APRIL 2004

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

The great mysteries surrounding the Cross.

Thursday, April 1, 2004

The darkness around the cross, from noon until 3 PM – the darkness of sympathy.
The Creator was dying on the cross, and all of creation was suffering with the Creator, and therefore enshrouding Him with darkness, ROM 8:19-24.

Secondly, this darkness at the cross was the darkness of gloom – the just was dying for the unjust, 1PE 3:18.

Thirdly, it was the darkness of secrecy – in those three hours Jesus Christ was accomplishing a great work that He alone could accomplish.

There is another great mystery identified with this statement – the blindness before the cross.

If these people had not been blind to the Scriptures, they would have recognized –
PSA 22:1 “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

If these people had not been blind to the Scriptures, they would have recognized –
PSA 22:2 – the Messiah would cry by day, but God would not answer; And by night, but He had no rest.

On the cross, He did weep but He also bled; and He not merely bled, He died; He died spiritually being forsaken of God and then He died physically.

ACT 5:41 So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for {His} name.

The fifth cry on the cross can be identified by the word suffering, JOH 19:28.

The thirst of Jesus indicates His humanity, for deity does not thirst.

This cry tells us of the intensity of what He had suffered during those three hours, the awful severity of the conflict through which He had just passed.

Even though His sufferings were like no other, His thirst was not just a desire for the relief of His body, there was a higher purpose that caused Him to open His parched lips.

The very fact that He did now “thirst” reveals His perfect submission to the plan of God.

The One, TLJC, who had caused water to flow from the smitten rock for the refreshment of Israel in the wilderness,
EXO 17:6, had the same power resources at His disposal now that He was on the cross.

The one who turned the water into wine by a word from His lips, could have spoken the same word of power here, and instantly met His own need.

In the volume of that Book which expressed the will of God, it was written that He should thirst, PSA 22:15; PSA 69:21.

HEB 10:7 “Behold, I have come (In the roll of the book it is written of Me) To do Thy will, O God.”

PSA 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
PSA 69:21 They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

In the wilderness when Satan tempted Him, He refused to provide for His own needs apart from the Word of God by which He lived; so now He makes known His need, not that it might be relieved, but that “the Scriptures might be fulfilled.”

The terrible thirst of crucifixion is upon Him, but that is not enough to force His parched lips to speak; but what was written is what caused Him to speak.

He simply says, “I thirst.”
The vinegar is extended and the prophecy is fulfilled.

He had hung on that cross for six hours, and had passed through undeserved suffering as never before, un­paralleled; nevertheless His mind was perfectly clear and His memory entirely unimpaired.

This act recorded here must be carefully distinguished from the one mentioned in MAT 27:34, being the same one found in MAT 27:48.

The first drink of vinegar and gall, commonly given to criminals to deaden their pains, our Lord refused.

The ones who gave it to Him were most probably the Roman soldiers, who carried out the details of the crucifixion because it was customary to give criminals wine before their execution.

JOH 15:20 Remember the word that I said to you, “A slave is not greater than his master.”

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

The Lord Jesus Christ thirsted on the Cross that we might never thirst again.

Friday, April 2, 2004

The fifth statement on the cross can be identified by the word suffering and the importance of the fulfillment of scripture, JOH 19:28.

PSA 69:21 They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Notice our Lord’s extreme self-control under the most horrifying circumstances.

Before His abuse by the hands of man, He had sweat drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane the night before because of spiritual and demonic pressure, LUK 22:44.

He truly had that PHI 4:7 mental attitude, that spiritual peace and prosperity from the source of the God, which surpasses or rises above and beyond all comprehension,

This act recorded in JOH 19:28 must be carefully distinguished from the one mentioned in MAT 27:34, being the same one found in MAT 27:48.

Gall was a bitter poison to speed up or accelerate the speed of death.
It was for the purpose of deadening pain.

The one who said –
JOH 7:37 “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink”
– was Himself thirsty.

LUK 16:24 The rich man cried out and said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue; for I am in agony in this flame.”

Our sinful tongues would have burned forever had not our Lord’s tongue been tormented with thirst.

The shortest of all statements that our Lord made from the cross is JOH 19:28, “I thirst.”
Dipso – diyw = the only statement in which our Lord referred to His body and His physical suffering.

1. The suffering Son of Man.
2. The obedient servant of God.
3. The love of the Savior of sinners.

1Jo was written to reaffirm once again the fact that Jesus Christ was truly man as well as truly God.

HEB 7:26 holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.

When our Lord Jesus was on the cross, He felt the depths of suffering, both physical suffering and spiritual suffering.

He refused to drink the wine that was mingled with gall because He did not want His senses to be stupefied in any way.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross, was in perfect control of His faculties; He did not seek to escape pain in any way.

LEV 10:8-9 The Lord then spoke to Aaron, saying, “Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you may not die – it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations”

Jesus Christ is able to empathize completely with us, to identify with our pain and our need and our hurt.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, to become our merciful High Priest, endured that suffering and paid the full price.

Our Lord, the suffering Son of Man, who cried, “I thirst,” has identified Himself with our every need.

The second portrait we see in the words “I thirst” is that of the obedient servant of God.

PSA 69:20 Reproach has broken my heart, and I am so sick.

PSA 69:21 They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

JOH 4:34 “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work.”

MIC 5:2 “But as for you, Bethlehem, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.”

MAT 2:15 and was there until the death of Herod, that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, “Out of Egypt did I call My Son.”

MAT 2:23 and came and resided in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

PHI 2:8 In fact, although having being discovered in outward appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of spiritual death, that is the death of the cross.

EPH 6:6 doing the will of God from the heart.

The third portrait – the loving Savior of sinners.

Hell is a place of outer darkness as we have seen in MAT 8:12, our Lord experienced darkness for us.

Hell is described as a place of torment,
LUK 16:28, our Lord was tormented for us.

Hell is a place of unspeakable misery indicated by MAT 25:41, our Lord went through that for us.
LUK 16:23 And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom.

LUK 16:24 And he cried out and said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue; for I am in agony in this flame.”

The cup of charity – they offered Him wine mingled with myrrh, an opium to deaden His pain, but He rejected it,MAR 15:23.

The cup of mockery – the soldiers offered Him sour wine –
LUK 23:36 And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine,

The cup of sympathy –
somebody put some vinegar on a sponge and lifted it to His dry lips, JOH 19:29.

The greatest cup of all was the cup of iniquity.
He said in the Garden, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink of it?” JOH 18:11.

Joh 2 – our Lord turned water into wine. They ran out of wine, because everything the world has eventually runs out.

Joh 4 – Jesus said to that woman at the well, “If you drink of this water, you’ll thirst again; if you drink of the water that I’m going to give you, you’ll never thirst again,” JOH 4:13-14.

At the Feast of Tabernacles, our Lord cried out, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink,” JOH 7:37.

The question today is not, “Do you thirst?” because all mankind has a thirst for reality, a thirst for God, a thirst for forgiveness.

The real question is “How long are you going to thirst?”

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

The shout of victory.

Sunday, April 4, 2004

Palm Sunday is a future celebration to usher in the Millennial reign, the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth from His second advent to the end of human history.

His first advent was for the purpose of coming to die for the sins of the whole world not to set up His kingdom, therefore, the cross must come before the crown.

Palm Sunday is about a crowd who gathered together for political expediency, not spiritual recognition.

LUK 23:21 but they kept on calling out, saying, “Crucify, crucify Him!”

The branch of the palm tree is the sign of Messiahship, JER 23:5-6; ZEC 3:8; 6:12-13; ISA 11:1, but at the beginning of the Millennial reign.

The first advent, which we are still in today, was designed for the celebration of the cross.

