obey their rulers, except in the matters of evangelism and spiritual growth. We base this upon the fact that Paul lived in a country, Rome, which was, in the first century, very much opposed to Christians, Christianity and evangelism.

5.       A country which is a monarchy is not necessarily anti-God. Such countries can preserve order and thereby allow for evangelism and spiritual growth. Examples of these from the past are, the Shah of Iran; the governments of Rhodesia and South Africa, all prior to the 1970's. Communist propaganda has made many Americans believe that monarchies are bad, but that a communist government (a monarchy) might be okay for some countries.

6.       By fulfilling your function and obligations as a believer, you do more for your country than anyone else. In fact, believers can act as a preservative for their national entities. Matt. 5:13

7.       God’s conversation with Abram Gen. 18:23–33 is very instructive, because we learn that, if there are enough believers in a national entity, God will preserve that national entity. However, once that percentage becomes very low, God will allow for that nation to be destroyed (the personal spiritual life of the believers alive in that nation will determine, to some degree, as to what God does with them individually).

8.       Matt 21:22: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's [laws of divine establishment], and to God, the things that are God's [royal family honor code]. Although the context of this verse is taxation, the application which Brettell puts on it is accurate.

9.       1Peter 2:13-14: Subordinate yourselves.... to every human institution. You became an establishment person the day you believed in Christ. You should be a true conservative. You obey the governing authorities. On a personal note, as an unbeliever, I have always had difficulties with authority; particularly when they were less intelligent than me and/or they were unjust. However, obeying legitimate authorities is a part of the Christian life, even if these authorities are stupid and unjust.

The Separation of Church and State

1.       The state must never adopt an official religion supported by taxpayer's money. All religion should be free from taxation and never be supported by taxes. The partnership of government and various faith-based entities where money flows from the taxpayer into the coffers of the church is wrong. There is a fine line here to be carefully established.

2.       If the government wants to pay this or that organization or this or that group to deal with a disaster, that should be done by contract. However, if a church does humanitarian work of some sort, the church is not to be remunerated by government.

3.       Because it is too easy to place an onerous tax burden upon a church, allowing a church to operate as a non-taxed entity is reasonable.

4.       A person's relationship with God or lack of it should be a matter of privacy and personal choice.

5.       This separation of church and state does not mean that all religious symbols are banned. We have a strong Judeo-Christian heritage; therefore, symbols of this heritage can be reasonably displayed in public areas (e.g., the Ten Commandments, quotations of Bible verses).

6.       Similarly, the separation of church and state does not outlaw the teaching of the Bible in a public school, even as a required course; nor does it ban the singing of Christmas hymns.

7.       Our founders got it right. Many schools were established with the intent of teaching the Bible (including grade schools). For the entire history of the public school system (up until recently) Christmas songs were sung in the schools.

8.       Our court system has muddied up this water over the past 50 years and has taken a clearly stated axiom—Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion—and has perverted this into an anti-Christian position.

9.       Separation of church and state should never be understood to nullify the faith of our founding fathers, the history of Christianity in America, or to ban the symbols of this faith from public places.

10.     Because of our history, it is reasonable to see, for instance, the Ten Commandments posted on a courtroom wall, but not to post, say, various sayings from Muhammad or Confucius. Our greatest historical reference point with Islam is one of our earliest foreign wars.

11.     Sharia law and the laws of divine establishment:

          1)       We should not confuse the concept of the laws of divine establishment with Sharia law.

          2)       Sharia law is a collection of laws, customs and penalties which were an outgrowth of the teachings of Mohammed. These were developed a few hundred years after the death of Mohammed.

          3)       Islam adherents often try to establish a parallel court system in order to obey their own set of laws. Most often, this is first established as a family court law, to resolve and adjudicate family disputes.

          4)       Many of their tenets, such as a man being able to have 4 wives and having the freedom to beat an obstinate wife are in opposition to the laws of divine establishment.

          5)       Furthermore, there is no call in the Bible for a parallel set of laws to be set up for believers (although Paul recommends that, instead of suing a fellow believer in court, that we settled such disputes within the church).

          6)       It is not the responsibility of believers to whitewash the devil’s world. In a democracy, we have the right and the responsibility to vote, as well as the right and privilege of gathering in groups and protesting. However, no matter what form of government we are under, God does not call upon us to push a more Biblically-compliant system of law upon the country in which we live (or to establish a parallel system of jurisprudence).

          7)       We are required to obey the established authorities in whatever state or country we live.

An Example of Illegitimate Authority

1.       Management is the legitimate authority of labor.

2.       The labor unions provide a good example of how bucking this authority can destroy a nation from within. There may have been a good reason for labor unions in the beginning. When businesses did not take the initiative to treat their workers fairly, this hurt business and was, in part, a reason for the rise in unions.

3.       However, as businesses began to treat their employees with greater compassion, unions did not want to give up their power.

4.       As time progressed, unions have since moved into governmental agencies.

5.       When a union negotiates with management, there is a bottom line. In fact, even in such negotiations, this bottom line is exceeded (e.g., labors destruction of American car manufacturers). However, with government, there is no bottom line. Any member of government who negotiates with labor has no bottom line. Then can give as many concession as they want, and then simply require more tax dollars in order to make the governmental agency work.

6.       Unions therefore realized that there was an untapped bucket of money when dealing with state and federal workers, and that is where they have moved, setting up shop also as a strong political entity.

7.       This has given us 2 major problems: the unholy alliance of labor and government; and labor’s desire to take as much from government as it possibly can, which is, in part, the cause of the financial ruin of many states (California being one of the most prominent).

8.       The amount of money which labor unions have seized from the government is mind-boggling; and their benefits and retirement packages will destroy America financially.

9.       This explains, in part, the resistence to alternatives to public education. The unions have an established sugar daddy in the realm of state education systems, and any private education system would preclude unions and do a better job of educating our youth. This turn off the spigot of gold into union coffers, so unions come down solidly against educational alternatives.

Establishment and Morality

1.       Morality is the observation of the laws of divine establishment. Therefore, morality is for both the believer and unbeliever.

2.       The laws of divine establishment include various established authorities and the last 6 commandments of the Ten Commandments. Morality includes obedience to established authorities and obedience to the final 6 commandments.

3.       Since sin is an attack on establishment, morality is the antidote and is commanded for both believer and unbeliever.

4.       Because we possess an old sin nature, it is our desire to resist the authorities over us and to disobey certain of the commandments. This may help to explain why there is such a strong movement to remove the Ten Commandments from in or around any courtroom—this movement is a reflection of the old sin nature.

5.       Therefore, morality is not Christianity, but is the human race functioning under the laws of divine establishment.

6.       Morality is not the monopoly of Christianity. However, believers have great responsibility to their nation to obey the laws of divine establishment.

7.       Morality is conformity to the laws of divine establishment, which has as a basic tenet: live and let live (which is freedom respecting the freedom of others). This overlaps with the royal family honor code (which is the code that believers are to operate under).

8.       While Christianity is not morality but a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, Christianity still demands morality from the royal family of God. We are not exempt from certain civil responsibilities.

9.       Therefore, the advancing believer is not to be anti-establishment or immoral. No mature believer is a socialist.

