Archive for ◊ March, 2024 ◊

16 Mar 2024 1 Corinthians (Program #17)

1 Corinthians (Program #17) – The Church, God’s Farm, God’s Building (2)

The believers in Corinth in the early church were rich in many things. They have received the initial gifts of the divine life and the Holy Spirit. They were enriched in all knowledge and they even have many miraculous gifts in their midst.  Yet Paul referred to them as infants or babes in Christ. How could that be with all that God had given them?   Primarily is because they neglect the mater of life and growing spiritually in the divine life. So, the apostle Paul points out to them in clear types and pictures the importance and necessity of the divine life.

Listen again as his words are so full of references to life and growth:

3:5-9 “What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Ministers through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to beach one of them. I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.  So then neither is he who plants anything nor he who waters, but God who causes the growth.  Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.  For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s cultivated land, God’s building.”

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16 Mar 2024 Exodus (Program #127)

Exodus (Program #127) – The Priestly Garments (13 & 14) Alphabet

The garment worn by the high priest in the Old Testament gives us a wonderful picture of many aspects of Christ.  But the breastplate that was the outer-most item of the priestly garment also gives us a picture of God’s redeemed people, the church and how God conveys His word and will to man through the church.

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15 Mar 2024 1 Corinthians (Program #16)

1 Corinthians (Program #16) – The Church, God’s Farm, God’s Building (1)

The first two chapters of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians are very rich in their presentation of Christ. Paul clearly was doing all he could to bring the troubled Corinthians to Christ in their experience.

But in Chapter three Paul turns his focus to the church. Though not in shallow or superficial language rather he speaks in marvelous profound expressions referring to the church in types.  First as a farm growing, producing a rich crop. Then as a building and ultimately as a temple, a divine dwelling place, build out of priceless materials such as gold, silver and precious stones. Of course these materials are not literally either but types of the transformation work that the Holy Spirit is engaged in with all of us, God’s redeemed.

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15 Mar 2024 Exodus (Program #126)

Exodus (Program #126) – The Priestly Garments (12) Urim and Thummin for Joshua, Eleazar, Aaron

It was recently reported, that although sales for the Bible has actually increased in recent years, reading the Bible is at an all time low.  The reasons given by most people for not reading the Bible that they own is that they simply don’t understand the Bible.  Well, we all experience not being able to understand the Bible from time to time.  Many of the Old Testament books are difficult.  But when we are given the keys to unlock all the marvelous types and pictures that are given to us in the Old Testament becomes a brand new book.  More of those keys are waiting for us today.

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14 Mar 2024 1 Corinthians (Program #15)

1 Corinthians (Program #15) – The Spirit of Man and the Spirit of God Knowing the Things of God (3)

Only the spirit of man knows the things of a man. And only the Spirit of God knows the things of God.

This is our third program in a row on this critical matter of the spirit of man.

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14 Mar 2024 Exodus (Program #125)

Exodus (Program #125) – The Priestly Garments (10 & 11) Urim and Thummin

There is a very tender picture of our Lord Jesus holding His redeemed ones in love in the Old Testament book of Exodus.  This picture matches the New Testament revelation as well as our own experience of being held by His love.  But the picture in the Old Testament reveals that God’s people are not only held by His love, they are also upheld by His strength.

This week we have been looking at Ephod and the 3 items that were attached to it or added to it in the priest’s garment.  These are the two shoulder pieces that had onyx stones attached and then also the breast plate worn in front by the priest.  This piece also contains precious stones, 12 of them actually.  We seen that the Ephod, this vest-like outer garment is a clear picture of Jesus Christ.  What are these added items, these precious stone items signify?

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13 Mar 2024 1 Corinthians (Program #14)

1 Corinthians (Program #14) – The Spirit of Man and the Spirit of God Knowing the Things of God (2)

The church of Corinth was a church full of problems, perhaps more so than any other church in the New Testament. Yet the apostle Paul reveal more of God’s purpose to that troubled church than to any other.

We are going to see some of the precious matters in 1 Corinthians that are contrasted by the apostle Paul against such negative as division, incest and immaturity.

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13 Mar 2024 Exodus (Program #124)

Exodus (Program #124) – The Priestly Garments (9) Memorial Before God, Rings, Chains, Fine Linen

All genuine believers in Christ should have the sense that they are being upheld or born by Him.  This is the intimate part of our experience of the loving Savior; to sense that He is bearing us.  But not only does Christ hold us or bear us individually, the Bible reveals that the way in which Christ bear His people primarily is corporately.  We will see the High Priest bearing the tribe of Israel on His breast and shoulder.

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12 Mar 2024 1 Corinthians (Program #13)

1 Corinthians (Program #13) – The Spirit of Man and the Spirit of God Knowing the Things of God (1)

How can we know God and how can we know man?   The Bible tells us is only by the Spirit. But what is that mean? 1 Corinthians 2:11 says

“For who among men knows the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him? In the same way, the things of God also no one has known except the Spirit of God.”

A very particular life study program related to the two Spirits.

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12 Mar 2024 Exodus (Program #123)

Exodus (Program #123) – The Priestly Garments (8) Lord’s Leading, the Church

The church of God was not manifested until the New Testament age.  It occupies many pages even chapters of New Testament scripture.  Though was never spoken of directly in the Old Testament, the pictures and types of the church embedded in the Old Testament are the richest and finest.

We have been looking at the details of the priestly garments from Exodus 28.  We come to an item today called the breastplate.  It is described in verses 15 and 16 of chapter 28 in Exodus.  Verse 15 “You shall make a breastplate of judgment, the work of a skillful workman like the work of the Ephod you shall make it, of gold, blue, and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen you shall make it.”

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