1. LUK 23:34 “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
2. LUK 23:43 “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
3. JOH 19:26-27 He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!”

4. MAT 27:46, MAR 15:34 – Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

5. JOH 19:28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I am thirsty.”
6. The sixth statement can be described by one word, victory, Tetelestai – it is finished!

When the Lord Jesus Christ uttered the words “it is finished,” He evidenced the fact that salvation was complete.

There never will be any member of the human race who deserves something as wonderful and as marvelous and as precious as the blood of Jesus Christ, which, as a representative analogy of His spiritual death, cleanses from all sin.

When He said, “It is finished,” He made it very clear that to add anything to the finished work of salvation is sheer blasphemy. “He that believeth on the Son has eternal life.”

He said, Tetelestai – “Finished in the past with the result that it stands finished forever.”

Tetelestai – perf-pass-ind – teleo = to end, to be finished, completed, fully executed, concluded, to discharge a debt totally and completely.

Intensive perfect = a completed action with emphasis on existing results of that past action.

HEB 8:12 “For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more.”

Intensive perfect – teleo = “Finished in the past with the result that it stands finished forever” – a completed action with emphasis on existing results of that past action.

Present state = salvation is available.
Past action = Jesus Christ was judged for our sins.

“It is finished in the past with the result that it stands finished forever.”
Passive voice – represents the subject, Jesus Christ, as being acted upon by someone else, God the Father, who imputed our sins to Jesus Christ and judged everyone of them.

ROM 5:8 “God commends His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died as a substitute for us.”

Indicative mood – teleo = declarative for a dogmatic statement of doctrine; salvation is totally complete.

JOH 19:30 – the work of salvation was completed on the cross.

By adding anything to faith for salvation, man is in competition with God, and that alone is blasphemous.

Anytime anyone adds baptism or any system of works like joining a church or raising a hand or walking an aisle, or anything that man can do, he has rejected the work of Christ on the cross.

PHI 3:18 – an enemy of the cross of Christ,

All things had been done which the law of God required.
All things established which prophecy predicted.

All things brought to pass which the types foreshadowed.
All things accomplished which the Father had given Him to do.
All things performed which were needed for our redemption.

The costly ransom was given, the great conflict had been endured, sin’s wages had been paid, divine justice satisfied.

It was the declaration on the part of the Divine Redeemer that all for which the Lord came from heaven to earth to do, was now done.
All which was needful to reveal the glorious character of God had now been accomplished.

Everything necessary for the putting away of the sins of His people, providing for them a perfect standing before God, securing for them an eternal inheritance and fitting them for it, had all been done.

Crucifixion meant shame, torture and a slow and agonizing death.
Our Lord Jesus was “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” PHI 2:8.

Tetelestai was a familiar word.
The Greek of the New Testament was the common language of the people of that day – Koine Greek (common Greek).

“It is finished” – tetelestai – does not belong to some heavenly vocabulary, although it certainly has a wonderful heavenly meaning.

It was a familiar word used between a Master and his servants.
A master would tell his servant to go do something, and when the servant had completed the task, he would come back and say, “Tetelestai – I have finished the work that you gave me to do.”

He did not come as a sovereign but as a servant, not as a ruler but as a slave.

They have Palm Sunday before Easter or Resurrection Sunday, when the divine order is resurrection Sunday before Palm Sunday.

Death had to take place before there could be a resurrection.

JOH 17:4 I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do.

The priests also used this word.
After the priest had examined the sacrifice, he would say, “It is perfect.”

When the Lord Jesus was baptized, God the Father spoke from heaven and said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” MAT 3:17.

MAT 3:16 And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, {and} coming upon Him,

MAT 8:29 And behold, they cried out, saying, “What do we have to do with You, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”

His enemies had to admit that He was faultless, because they had to hire liars to bear false witness against Him.

Pilate said, “I find no fault in this man,” LUK 23:4.
Even Judas said, “I have betrayed innocent blood,” MAT 27:4.

Tetelestai! The priests used this word; it means “a perfect, faultless sacrifice.”
When a painter completed his work, he would step back and say, “Tetelestai – it is finished!”

In the Old Testament are ceremonies, types, prophecies, and some mysterious symbols.
The Old Testament was God’s “picture gallery” in the shadows.

LUK 24:25 “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!”

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

Our Lord’s final cry from the Cross.

Wednesday, April 7, 2004

You are not really prepared to live unless you are prepared to die.

2CO 5:6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord – for we walk by faith, not by sight –

2CO 5:8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

He confronted the last enemy – death – and courageously faced its sorrow, its trial, its pain, its finality –
1CO 15:26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

PSA 31:5 Into Thy hand I commit my spirit; Thou hast ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth.

TLJC did not have to be ransomed or redeemed.

When TLJC prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” LUK 23:34, He was fulfilling ISA 53:12, “He… made intercession for the transgressors.”

When He cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,”
MAT 27:46, He was quoting PSA 22:1.

When He said, “Father, into thy hands I commit My spirit,” LUK 23:46, He fulfilled PSA 31:5.

PSA 31:8 And Thou hast not given me over into the hand of the enemy; Thou hast set my feet in a large place.

PSA 31:15 My times are in Thy hand; Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.

ACT 2:23 this {Man}, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put {Him} to death.

Before Jesus Christ laid down His life, He forgave His enemies.

Before He laid down His life, He gave salvation to a repenting thief.

Before He laid down His life, He cared for His mother.

Before He laid down His life, He finished the work God gave Him to do.

Today we ought to forgive our enemies, just as He did, in case we should die.

As He did, we want to come to the time of death having shared salvation with others.

We want to be faithful in taking care of those who depend upon us.
We want to be able to come to the end of life and surrender to God willingly, having finished the work God wants us to do.

TLJC also died victoriously.

The veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom, and God opened the way into the Holy of Holies, MAT 27:51.

The veil was almost a foot thick. It stands forty feet high, and it was ripped from top to bottom.

God Himself ripped that veil to show that entrance into heaven was now available for not only Old Testament believers but for any believer who dies now.

Apparently these individuals had just recently died because for them to appear to “many” as a miraculous event, the many would have had to know that they died and that they have seen TLJC in Hades.

Christ proved that His power over death was not limited to Himself by resurrecting many of the Old Testament saints on this Feast of Firstfruits and offering these saints to God.

Jesus Christ proved Himself to be victorious over sin (the torn veil) and over death (the opened graves).

It reminds us of the earthquake at Mount Sinai when God came down and gave the Law, EXO 19:18.

It announced the fulfillment of the Law!

You can die confidently, with the assurance that you are going to the Father’s house.
You can die with the promises of God’s Word to give you grace and strength and comfort.
You can die in the safest place in all of the universe, in the hand of God.

JOH 10:27-28 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”

The seventh and final phrase can also be described by the word, contentment, LUK 23:46.

Human spirit – went into the presence of the Father,
Soul – went into Hades to Paradise,
His body went into the grave.

The seventh cry was the beginning of the end; and yet the end was a new beginning, for TLJC would arise from the grave in resurrection body, walk among men for a short time, then ascend into the presence of the Father to sit at His right hand as our great High Priest and make intercession for us forever.

There is a change in the vocative from “My God, My God,” in MAT 27:46, the previous phrase to, “Father.”

All references to the blood of Christ refer to His spiritual death rather than to His physical death.

PSA 31:5 Into Thy hand I commit my spirit; Thou hast ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth.

JOH 7:46 “Never did a man speak the way this man speaks.”

In His death, He was not driven beyond the power of thought, He was not unconscious, He did not die of weakness, He was strong even while He was dying.