10.     Morality is a normal result of spiritual growth, but it is not living the Christian life. Living the Christian life is compliance with the royal family honor code.

11.     Living the Christian life is the filling of the Holy Spirit, maximum doctrine in the soul, positive volition to doctrine, and maturity adjustment to the justice of God. None of these can be accomplished by the unbeliever. Christianity is not morality, but this doesn't mean you can be immoral.

12.     Morality as an establishment factor protects human freedom, but it does not provide eternal salvation, Gal. 2:16 Titus 3:5 Rom. 3:20.

13.     Morality can and does protect human freedom. Immorality leads to anarchy; i.e., no recognition of authority. Christian dynamics includes morality but, at the same time, exceeds morality. Morality is the environment in which Christianity is able to function.

The Component Parts of the Laws of Divine Establishment in a Nation

1.       The freedom to evangelize and to grow spiritually.

2.       The unsuppressed and unadulterated function of the 5 divine institutions.

          1)       The volition of the human soul: John 3:16, 18, 36 Acts 17:27–30 Rom. 6:12

          2)       Work: Rom. 16:3, 21 1Cor. 4:12 9:6 1Thess. 3:10

          3)       Marriage: Eph. 5:23–29 Col. 3:18–19

          4)       Family: Eph. 6:1–4 Col. 3:20–21

          5)       Nationalism: Acts 17:26–29 Rom. 13:1–7

3.       Legitimate authorities in their proper roles (husband over the wife; parents over the children, teachers over their students, administrators over the schools, higher ranking officers over lower ranking officers, management over labor, the police over the street population, the pastor-teacher over his congregation).

4.       A legitimate system of law, which embraces the Ten Commandments. Rom. 13:8–10

5.       An honest and impartial judicial system. Ex. 23:1–9 Lev. 19:13, 15 20:1–27 24:19–21

6.       Equal treatment of all citizens. Ex. 22:22–24 23:9 Deut. 15:7–11 Lev. 19:33

7.       Taxing is a legitimate function of government. Matt. 22:17–21

Unregenerate Man and the Laws of Divine Establishment

1.       Marriage to one’s right woman and hard work are key components of the enjoyment of life for the unbeliever. Eccles. 9:9

2.       I have the personal example of an acquaintance of mine, who has been involved with drugs, criminality and hedonism of various types; and yet, when he got married and fathered 2 little boys, stopped doing drugs (insofar as I could tell), that was the happiest and most satisfied I have seen him in his entire life (including the times when he had access to nearly any drug he wanted).

3.       I have mentioned the example before of a nuclear family and criminality. It has been shown by research that the key component to criminality in the United States is not a racial one. A criminal is much more likely to come out of a home headed by a single mother than by a home headed by a mother and father.

4.       Authority orientation is important to the well-being of the unbeliever. Unbelievers need to respect the authority of their parents, the policeman on the street, the teacher in the classroom, etc. We have several generations of African-Americans who are distinctly unhappy, and it is because (1) they have not been evangelized (the gospel is not taught in many of their churches); (2) they are brought up with mental attitude sins specifically against White people; (3) and they have no concept of authority orientation, particularly when it comes to teachers and police, and this is the bane of their existence for the rest of their lives.

5.       As a landlord, I have encountered a huge number of people with varying lifestyles and attitudes. During my tenure, I have had 3 lesbian couples, and one half of that coupling has always been a little crazy and emotionally damaged. This does not mean that I have not had other crazies as tenants, but, right now, it is running 50% for lesbians and about 5% for the others. God designed RM/RW (right man/right woman); He did not designed RW/RW.

6.       Work is very important to the unbeliever. God designed us to work. I have had similar observation of people who did not work but lived on governmental assistance. I can cite numerous instances where these people were maladjusted to life. I recall a mother and daughter who both received governmental assistance, and the daughter had 2 or 3 children living with her. Now, you would think that 2 women, living together, with children, where neither person worked, would have time to raise the children correctly and clean their house. Think again. In the times I was there, the children ran around unsupervised while the two adult women sat on the couch watching tv, smoking cigarettes. As for cleanliness, I ran across something I had never seen in all of my life. On the tops of their kitchen cabinets, there were roach bodies and roach droppings which were literally 2 inches high. The smell and the sight of this was quite remarkable, to put it mildly. This, quite frankly, is abnormal and unhealthy. My point is, when you live outside of God’s laws of divine establishment, your life suffers for it. So do that lives of those who must interact with you (I had to clean that up).

7.       Along these same lines, people who work into their retirement years tend to live longer and keep their wits about them for a longer period of time. Work is an important and integral part of our life, at all ages.

8.       R. B. Thieme, Jr. often used this axiom, which is for believers and unbeliever alike: you cannot build your happiness on someone else’s unhappiness. There is no long-lived happiness derived from harassing another person, by attempting to make their lives miserable, by stealing from them, by treating them unfairly. None of these things will make you happy.

9.       Following the final 7 commandments Ten Commandments (with a modification of the 4^th commandment) is a key to happiness for the unbeliever.

          1)       Keeping the Sabbath simply means taking a day off for the unbeliever. Work is a part of our lives and so should rest be.

          2)       Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the LORD your God is giving you (Ex. 20:12). This is authority orientation, and the most basic authority orientation an unbeliever can have. It is also a key to reasonable contentment.

          3)       Do not murder (Ex. 20:13). Believers and unbelievers alike run into people that we think, our life would be easier or better if so-and-so was not in the picture. It might be a bully from school, a tenant from hell, a co-worker that constantly lies and gossips about you. The unbeliever’s life is far better off if he keeps his emotions under control and lets it go. Jesus took this particular commandment further and said, “But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Fool!' will be subject to the Sanhedrin. But whoever says, 'You moron!' will be subject to hellfire.” (Matt. 5:22). An unbeliever is happier if he is not filled with mental attitude sins toward other people. I have known a variety of people in my life, and those who were constantly angry with so-and-so were also unhappy. When they were mad at Charley Brown, Charley may or may not be aware of it; but their mental attitude sins constantly permeated their souls. Someone might cut you off on the freeway, and you fume for the rest of the drive into work even to the point that you snap at your co-workers. For him, it may have been routine 6. Who here is the loser when it comes to happiness and contentment? The person with the mental attitude sins.

          4)       Do not commit adultery (Ex. 20:14). Jesus elevated this as well to lusting in one’s soul for a woman (Matt. 5:27–28). The actual act of adultery may take 5 or 10 minutes, or it may be an affair which continues over several months. However, this potentially destroys a family and the little souls of your children, who are the innocents in this scenario (as is the cuckolded wife or husband, of course). The end result, in many cases, can be months or even years of pain for the adulterer and the innocents in his family.

          5)       Do not steal (Ex. 20:15). The unbeliever will be happier if he obeys this law (especially if caught). I have already given the examples of those on welfare (of one sort or another) who did not work. 2 examples immediately come to mind of such people who spent much of their lives drinking. They were stealing from taxpayers, because they were capable of working; and were so miserable, they had to habitually treat their psyche with alcohol. In the United States, we entered into a pretty nasty recession December of 2007. Much of this was because of individual home buyers who both lied and stole money (they took money from the government by means of filing documents with false information on them) in order to purchase their homes, which homes they later lost. Lying on their applications allowed them to steal taxpayer money in order to purchase these homes. There were mortgage companies who went along with it, knowing that they were lying and not bothering to properly vet these people (I know because of direct phone calls from loan processors). This entire scenario involved pain and suffering for much of the United States, as well as to the principle players involved.

