SEPTEMBER 2005

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

What it means to be initiated into the secret of the mystery. Part 91. This treasure in "earthen vessels" reveals the surpassing greatness of the power of God. Part 3. .

Thursday, September 22, 2005

JOH 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
PRO 17:17 A friend loves at all times, And as a brother is born for times of adversity.
1JO 3:16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

Hermeneutics is the science and methodology of interpreting the Scriptures.

The first mention principle is that principle by which God indicates in the first mention of a subject, the truth with which that subject stands connected in the mind of God.

Newton said, “I find in Scripture this principle of interpretation, which I believe, if conscientiously adopted, will serve as an unfailing guide to what was in the mind of God.”

Dr. A. T. Pierson - “This is a law we have long since noted, and have never yet found it to fail. The first occurrence of a word, expression, or utterance, is the key to its subsequent meaning, or it will be a guide to ascertaining the essential truth connected with it.”

“13” in Scripture is used in connection with rebellion. All through Scripture, 13 is a number that has in it the note of rebellion against God. It foreshadows apostasy.

There is the subtlety of Satan, GEN 3:1.
Expect subtlety every time you meet him, 2CO 11:3.

There is the business of Satan indicated in the first words recorded,
“Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

The first words recorded of our Lord -
LUK 2:49 “Did you not know that I had to be about my Father’s business?”
HEB 10:7 “Behold, I have come to do Thy will, O God.”

The same thing can be said about the first mention of Faith, Holiness, Spirit of God, the Son of Man, the Day of the Lord, the city of Jerusalem, Babylon, etc.

“To man, friendship is indispensable and to that one who has no need and feels no need for it, he must be either much above the human nature or much below it.”

“Take a ladder,” was Constantine’s advice to such a one, “and climb up to heaven by thyself.”

1CO 1:12 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”
1CO 16:13 Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

EPH 6:18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,
1PE 5:8 Be of sober {spirit,} be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

This principle also rebukes the religious solitaire, that isolated being who belongs to no Church, because no Church is perfect enough for him or her.
1CO 1:12 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”

But our self-confidence is our stumbling block.

He wears down our noble determination through the frustrations of life and He squeezes out of us every piece of our self-confidence by disappointment and defeat.

He allows our goals and dreams to fall apart or sink in the swamp of human power and strength.

When “can-do” can’t, He shows us that He can, and therefore we can.
(“I can’t” then becomes blasphemy.)

JOB 23:14 For He performs what is appointed for me, And many such decrees are with Him.
1TH 5:24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.

The demands that have been placed on us are now demands on Him.
PHI 4:13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

To persuade ourselves that we are something when we are nothing is terrible loss; to confess that we are nothing is to lay the foundation of being something.
GAL 6:3 For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

We move through the day in our distracted way, assuming that our compulsions and motivations are mandates from God.

Paul seemed to know exactly what he was doing and believed that what he was doing was thoroughly worthwhile.
He was with people and he taught them.

Paul was with others, befriending, socializing, getting to know them, entering into their lives.

He reminds us of TLJC, Emmanuel, “God with us,” who spent a seemingly inordinate amount of time eating, fishing, strolling by the sea, chatting, going to parties, being neighborly.

A friend is merely someone we befriend.
The way to make a friend is to be one.
PRO 18:24 “A man that desires friends must show himself friendly.”

The other element in Paul’s work was impartation: “I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house,” verse 20.

Friendship entails telling another what we ourselves have come to know about God-nothing more and nothing less.

2CO 5:16 Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.

Like Jonathan, who went to David at Horesh and “helped him find strength in God,” 1SA 23:16, a real friend is one who leaves another with a word that strengthens his grip on God.

The simplest things are often the most spiritual things of all, 2CO 11:3-4.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

What it means to be initiated into the secret of the mystery. Part 92. "He must increase, but I must decrease.".

Friday, September 23, 2005

1. Impersonal love emphasizes the subject while personal love emphasizes the object.
2. Impersonal love demands we operate on our own norms and standards.

3. Impersonal love is a command in which all members of the human race in your periphery are the objects.
JOH 15:12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”
JOH 15:17 “This I command you, that you love one another.”
1PE 2:17 honor all men; love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. [Impersonal unconditional love.]

4. Impersonal love excludes emotion, while personal love has great emotional function.
5. Impersonal love emphasizes the integrity of the subject, while personal love emphasizes the attractiveness of the object.
6. Impersonal love excludes carrying a grudge.

Impersonal love never mandates the believer to stoop to the level of vindication, implacability, hatred, arrogance, or bitterness toward other believers.

Impersonal love means we have been benefited by grace, therefore we function by grace.

Retaliation interferes with the justice of God punishing others.
Retaliation lowers the believer to the level of his antagonist.