The first statement dealt with the word forgiveness for His enemies, LUK 23:34.
The second one dealt with salvation, LUK 23:39-42.
The third statement from the cross, JOH 19:26-27, dealt with the word compassion.
The fourth statement dealt with anguish, MAT 27:46.

The fifth cry on the cross can be identified by the word suffering – JOH 19:28 “I am thirsty.”
The sixth saying of the cross can be described by the word victory –
JOH 19:30 “It is finished!”
The seventh and final phrase can be described by the word contentment –
LUK 23:46 “Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit.”

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

It’s time for His vindication, justification, and divine support.

Thursday, April 8, 2004

In His physical death, His human spirit went into the presence of the Father,
LUK 23:46; His soul went into Hades to Paradise, 1PE 3:18-22; and His body went into the grave or the tomb,MAT 12:40; MAT 27:60.

TLJC won the strategic or the significant victory on the cross, we have the privilege of winning the tactical victory by advancing to spiritual maturity.

Died – apothnesko = to die by separation, a reference to our Lord’s spiritual death on the cross, 2CO 5:21; 1PE 2:24.

The trichotomous humanity of Christ remained impeccable during the entire time He was on the cross, though He underwent the greatest temptations anyone ever faced.

That entire super race called the Nephilim, who were so violent that God had to destroy the world, were also religious beings.

1. He was sustained by the Omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit inside the PPOG, HEB 9:14.

2. He used the problem solving devices, especially sharing the happiness of God, HEB 12:2.

“For” – huper + genitive plural of advantage – adikos = “as a substitute for the unrighteous ones” referring to us all.

“In order that” – a purpose clause; the purpose of the cross –
“He might bring us to God” – prosagage – prosagavgh/ = to bring us face to face to God.

Sinful man is brought face to face to God with perfect righteousness because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

“Might bring us” – aor-act-subj – prosago = to bring us near, or to present us –
Pros = face to face
Ago = to bring
= to bring man face to face with God because of Jesus Christ and His righteousness.

EPH 2:6 God raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus,

COL 1:22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach –

The omnipotence of the Holy Spirit had custodianship of our Lord’s human soul after His physical death.

1. Paradise is where the Old Testament believers resided after death before the resurrection of our Lord.

2. Torments is where all unbelievers reside, LUK 16:23.

3. Tartarus is where certain fallen angels, called beni ha elohim in Gen 6, reside.

4. The Abyss contains demons who transgress the boundaries of the human race.

The abyss is the location of the demon king, Satan’s right hand man, called Abaddon.

“Made proclamation” = He proclaimed certain doctrines and informed those demons in prison that they had failed and God’s plan was right on time.

By means of God the Holy Spirit our Lord made one of the most dramatic visits in all of history, a visit to Tartarus.

Our Lord’s human soul was in Hades in an interim body for three days, and during the time that He was there, He also went to Tartarus.

Phulake – fulakh/ – prison = the third compartment of Hades called Tartarus, the location of some of the toughest of the fallen angels.

Every one of the Nephilim had a chance to believe in Christ, and every one of them said no.

In the vacuum of their souls, they continued to worship the gods of Mount Olympus, who were not gods but demons, PSA 96:5.

God kept waiting under the principle that grace always precedes judgment.

Water was an instrument of destruction for unbelievers but physical deliverance for believers.

At the moment of our salvation, the baptism of the Spirit made us members of the royal family of God.

Each member of Noah’s family in the ark is analogous to the believer who is in union with the person of Jesus Christ.

For they were delivered from the catastrophe of the flood by being inside the ark, just as we are delivered from the lake of fire by being in union with Christ, due to the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Your conscience was delivered at the moment you believed in Jesus Christ as Savior, when God the Holy Spirit entered you into union with the person of Jesus Christ, making you royal family of God and a new spiritual species.

First He went to Paradise, then Tartarus, and then His next trip, was from earth to the third heaven.

When Jesus Christ ascended, He was seated at the right hand of God the Father and received His third royal warrant –
REV 19:16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

He announced that He had come into the world as true humanity.

Then our Lord gave those demons an entire dissertation on the dispensation of the hypostatic union, and how He had been judged for the sins of the world.

In spite of the demon attack of GEN 6:1-11, true humanity continues to reside on the earth in the postdiluvian civilization.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

It’s time for His vindication, justification, and divine support. Part 2.

Friday, April 9, 2004

1. God can take any type of evil situation such as the persecution of the believers in the Tribulation period from all of the anti-Semitism which exists and convert it into divine good, GEN 50:20.

GEN 50:20 and as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.

2. Whenever someone tries to curse or destroy another believer, the Lord will turn the curse into a blessing when the believer operates in the faith-rest drill.

DEU 23:5 the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you.

3. When evil comes against you, the Lord can turn it into a blessing, providing that you operate in the F.R.D. and let Him handle the situation.

DEU 32:41 if I sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand takes hold on justice, I will render vengeance on My adversaries, and I will repay those who hate Me.

4. The believer does not have to fight and defend himself, God will do that for the believer who operates in the F.R.D.
2TH 1:6 for after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you,

5. Stop being anxious and worried and let God handle any unjust and unfair situation –
ISA 35:4 say to those with anxious heart, “Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, and He will deliver you.”

6. Never take revenge on anyone for anything –
ROM 12:19 never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.

7. If you are being mistreated in any situation, do not lift up your hand against another person –
1SA 24:12 “May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge me on you; but my hand shall not be against you.”

8. If you are robbed by another believer, give it over to the Lord –
1TH 4:6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.

9. Never repay evil with evil and give someone what you think that they deserve –
PRO 20:22 do not say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the Lord, and He will save you.

10. When someone has wronged you let the Lord repay him according to his deeds –
2TI 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

PRO 24:29 Do not say, “Thus I shall do to him as he has done to me; I will render to the man according to his work.”

“Spirits in prison” – beni ha elohim of GEN 6:1ff, fallen angels who were judged and incarcerated in Tartarus when the flood occurred on the earth, Jud 6; 2PE 2:4.

First He went to Paradise, then Tartarus, and then His next trip was from earth to the third heaven.

When Jesus Christ ascended, He was seated at the right hand of God the Father and received His third royal warrant –
REV 19:16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

When TLJC went to the fallen angels of Gen 6 in Tartarus, He announced to them a victorious proclamation, that they had not succeeded in their great attempt to prevent Him from coming in the flesh as true humanity.

He announced that He had come into the world as true humanity.

Our Lord gave those demons an entire dissertation on the dispensation of the hypostatic union, and how He had been judged for the sins of the world.

Not only did Jesus Christ succeed in coming in the flesh, in spite of that angelic attack, but at the same time a royal family was formed.

In spite of the demon attack of GEN 6:1-11, true humanity continues to reside on the earth in the postdiluvian civilization.

1JO 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

After our Lord went to Hades and preached His victorious proclamation something else also happened.

When the work of salvation was finished, our Lord said to the Father –
LUK 23:46 “Father, into Thy hands I dismiss My spirit,”

Then He went to Hades, LUK 23:46, and His human spirit went into the presence of the Father.

LUK 23:43 “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”
PSA 16:10 “You will not leave my soul in Hades.”
ACT 2:27 “His soul came out of Hades.”

Just as our Lord’s spiritual death was unique: He was judged for all of our sins, so His physical death was unique: He had a trichotomous separation.

The omnipotence of the Father sent our Lord’s human spirit through billions and billions of light years of space to His body in the tomb. Simultaneously, the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit returned His human soul from Hades to His body.

Even God the Son, TLJC, had a part in His resurrection –
JOH 2:19 Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

God the Father is said to be the agent of the resurrection, EPH 1:20.
COL 2:12, 1TH 1:10, ROM 6:4, and 1PE 1:21 all say that God the Father raised Him from the dead.