          6)       Do not give false testimony against your neighbor (Ex. 20:16). Court cases are more justly determined when witnesses are honest.

          7)       Do not covet your neighbor's house. Do not covet your neighbor's wife, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor (Ex. 20:17). This describes much of the Democratic party, whose members seem to be offended that so-and-so makes too much money. What they want is for the government to take (i.e., steal) money from people they believe to be making too much money and to give it to people who have learned how to work the system. As I write this, we have had a far, far left President for nearly 2 years, who followed a very moderate Republican, and the number of those in poverty has increased (1 out of 7 Americans) as well as the number of those receiving some form of governmental assistance (1 out of 6). Greed is one of the fundamental tenets of the Democratic party—they lust over the things which the rich have, and believe that, if they take some of this stuff away, they will be happier...and they never are. It is the conspicuous wealth of the rich which runs part of our economic engine (someone has to make their houses, car, swimming pools and private jets); and there is a great industry of high-end travel. Furthermore, rich people, for the most part, did not become rich because someone gave them the money (through inheritance, for instance), but because they worked for it, which provided a whole host of jobs for other people who work under them. Liberals have the mistaken notion that the poor and the middle class are better off when the government steals from the wealthy and gives entitlements to the poor and middle class, but our citizenry are not happier or better off since with elected a far left president with redistribution of wealth as one of his fundamental principles (violating you will not steal and you will not covet).

          8)       God has warned believers to trust in God and not in man. However, even unbelievers ought not place their trust in man. Awhile ago, a well-to-do middle class American woman gave President Obama the toughest question he has received as president, and it was because this woman was not happier, because she had expected a fundamental change from this man (whatever that means; I would assume a redistribution of wealth), and she was not seeing it. This was an educated woman who was working for the government, her husband worked, and their children went to private schools. This is a woman who, despite her intelligence, did not realize that redistribution of wealth was going to affect her own personal wealth negatively. Her exact quote was: “I'm one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I'm exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for. My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives, but, quite frankly, it's starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we're headed again, and, quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly. Is this my new reality?” This is a woman—and no idea if she is a believer or an unbeliever—who had everything right with respect to the laws of divine establishment except, she placed her trust in our president to make her feel better. “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes human flesh his strength and turns his heart from the LORD.” (Jer. 17:5b). Obviously, the unbeliever cannot turn away from Lord, because it is not there in the first place; but, placing one’s trust in man is devastating to the human soul.

10.     It can be summarized to this: the unbeliever who adheres to the laws of divine establishment will be a happier person with a more stable lifestyle. Unbelievers who buck authority, who do not work, whose heart is filled with lust and desire for things which are not his, who is constantly angry—this is one unhappy unbeliever.

This brief historical incident telegraphs Israel’s relationship with Egypt in the future.

Parallels to the Exodus

Abram

The Exodus

Abram goes with his family and servants to Egypt because of an economic depression. Gen. 12:10

Joseph (Abram’s great grandson) moves all of his family to Egypt because of an economic depression. Gen. 44–46

Initially, Abram is blessed by being in Egypt and he is given a great many things. Gen. 12:16

Because Joseph was prime minister, his family was greatly blessed in Egypt. Gen. 47

God afflicts Pharaoh with plagues because of Abram’s wife. Gen. 12:17

God afflicts Pharaoh with plagues because of God’s wife (Israel). Ex. 5–11

Pharaoh sends Abram away with his wife, Sarai. Gen. 12:19

Pharaoh sends Moses away with Israel, God’s wife. Ex. 12:31–32

The Bible does this sort of thing again and again. A real life situation will occur, and it will telegraph a real life situation which is to occur again in the future. The Bible is telling us of things which will come to pass. God would, several hundred years from this date, afflict the Pharaoh’s house with great plagues. The idea is, many circumstances in the Bible look forward to other things. in fact, some chapters of the Bible, like Psalm 22 and Isa. 53, give us greater details about the crucifixion even though they were written hundreds of years before the cross. God the Holy Spirit, in this situation, wants us to take what is occurring here and to take it forward into time.

This re-introduces the concept of a type and antitype. Abram going to Egypt is the type; this tells us about a very significant incident which will occur in the future, the exodus, which is an antitype. Throughout most of the Bible, type and antitype speaks of Jesus Christ. However, this parallel establishes the concept of type and antitype early on (as the nation Israel will be aware of both of these incidents for its entire history).

I’ve mentioned the concept of blessing by association on several occasions, so let me present the doctrine.

Allow me to add a few words to your vocabulary (as all true disciplines require a technical vocabulary): Reversionism is reverting back to the sins and/or self righteousness of one’s pre-salvation life. A reversionist is a person who has reverted by to his sinful and/or self righteous life. A client nation is a nation through which God works.

Many people do not understand self righteousness as being a part of the life of the unbeliever. Let me give you some examples: those people who talk about the rich not paying their own fair share of taxes; who associate taxes with giving to good and wonderful causes—these are often sanctimonious, self-righteous people (some of whom are believers and some of whom are unbelievers). Rabid environmentalists and climate change alarmists also tend to be very smug and self righteous.

The Doctrine of Blessing by Association

1.       Definition of blessing by association:

          1)       Once a believer reaches spiritual maturity, God begins to pour blessings upon him, so that these blessings overflow to those around him. Sometimes God pours out blessings on those who are simply advancing spiritually.

          2)       Often, God blesses those people with whom this mature believer (or growing believer) is associated.

          3)       Sometimes the mature believer himself will be a blessing in a variety of ways to those with whom he associations.

2.       There are 6 categories of blessing by association:

          1)       Spiritual periphery: those associated with mature believers in the local church, in prayer meetings, in prep school (Sunday school), on a deacon board, or on a mission board, or in association with any Christian service organization.

                     (1)      A caveat: when a church does not fulfill its function of teaching the Word of God, God may not bless that church directly. However, there is a normal happiness and blessing which comes from fulfilling the laws of divine establishment. Some churches teach morality, which does not advance its members spiritually, but it does cause them to line up with the laws of divine establishment. So, believers (and unbelievers) within a church may have better lives in general, but it is simply because they are trying to be moral and living according to the laws of divine establishment. This is not a matter of God blessing the members of that church, but simply a matter of natural law.

          2)       Family periphery: husband, wife, parents, children, in-laws, relatives. Even unbelievers or negative believers are blessed by association with the mature believer in their family periphery.

          3)       Social periphery: friends.

          4)       Geographical periphery: those associated with the mature believer in a neighborhood, city, country, state, and nation. Mature believers within a nation preserve that nation. This is known as historical impact. “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness [preservative qualities] be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.” (Matt. 5:13). See also Gen. 18:26–33.

          5)       Professional periphery: businesses, stores, schools of all types, hospitals, medical clinics, law firms, engineering firms, branches of military service, law enforcement agencies, banks, various financial institutions, insurance companies, athletic teams, symphony orchestras, etc. You can be the janitor for a huge corporation, and that corporation can prosper because you are the janitor there (assuming you are a maturing believer).