Impersonal love = we never stoop to the level of evil, or are overcome by evil.

7. Impersonal love among believers includes respect for the imputed perfect righteousness residing in others.
8. Impersonal love is the relaxed mental attitude from the filling of the Holy Spirit rather than overt friendliness or gushy hypocrisy.

ROM 5:5; GAL 5:22 - both teach that the filling of the Holy Spirit produces impersonal love.

9. Under impersonal love the believer functions under his own standards rather than being influenced by flattery, attraction, attention, or reciprocation.
10. Not only does impersonal love exclude mental attitude sins and verbal sins, but it demands toleration, respect for privacy, and avoidance of distracting anyone from doctrine.

PRO 13:10 Through presumption comes nothing but strife, But with those who receive counsel is wisdom.

Humility means being led downward.
It means being content when others are elevated above us and letting others advance even at our own expense.

It means accepting every humiliation and looking upon every person who demeans us as a means of grace to humble us.

JOH 3:30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

In humbling yourself you are imitating and using the same means that TLJC used.

2CO 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

He was “meek and humble in heart” - not the least bit concerned about protecting His dignity or position.

Compassion for others comes from being humbled and grows through our own suffering.

2CO 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
2CO 1:6 But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and deliverance; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer;

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

What it means to be initiated into the secret of the mystery. Part 93. When earthly comforts fail, God gives "eternal encouragement.".

Sunday, September 25, 2005

ACT 20:28 “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

PSA 65:3 Iniquities prevail against me; As for our transgressions, Thou dost forgive them.
ISA 43:25 “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.”
JER 33:8 “And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against Me, and by which they have transgressed against Me.”

MIC 7:18-19 who is a God like thee, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? Yes you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.
PSA 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
ISA 38:17c For You have cast all their sins behind their back.
JER 31:34c “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

PSA 103:10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
PSA 65:3b As far our transgressions Thou dost forgive them.
PSA 85:2 You did forgive the iniquity of Your people; you did cover “All” their sin.
EZE 16:63 “I will forgive you for ALL that you have done”

PSA 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to Thee.
PSA 38:18 For I confess my iniquity (sin).
JER 3:13 ONLY acknowledge your iniquity.
PRO 28:13 He who confesses and forsakes them (sins) will find compassion.

DAN 9:20 Confessing my sin.
MAT 3:6 and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.
JAM 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

“Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock.”
“Above all else, guard your heart,” PRO 4:23.

JOH 3:30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
In humbling yourself you are imitating and using the same means that TLJC used.

2CO 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

He was “meek and humble in heart” - not the least bit concerned about protecting His dignity or position.

Compassion for others comes from being humbled and grows through our own suffering.

It is doubtful that God can use anyone greatly until they have been hurt deeply.

When earthly comforts fail us, He gives “eternal encouragement.”

Pain moves us closer to God and we gain His perspective on our broken dreams; we get His comfort -
“By His wounds we are healed,” ISA 53:5.

We are made more human and humane, more kind and empathetic.
By our wounds others are healed.

It is the fruit of intimacy with the God who cares for us, 1PE 5:7.

1JO 4:19 We love, because He first loved us.

Murphy’s Law - “Things will get worse before they get better.”

“Sorrow upon sorrow” is the lonely, invisible burden of every worker, and sometimes the hardest tests are further along.

Suffering happens because there are things to be done in our character that can only be accomplished through strenuous effort.

HEB 5:8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
PHI 1:29 Because to you it has been graciously given with reference concerning Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer on behalf of Him,

PSA 126:6 He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying {his} bag of seed, Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves {with him}.
PSA 126:6 So those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

We are inclined to concentrate on the ordeals we go through, but God chooses to look forward and anticipate its effect.

By disappointment, grief, tears, and even by our sin, God deals with our unworthiness in His mysterious love, breaking it down and refining it, making us wiser, more willing to let go of what we want, more sensitive, less talkative.

PSA 66:10 For Thou hast tried us, O God; Thou hast refined us as silver is refined.
PRO 17:3 The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the Lord tests hearts.
ISA 48:10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

ZEC 13:9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, Refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, “They are My people,” And they will say, “The Lord is my God.”

He is indeed the “Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God,” 2CO 1:3.

HOS 5:15 I will go away {and} return to My place Until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.

Suffering kills us - shatters the illusion that we are alive apart from God - and pushes us closer to Him.

“We... are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you,” 2CO 4:11-12.

Ours is to submit to the process and the work that must be done.

Even Jesus was matured in His ministry through pain - “In bringing many sons into glory, it was fitting that God... should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering,” HEB 2:10.

To resist the pain, then, is to miss the purpose of it; we must not feel sorry for ourselves. Self-pity is deadly and demonic.