Scripture also says the Holy Spirit raised Him from the dead, Acts 2:24, ROM 1:4, ROM 8:11, and 1PE 3:18.
God the Son is said to be the agent in resurrection –
JOH 2:19 Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Rejoined in the resurrection body, our Lord walked through the stone. Later on, an angel rolled away the stone, not so He could get out of the tomb, but so that the world could go in, and see and verify the resurrection.

“He led captive a host of captives” = the third heaven, the place where our Lord’s triumphal procession terminated.

The first heaven is the atmosphere around the earth, GEN 1:8-9.
The second heaven was the stellar universe, GEN 1:16-17.
The third heaven, the throne room of God, REV 3:12; 4:1-2.

At that moment He received His third royal commission and the title, “King of kings and Lord of lord’s, the bright morning star.”

Having no royal family, a second Christocentric dispensation began in ten days, and the purpose of that dispensation is to call out a royal family of God.

The ascension is the termination of the dispensation of the hypostatic union.

Resurrection, ascension and session is the manifestation of our Lord’s great victory at the cross.
The ascension was when all the Old Testament saints were transferred from Hades, the area called Paradise, into the third heaven.

No believer ever permanently resided in heaven until the resurrection and session of TLJC.

There is an analogy to the triumphal procession with the transfers of all the Old Testament saints from Hades to heaven and the initial distribution of spiritual gifts to the royal family of God.

Had disarmed – aor-mid-part – apekduomai = to disarm or neutralize the enemy. The angelic forces of evil which are all under Satan’s rule.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

I am Satan.

Sunday, April 11, 2004

EZE 28:12 “I had the seal of perfection, I was full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.”

EZE 28:13 “I was in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was My covering:”

EZE 28:14 “I was the anointed cherub, the Messiah’s right hand angel.”

EZE 28:15 “I was blameless in My ways from the day I was created,”

1JO 5:19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

MAT 7:22 Many will say to Me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?”

MAT 7:23 And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

LUK 14:16 He said, that “A certain man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now..

LUK 14:18 But they all alike began to make excuses.

LUK 14:18 “I have bought a new house and I need to take care of it; please consider me excused.”

LUK 14:19 I have a new business and an important job, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.”
LUK 14:20 “I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.”
MAT 22:30 “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

JOH 1:11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

MAT 9:34 “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.
MAT 11:19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and prostitutes!”

MAT 26:66 “He is deserving of death!”
MAR 3:21 And when His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.”
MAR 3:22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul”

MAR 3:30 “He has an unclean spirit.”
LUK 23:2 “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar,”

LUK 23:5 But they kept on insisting, saying, “He stirs up the people,”
In JOH 7:12, they said He was a cult leader and He leads multitudes astray.

JOH 8:48 “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

JOH 10:20 And many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?”

His own disciples failed Him and fled, MAT 26:56.

ISA 53:10 But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting {Him} to grief;

MAT 26:69 Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a certain servant-girl came to him and said, “You too were with Jesus the Galilean.”
MAT 26:70 But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know the damn man that you are talking about.”

MAT 23:24 They strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

JOH 11:47 “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs.”

JOH 11:48 “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

A place of torment, LUK 16:28.

There is a place where desire is never met, LUK 16:24.

Hell is place of unspeakable misery indicated by the term, “everlasting fire,”
MAT 25:41.

A place where the conscience never dies and the fire is never quenched, MAR 9:44.

There is a Lake which burns with fire and brimstone, REV 21:8.
A bottomless pit, REV 9:2.
Outer darkness, MAT 8:12.
Fire unquenchable, LUK 3:17.
Furnace of fire, MAT 13:42

Blackness of darkness, JUD 1:13

MAR 9:49 “For everyone will be salted with fire.”

REV 14:11 “the smoke of their torment ascends up for ever and ever and they have no rest day or night.”
A.B. -Bachelor of the arts.
M. Div. – a master of divinity.
D.D. – doctor of divinity.
Ph.D. – a doctor of Philosophy.
litt.D. – doctor of literature.

I was the one JOH 18:14 who had advised the Jews that it was expedient for one man to die on behalf of the people.

MAT 26:14 Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests,

MAT 26:15 and said, “What are you willing to give me to deliver Him up to you?” And we weighed out to him thirty pieces of silver.
MAT 26:16 And from then on Judas began looking for a good opportunity to betray Him.
MAT 26:15 “What are you willing to give me to deliver Him up to you?”

MAT 27:1 Now when morning had come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put Him to death;

MAT 27:2 and they bound Him, and led Him away, and delivered Him up to Pilate the governor.

JOH 18:13 and so we led Him to Annas first; for he was my father-in-law.

JOH 18:24 Annas therefore sent Him bound to me the high priest.

MAT 26:62 I stood up and said to Him, “Do You make no answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?”

MAT 26:63 But this Jesus of yours kept silent. And I said to Him, “I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.”
MAT 26:64 “You have said it yourself.”

REV 2:18 The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire,

DAN 5:27 You have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.

MAT 26:60 and we did not find any even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward,

MAT 26:63 “I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.”

MAT 23:3 therefore all that we tell you, do and observe, but do not do according our deeds; for we say things but we do not do them.

If He denied that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, then His ministry was over.
If He affirmed that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, then His life was over.

MAT 27:43 “I am the Son of God.”
MAR 14:62 And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

MAT 26:66 What do you think? They answered and said, “He is deserving of death!”
JOH 18:32 “Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law.”

First, we charged Him with blasphemy.
LUK 23:5 “He stirs up the people, teaching all over Judea, starting from Galilee, even as far as this place.”
LUK 23:6 But when Pilate heard it, he asked whether the man was a Galilean.

LUK 23:7 And when he learned that He belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent Him to Herod, who himself also was in Jerusalem at that time.
LUK 23:4 And Pilate said to the chief priests and the multitudes, “I find no guilt in this man.”

JOH 19:12 “If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar.”

MAT 27:51 And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook; and the rocks were split,
MAT 28:2 – a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.

MAT 28:11 While they were on their way, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened.

MAT 28:12-13 And when they had assembled with the elders and counseled together, we gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’

MAT 28:14-15 “And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, {and is} to this day.

1CO 15:6 He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time,

ACT 4:19 “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge;”

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

It’s time for His vindication, justification and divine support. Part 3. The Trimphal Procession.

Sunday, April 18, 2004

“Spirits in prison” = beni ha elohim of GEN 6:1ff – those fallen angels who were judged and incarcerated in Tartarus when the flood occurred on the earth, Jud 6; 2PE 2:4.

First He went to Paradise, then Tartarus, and then His next trip was from earth to the third heaven.

When Jesus Christ ascended, He was seated at the right hand of God the Father and received his third royal warrant – REV 19:16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

“He led captive a host of captives” = the third heaven, the place where our Lord’s triumphal procession terminated.

Resurrection, ascension and session is the manifestation of our Lord’s great victory at the cross.
The ascension was when all the Old Testament saints were transferred from Hades, the area called Paradise, into the third heaven; this is the triumphal procession.

No believer ever permanently resided in heaven until the resurrection and session of TLJC.
The temporary residence for the Old Testament believers was a compartment called Paradise or Abraham’s bosom.
There is an analogy to the triumphal procession with the transfers of all the Old Testament saints from Hades to heaven and the initial distribution of spiritual gifts to the royal family of God.

“Had disarmed” – aor-mid-part – apekduomai = in the middle voice, to disarm or neutralize the enemy.
The angelic forces of evil which are all under Satan’s rule.

“The rulers” – accusative plural – archon = the highest rulers in the angelic armies.
Authorities – ezousia = demon commissioned officers in the demon organization.