          6)       Blessing by association after death: In certain cases like parents to children. The righteous man who walks in his integrity—blessed are his children after him (Prov. 20:7). This can extend to the second and third generations, and in rare cases to the fourth generation. One might argue that Abraham’s great spiritual blessings continue down today to the Jews.

                     (1)      The only great nation in the Middle East is Israel, by far, despite the terror attacks and bombings. This is a combination of many things: God blesses them because of their genetic association with Abraham, because believers live in Israel, because believers pray for Israel, and because they adhere to morality and the laws of divine establishment.

3.       One of the unique aspects of you, as a believer, in reaching spiritual maturity, is that God will use you as a channel of His blessings. When you are saved, the potential for temporal blessings is set up via the grace pipeline (the channel by which God’s righteousness blesses the righteousness which He has imputed to you at salvation). Gen. 15:6 Psalm 24:5 Matt. 5:6 Rom. 4:6

4.       We have already studied Abraham and the Jews as a conduit of blessing: “I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you.” (Gen. 12:2).

          1)       Jews are a special case of blessing by association. God only chose one genetic-specific group of people to bless throughout human history (and God blesses those who bless Israel as well).

          2)       If one had to choose one nation in the Middle East to live in, most knowledgeable people would choose Israel, as they provide the greatest environment and the greatest amount of freedom in the Middle East. Everywhere else, there is religious tyranny and oppressive governmental tyranny. Christians and Jews are routinely taken to court and even executed for their crime of having the wrong faith.

          3)       The Republican party was cursed because they willingly associated with anti-Semites for many years. As a result, this party produced two good Presidents from 1900–1975 (Coolidge and Eisenhower) and a lot of mediocre ones (Harding and Nixon). Furthermore, this party, for the most part, had comparatively little power in the 1900's. One of the greatest presidential candidates ever was defeated, in part, because of anti-Semitism (Barry Goldwater, who was beaten by one of the worse presidents in American history). As antisemitism was being rooted out of the Republican party, Republican presidents went from bad (Nixon), to okay (Ford) to great (Reagan). It was William F. Buckley who began to weed out the antisemitic element of the Republican party.

5.       God blesses people and nations and companies directly and/or indirectly because of their association with a mature believer.

          1)       An example of indirect blessing by association: a vice president who is a mature believer, might bring in a great deal of business for the company that he works for, and, as a result, that is a blessing to that company. That is blessing which spills over from the vice president to the companies and those employed by the company (indirect blessing).

          2)       However, a mature believer may work for another company as a janitor, and God may bless that company directly because of the janitor. That is, God may cause that company to become extremely prosperous. It is not spillover from blessing to the janitor, but blessing directly from God to that company.

          3)       Lot, in association with Abram, received both direct and indirect blessing from God.

6.       People are blessed by association with leaders who are mature believers, in such areas as business, military, athletics, marriage, family and church. Blessings overflow from the leader to those under the authority of the leader. There are examples throughout Scripture, Lot is blessed by his association with Abram; Israel was blessed as a nation under David; David’s army was blessed by being under David. Proverbs 11:11 says that a leader who is a mature believer blesses the city-state, but association with the reversionist destroys the city-state. Proverbs 11:11 A city is built up by the blessing of the upright, but it is torn down by the mouth of the wicked.

7.       The mature believer is not to speak ill of those around him, even if they are negative toward Bible doctrine or the gospel or if they reject divine establishment truth. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them (Rom. 12:14). If we do not have mental attitude sins against those who are unbelievers, then we do not interfere with their response to the gospel.

          1)       A client nation is a nation through which God works.

          2)       Unbelievers will use the life, actions and verbal sins of believers as excuses to reject the gospel of Jesus Christ.     

8.       Although the Roman government at first persecuted Christians, it was transformed into a client nation to God because of all the believers in the Roman empire. The Christian leader Tertullian spoke of believers throughout the Roman empire (circa a.d. 200): “We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you, [your] cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the very camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum; we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods.”

9.       There is also guilt by association. The innocent suffer because of their association with the guilty. People are cursed by association with a reversionist. Even a mature believer can be cursed by his association with a reversionistic believer. Jonathan was the son of King Saul and Jonathan was a great man, who was able to defer to David and recognize that David would be king over Israel (Jonathan recognized this even though Jonathan was in line to become king of Israel). However, Jonathan died in battle with his reversionist father Saul. Another example is Sodom and Gomorrah. We have not studied this yet, but these cities have very degenerate people in them, and, for that reason, these cities will be destroyed (Gen. 18).

          1)       Reversionism is reverting back to the sins and/or self righteousness of one’s pre-salvation life. A reversionist is a person who has reverted by to his sinful and/or self righteous life.

          2)       A simple example of guilt-by-association is, a kid who gets drawn into a group who commit criminal acts. He may choose to hang out with this group, and they may choose to drive somewhere to commit a crime. He will suffer the legal consequences even though he may not have known what they were intending to do.

10.     The believer is both blessed and prospered because he is associated with Jesus Christ. The mature believer who is occupied with Christ is certainly blessed by this association. The disciples of Jesus are wonderful examples. It would be very difficult to find men who were less competent than these disciples, who would argue about which one is the greatest; and yet, later deserted Jesus when He was taken into Roman custody (except for John). These men, who lacked both courage and intelligence, became great men, most of whom suffered a martyr’s death. They were afforded a great deal of protection in their association with Jesus Christ, as Jesus once told Peter that Satan wanted to sift him like wheat. Peter’s association with Jesus Christ protected him.

11.     Sometimes the believer wrongly associates present disaster with past sins. This is cursing by imagination or cursing by having a guilt complex. Psalm 40:12 For evils beyond number have surrounded me; My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to see; they are more numerous than the hairs of my head; and my heart has failed me. Rebound (naming your sins to God) is the believer associating his sins with the judgment of these sins on the cross. We deal with all sins by means of rebound.

12.     The believer is influenced by sexual association. In fact, a mature believer can be brought down and cursed by his association with carnal believers or degenerate unbelievers. King Solomon is an example of this. He was negatively influenced by the religion of the many wives that he had and, as a result, a great portion of his life was spiritually unproductive. 1Kings 11:2–9 Ecclesiastes

13.     The believer is influenced by social association. A believer can be influenced for evil or for good by the company he keeps. 1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be deceived: Bad company corrupts good morals. When a young person gets caught up in a group which does drugs or crime, he will certainly become corrupted as well. A simple rule of thumb for the young believer: if a group of kids commit any sort of crime—including smoking marijuana—then you need to find new friends.

14.     Some blessing comes directly from the mature believer himself. The mature believer might share time or material wealth with those in need. God blesses the mature believer and he, in turn, pours out some of this blessing on others. Rom. 12:13 1Cor. 16:1

15.     Blessing by association explains why there is a call for separation from some believers and unbelievers. This is an entirely new topic, but suffice to say that God often calls for believers to separate from other believers; particularly from those who would bring you down (that is, attempt to focus your attention away from the Word of God). There is also a call to separate from unbelievers who are particularly carnal. If you had a drug problem, then it might not be the best thing for you to hang out with those who are presently using drugs.

16.     Blessing by association can explain why the wicked sometimes prosper. Psalm 73:3 Jer. 12:1

17.     An example of blessing by association is taught in Prov. 31:10–31 where a woman is a blessing to her husband, her children and to her community.

