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Preparing yourself for the study of God’s Word
Before we begin, only if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ (that is; you have believed [trusted] in Him for His promised gift of eternal life) John 3:16, John 6:47 as a few examples; it is very important to prepare yourself to learn God's Word so the Holy Spirit can teach you as to what your reading or hearing is true or false. To be taught by the Holy Spirit you must be filled with the Holy Spirit which means abiding in Christ. To place yourself in fellowship with God the Holy Spirit [also called abiding in the Christ], take a moment to simply name, cite or acknowledge [confess] your known unconfessed sins privately to God (i.e.; with your thoughts directed only to God the Father). Why? Because you cannot grow spiritually if you’re not abiding in Christ [in fellowship with Him] when you take in bible truth.
1 John 1:9, says: “If we confess [meaning to simply name, cite or acknowledge to God the Father] our sins [known unconfessed sins], He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins [known sins] and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [all unknown and forgotten sins];” NKJV [New King James Version]; we call this REBOUND; read the full doctrine as to “why” we need to use 1 John 1:9 to grow spiritually. Left click the following link to learn more and fully understand the doctrine of Rebound; which answers the question, why do I need to keep confessing my sins all the time? REBOUND
If you have never personally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God, the promised Messiah, as your Savior (that is, believed in Him for eternal life), the issue for you is not to name your sins; the issue for you is to simply exercise faith alone in Jesus Christ alone eternal life; when you do, you will instantly receive Eternal Life: John 3:16, 5:24, 6:47, 20:30, 31.
John 6:47 says: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me [Jesus Christ] has everlasting life." NKJV
Notice again what Jesus said in John 6:47: "…he who believes in Me (Jesus Christ) has everlasting life." It doesn't say, "will have"; it says, "has." Therefore, the very moment you believe in Jesus Christ for His promise of everlasting life, you have it (it's really just that simple; nothing more and nothing less), and it can never be taken away from you (John 10:28-29). Furthermore, the gift (Ephesians 2:8c) of everlasting life (also called eternal life in scripture) is available to every human being; there are absolutely no exceptions.
John 3:14-15, 16, 17, 18, says: "14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." NKJV
Let us now bow our hearts and take a moment to prepare for worship and learning God's Word. If there is any known sin in your life, this is the time to just cite it privately to God the Father with your thoughts directed towards Him. With your head bowed and your eyes closed, you have total privacy in your mind and soul:
Study to show yourself approved to God!
Grace Bible Church
Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The Tree of Life is a weekly teaching summary:
God’s Word is taught Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday
STUDY TITLE:
Weekly Bible Study, January 2, 2023, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power."
We are now back in the book of Romans where we see so many fantastic doctrines having to do with the Sovereign will of God and the free will of man co-existing together.
For this is a word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born, and had not done anything good or bad, in order that God’s purpose according to His choice might stand, not because of works, but because of Him who calls, It was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” (Rm 9:9-12)
We have noted that this was contrary to the protocol of the Jewish race because the younger was to serve the older. In the ancient world, in patriarchal times, the elder son enjoyed the privileges of precedence in the household and at the father's death received a double share of the inheritance and became the recognized head of the family, as it is stated in Num 8:17.
The apostle Paul then asks the normal question most individuals would have.
What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” (Rm 9:14-17)
The phrase for the Scripture says to Pharaoh, is a reference to Pharaoh Amenhotep the Second, a Pharaoh was an Egyptian king or tyrant. Then a quotation taken from Exo 9:16 in Rm 9:17, “For this very purpose I raised you up,” which means I (the Lord) have caused you to continue in history. Here was a person who was anti-Israel to the core. A person who was very evil, and yet the Lord said, “I have caused you to continue in history.”
When we find ourselves in danger, whether personal, national, or international, we need to realize that these things are permitted to continue in history so that the power of God may be demonstrated through us. Many times in human history God has demonstrated His power by means of some evil ruler, (such as Nero, Stalin, Hitler, Hussein). Nero - killed his mother, set Rome on fire, blamed Christians, raped his sister, put on animal skin heads. Stalin - a street fighter, a pirate, a crime lord and a murderer known for killing more innocent people than Hitler.