COL 2:15 When He had disarmed the archons [the highest rulers in the angelic army] and authorities, or the demon commissioned officers.

While God the Father was canceling our debt on the cross, verse 14, the whole satanic system of fallen angels, superior to man, was also being disarmed and neutralized at the cross.

Satan appealed his first judgment in eternity past and the cross was the place of his second judgment.

He made a public display – aor-act-ind – deigmatizo = iterative aorist, at a certain point of time He began to make a show of them openly.
Deigmatizo = to display the captives.

Having triumphed – aor-act-part – thriambeuo = to lead a triumphal procession or making some kind of a special exhibition.
It also means to celebrate a triumph.

Operation footstool began the triumphal procession in heaven and will conclude with a triumphal procession on earth at the Second Advent of Jesus Christ.

A custom in the ancient world after winning a war was to bring the captives back – called a triumphal procession or a march through the city of Rome.

When TLJC was resurrected three days after the cross, He was on the earth for 40 days and then He ascended to the right hand of the Father, MAR 16:19, ACT 2:33; 5:31.

When TLJC arrived in the presence of the Father, He arrived as the “conquering general” and in front of Him during the ascension were Satan and all demons who were in the triumphal procession as captives.

Then the fallen angels went back to their activities because they will be executed at the Second Advent – operation footstool; they will be incarcerated for 1,000 years before their final judgment, REV 20:1-3; ZEC 13:2; JER 10:11.

ZEC 13:2 “And it will come about in that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “that I will cut off the demon from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; and I will also remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.”
JER 10:11 “The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.”

All the fallen angels will be placed in Hades until they are thrown into the lake of fire –
REV 20:14 And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

In the Roman army, the general officer was called an imperium.
When an imperium was victorious, his army lined up and saluted him with a tremendous shout: “Ave imperator!”

The spiritual analogy -TLJC was honored in the third heaven during His session and will be honored as the King of kings and the Lord of lords at the Second Coming.

In the Roman triumphal procession, the highest honor that could be given to an imperator was a triumphus (triumph).
The highest honor which can be given to TLJC is to sit down at the right hand of God as the “King of kings, Lord of lords, the bright morning star.”

ACT 2:33 “Therefore, [Jesus Christ] having been exalted to the right hand of God.”
ACT 5:31 “He is the one whom God has exalted at His right hand as prince and Savior.”

PHI 2:9 “Therefore also, God has highly exalted Him and given Him a title which is above every title, that at the title of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father.”

In the Roman triumphal procession, a triumph always included a procession or a parade.

The first part of the triumphal procession was when TLJC arrived in the presence of the Father as the conquering general and in front of Him were Satan and all the fallen angels as captives.
In this triumphal procession were all the Old Testament saints being transferred from Hades, the area called Paradise, into the third heaven.

The first part of the triumphal procession took place in the spiritual realm.
The second part will take place in the temporal realm and will be seen by all.

In the Roman triumphal procession, the senate had to approve the triumph and vote a sum of money to defray some of the expenses.

God the Father will support His Son Jesus Christ and at the Second Coming there will be a victorious procession to celebrate our Lord’s victory.

On the day appointed for the triumphal procession, the senate declared a holiday and the entire population of Rome came out of their homes and stationed themselves along the streets.

REV 1:7 Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. Even so. Amen.
MAT 24:30 And then the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

In the Roman triumphal procession, the victorious imperator or general assembled his troops outside the gate of triumph and delivered a speech commending his army on their victory. Then, at the end of his speech, he decorated the heroes.

Before our Lord comes back in the Second Coming, He will deliver a speech to the church at the bema seat judgment commending those who were victorious by becoming invisible heroes and spiritual champions.
REV 3:5 Thus the winner shall be clothed in white garments and I will never blot out his title [winner is knighted at the Judgment Seat of Christ] out of the book of life. In fact, I will acknowledge his title in the presence of My Father and before His angels [a formal presentation].

At the end of our Lord’s speech, He will decorate those winners at the bema seat judgment.
Potential rewards include decorations, knighthood, a uniform of glory, a coat of arms, a place in the eternal chivalry, and other rewards.

In the Roman triumphal procession, the highest honor was the corona – “crown” – Latin;
Greek – stephanos = “crown.”

The Crown of Life is awarded for handling undeserved suffering for blessing, JAM 1:12,
REV 2:10.
The Crown of Righteousness is awarded for the perpetuation of spiritual maturity to the point of death or the Rapture, 2TI 4:7-8.

The Crown of Glory is awarded to pastors who faithfully study and communicate Bible doctrine to their congregation, doctrine by which the pastor and some members of the congregation will attain spiritual maturity,1PE 5:1-4.

In the Roman triumphal procession, at the end of his speech and having given out all decorations, he then gave a command and the finance corps distributed to every Roman soldier a large sum of money for his part in the campaign.

Although all winners will not receive the order of the morning star, there will be many believers who are rewarded different crowns and awards given for faithfulness and dedication to the Lord in time.

In the Roman triumphal procession, the general mounted his chariot with four horses and commanded them to fall in.

TLJC will give orders to the church to mount their horses, Rev 19, as the church returns with Christ, 1TH 3:13.

In the Roman triumphal procession, at the gate, the imperator was met by the Roman senators and magistrates of the city.

Every eye will see him and every tongue will confess that He is Lord, REV 1:7-8, PHI 2:10-11.

The senators, magistrates, and counsels walked ahead first, followed by several bands of trumpeters playing the martial music of the day.
Then came that long train of carriages, extending for miles, on which were displayed various pictures of the country that had been conquered. Then followed all the plunder of the campaign.

Next came that flute-playing band, followed by the white bulls which were destined to be offered as sacrifices.

When TLJC comes back, all of the Old Testament saints will be raised from the dead and everyone will be in their own order. The first resurrection is pictured as a battalion pass-in-review – divided into four ranks, 1CO 15:20-24.

1CO 15:23 but each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming,

In the Roman triumphal procession, next came the enemy’s arms, their captured standards, weapons, followed by the leaders of the enemy country and army and members of their family.

First comes the triumphal procession in which all demons are disarmed by TLJC and publicly displayed,
COL 2:15.
Secondly, Satan is imprisoned for one thousand years,
REV 20:1-3.
Then Church-age believers cast demons into prison, ZEC 13:2; 1CO 15:24-25; COL 2:15.

In the Roman triumphal procession, behind the captured enemies came the lictors of the imperator marching in single file.
At the Second Advent, TLJC will present those winners to the entire world as He sets up His Millennial kingdom.

REV 14:14 – TLJC is sitting on the cloud, having a golden crown on His head, and a sharp sickle in His hand.
HEB 1:8 But of the Son He says, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.”
JOH 19:2 And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and arrayed Him in a purple robe;

In the Roman triumphal procession, just as the procession ascended the Capitaline hill, the leaders of the conquered army were pulled out of ranks, taken to the Mamertime dungeon, and brutally slaughtered.

In the Second Coming, all demons are disarmed by Jesus Christ and publicly displayed,
COL 2:15.

Satan is imprisoned for one thousand years,
REV 20:1-3.

Then Church-age believers cast demons into prison, ZEC 13:2; 1CO 15:24-25; COL 2:15.

In the Roman procession, a public banquet was held in honor of the imperator that lasted from six to eight hours.

TLJC is honored at the marriage supper of the Lamb, REV 19:7, 17.

During the course of the banquet, the imperator was given a triumphalis domas – a beautiful mansion, called the house of triumph.

At the same time, he was given a large amount of money from the treasury and a lifetime pension.

There will be maximum spirituality, ISA 65:24.

Israel is restored as a client nation to God, ISA 5:26-30; ZEC 2:28-29.