18.     There is also a mutual blessing by association. Much of the book of Philippians exemplifies this. The Philippian church was filled with maturing believers, so that Paul was blessed by being able to teach them, and they were blessed by Paul teaching them. 2Cor. 11:9 Philip. 4:15–16

19.     The preservation and blessing of the United States depends upon many types of blessings.

          1)       Within the United States, there are many mature and growing believers; God blesses the nation because of the geographical association with them.

          2)       In order to have mature and growing believers, there must be churches that teach the Word of God. The United States is blessed because such churches exist within its borders.

          3)       Those who founded our nation based the founding principles upon Bible doctrine, so that we receive a heritage blessing from them. At the top of the original charters of many groups who settled the United States was to spread the good news of Jesus Christ (which is almost never taught in American history courses).

          4)       Our nation supports the nation Israel, and because of this alliance, God blesses us.

          5)       The United States also sends out missionaries throughout the world.

          6)       So, there are dozens of reasons why our nation ought to be taken down; and those are 5 reasons why we have continued to exist with great prosperity. Even in the present-day recession that we are in, the poor of our nation are far better off than the middle class of most other nations.

20.     One of the internal struggles of the United States is between those who are anti-God, anti-Christian and/or anti-laws of divine establishment and those who adhere to the laws of divine establishment. The former faction seeks to turn the United States into a country of European-style socialism (which nations are under tremendous discipline due to cursing by association, among other things). Do you think that it is just an accident of chance that European countries have become flooded with Muslims?

References:

http://gracebiblechurchwichita.org/?page_id=709

http://www.jimbrettell.org/lists/bba.htm

http://www.faith-baptist-church.info/sermon01_03_2010.htm

When it comes to an altar, we may understand that what occurs on that altar are blood sacrifices. Consistently, throughout the Old Testament, from the skins used to cover Adam and Eve up to the time of our Lord, there are lambs (and other animals), without spot or blemish, being sacrificed to God, their throats being slit open and their blood poured out upon the many altars. These blood sacrifices all looked forward to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins. Jesus offering Himself for our sins proclaims God’s love, righteousness, justice and fairness (which things are the essence or reputation or name of Jehovah).

How the Altar Proclaims the Essence or Character of Jehovah

God’s Essence

Old Testament Approach

The Cross of Jesus Christ

Love

That one could sacrifice an animal and have his sin covered is a demonstration of God’s love.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

Righteousness

God’s essence could not have anything to do with sin, so that sin has to be covered. You, God, love righteousness and hate wickedness (Psalm 45:7).

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rm. 6:23). No man is justified by the law in the sight of God (Gal. 3:11a).

Justice

The penalty for the sin is symbolically transferred to the animal, as God’s justice must function. The soul who sins shall die (Ezek. 18:20a).

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed (1Peter 2:24).

Fairness

There is no limitation upon who might take part in such a ritual.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

The altars upon which innocent animals were sacrificed both looked forward to the true payment of sins by Jesus Christ and simultaneously proclaimed the character of Jehovah Elohim.

The Bible is filled with idioms, figures of speech, literary devices and literary structure, an understanding of which helps to flesh out the actual meaning of the text. What follows are a few examples.

Examples of Figures of Speech in the Bible

Term

Definition

Example Text and Commentary

Acrostic

The repetition of successive letters the same letter at the beginning of a series of word, clauses or verses.

Many psalms are acrostic (or a mixture of acrostic and some sort of corresponding organization): Psalm 25 34 37 111 119. Obviously, this is hidden in the original text and may be simply a mnemonic device. David, for instance, may be in a war, and yet, begins formulating a psalm in his mind; so he organizes the psalm in such a way as to be able to remember it. The complex structure of some psalms is quite amazing.

Sometimes an acrostic is used to hide the name of Y^ehowah (YHWH). God’s name, Y^ehowah, does not occur in the book of Esther except in acrostic form (Esther 1:20 4:14 5:13 7:7). The sense is, God is working in the background to preserve the Jews, but they do not personally recognize Him; they do not know Who He is. Esther is a book known by almost all religious Jews and by very few Christians. Personally, I think in the end times, many Jews will be brought to Jesus Christ through the book of Esther. He is the God Who has been with them all of this time, and yet, they refused to recognize Him.

To get the effect of an acrostic, John 3:16, by happy coincidence, can be set up as an acrostic:

God so love the world that He gave His

Only begotten

Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not

Perish but have

Everlasting

Life.

Alliteration

Repetition of the same letter or syllable in successive words.

In many ways and in various ways of old, God spoke to the fathers in the prophets; in these last days He spoke to us in the Son (Heb. 1:1–2a). Since we are dealing with a translation, alliterations are often hidden in the text. A portion of this text reads πολυμερς καὶ πολἰτρόπως πάλαι, which is done to grab our attention.

Asyndeton

The conjunction and is left out to move the action along or to reach a dramatic climax.

“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” (Luke 14:13–14). Both the Hebrew and the Greek tend to use conjunctions between a series of things.

Chiasmos Format; or Introverted Correspondence

Where the first subject of the one series of members corresponds with the last subject of the second

The organization of Gen. 6–8 that we already studied:

http://kukis.org/Basicexegesis/Genesis1_100.htm#Lesson%2080:%20Genesis%206%E2%80%938%20and%208:1a%20The%20Organization%20of%20Genesis%206%E2%80%938

Often the key to understanding most psalms is determining the literary structure of the psalm first. Many of them have a very complex structure (this is an area of Scripture which has not been fully explored, even to this day).

Ellipsis

The omission of a word or short phrase easily understood in context.

Matt. 11:18a “For John came neither eating nor drinking.” John had to eat and drink; he was a normal human being in that regard. What is left out is “declining invitations to eat with others.” In other words, John the Baptizer had set himself apart from normal human function and social life, as the herald of the King, to serve the King only.

Ellipsis can be used to indicate great emotion, e.g., excitement or anger.

There is an interesting type of ellipsis which is found in the story of the rich young ruler:

And behold, a man came up to Him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" And He said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments." He said to Him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "You will not murder, you will not commit adultery, you will not steal, you will not bear false witness, [these are commandments 6, 7, 8, and 9 in order; so we would expect Jesus then to go to commandment #10, “You will not covet;’ but He does not; this man is rich so he does not desire anything which someone else has] honor your father and mother [Jesus suddenly goes back to commandment #5, which is the commandment this man continually violates], and, you will love your neighbor as yourself [this is a principle which this man continually violates]." The young man said to Him, "All these I have kept. What do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you would be complete [according to the Law], go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." (Matt. 19:16–21). Jesus, without actually saying it, identifies where this man is deficient with respect to the Law (as are we all).

Epanalepsis, or Resumption

A thought, argument or list is begun; then author goes off on a tangent; and then comes back to resume the thought.

Eph. 3:1a, 14a: For this cause, I, Paul...for this cause, I bow my knees... Paul goes back, 13 verses later, and picks up his original train of thought.

Heb. 6:1a, 6a: Because of this, having left the discourse of the beginning of Christ, let us be borne on to full growth, not laying down again a foundation of repentance...and having fallen away, it is impossible for them again to renew to repentance... Not only does the author of Hebrews resume at this point, but there is also ellipsis involved, where the list of vv. 1b–2 is not repeated, but implied.

