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http://www.goingtojesus.com/text/books/solomonswisdom.pdf
Pastor John:
I love what u wrote in Solomon’s Wisdom, chapter 7, “The Righteous and the Wicked”:
“It is not necessary to try to be what one already is; it is the struggle to be what one is not that burdens the soul. Be good and you will do good. We are faithful to God only as we are faithful to good.”
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Yes and the opposite is true: We are faithful to good only as we are faithful to God.
te
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Amen.
jdc
John, I have a greek question on Eph 4:20.
Eph 4:20 But ye have not so learned Christ;
Eph 4:21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
Greek:
ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐχ οὕτως ἐμάθετε τὸν Χριστόν, εἴγε αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐδιδάχθητε, καθώς ἐστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν τῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ,
Not that it’s a big deal, but could this potentially be translated:
“But ye have not so learned the anointing (the anointed); If so be that ye have heard it, and have been taught by it, as the truth is in Jesus: “
Gary
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Hi Gary:
That is not the word for “anointing”. The word for “anointing” is “krisis”, not “kristos”. “Kristos” is the word for Christ, or the “anointed one”. So, no, that translation will not fly.
jdc
Hey… I had to read a biography of Lincoln for class. From this biography, he doesn’t seem to have been a particularly religious man, but I thought this passage was interesting:
Lincoln’s companions on the circuit also noticed his unpredictable moodiness. Henry Clay Whitney, who began traveling Judge Davis’ circuit after 1854, reported that Lincoln was afflicted by nightmares. One night, when they were sharing a room, Whitney woke to see his companion “sitting up in bed, his figure dimly visible by the ghostly firelight, and talking the wildest and most incoherent nonsense all to himself.”
“A stranger to Lincoln would have supposed he had suddenly gone insane,” Whitney added. Awakening suddenly, Lincoln jumped out of bed, “put some wood on the fire, and then sat in front of it, moodily, dejectedly, in a most sombre and gloomy spell, til the breakfast bell rang.”
Coming through the lens of a biographer who is working through the lens of a who-knows-how-biased onlooker, I just wonder what this scene was really about. Maybe he was just having a bad dream, but you never know. Anyhow, it grabbed my attention and I thought I’d share!
~ Bekah
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That makes me wonder if Mr Lincoln woke up that night speaking in tongues. Maybe not, but I know it is possible. A lot of people receive the Spirit and do not know what they have received. I have heard a number of stories over the years of people like that. Paul said that “we receive the Spirit through faith,” not by knowledge. For one example, while I was in the seminary, I spoke with a brother in Roanoke, VA, who met a man in the same town whose family had took him to a mental institution for examination after he began to speak in tongues while watching Ernest Angelely heal people on his television program.
It is going to be a sad day for those who grow weak and forsake the truth because they think so few people have the Spirit, when they see just how many people have actually received God’s Spirit.
jdc
Hey Dad,
By random I was reading Wikipedia’s definition of humility (below), and the part about self-abasing caught my attention. I don’t know really how self-abasement fits with a lack of humility, but that sure does ring true.
Humility is the quality of being modest, reverential, even politely submissive, and never being arrogant, contemptuous, rude or even self-abasing.
This seemed to fit very well with XXXXX. Since I first was able to recognize it as wrong, I’ve never liked his talk about being chastised “down to the bone”. I’ll take the innoculating shot please.
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Wow, that is very good John. I love it when God talks to our children like this – they are having experiences… it’s great.
I used to think it was really humble to put myself down. A few months ago, the Lord stopped me and said, “would you do that to _______? (named a brother, meaning would I run them to the ground like I was doing to myself). You are doing that to MY child (meaning myself)… and it’s pride. Stop it.”
Since then, I have caught myself doing it, more often than I thought I did – I did not even realize just HOW often I did that. It’s pride, it’s phony. But it’s going, thank you Jesus.
I have never seen that definition of humble, but it’s good and encouraging that God showed John David that. And it’s encouraging to me, because it helps me better understand my little experience and why.
Gary
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The flesh really can become proud of how much it can make itself suffer. We see it all the time. Paul called it “will-worship”, and we are blessed if we escape it. Genuine humility does not glory in living like a monk and abusing oneself; all that kind of thing is a self-willed show. Real humility is doing the will of God from the heart.
Jesus said, “I am meek and lowly,” but he had no problem chasing people out of his Father’s temple, or letting his disciples call him “Lord”, telling his accusers that they were sons of the devil.
Moses was “the meekest man on earth”, but he smashed that golden calf to pieces and made Israel drink it.
We don’t know what real humility unless we know God.
jdc
Hey Uncle John,
The topic came up in my Biblical Hebrew class today of the first section of Genesis 6. I had a couple of questions about it.
1) Who are the “sons of God”? I thought that they were just men, but in 6:4 it makes it seem like they were not just men.
2) At the beginning of verse 4 the word that’s translated as ‘giants’ in the KJV is from naphal – to fall. Dr. XXX seemed to think that these, literally, “fallen ones” were the offspring it then talked about who came from the son of God who went in unto the daughters of men. He brought up Achilles, Gilgamesh, etc, who were part god as examples. Is there even a chance that before the flood heavenly beings were allowed to go in unto the daughters of men?