As He promised, with such fine irony, even though “they will put some of you to death... not a hair of your head will perish,” LUK 21:16,18.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

What it means to be initiated into the secret of the mystery. Part 94. The doctrine of jealousy.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

1. Jealousy = a sin, an emotion, a state of anxiety or a trait.
2. Jealousy is older than the human race because jealousy existed in eternity past when Lucifer, the star of the morning, son of the dawn, became jealous of God.
3. The first case of jealousy in the human race surfaced when Cain became jealous of his brother Abel,
GEN 4:4-5. This motivated Cain to murder his brother, GEN 4:8.

1JO 3:15 Everyone who hates his fellow believer is a murderer;

Scripture describes jealousy as cruel as the grave, SOS 8:6.

PRO 6:34 For jealousy enrages a man, And he will not spare in the day of vengeance.
PRO 27:4 Wrath is fierce and anger is a flood, But who can stand before jealousy?

Point 1. Definition.
a. Jealousy is a mental attitude sin which demands exclusive devotion and is intolerant of competition.
b. Jealousy is discontentment with the blessings, successes, or status symbols of other people.
c. Jealousy is resentment of the attractiveness or approbation that a person receives.

The jealousy of the authority of Joseph motivated his brothers to sell him into slavery, GEN 37:11, ACT 7:9.

d. Jealousy is total selfishness and is incapable of true love.
e. Jealousy is a possessiveness which suppresses the volition of another person; jealousy is tyranny.
f. Jealousy is also fear.

GEN 30:1 Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous of her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die.”

It was called in England the “Morbidly Jealous Murderer.”
“Morbid jealousy” accounted for 12% of insane male murderers incarcerated at Broadmoor in England.

The crime was most frequently committed by beating to death with a club or strangulation. Most morbidly jealous murderers are male. Most victims are wives or mistresses. On the average these murderers had been married 10 years and had been delusional for at least half that time.

g. Jealousy is anti-freedom, and does not permit people to love you from their own volition.

Jealousy is a violation of the Royal Family honor code -
ROM 13:13 Let us behave properly as in the day, not in strife and jealousy.

h. Jealousy is an emotional sin, as well as a part of arrogance.
i. Jealousy is mood arrogance troubled by suspicion that a person’s love has been diverted to a rival.
j. Jealousy is inordinate competition in love, in business, in social life, in athletics, in professional life, and in the spiritual life.

Arrogance toward self, subjective arrogance.
Possessiveness of others, objective arrogance.

Point 2. For the believer rejection of Bible doctrine produces envy and jealousy, 1TI 6:3-4.

Jealousy is discontent with the blessings, successes, or status symbols of other people.

MAR 15:10 For He [TLJC] was aware that the chief priests had delivered Him over to the Romans because of jealousy.

Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries

What it means to be initiated into the secret of the mystery. Part 95. The doctrine of jealousy. Part 2.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Arrogance toward self, subjective arrogance.
Possessiveness of others, objective arrogance.

Point 2. For the believer rejection of Bible doctrine produces envy and jealousy, 1TI 6:3-4.

Jealousy is discontent with the blessings, successes, or status symbols of other people.

MAR 15:10 For He [TLJC] was aware that the chief priests had delivered Him over to the Romans because of jealousy.

Point 3. Jealousy is a self-destructive mental attitude and a system of thinking from the Cosmos.

Disorder - noun - akatastasia = instability, disorder, commotion, and confusion.

Point 4. Jealousy like many of the mental attitude sins can produce physical sickness as well as mental disorder.

PRO 14:30 A tranquil heart is life to the body, But jealousy is rottenness to the bones.
JOB 5:2 For jealousy slays the foolish man and anger kills the stupid.

Point 5. Jealousy is the worst of all the mental attitude sins because it is the strongest mental attitude sin.

Jealousy belongs to several categories of personal sinning:
The arrogance complex of sins.
The emotional complex of sins.

Since jealousy is defined as unpleasant fear, suspicion, resentment from mistrust of another, it is obvious that jealousy, as a sin, is part of the arrogance complex of sins and the emotional complex of sins.

Bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, inordinate ambition and competition, revenge motivation, or verbal sins.

a. The hysterical category of sins which includes fear - fear of rivalry, fear of losing someone’s affection, fear of unfaithfulness in some form - worry, anxiety, panic, consternation, irrationality, dissociation.

b. The hatred category - uncontrollable anger, implacable hatred, bitter resentment, implacable vindictiveness, loathing, animosity, tantrums, violence, murder.

c. The self-centered category which includes self-pity, emotional irrationality, certain expressions of dissatisfaction including gossip, slander, maligning, and other forms of vilification.