Adolf Hitler - what more can we say as he killed not only 6 million Jews but also anyone he concluded as not being a part of the super race. In our day and age Saddam Hussein. And so many times in human history God has demonstrated His power by means of some evil ruler. Many times in human history God has demonstrated his power by means of some evil people. Many times in human history God has demonstrated His power by means of believers who are negative toward Bible doctrine. Of course this is simply another way of saying, “God uses the wrath of man to praise Him" (Psa 76:10).
By means of the hardness of Pharaoh's heart, God is going to demonstrate His power in such a way that it will have an effect on two entire generations. I want you to think about this because you all need to realize what the apostle Paul said in 2Co 3. You are a walking epistle.
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. (2Co 3:1-3)
By means of the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart, God is going to demonstrate His power in such a way that it will have an effect on two entire generations. As we will see, also an effect on the entire world. Here, the Exodus generation and the generation that followed.
This also affects many individuals throughout the world. Remember that there is a doctrine called the doctrine of Heathenism = which teaches that if anyone in any part of the world, no matter how geographically isolated, At the point of God consciousness expresses in his soul a desire to know God, and a desire to have a relationship with God, then God will provide, some way and some how, that information. Whatever it takes, the person will have the opportunity to hear the gospel and to respond. Apparently there was such a situation in the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep the second. He, in the eighteenth dynasty, controlled all of the area of the Middle East. He was a very powerful king. He was the king of Egypt.
Egypt, at that time, dominated all the Middle East and most of North Africa. Therefore, there was a large number of people under the control of the eighteenth dynasty. In that area there was a tremendous number of people who were positive at the point of God-consciousness. Instead of God using the internet or satellite radio, or television, He used the hardness of one man's heart to get the Gospel message and His power throughout this region. This is a perfect illustration of the divine decrees or that which God has determined to happen, bringing glory to God even through man's negative volition.
Our human limitations constantly restrict our ability to know and understand God. Think with me for a moment. What kind of people can God use to accomplish His purpose?
The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil. (Pr 16:4)
The Lord will allow some wicked person in your life to do things spitefully to you for the purpose of making you stronger spiritually.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isa 45:7)
God will allow some sweet sincere do-gooder in your life to do things spitefully to you for the purpose of making you stronger spiritually. The Lord will even use the wickedness of people and angels to bring His plan and purpose to pass.
For the wicked is reserved for the day of calamity; they will be led forth at the day of fury. (Job 21:30)
You know it's very easy to control an angry person and even the Lord does that as they are led forth in the day of fury. This is also the meaning behind Psa 76:10 in the Jerusalem translation which says; man's wrath only adds to Your glory. The Lord will actually use the evil and the wickedness of man to reveal His glory to the orld. Remember the woman caught in adultery and the wickedness of the self-righteous Pharisees. God used the wickedness of self-righteousness to magnify His grace. We saw it in Gn 50:20, with the evil and jealousy of Joseph's brothers.
The Lord will use the hardness of an unbeliever's heart and the hardness of a believer's heart to bring glory to Himself. Inevitably the Lord will be glorified even when men perform the greatest evil of which they are capable of performing. 2Co 13:8 says, for we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. This is why I am a firm believer in the principle of divine appointments and the timing of God by noting the Doctrine of the open door.
Point 1. Definition. An open door refers to the grace opportunity related to giving meaning, purpose, and definition to your life.
It is an opportunity that results in happiness and blessing for the person who fulfills the plan of God. Since your salvation, you have the opportunity to become an anonymous invisible hero of this decade through historical impact. This is why we need to learn from the Philippian believers as Paul pointed out in 2Co 8.
Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability they gave of their own accord, begging us with much entreaty for the favor of participation in the support of the saints, and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. (2Co 8:1-5)
Point 2, the First Door of Opportunity in Scripture Is the Door of Salvation.