Hope that came across right,
Atn.
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Hi Aaron!
How’s college treating you? No, wait… You just told me.
Yes, at first glance, it does seem to be the way your professor said, but “it ain’t necessarily so.” The “giants” were only extra-sized men, such as Goliath, who lived much later but was 10-12 feet tall, and very muscular. He was no “bean-pole” basketball player. The myth-makers of the ancient world, such as Homer, made use of their knowledge of pre-diluvian “giants” and “mighty men”, and devised fables of mighty men such as Hector. You may recall that we read about Hector, who in the battle for ancient Troy, lifted and threw huge stones which, Homer tells us, “ten(?) strong men could not now lift.”
Remember, Aaron, the pre-diluvian world was of a different order from the world that exists now, after the Flood. What God did to this earth, and to heaven, made it seem like a different planet to Noah when he and his family disembarked from the Ark. Before the Flood, men really did live hundreds of years, and there is no reason to doubt that some of them grew to an extraordinary size.
Secondly, we know that “the sons of God” were not fallen angels (as many ancient Hebrew and many early Christian teachers taught) because Jesus said plainly that the angels “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” The “sons of God”, then, must have been humans who were upright but were led astray by “the daughters of men”. That is the story of God’s people throughout the Bible. Nothing unusual there at all.
Finally, I can tell you that you will be wasting your time if you try to convince a college Professor of those simple truths. But if you just want to start a controversy for the fun of it, have at it! And please let me know how it goes. What your professor told you about Genesis 6 is standard fare among the intelligentsia, especially the those of the theological ilk.
But what they are missing, and what you will need if you are going to survive “the craftiness of men”, is experience with the power of God. The first time I really felt the creative power of God, understanding was created within me, which nothing else can put in a heart, that it was nothing to God to create this universe, destroy it, and redesign it. The real knowledge of God comes from experience with His power, not from the Bible or even from receiving the holy Spirit at conversion. Pursue that power, Aaron, and you will live. If you fail to pursue it, you will become a proud fool just like others who have received a few blessings and gifts from God and began to admire themselves.
Pastor John
PS By the way — and you might want to double check me on this — but I believe that Hebrew word nephalim (from naphal) is used in reference to extra-sized men later in the Bible, and not just here in Genesis 6.
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Hey… just to challenge you in a way that some might… and using your reasoning — why couldn’t God have decided that angels cannot marry AFTER the flood. I mean, maybe that was one of the big changes from before the flood to after the flood!
Also, since angels aren’t the only heavenly beings, maybe it was another type of heavenly being?
Bekah
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(1) Maybe you’re right.
(2) Maybe you’re right.
But do you really think so? I know you don’t. It just doesn’t have that witness which the Spirit gives to all truth. As you have learned (I see), being in the seminary atmosphere where you are, some of the simplest truths about God can be made to appear complex, and even wrong, by the strict use of fallen man’s logic.
jdc
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Thanks, simple sure is good. I’m really missing the Hebrew classes you did with Damien, Gary, and I. There was such a pure, clean, simple feeling as we went through the Hebrew and talked about it. After almost every one of these Hebrew classes, I have to go home and take a bath to feel right again.
Goodness. Oh, also today he also was giving examples of how Israel had gone astray from God over and over again, and he said something like, “And Hosea even married a harlot!” Like Hosea had really sinned by doing what God had told him to…geez. I’m so glad I have a pretty good knowledge of the Old Testament. If I didn’t, I would be completely lost as they brought up all their weird gobbly-goop.
Whew,
Atn.
Hey Pastor John,
I just wanted to tell you some things i have been thinking on. Yesterday Jacob came to Paul with some questions about somethings little boys at his school were saying and doing. I was so glad he felt like he could go to his daddy with any question he had. Paul was too. Later on, Paul was telling me about their conversation and how he wished he could shelter him from things, but the only thing we can do is be there to show him what is a right thought or feeling.
After I dropped him off at school, I was praying for him. I had this thought: “THERE IS WISDOM ALL AROUND YOU. YOU DON’T HAVE TO A FOOL. YOU JUST HAVE TO KNOW WHO TO ASK.”
As I was driving, I was thinking about how Jacob felt he could trust his daddy and ask him anything. It just hit me how that’s how it is here. We have all this wisdom. The answer is here. Just ask.
Love Jammie
Dear John David Clark, Sr.
Hi and God Bless You,
I had to stop reading your book Speaking in Tongues at Spirit Baptism just to say thank you sooo much. Page 11, 12 and 13 — I experienced this when I was about 30 years old. [But in time], I ran back into the world. Before then, I was reading and obeying everything in the Bible. My question to you is once we receive the Spirit (God’s breath of life blowing on us), and the voice of the spirit heard, can it ever be taken away? I’d like to know that I am still a child of GOD even-though I went back out into the world.