All the unconditional covenants to Israel are fulfilled, DAN 9:24.

a. Universal peace,
PSA 46:9; ISA 2:4;
HOS 2:18; MIC 4:3.

b. Universal prosperity, PSA 72:7, 16.

c. Perfect world government under Jesus Christ and the royal family, ISA 11:1-2;
ZEC 14:9.

d. Perfect objectivity in the administration of justice, ISA 11:3-5;
PSA 72:12-14.

e. Nature changes radically.

Creation shares the bondage of sin,
ROM 8:19-22, and is released from this bondage.
Isa 35 – flowers abound.

f. There is a population explosion, no death except for capital punishment.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

Motivation will be the basis for the evaluation of your life at the Judgement Seat of Christ.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Relative pronoun – hosa – o@sa + adjective – hagna = aJgnav = that which is proper, pure, clean, innocent, modest.
It originally signifies “that which awakens awe and respect for that which is spiritual.”

2CO 5:10 “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or worthless.”

1CO 3:13 “Each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality or the motivation of each man’s work.”

Motivation reveals that which is located inside the individual’s heart impelling or inciting action.

Motivation can be mental or emotional, because you can do things that you do not feel like doing but you do it because your mental attitude says to – and that is proper motivation.

JAM 4:17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.

You need to guard your motivation because a motive is thought which determines a choice or induces action.

Proper motivation can encourage, influence, convince or persuade an individual to do what is right.

PRO 16:2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the Lord weighs the motives.

As a part of proper motivation, we have purpose which is an appealing factor held out to persuade.

Motivation is something within that helps bring about an action or the desired result.

Impulse is an involuntary feeling prompting to act.

JAM 4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives,

Peter had an impulse to try to stop the Lord from going to Jerusalem where He would suffer, MAT 16:21-23.

PSA 7:9 For the righteous God tests the right lobes and the emotions [reins].

Motivation is the design or object one has in any action; it is one’s intention or purpose.

In the Christian life, the believer is motivated by B.D. in the soul and the filling of the Holy Spirit, which produces personal love for God, or by the lust pattern of the O.S.N. and Satan’s cosmic system, which produces good and evil.

The Word of God is the critic of motivation, HEB 4:12.

JOH 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

If you look closely at verse 12 you will see the things that it does and at verse 13, the reason why it works.

1. It pierces – diikneomai = to cut through.
2. It judges! Critic – kritikos – “judge” = to critique, judge, discern or evaluate.

JOH 12:47-18 And if anyone hears My doctrines, and does not guard them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My doctrines, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.

It works because it is universal in scope – no one is hidden from God’s sight.

“All things are open” = all things are uncovered. “Laid bare” = to be totally and completely exposed.

1SA 16:7 “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Evil is the source of wrong motivation, PSA 21:11; 1CO 10:5-6; MAR 7:22-23.
PSA 21:11 “Though they were motivated to do evil against Thee, and devised a plot, They will not succeed.”

1CO 10:5-6 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low [by the sin unto death] in the desert. Now these things happened as examples for us, that we should not crave evil things, as they also craved [evil things].

False motivation also hinders spiritual growth, PHI 2:14; JOB 17:11.

PHI 2:14 Keep on doing all things without sullen discontent [pouting] or argumentations [which undermine authority];

JOB 17:11 “My days are past, my motivations are torn apart, Even the desires of my right lobe.”

Divine motivation is the grace of God as seen in the predetermined plan of God, ROM 8:28; ROM 9:11; EPH 1:11; EPH 3:11; 2TI 1:9, described by – prothesis = a spiritual purpose.

The great issue in spiritual giving is motivation, 2CO 9:7 Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart[been motivated in his right lobe]; not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful or a joyful giver.

For the mature believer, God turns evil motivation into grace blessing, GEN 50:20, DEU 23:5.

The motivation of the mature believer is often maligned,

EXO 17:3 But the people thirsted there for water; and they complained against Moses and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?”

They did so because Moses was a constant challenge to their pride until finally their pride blew up and triggered the mechanism of jealousy, vindictiveness, implacability, etc.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

The categories of love found in members of the Royal Family of God.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

PHI 4:8 “whatever is lovely” – personal pronoun – hosa – o@sa + adjective – prosphile – prosfilh (plural). Prosphile = preposition pros + noun phile – phileo which connotes personal love; love that is personal.

A. Category one = love toward God.

B. Category two = love toward right man-right woman – a relationship between two members of the opposite sex designed for each other by God in eternity past; PRO 18:22; PRO 19:14, GEN 2:18,22, ECC 9:9, 1CO 7:17.

C. Category three = love toward friends.
D. Category four = love toward members of the human race or impersonal unconditional love.

Category four love is an impersonal unconditional virtue-love = agape.
The other word for love is phileo = a personal love.

Prosphiles – (pros) face to face love or those loves in your life that are closest to your heart. Prosphiles is a hapax legomena – only used once in the New Testament.

Category one love = personal love for God indicates the believer’s capacity to love God and to respond to God’s love based on Bible doctrine resident in the soul.

DEU 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one or unique! And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

DEU 10:12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to reverence the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,”

DEU 11:13 “And it shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commands which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul,”

It means that you “know” Him and that you have fellowship with Him through His mind, the word of God.

Apart from the daily function of perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine, it is impossible to love God.

a. The cosmic pastor is distracted by some form of works, crusades, or social action, being very moral, arrogant, and self-righteous.

b. The baby or immature pastor who has never learned Bible doctrine and therefore spends most of his time in the cosmic system.

c. The adolescent pastor who teaches some truth but is distracted by various forms of high profile.

Through his faithful Bible teaching, personal study, and avoiding high profile distractions, he advances in the PPOG and leads his congregation there.

JOH 3:30 “He increases … I decrease.”

Since God is invisible and the object of category one love, we must see and love Him through doctrine in the soul.

JOB 42:5 I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees Thee;

EXO 33:20 But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”

JOH 1:18 No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

1PE 1:8 “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,”

EPH 3:14-19

HEB 6:10 “For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, [How?] in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.”

It is this love, category one love, that frees the justice of God to bless you with supergrace blessings.

Not because He’s bribing you to do so but because through your love for Him you are free from the bondage of materialism and lusts, and therefore you have a capacity to receive God’s highest and best for you as His child.

Not because He’s bribing you to do so but because through your love for Him you are free from the bondage of materialism and lusts, and therefore you have a capacity to receive God’s highest and best for you as His child.

1CO 2:9 but just as it is written,“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

PSA 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

Category one love, love toward God, will also give you courage and confidence as you face spiritual warfare and the conflicts of life designed by Satan to defeat you and cause you to go AWOL as a spiritual soldier of TLJC;JOS 23:10-11.

JOS 23:10-11 One of your men puts to flight a thousand, for the Lord your God is He who fights for you, just as He promised you. So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God.

Category one love provides strength for adversity and pressure, HEB 11:27; HEB 12:3.

1CO 16:22 If anyone does not [phileo] love the Lord, let him be accursed. Maranatha.

Witnessing is motivated by category one love, 2CO 5:14.

The description of category one love is given in 1JO 4:15-19.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

The most horrible disasters in life cannot destroy true love.

Friday, April 23, 2004

PHI 4:8 …whatever is lovely – hosa prosphile = whatever areas of your life where personal love exists.

A. Category one love is your personal love toward God.

B. Category two love is toward right man-right woman. It is a relationship between two members of the opposite sex designed for each other by God in eternity past; PRO 18:22; PRO 19:14, GEN 2:18,22, ECC 9:9, 1CO 7:17.

Category two love refers to the body and soul relationship between a right man and a right woman.

1PE 3:7 You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Unlike category three love, which is love toward friends, category two love is a touching love. It is a coalescence or the merging of soul and body.