"I am the door, if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture [logistical grace provision for the believer in Christ]." (Jn 10:9)
Anyone can walk through this door because salvation is available to all. It requires no merit for you to walk through a door. And when they had arrived and gathered the church together, they {began} to report all things that God had done with them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. (Ac 14:27)
The door of faith or the open door of salvation is available to every member of the human race in every generation. All kinds of people can walk through a door. Good people, bad people, moral people, amoral, immoral, ignorant, smart etc.
Therefore, all kinds of people can be saved. No one is ever too evil or to sinful to be saved. There are no limitations, all you have to do is walk through the door and this is a great illustration of the non-meritorious function of faith in salvation.
The first opportunity in life is the open door of salvation......it's open to everyone..... "Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." This is totally apart from human merit
You don't have to say, "Look God I'm going to wait until I straighten out my life and then I'll accept Christ as Savior." it's a door that you can walk through right now.
Point 3. The second door of opportunity in life is the door of communication of truth.
This door is related to the three categories of truth: The laws of divine establishment, the gospel, and Bible doctrine. In 2Co 2:12 Paul is speaking, Now when I came to Troas or Troy for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened for me in the Lord. In other words, there was great opportunity for evangelism and the communication of Bible doctrine.
Paul was a prepared man and God provided the hearers. Paul did not use gimmicks to gather a crowd. Many preachers today use gimmicks and that's because they are not prepared......God uses prepared people. Col 4:3 "Also, at the same time praying for us that God would open a door to communicate the mystery of Christ."
So, the open door in these passages indicates the communication of some form of doctrine.
Communication of all three categories of truth are related to the open door.
Category number 1, the laws of divine establishment for the entire human race.
Category number 2, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ for Unbelievers.
Category number 3, Bible doctrine for believers. There is the open door of service,
1Cor 16:9, "For a wide door, even effective service has opened to me and there are many adversaries."
Please notice that there is much "cosmic opposition" to the truth. The open door of service is when you see a need and God gives you the opportunity of fulfilling that need.
The open door of service it can refer to rendering financial help to others, Ac 11:29; 2CO 9:12-13; Rm 15:31. It can refer to personal help rendered to individuals in leadership positions, Ac 19:22; Rm 16:1-2.
It is God giving certain members of the body of Christ direction to identify the unmentioned needs involved in the local assembly and to do something about it.
Such people can be counted on in the most adverse circumstances and for the widest variety of service and God opens the door for these believers to go through.
Point 4. The third door of opportunity in life is the provision of the PPOG and its resultant historical impact. Rev 3:8
"I know your deeds [your production]. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power or insignificant strength, and have kept or guarded My word, and have not denied My name.
The fact that the PPOG is available to you is the greatest opportunity for historical impact that individual believers have ever had in any dispensation of history. His open door demands spiritual aggression on the part of the positive believer living inside the PPOG.
Point 5. The Fourth Door of Opportunity in Life Is the Door of Rebound and Recovery.
God has a door for the believer involved in apostasy. Rev 3:20 "I have stood at the door with the result that I keep standing at the door and knock repeatedly [this is the warning discipline stage of the spiritual life.] If anyone hears My voice and opens the door [rebound], I will come into him and have dinner with him and he with me [fellowship]. "The open door of opportunity is related to recovery from the cosmic system through the rebound technique.
Point 6. There Are Open Doors in Heaven. Rev 4:1 teaches the open door of the rapture of the church. Rev 4:1 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things."
That's the open door of the Rapture. In Rev 4 and 5, the church is in heaven while in Rev 6-19, the tribulation occurs on earth. Then there is the open door of the second advent.
At the end of the tribulation a door opens in heaven and the Lord Jesus comes back with the Church
Rev 19:11 teaches the open door of the second advent, quoted from Psa 24:7-10.
Rev 19:11 And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war.
Psa 24:7-8, Lift up your heads, O gates, And be lifted up, O everlasting doors, That the King of glory may come! Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle.
Psa 24:9-10, Lift up your heads, O gates, And lift {them} up, O everlasting ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah.
So, we have the door of the Second advent mentioned in a very dramatic way in Psa 24:7-10.