Epanadiplosis, or Encircling

Beginning and ending a sentence or passage with the same word or phrase, to indicate a completion of some sort (a complete thought, for instance).

“And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.” (Gen. 9:3b).

The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets (Ex. 32:16).

Erotesis, or, Interrogating

The asking of questions, not for information or to get an answer.

Gen. 13:9a: [Abram is speaking to Lot] “Is not the whole land before you?” Abram is not interested in getting Lot’s input on this. He is not really asking Lot a question here.

Psalm 35:10 All my bones shall say, "O LORD, who is like You, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him, the poor and needy from him who robs him?" The psalmist is not expecting an answer from above, saying, “No one is like Me.” That answer is implied by the question.

Such questions may be asked as a positive or negative affirmation; as an affirmative negation, to demonstrate something; to express wonder and admiration, rapture, wishes, refusals or denials, doubts; as an admonition, expostulation, prohibition or dissuasion; to indicate pity and commiseration, disparagement, reproach, lamentation, indignation, an absurdity or impossibility. You may recall that the scribes and pharisees asked Jesus questions all of the time, but never with the intent of eliciting information, but, instead, to trip Him up.

Homœotleuton, or Like Endings

The ends of several words are the same. This is done in order to draw attention to what is being said.

This is hidden in the original language. Mark 12:30b reads, “This is the first commandment...” In the Greek, that is αὕτη πρώτη ἐντολή.

Hyperbole, or Exaggeration

When more is said than is literally meant. Many people have gone astray at this point, when they do not understanding when a person is speaking in hyperbole.

Matt. 5:29 “And if your right eye offends you, pluck it out and throw it from you. For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be thrown into hell.” Jesus is not really suggesting that we pluck out our own eyes in order to get into heaven.

On another occasion, Jesus told a rich man to sell all that he had and to give that to the poor (Luke 18:18–25). If you think that, by selling all of his stuff, this rich man would have been saved and eligible for heaven, then you missed the entire point of that passage. Deut. 1:28 is another example of hyperbole.

For if a woman is not veiled, let her also be shorn (1Cor. 11:6a). In no way was Paul calling for all women to have their hair cut off. .

Inclusio, or Bracketing

A literary framing device in which the same word or phrase stands at the beginning and the end of a section. Sometimes called bracketing.

And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of Jehovah...So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to Jehovah (Gen. 13:3–4, 16). Here, the chapter is framed in such a way as to indicate that Abram is both in God’s geographical will and in His directive will.

Meiosis, or a Belittling

A belittling of one thing to magnify another.

Gen. 18:27 Abraham answered and said, "Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.”

Metaphor

A declaration that one thing is (or represents) another

Matt. 26:26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." To almost anyone who reads this, they do not think that the bread which Jesus broke into pieces was His literal body. It is only a cult-type organization which would suggest that eating unleavened bread and drinking unfermented grape juice in a ceremony is actually consuming Christ’s real body and blood.

Metonym

One things stands for or represents another thing.

Gen. 11:1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. Nobody has ever read that verse and assumed that the ground actually spoke a language. The whole earth is a metonym for the entire population of the earth. A metonym is a figure of speech which means that one thing is used in the place of another.

Polysyndeton, or Many and’s

The conjunction and is repeated, sometimes to move the action along and sometimes to place emphasis upon each portion of a list.

Daniel spoke and said, “I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the sky broke forth on the great sea. Four great animals came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I saw until the wings of it were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand on two feet as a man; and a man's heart was given to it. Behold, another animal, a second, like a bear; and it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth: and they said thus to it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I saw, and, behold, another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird; the animal had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, a fourth animal, awesome and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the animals that were before it; and it had ten horns.” (Daniel 7:2–7). Each portion of what Daniel said was important. At the end, this becomes more intense with the increase of the number of and’s. You will notice that there is also a repetition of I saw and after this I saw.

Sometimes the many and’s are used, along with repetition and other clues to indicate a wonderful structure. The following example comes from Rev. 13:

v. 1The vision (And I saw...)

v. 1The first beast (the Antichrist)

v. 1His origin

v. 1–2 His description

v. 2His power derived from the dragon.

v. 3–8 His deeds

The Spirit calls out: “Let him hear.”

The lesson: “Here is patience and faith.”

v. 11The vision (And I saw...)

v. 11The second beast (the False Prophet)

v. 11His origin

v. 11His description

v. 12His authority derived from the Beast.

v. 12–17 His deeds

The lesson: “Here is wisdom.”

The Spirit calls out: “Let him discern...”

The Bible is filled with chapters and sections and passages set up in a variety of structures, many of which depend, in one way or another, on the various figures of speech found in the Bible.

Quotation

The citation of a well-known saying without quoting the author's name.

1. Where the sense originally intended is preserved, though the words may vary (Matthew 26:31).

2. Where the original sense is modified in the quotation or reference (Matt. 12:40).

3. Where the sense is quite different from that which was first intended (Matt. 2:15).

4. Where the words are from the Hebrew or from the Septuagint (Luke 4:18).

5. Where the words are varied by omission, addition, or transposition (1Cor. 2:9).

6. Where the words are changed by a reading, or an inference, or in number, person, mood, or tense. (Matthew 4:7).

7. Where two or more citations are amalgamated (Matthew 21:13).

8. Where Quotations are from books other than the Bible (Acts 17:28).

When we quote someone or some piece of literature, it can be for a variety of reasons. I may quote a person because of their expertise in a particular matter, so that their words give greater weight to a position I am taking (for instance, I may quote C. I. Scofield or R. B. Thieme, Jr. or Norman Geisler). Or, one may quote the words of another to illustrate what a fool that person is. Or, one might quote a person in order to reveal that person’s true philosophy or values (this was done repeatedly in some mediums about candidate Barack Obama; he would say something which was unscripted, and this quotation would be repeated many times to indicate his true opinion of some particular issue).

Furthermore, the way that we quote that person or piece of literature may or may not be significant. Sometimes when I quote Scripture, I will leave off the beginning preposition or conjunction, as it is irrelevant to the point I am making. Or, I will replace a pronoun with the name of the person to whom the pronoun refers, as the contextual verses are irrelevant to the point I am making.

Writers of Scripture also include many quotations, and such quotations are done for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways.

Repetition

The repetition of a set of words or phrases in order to call attention to these words or to be emphatic.

“And, behold, I, even I, will bring a flood of waters upon the earth.” (Gen. 6:17). God’s directive hand in this matter is emphasized.

And the waters prevailed exceedingly... (Gen. 7:19a). In the Hebrew, exceedingly is a repetition of the word greatly.

David’s repetition of the name of Absalom indicates great sadness in his soul in 2Sam. 18:33.

Names are occasionally repeated: when God is speaking to man: Abraham, Abraham (Gen. 22:11); Jacob, Jacob (Gen. 46:2); Moses, Moses (Ex. 3:4); Samuel, Samuel (1Sam. 3:10); Martha, Martha (Luke 10:41); Simon, Simon (Luke 22:31); Saul, Saul (Acts 9:4); and in other circumstances: Lord, Lord (Matt. 7:21–22 Luke 6:46 12:25); Jerusalem, Jerusalem (Matt. 23:37 Luke 13:34); Eloi, Eloi (Mark 15:34 Matt. 27:46 Psalm 22:1).