Turn to SOL 8

“Put” – suwm = to impress or to set.

Seal – chotham = a ring or a seal that signifies she belongs to a certain man and she is waiting for a certain man.

GEN 38:18 – the woman would carry a ring on a string on her breast over her heart which would symbolize where the area of identification between man and woman really takes place – in the soul.

The right one for your life will fulfill the standards that you have in your soul.

The man will also provide soul stimulation, SOS 1:16-17.

The man must be in the soul of the woman before she surrenders her body to him.

Strong – azah = to protect and to fortify.

She respects him and that motivates her to be faithful.

He respects her and that motivates him to be faithful.

Once a woman has the man that God has designed for her in her soul she will never be satisfied with another man.

“Strong as death” – the man’s love for the woman and her response to that love serves as a fortification and protection for the woman’s soul and body.

Just as the grave robs you from a loved one so jealousy robs you of capacity in relationship with your loved one.

Flashes represent the fact that the responses to each other are hot.

The flame is “from the Lord” not the flesh.

“Many waters” = pressures, disasters, difficulties; including misunderstandings, etc.

Quench – kabah = to extinguish, or to take the heat away.

Rivers overflowing = the most horrible disasters of life which cannot destroy true love.

Keil and Delitzsch – this statement was a direct putdown to Solomon’s many gifts and his riches to this woman speaking in this passage.

True love cannot be found where it does not truly exist and it can not be hidden where it truly does.

This woman in this passage did not try to impress other men, she saved herself for her lover.

The highest natural form of happiness and prosperity in this life is when a man finds his woman.

The principle of divine design or right-man right-woman was designed by God in eternity past.

The exceptions are: the gift of celibacy; the function under the law of supreme sacrifice designed by God for maximum concentration and divine production, as with Jeremiah and Paul, 1CO 9:5; JER 16:2.

There is no benefit in meeting the one that God has designed for you unless you have waited on the Lord in faithfulness to that principle.

When a person comes to their right man or right woman with a lot of previous fornication, the capacity in the body is destroyed, 1CO 6:18.

With God all things are possible and there is healing process that can take place to restore the body but that takes humility, discipline and obedience.

Fornication is accepting a cheap substitute in order to gratify an emotional or biological passion or urge.

Spiritual growth rejects the concept of a frantic search for happiness through adultery.

Divine viewpoint plus the faith-rest technique flees from fornication, 1CO 6:18.

Under phallic apostasy, fornication builds scar tissue on the soul while destroying the physical responses of the body in the field of sex.

Fornication becomes the enemy to the right-man right-woman relationship.

Maximum doctrine in the soul plus abstinence from sex become the basis for maximum pleasure from sex in category-two love.

Blessing in category two love depends on maximum maturity in the spiritual life.

Under category two love, happiness is found in one person, PRO 5:15-23.

This excludes rejecting the following: masturbation, homosexuality or lesbianism, promiscuity or adultery.

Category two love is more important than the circumstances of life and produces an exclusive and perfect happiness which is self-sustaining and partner sustaining, PRO 15:17.

Category two love is protective while the partner is absent, SOS 1:13; SOS 4:6 and while he or she is present,
SOS 2:4.

Category two love illustrates the Lord’s relationship:
With Israel, JER 2:2, 33; EZE 16:8, 23;
With the church, EPH 5:23-33.

Mental attitude sins attack all forms of love, 1JO 5:18; SOS 8:6.

Category two love is the provision of God’s grace, PRO 18:22.
God has set aside time in each life for category two love, ECC 3:8.
Women must be taught to love under category two love, TIT 2:4.

Men instinctively love their children, but women do not. Women must be taught to love their children correctly because they let their emotions get in their way of true love.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

Friendship makes prosperity marvelous and lightens adversity by dividing and sharing it.

Sunday, April 25, 2004

“Whatever is lovely” – hosa prosphile – hosa prosfilh = whatever areas of your life where personal love exists. Prosphile = preposition pros + noun phile – phileo which connotes personal love, love that is personal.

A. Category one love is your personal love toward God.
B. Category two love is toward right man-right woman – a relationship between two members of the opposite sex designed for each other by God in eternity past; PRO 18:22; PRO 19:14, GEN 2:18,22, ECC 9:9, 1CO 7:17.

C. Category three is love toward friends.
D. Category four is love toward members of the human race or impersonal unconditional love.

Category four love is an impersonal unconditional virtue-love = agape.
The other word for love is phileo = a personal love.

How are you going to interpret a book that has around 11,280 Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words with the typical English translation which is only around 6,000 English words?

The third category where personal love exists that you should also keep on dwelling upon or concentrate upon is category three love – love for friends.

The smarter you are the fewer friends you will have. PRO 18:24, A man of {many} friends {comes} to ruin, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

True friends do not try to upstage you or compete with you, they will love you as they love themselves, 1SA 20:17.

2SA 1:26 David said “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful than the love of women.”

1SA 20:17 And Jonathan made David vow again because of his love for him, because he loved him as he loved his own life.

“Loves” – ahab = to make their love for you manifested, evident, apparent.

True friends never stab you in the back, PRO 17:9. True friends also guard your privacy.

ROM 12:9 “Let your love be without hypocrisy. Abhor evil; cling to what is good.”

Turn to PRO 27:6

A pastor is a friend to the congregation when he does not pull any punches, GAL 4:16.

Anyone to whom you must give a false impression can never be a true friend.

Category three love is also outgoing and objective rather than hypersensitive and subjective.

This means dealing with the issue of category three love not being category two love.

Capacity for category three love through Bible doctrine in the soul is the basis for a relaxed mental attitude toward all believers.

Age is no barrier in category three love.

Category three love is limited to a few. It takes both energy and sacrifice to have true friends.

Category three love is a giving love, 1SA 18:1-4.
It gives time, thoughtfulness, and material things.

Knit – qashar = to tie or to be chained together.

Covenant – beriyth = a soul agreement of obligation, faithfulness to each other, and sacrifice.

a. The robe represented that which could be seen by the public – that which represented one’s character, nobility, strength and faithfulness to his friend.

b. The armor was used for covering and it symbolized the fact that Jonathan would cover David at all times –
PRO 17:9 He who covers transgressions seeks love.

c. The sword refers to Bible doctrine, HEB 4:12, and it reveals the fact that faithfulness is based upon Bible doctrine in the soul, not carnality and fleshly rapport.

d. The bow was a hunter’s or warrior’s weapon which represented the fact that if necessary Jonathan would fight and defend his friend.
e. The belt is a symbol of a righteous life and a faithful spirit –
ISA 11:5 Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, And faithfulness the belt about His waist.

Category three love can be neutralized or destroyed by mental attitude sins, JOB 19:19-22.

Category three love can be neutralized or destroyed by verbal sins, PRO 16:28; PRO 17:9.

Loss of category three love is part of intensive discipline, PSA 38:11; PSA 88:18.

Category three love, true friends, help sharpen each other’s appearance, character and nature.

PRO 27:17 Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another.

Friendship makes prosperity marvelous and lightens adversity by dividing and sharing it.

A true friend will be gracious and kind to you when you are going through a difficult time –
JOB 6:14 For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend;
GAL 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ.

“Shared joy is a double joy, shared sorrow is half a sorrow.”

The book of Wisdom – “A friend cannot be known in prosperity: and an enemy cannot be hidden in adversity.”

Marcus Cicero –
“A friend is, as it were, a second self.”
Aristotle asked –
“What is a friend?”
He answered –
“A single soul dwelling in two bodies!”

“Misfortune shows those who are not really your friends!”
Zeno, when asked, “What is a friend?” said, “Another I.”
Wisdom 6:14 “A faithful friend is a strong defense: And he that hath found such a one has found a treasure.”