Point 7. How to know the doors that God opens up in your life. First of all, we begin with that very simple principle in 1Co 14:33 for God is not a God of confusion but of peace,
The open door is determining the will of God for your life, related to both specific and general things, by the operation of your own thinking in the application of doctrine.
On the other hand, divine discipline and human disaster is usually God closing the door that you're trying to go through. Discipline and disaster is God saying, "No, you are not in my will, do not go through that door." The only way to know positively what doors you should go through is to understand Bible doctrine and metabolize it.
You cannot know the will of God apart from knowing the word of God. There are categories of doors that God will open up in your life.
a. First of all, there is the open door of learning doctrine so that you can know what God wants you to think.
b. Secondly, there is the open door of the operational will of God or what God wants you to do.
c. There is also the open door of location or the geographical will of God which is where God wants you to be.
d. Then there the open doors of permission which are not a part of God's perfect will for your life.
He will open them up because of your persistence in trying to knock them down, this is known as the permissive will of God.
The permissive will of God says that God permits certain things to happen because God has given free will to man, so that man would be a rational creature who would resolve the angelic conflict.
You can know the viewpoint, operational, and geographical will of God for your life only by having maximum doctrine in your soul and going through the doors that God opens for you. You receive divine discipline for not knowing the right answer and being outside of god's will.
Point 8. How to know the doors that God opens up in your life. And we noted a very simple principle in 1Co 14:33 God is not God of confusion but of peace, You can know the viewpoint, operational, and geographical will of God for your life only by having maximum doctrine in your soul and going through the doors that God opens for you.
Point 9, Classifications of the open doors of God.
a. The directive open doors are the same as the desires of God for your life, as in Num 22:12.
b. The permissive open doors are those doors that God permits you to go through but it is not God's desire, as in Num 22:20.
c. There are also the open doors that you're forced to go through because of the overruling will of God which is that Jesus Christ controls history, as in Num 23:5, 8, 23, 25-26. Therefore, these open doors can be declared under four principles.
1. They are directive, God has a plan for your life and opens the doors if you desire to fulfill that plan.
2. The open doors are determinative and conclusive, God has permitted non-meritorious volition to bring us to the place of blessing or discipline.
3. They are permissive doors which are open because negative volition to bible doctrine is permitted, but divine justice provides discipline.
4. They are also preventative, providing doctrine, establishment laws, and discipline to keep human volition in the will of God.
Point 10. The academic concepts behind the open doors of God.
Knowing what doors God has opened for you depends on the perception of doctrine and then its application.
This principle of Bible doctrine in the soul is found in Psa 32:8; Isa 58:11. Psa 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
The pure thoughts of doctrine, not the deceptive thoughts of man, are the basis for understanding what doors God is opening in your life.
Pr 3:1 My son, do not forget my teaching, #But let your heart keep my commandments;
Pr 3:2 For length of days and years of life, And peace they will add to you.
Pr 3:3 Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.
Pr 3:4 So you will find favor and good repute In the sight of God and man.
Pr 3:5 Trust in the (Lord) with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding.
Pr 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.
Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
The filling of the Holy Spirit is a part of God opening up doors in the spiritual realm.
Eph 5:14 For this reason it says, "Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you."
Eph 5:15 Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise,
Eph 5:16 making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
Eph 5:17 So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Eph 5:18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
Spiritual growth causes you to know more of the open doors of God, 2PE 3:18; HE 11:7.
2Pe 3:18a but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Point 11, the mechanics of the open doors.
a. God will open doors through prayer, Lev 11:9, Col 4:3. “Knock, and it shall be opened to you".
Col 4:3 praying at the same time for us as well, that God may open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery doctrine of Christ,
b. God will open doors through objective thinking of Bible doctrine.
c. God will open up doors through providential circumstances, e.g. the people we meet.
d. God will open up doors through the filling of the Holy spirit and humility.
e. God will open doors up through fellowship and comparison of spiritual data with other believers.
f. God will even open up doors through disaster.
"For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power." Rm 9:9-17; 2Co 3:1-3; 8:1-5.
The following link is to a good news message describing how one can receive eternal life: Ticket to Heaven, it was written for anyone not absolutely certain about their eternal future.
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