Syllogismus, or Omission of the Conclusion

A conclusion is implied, but not stated.

“Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Matt. 10:30). This indicates that God is both omniscient and a God Who knows everything about you in particular.

Zeugma

A general term describing when one part of speech (most often the main verb, but sometimes a noun) governs two or more other parts of a sentence (often in a series).

May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and [may the Lord cut off] every boastful tongue (Psalm 12:3). What is in the brackets was added; the subject and verb are both applied to 2 parts of the sentence.

In most of these examples, it is easy to read through the passage and understand the meaning meant by the figure of speech, without stopping to realize that you are not really taking this passage literally. At the same time, this does not give license to “spiritualize” the meaning of everything found in the Bible (assigning it some goofy meaning which is at odds with the Scripture itself). This simply means that, when we study the Bible, we look to understand it in the same way a person of that era would have understood it. After Jesus taught that looking upon a woman with lust is adultery, His disciples did not start plucking out their eyes.

Similarly, every person who spoke to Jesus was not required to sell all that he had and follow Jesus. The example of the Roman soldier stands out here. He came to Jesus and asked to have his servant healed, and when Jesus was about to set off for his house to do this, he told Jesus, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed..” (Mark 8:8). Jesus did not tell this man to put down his sword, forsake his family and follow Him; Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.” (Mark 8:10b).

I have only given a handful of examples of the hundreds of figures of speech which are found in the Bible.

There are many times when you may be confused by a passage, and the key to that passage is a figure of speech. Below is a list of references, but none of them allow a search by passage (as does Bullinger’s book).

Most of these were taken from:

http://www.tentmaker.org/bullinger.htm

http://www.therain.org/appendixes/app6.html

http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/groupings/by%20author/bullinger.htm

http://www.davidcox.com.mx/library/B/Bullinger%20-%20Figures%20of%20Speech%20used%20in%20the%20Bible.pdf

The latter two primarily use illustrations from secular literature.

Other sources:

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_idioms.html

http://www.truthortradition.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=160

Christians are easily confused about the concept of separation, who want to apply this doctrine to unbelievers whose sins shock them. Cult leaders use separation in order to isolate their members from family and former friends. Too often, separation is used in order to separate the Christian from everything that is non-Christian.

Robby Dean’s Appended Doctrine of Separation

1.       What separation is not:

          1)       First of all, we are not examining the doctrine of separation for Israel, which is expressed several times with the phrase “You be holy [= set apart, separate] for I am holy” (where God is speaking—Lev. 11:44–45 19:2 20:7, 25). This is a related but different topic.

          2)       Nor are we speaking of a function of self-righteousness, where you are, quite frankly, just too good to be hanging out with Charlie Brown.

          3)       Separation is not the means of taking a new believer and pulling him away from his family or friends. Although this is often a sign of a cult, some regular churches do this as well.

2.       The concept of separation is based upon the fact that we are in this world, but not of this world. In John 17:15–17, Jesus prayed: “I have given them Your Word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray for You to take them out of the world, but for You to keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through Your truth. Your Word is truth.” We are positionally separate from this world because we are in Christ, and He is separate from this world. Being taken out of the world is death or complete isolationism—Jesus prayed for this not to happen. Jesus prayed for us to be separated from evil (which is different than sin; evil is the thinking and philosophy of Satan, which can include human good).

3.       Separation begins with a mental attitude that results in removing from our lives things and people that are either distractions, or may become distractions, in our own spiritual advance.

          1)       When Peter brings “You be holy because I am holy” into the New Testament (1Peter 1:16, taking this from Lev. 11:44), he is speaking of a mental attitude based upon Bible doctrine (Therefore, getting your minds ready for action and being self-disciplined, place your confidence completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ—1Peter 1:13).

          2)       So, although the passages in Leviticus speak of an actual separation between Israel and her heathen neighbors, the context of the passage in 1Peter says nothing about physical separation from believers or unbelievers. All that we are to think, according to Peter, is based upon understanding that we were not ransomed from [our former] empty manner of life inherited from our forefathers with perishable things such as silver or gold, but we were purchased with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1Peter 1:18–19).

          3)       Separation, in the context of this passage where this phrase is brought into the New Testament, is based upon spiritual growth which is a result of thinking divine viewpoint which has its foundation in the revelation of Jesus Christ (i.e., learning Bible doctrine).

          4)       In other words, the separation that Peter speaks about is in your thinking, which is based upon Bible doctrine. You separate yourself by thinking divine viewpoint.

          5)       The believer becoming entangled in human viewpoint is involvement with evil, which Jesus prayed that we not fall into.

          6)       Let me remind you of Satan’s 2 fundamental strategies: (1) keep the unbeliever from the gospel and (2) keep the believer thinking human viewpoint.

4.       Separation, then, begins in the believer's personal life as he learns and applies doctrine. The Bible says that separation starts in relation to the sin nature. Romans 6:11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Remember that death is Scripture doesn't always mean cessation of existence, in Romans, it means separation from. Romans 8:13 If you live according to flesh [according to the sin nature], you are going to die [temporal spiritual death]. But if you put to death, by means of the Spirit, the practices of the body, then you will live.

          1)       This is all about spiritually versus carnality.

          2)       Prior to salvation, we are all under spiritual death. We have no innate ability to make contact with God.

          3)       At the moment of salvation, we are both baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit.

          4)       However, after salvation, we fall into carnality, which means, we sin and lose the filling of the Holy Spirit.

          5)       This verse is talking about the fact that, if you are a believer and operating in carnality, then all of the blessings of the abundant Christian life are not yours. Even though you have eternal life you might as well be dead since you are no longer living the Christian life because you are living in carnality (carnal death).

          6)       After salvation, it is an either-or situation: we are either filled with the Holy Spirit and separated from sin or we are carnal and associated with sin. This is a status, not some emotional high of some sort.

          7)       But if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, then you will live. We are to put to death the deeds of the body, which represent sin. That is a calling for separation in the believer's life from sin.

          8)       This separation is caused by naming one’s sins to God (1John 1:9). That restores our fellowship with God and temporally separates us from sin.

5.       Separation involves separation from human viewpoint thinking.

          1)       It is not just the sin nature that is influencing the life but also all that human viewpoint garbage that is floating around in the soul. All of the ideas we have grown up with need to be excised by the scalpel of the Word of God. We need to have that stuff flushed out of our system.

          2)       When you are saved by believing in Jesus Christ, this does not mean that your thinking has changed. The potential for a real change in thinking is there, but the actuality is not.

          3)       This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 12:1–2 Therefore, I call upon you, [my] brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [as] a living sacrifice, holy [set apart, separated], pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world [cosmic thinking], but be transformed by the renovation of your thinking, in order to prove [demonstrate] by (means of) you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God. This is what happens as we advance spiritually: we renovate our own thinking, learning Bible doctrine, and the Holy Spirit changes us from the inside out.

          4)       In this way, the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit, the character of Christ in our lives. Furthermore, this change of thinking demonstrates that the will of God is good and acceptable and perfect. We become a living, walking testimony of the grace of God in the angelic conflict.