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You are still a child of God even if you turned away from His righteousness. However, if you continue in sin, you will be disinherited at the Final Judgment. No one but God can take away God’s gift to you.
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I have been reading my Bible a lot and praying for the last 7 years. Also I am trying to learn how to fight evil spirits. Any suggestions on that?
Love, Peace and Joy
Marie L
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Sister Marie,
Just stay filled with the Spirit, and nothing else can enter in.
God bless,
Pastor John
http://www.goingtojesus.com/text/books/solomonswisdom.pdf
Pastor John,
As I was reading the 3rd chapter in Solomon’s Wisdom this morning (“The Diligent & The Slothful”), I remembered an experience I had Friday morning.
As I was driving into work, I saw a lady beside the road that looked worn and tattered. She had chopped-off, short hair, extremely thin, and she was sickly looking. I’m not sure I could explain how I felt; however, in my spirit I felt that my feelings were self-righteous.
Immediately Jesus reminded me of how He rescued me several years ago. What he reminded me of was a dream He once sent me, showing me where my life would be if I didn’t trust him fully & get my mind back on Him.
In the dream, I lived in a run-down mobile home with broken windows and tattered curtains. It was so unkempt and dirty, with very little furniture. I remember so vividly saying in the dream, “I remember I used to have a beautiful house with big tall windows,” as I moved my hands in the shape of a window….
As I looked back at this lady beside the road, I felt, for the first time, that I understood what is meant by the saying “the only difference is God.” The only difference between me and any another human being is what God has done; it is nothing — nothing — that I have done. God (with His people) brought me back to the land of the living, and I am so happy to be LIVING! Tears are welling up as I type this.
Another sweet experience was this past Thursday after the Wednesday night meeting when the whole body here received correction.
Before you taught us on how to just live and not live in fear of the “you need to get closer to God” mindset, I would beat myself up when I miss something or when I’d receive correction because making mistakes was always so negative to me. Growing up, in my home it was a big deal to make a mistake or not to know what someone else was thinking and so, be ready to pass him a tool or catch something from falling, etc.) Making mistakes made me feel like such a bad person. But now, (tears again) I’m realizing that I am growing and learning! I felt good Thursday because I wasn’t beating myself up after Wednesday night’s meeting. It was an education in the spirit on how to be more like Christ.
Amanda
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Pastor John,
This email from Amanda was very sweet and it was just as if we were writing it together 🙂 I have had the same thoughts and feelings lately. In fact, just last night Steven and I were talking about our life and where we would be and how thankful we are and excited we are to live a good, clean life. One thing I said was that the only difference between me and anyone else is God! I didn’t do anything, and I can’t do anything or think anything good unless He lets me. Then I said that it makes me want even more to live a life obeying and trusting God and full of thanksgiving for what He has done for me…because it doesn’t and didn’t have to be that way. Why not live a life that is pleasing to God and that makes Him happy that He does what He does for you?
Anyway, I’ve been loving everything that I’ve been hearing for the past week or more and it all keeps getting sweeter and sweeter as the days go by 🙂
Leah
Pastor John
What is Sister Sandy’s “special place in the body” that you mentioned in a recent email? I don’t know if I fully understand what it is, and I feel like I should.
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Excellent question!
I was referring to the way God uses Sandy, or has used her many times in the past, to bring a message to the whole body (such as the message about God’s people being given a “new past” as well as a new future hope, and her message about God’s children “not being a product” of his or her parents’ physical union any more, etc.), and also how He has used Sandy (comically at times) to expose and put to shame certain stubborn and proud spirits that were found in our midst. What cleansing such things are for us!
Sandy has even been used at times like one of the biblical prophetesses, acting out messages in the midst of the congregation before she herself understood what she was being used for, such as the time she walked forwards and backwards in the meeting for a long time, as the Spirit moved on her. Then, after some time had passed, God spoke through her about how completely backward the ways and thoughts of man are.
Sandy has a gift of humility and joy that enables her to be humble enough to let the Spirit use her, even to make her look foolish at the moment (some among us have even dared to smirk at her a time or two), so that Jesus can more effectively communicate a very needed truth to the whole body. That is special, and that is Sandy’s place. I hope to see her function in the Spirit, as only she can, for the good of this body many more times. We need it very much, and I hope we all, especially Sandy herself, now appreciate that holy gift more than ever.
Pastor John
Hey, I have a quick question.
Am I to understand that people are not to render tithes on their gross income, but instead render tithes only on the amount that they get after taxes, insurance, and all that fun stuff? We have always written checks for our tithes based on the gross pay for our paychecks. Could you clarify that for me please b/c I might be missing something here.
LW
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Hi:
You have been doing it right. God comes first, so we render Him the tithes and offerings based on gross income, but minus any business expenses. You may be confusing taxes with business expenses.
It would be as if your husband earned $200, but had to spend $50 on tools to do the job. He would only pay taxes and tithes on the $150. The $50 would be considered a business expense, and therefore, he would not be required by earthly government or by God to pay either taxes or tithes on that amount.
Hope that is clear enough to follow.
Pastor John
