Bully's Blog

A friend of mine discovered John Piper and devoured just about every online sermon in under 12 months. It changed him profoundly. (I highly recommend Piper’s biographical series. I should listen to them again.)

Anyhow, my friend shared that Piper had made a comment about not ‘getting’ the prophets. As there are so many views on what the prophets are talking about, this is understandable. Based on what I’ve heard from James Jordan and my resulting studies, I would like to offer some helpful hints. They seem to play out, from what I can see.

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“Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets: ‘Did you offer Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?”  Acts 7:42 [NKJV]

James Jordan observes that in using the phrase “The Book of the Prophets”, Stephen refers to what we call the minor prophets, considered as one book in the Hebrew canon. The main themes in this Book were the jealousy of the Lord and the day of the Lord. Another judgment, death and resurrection of Israel was on the horizon.

The Book of the Twelve, Lecture 1, available from www.wordmp3.com

The Third Trumpet

De-Ascension – the Temple judged

The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, 

After the ascension of Christ, Satan was expelled from his “ministry” before God as the Accuser of man. Like the evil twin of the blazing torch that measured Abram’s sacrifices, he was then used by God to bring an end to the Covenant.

and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

These first three trumpets concerned the Land (Judah), the Sea (the world empire) and the springs of water (the Temple). This same order began the song of ascension, Psalm 24:
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“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.” 2 Timothy 4:6

A recent bestseller mistakenly tells us to be “wild at heart”, which results in passive wimps looking into their dark, little, empty hearts to find selfish, authoritarian rednecks. What men really desire is other men to follow—godly elders who are modelling Christ.

Bread is energising Alpha food (morning); Wine is intoxicating Omega food (evening).1 Young men are bread, ready to be broken. Breaking brings wisdom and maturity. Old men are wisdom-wine, servant kings poured out for the next generation.

The answer to geeky Christianity is not more Alpha Males (or less of them in some circles), but more of the Omega variety: fathers.

At study tonight, someone mentioned attending a Keswick convention where a wise old sage who spoke to the thousands was later not dining with the elite, but behind the counter serving the lunches, apologising for the wait. Now, that’s an Omega male.

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1  I recommend James Jordan’s lecture series, One Life, Many Deaths at www.wordmp3.com

When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a green [Greek: chloros] horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the [Land], to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the [Land].

The four horsemen of the apocalypse are the Gospel. They are released as the seals on the New Covenant scroll are broken by Christ after His ascension. The white horse brings the Word, the red horse brings division (as Jesus promised), the black horse starves the old order (or Covenant) but does no harm to the new, and finally, the green horse (a Levite with a sword1), ends the old order.

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“There were hangings of fine white and violet linen held by cords of fine purple linen on silver rings and marble columns, and couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl and precious stones.” Esther 1:6 [NASB]

In his Esther lectures, James Jordan observes that Ahasuerus is pictured as being enthroned over his very own crystal sea.

Nero was the first ruler in history to be buried in porphyry. For this ‘bad Ahasuerus’ who exercised false judgment, the crystal sea became a laver of fire. We know from Revelation 14:10 that the lake was before the heavenly throne.

“Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.” Revelation 19:20

Herod’s Temple was covered in marble. Revelation shows it replaced with a crystal city. The church is now the Laver. Baptism symbolises the gospel as walls to the wicked and gates to the righteous: fire and ice. Jesus’ kingdom is the fifth empire and His judgment is righteous and uncompromising.

“So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth” Revelation 3:16

It might look like I’m colouring outside the lines, but it’s in line with a very consistent Biblical symbolism.

This event would explain the massive discontinuity between the apostles and the church fathers. James Jordan writes:

The true Fathers of the Church are Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Jeremiah, Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John, and the other Fathers in the Bible. These men, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, created the apostolic deposit from which the Church always grows. The men who came after them, in the first and second and third centuries, are not Church Fathers but Church Babies. We may think that because these men lived right after the apostles, they must have known a lot. Remarkably, this is not the case. Anyone who reads the Bible, climaxing in the New Testament, and then turns to the “apostolic fathers” of the second century, is amazed at how little these men seem to have known…

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The Rest of the Dead

I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received [his] mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Revelation 20:4-5

James Jordan writes:

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A great deal of the theological reflection on the nature of God (at least that which I come across) is human ruminations disengaged from most of the Bible, ie. the Old Testament. It gets treated as a vestigial organ bigger than the body it’s part of. Is this because the Old Testament conflicts more sharply with the modern and post-modern worldviews than the epistles?

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Deconstituted Ingredients

“The second ‘zone’ we need to think about concerning gnostic tendencies is the sacraments. God’s affirmation of the material world is seen in the fact that He uses physical water to introduce people into His kingdom; and by the fact that we eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood in the Lord’s supper. Many Christians, however, cannot embrace such physical ideas. Water baptism is thus reduced to a mere symbol instead of a powerful communication from God. And so are the bread and wine of the supper.

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