          5)       Therefore, this calls for separation from human viewpoint thinking. So the first two categories of separation has to do with what is going on in the believer's soul and the believer’s thinking. They don't have to do with what is going on necessarily in the world around him. In other words, the thinking of the believer is to be renovated so that the believer no longer thinks in human viewpoint. They separate their thinking from human viewpoint.

6.       If the world around the believer is producing temptations where he easily succumbs to sin, then that means he has to make some choices about where he goes, whom he associates with, or the things he does. Therefore, the believer needs to recognize that if he is in an environment that easily leads him to sin then he needs to change this environment. That is, there are times for us to physically separate from certain people and situations.

7.       We are commanded to separate from certain kinds of carnal believers, such as backslidden, reversionistic believers. This is because there are certain types of carnality that are contagious to certain believers.

          1)       However, as a corollary to this, we do not invade the privacy of various believers, to determine what evil things it is that they do, so that we separate from them.

          2)       If we separated from all believers who sin, that would mean that we would be separating from all believers on this planet.

          3)       Bear in mind that self-righteousness can be very contagious.

8.       We are to separate from believers who reject sound doctrine.

          1)       If there is anything that can destroy our own spiritual life, it is when we closely associate with people who do not hold to sound doctrine. They say, "Well you know, there are a lot of different views in evangelicalism. There are folks who believe this and there are folks who believe that, but we can all just get along and we don't have to draw these doctrinal distinctions." There is an embedded blasphemy there, and that is the idea that God does not communicate clearly enough for us to take strong positions on doctrine. Wishy-washy people don't really think God communicated things clearly, so you can think it means this and I can think it means that, and somebody else thinks it means something else, so we can all just put our arms together and emote on our common experience that Jesus loves us. Then we'll all go home and be happy that we went to church this morning!

          2)       This is not the biblical view. 2Thessalonians 3:6 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks disorderly, and not after the teaching which he received from us. This isn't tradition for tradition's sake, this is the apostolic doctrine contained in the Scripture. This is a mandate. Vv. 14–15 And if anyone does not obey our word by this letter, mark that one and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Notice that we are speaking of a believer who has clearly rejected legitimate authority (Paul’s authority in the teaching of Bible doctrine).

          3)       The goal is restoration, not exclusion; but if there is no response then there is no option other than to go separate ways.

          4)       Let me give you an example: homosexuality, which is clearly identified as a sin in the Bible (Rom. 1:24–27 1Cor. 6:9 1Tim. 1:10). Certain believers may struggle with homosexuality as a sin and, at times, give in to this lust. It is not our business to follow such believers around to determine whether or not we ought to separate from them. However, when a believer touts his homosexuality as normal and acceptable, that calls for separation from such a one.

          5)       From time to time, a church has to remove a troublemaker (or a small group of troublemakers) who have rejected the authority of the pastor-teacher. Quite obviously, if you are in a church where you cannot accept the authority of your pastor, then you should quietly remove yourself—you do not owe anyone an explanation, nor should you stand out in the parking lot and tell everyone else why they should leave the church. You simply leave and find a pastor whose authority you can accept. More often than not, your inability to accept a pastor’s authority is a problem in your soul, not in his.

          6)       By accepting the authority of a pastor, this does not mean this pastor follows you around and tells you what to do.

          7)       As an aside, this is not a call to self-righteousness, nor is this a call to separate from family members simply because they do not think like you think.

          8)       Cults often twist the doctrine of separation into removing you from your friends and family to your real family. If you find yourself in a church, and they encourage you to cut off your friends and family, it is time to separate from that church.

          9)       Jesus said, “"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.” (Matt. 10:34–36). There will be some natural separation which occurs, but not because the believer has initiated it. Throughout the ages, there have been some Jewish Christians who have been virtually disowned from their families because they believe in Jesus. We know just how much hate can exist between Arabs and Jews; there have been times in history that this has existed between Christians and Jews as well (even though, we ought to be natural political allies).

          10)     However, without going too far afield, the point here is, there are times when a believer will separate from his family—but that is a rare exception and not the rule. Jesus is not calling upon us to raise a sword against family members; nor is He requiring us to separate from family members because of different beliefs. Again, that is characteristic of a cult, but not of the Christian faith.

          11)     Although Wikipedia represents a bastion of human viewpoint, there is an article here on the cult checklist. Although every list is not completely accurate, there are enough trends which these various lists point to in order to keep you out of a cult.

9.       We are to separate from believers who make their own internal lust patterns the motivation for their lives. Romans 16:17–18 And I summon you, brothers, to take note of those making divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For they who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but they serve their own belly [lust patterns]; and by good words and fair speeches, they deceive the hearts of the gullible.

10.     Separation from the immoral social scene where one's norms and standards are gradually eroded through peer pressure. 1Peter 4:4 In these things they are surprised, that you are not running with them into the same excess of riot, blaspheming. Proverbs 1:10-19 My son, if sinners lure you, do not be willing. If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, we will watch secretly for the innocent without cause; let us swallow them up alive as the grave, and whole, as those who go down into the pit; we shall find all precious goods; we shall fill our houses with plunder; cast in your lot among us, and let us have one purse.” My son, do not walk in the way with them! Keep back your foot from their path, for their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird, and they lie in wait for their own blood; they watch secretly for their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who gains unjust gain; it takes away its owners' life. As an aside, communism and socialism are a national codification of this attitude.

11.     1Corinthians 15:33 Do not be deceived; evil companionships corrupt good habits. The idea here is, believers can be corrupted by certain other believers and unbelievers with regards to certain activities. This is an individual decision to be made relative to the strengths and weaknesses of the individual believer. As believers, we need to develop good positive habits in our spiritual lives If we find certain associations compromising these habits, then that is an association which must be broken off or dialed back.

12.     However, we simply do not separate from gross sin and gross immorality because we are offended. We should be able to witness to people of all different stripes of sinfulness. 1Cor. 5:9–11 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people--not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler--not even to eat with such a one. Paul is talking about separation from a believer, at the end, who knows the truth, and yet is clearly and observably out of line with his actions.

13.     We need to exercise a form of separation from unbelievers to avoid having our doctrine compromised. 2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship does righteousness have with lawlessness? And what partnership does light have with darkness? This involves some types of business partnerships, not necessarily all. It involves marriage, dating, intimate social life. We are to separate from unbelievers where their influence can affect our own doctrine decisions. This is not a call for the believer to avoid unbelievers altogether or whenever possible.

14.     We need to separate from believers who are enmeshed in religious modes of operation and apostasy. See 2Corinthians 6:14–17 2Timothy 3:2–6.

I should add that there is much more to the doctrine of separation than this. Although we began this New Testament doctrine above, there is a great deal of separation described in the New Testament which has absolutely nothing to do with the relative geography of you and anyone that you are to separate from (for example: John 5:24 8:12 2Cor. 6:17–18 1Thess. 4:7 1Peter 2:24). We will cover this at another time.

The basic points are taken from http://phrasearch.com/Trans/DBM/setup/Genesis/Gen068.htm , which is Lesson #68 of Robby Dean’s study of Genesis. This study was extensively edited and appended. Dr. Dean teaches at West Houston Bible Church.