Believers should develop friendships with those that are positive toward doctrine, 2CO 6:14 cf.
PSA 119:63.

PSA 119:63 I am a companion of all those who fear Thee, And of those who keep Thy precepts.
JAM 4:4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Be careful of the familiar friend in whom you trust who will betray you, PSA 41:9.
The one who will not have compassion in time of disaster, JOB 6:14.
The one who will deceive you for personal gain as Jonadab did to Amnon, 2SA 13:3.

Be careful of those “so called” friends who contribute to causing you to fall, 2Sa 13.
Be careful for those who become your friend because of what they can get from you.
PRO 19:6 “Many will entreat the favor of a generous man, and every man is a friend to him who gives gifts.”

Be careful for those so called friends who flatter you with their speech, PRO 27:14.
The ones who are friendly with you for your wealth, PRO 19:4.
The ones who forsake you and flee when you need them the most, MAR 14:50.

The ones who use you and never return the kindness that you showed them, LUK 15:16.
The ones whom you love who turn against you, JOB 19:19.

1JO 5:19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

It is the Lord Jesus Christ who has the duty, responsibility, and prerogative to act as the supreme court judge.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

“Good repute” – predicate nominative plural – euphema – eu!fhma = that which is commendable, or that which is well spoken of.

A euphemism is the act or an example of substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt, or offensive.

All of you are going to be required to evaluate people from time to time – that is not judging.

JOH 7:24 “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

The judging that is forbidden in the word of God is when you assign in your conversation to some other person a sin, real or imagined.

JOB 40:8 Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?

Maligning is seeing the sin and telling others.

Gossiping is repeating something you did not see yourself but you heard that it was true.

PRO 14:12 There is a way {which seems} right to a man, But its end is the way of death.

EPH 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear.

PRO 6:16-19 – out of the seven which the Lord hates are:
2) A lying tongue.
6) A false witness who utters lies [perjury].
7) A person who spreads strife among the brethren [gossip, slander, maligning, judging].

The blindness of arrogance is that you are committing the worst of sins when you malign, slander, or judge someone else of committing some sin.

The self-righteous arrogance of the evil believer assumes the prerogative of replacing our Lord Jesus Christ as the presiding judge of the Supreme Court of Heaven.

A key word used by self-righteous people is “duty, or responsibility.”

The self-righteous Pharisees thought it was “their duty” to destroy the perfect Son of God.
The legalistic Judaizers also thought it was “their duty” to discredit the grace ministry of Paul and stone him.

JOH 8:7 “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Legalism judges the sins of other believers, real or imagined.
Respectability for maligning others is one of the most evil functions in the Christian way of life.

It is a double standard of arrogance to judge, slander, malign, condemn the sins of others, while at the same time being blind to or ignoring your own sins.

ROM 2:1 – in the slander, maligning, and judging of other believers, the self-righteous arrogant believer is not vindicating himself, but he is actually condemning himself.

PHI 4:8 From now on, members of the Royal family of God, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.

It is neither the duty, responsibility or prerogative of the believer to assume the role and function of Jesus Christ as the Supreme Court Judge.

It is the responsibility of believers to self-evaluate or judge our own lives in the light of the standards of Bible doctrine.

In the case of criminality, that responsibility has been delegated by our Lord to the government.

Regarding another believer with contempt indicates a tremendous function of arrogance in your life.
You do not know the exact stage of that believer’s spiritual growth.

After the resurrection of the Church all believers will be evaluated by our Lord Jesus Christ, ROM 14:12, 2CO 5:10.

1. The condemnation of all of the wrong things we have done; this is the shame related to the judgment seat of Christ.

2. The rewards and blessing for all the things we have done to execute God’s plan.

If – conjunction ei – ei! – a conditional particle; with the indicative mood of the verb, it introduces a protasis of a first class condition.

The first class condition is a statement of absolute reality or fact = “if and it is true.”
The second class condition = “if and it is not true.”

The third class condition is a probable condition = “if, maybe it is true, maybe it is not.”
The fourth condition = “if, I wish it were true, but it is not.”

Nominative singular – arete – a*rethV = virtue, which is moral goodness, or moral excellence of conformity of one’s life, to the laws of divine establishment.

Turn to 2Pe 1

The arrogant believer is locked into Satan’s cosmic system with a sense of superiority.

JER 49:16 The arrogance of your heart has deceived you.

1CO 13:4 Virtue-love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

If you are not curious about what God has done for you, you have no capacity for life in any area.

Ecclesiastes – there are those who seek for pleasure, success, and happiness and there are those who have pleasure, success, and happiness search for them, ECC 6:2.

1CO 8:1 we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.

The smart, arrogant type believer mixes true doctrine with false doctrine and usually becomes involved with “intellectual cliques.”

Moral degeneracy is the terrible influence of legalism and placing a false set of values on Christian works and service.

1. They are the enemies of the Cross, PHI 3:18.
2. They are enemies of God, JAM 4:4.
3. They are haters of God, JOH 15:23.

4. They are double-minded, JAM 4:8.
5. They are anti-Christ or against Christ, 1JO 2:18-22, 1JO 4:3, 2Jo 7.
6. They are carnal Christians, ROM 8:7; 1CO 3:1-3.

7. They are disciples or students of the devil, 1JO 3:8-10.
8. They are grievers of the Holy Spirit, EPH 4:30.
9. They are quenching the Spirit, 1TH 5:19.

A full understanding of the doctrine of election will counteract the influence of Satan’s cosmic system.

All believers were elected in eternity past for the purpose of inheriting blessings.

Brotherly love is impersonal unconditional virtue-love toward all.

Your blessings being deposited in escrow in eternity past – has nothing to do with time because you could never work or deserve any divine blessing.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

Virtue in the believer is the visible manifestation of the invisible.

Friday, April 30, 2004

Virtue is the foundation on which that which is true, honorable, just, of proper motivation, and that which is commendable is built upon.

Virtue in the believer is the visible manifestation of the invisible – metabolized doctrine and the power of the Holy Spirit.

As virtue is the visible manifestation of humility toward God, arrogance is the visible manifestation of Satan’s invisible cosmic system.

It can only be manufactured through the laws of divine establishment and living the spiritual life, inside the PPOG.

Virtue is not only a Biblical subject, but it is verified by the etymology and usage of the Greek word arete.

Virtue is the distinctive characteristic of the royal family, the inevitable result of executing the plan of God.

Basic virtues developed in the PPOG include enforced and genuine humility, love, worship, morality, courage, and confidence.

Virtue is the quality of intrinsic good; it is not proving one’s worth.

Proving one’s worth is arrogance; arrogance is the antithesis of and is antagonistic to virtue.

Virtue is manufactured from perception of doctrine and results in occupation with Christ, while arrogance is manufactured in the cosmic system and is preoccupation with self.

Believers who reside and function in the PPOG produce virtue, while believers who reside and function in the cosmic system destroy virtue and produce pseudo-virtue.

Virtue manufactured inside the PPOG is the source of all true happiness in life.

Pseudo-virtue manufactured in the cosmic system is the basis of all hypocrisy in life.

The cosmic system makes a special offer to all believers: wealth, success, promotion, sex, authority, lifestyle, approbation, and fame, but without honor, integrity, ability, virtue, love, leadership, capacity, or happiness.

Inside the cosmic system there is a constant search for happiness, while in the PPOG, God’s perfect happiness looks for you.

The production of virtue means both happiness and orientation to God’s plan for the Church-age.

JAM 4:14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

The opportunities of being in touch with eternity exist now and yet most believers can just keep in touch with time.

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JOH 8:31-32 If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.