It’s a VIPA: verb, indicative, present, active. That means it’s an action, a factual statement. Present means the efficacy of what happened, it continues on. That means that if I look back to the English, what we have is redemption through His blood. This tells me it’s not just like, “Okay, I have it, I put it in my pocket, and that’s that.” It means that what has been done through the blood, the redemption, it is something that I possess, that every day that I fall short, I am having, I’m covered by. So the grammar is important to us to understand what this means. I want to do a comparative.
If I don’t finish all of it this week, it’s okay because this is important. This may be, I think, the foundation for some people out there who need to hear what we believe and why we believe. It’s not enough to say, “I’ve marched down to the altar now and I’ve accepted Jesus Christ,” and you have no idea of what you’ve just said. He chose you. He accepted you. He made the choosing. He did the choosing; the Bible says that. Now understand why He chose you and the price He paid. Echomen ten, and this word here, which is extremely important, apolutrosin: apo, from or away, out of.
This is a Christian church. It’s very confusing because we have all kinds of different languages on the board. There’s not an identification process, except there is an American flag behind us, which is a good start. But so many people call in and say, “What denomination is this? Where is your church?” Well, the good thing is the church is where we are; wherever we are, that’s where the church is. But I need to say this because I never want to get put in a box. I’ve come to see how denominations divide people because of dogma and doctrine. As long as we are preaching and proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ, my denomination is Jesus Christ. That’s my denomination, okay.
So now that we’ve made that clear and there are no questions about that, I would like you to open your Bible to the Book of Ephesians, please. Now for those who have been here a long time, you probably have plenty of notes in your Bible. I’ve made my own. I’m like a kid on a playground. I want to teach out of this book, and then I open up the Bible and I say, “Well, I want to teach over here, and I want to teach over there.” I have to harness myself and get control of myself, because everything in the Bible is so good and wonderful for us to learn from.
Now to anybody who is really going to gel this all together, Paul had to have spent time, and it’s very highly debated: did he go into Arabia and have time with the risen Lord, which I believe is what happened. But for him to go and see Peter first, there is something very telling right there because he could have gone to find anybody. It tells me he had to have been with the risen Lord and just the like the recorded Gospel records, “Go tell My disciples and Peter.” Peter’s first mention here is not an accident. So he says he went to “see Peter, abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not,” because people were saying, “Paul’s a liar. Don’t believe him. He doesn’t have the Gospel. He doesn’t have any revelation. This guy, he persecuted the church. Look what he did.”
Now, “Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified God in me.”
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that we’re going to keep going on this catalog, this journey, “Fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem” – some call this his second visit – “with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.” We need to stop here.
So, and I could keep reading this, probably just sit here and have a lot of fun reading this, but I don’t want to bore you folks.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that the act that Jesus did when He said “No man taketh my life. I lay it down,” willfully, the perfect burnt offering, male without blemish. “No man taketh my life. I lay it down of myself.” He was not only the hilasterion but He did it in this mode. He did it willfully. When we say cheerfully, “God loves a hilarious giver,” it’s what I said in Exodus: ‘willful,’ ‘willfully’, with a heart that says “Here I am. This is what I’m bringing. You know my heart, you know where my mind’s coming from. This is what I bring to the table, the very least I do.” So my question is: Why do we make giving some outside function of Christianity? When at the very core and the pattern of our faith and what has been laid before us is the greatest Giver of all times who didn’t say “I give you this for you to get that.” “I gave my Son that you might have life and life more abundant and life eternal.” He gave of Himself as the propitiatory, as the propitiation, the hilasterion. And He gave of Himself in this way, it may be conjugated differently, it may be mood and tense differently, but the spirit of which He gave of Himself in that pattern setting the tone for us.
No, we don’t have to go and lay down our lives. He did it once, you don’t keep putting Jesus on cross. But you take that pattern and you say “If that is what being a Christian is and I can understand what the joy of the Lord is when I’m giving with my heart.” Not because somebody looks in the camera and says “send money.” Please don’t send money here unless you’ve been taught and you know why you’re giving it. Otherwise again you just fall back into that place where “I’m doing something, you scratch my back I scratch yours.” And by the way, the word being used when it says “God loves a hilarious giver” this word for ‘love’ is the agape word, not the phileo ‘you do for me and I do for you’ This unconditional word that says “I’m going to love you no matter what you do. I’m going to love you if you are a rat. I’m going to love you if you’re whatever you are.” Because like the prodigal son, still even after what he did he was still the father’s son. We are still His children. We need to start acting like it.
That’s my message.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that once a good recognition of where I stand is things start to fit into the right area. I said this, when I met Dr. Scott, when I met him, I was still hung up on material things. Many of the staff people will tell you. My poor husband before we got married did everything under the sun to talk me out of this. I was going to go buy a real fancy sports car. He did a good job, he talked me out of it. In fact it was like the Lord confirmed what he said even though I didn’t really know the Lord at the time. The Lord confirmed what he said.
He said “Please don’t buy that car. That is going to be a deathtrap for you. That is just, that’s the…very expensive….” “Oh it’s so great though! I just love it. It’s just, aw.” “No. No.” He said “If you get it,” he said “someone’s going to bang and ding up that car and you’re going to be very, very unhappy because the cost to repair that type of a car which is very rare. Good luck.” Well it turns out that I had a little American sports car and I parked it on the side somewhere. I went into pick up some mail or something. It was parked right there on the sidewalk, right beside the sidewalk. Somebody pshhh! Somebody rammed right into it and I thought “Hmmm. Is there something to this here?” I think I’d better listen to what Dr. Scott said. But we’re hard heads that way.
But you look at in the New Testament how people gave. Now I’m just going to give you a few ideas. You can read the scriptures when you go home the few things that we know and I’ve jotted them down. We have in Luke 12, you don’t have to turn there I’m just going to talk about it, I’m sorry Luke 21.
“Well I pay my tithes, I take my check and I…is it the gross or the net?” We have people that really have scrutinized and if you think about it, it’s like a prenuptial agreement between two people. And listen to this because everybody knows what that is. We talk about money, some people “Well why are we talking about money? She always talks about other things.” Prenup – prenuptial agreement. A millionaire, meets some young cookie that lives on a farm and she’s just pot broke. Nothing. “Well I love you.” “Well I love you too, but you’re going to sign on the dotted line.” Okay. Now you agree in this partnership we’re entering into you have absolutely nothing when you started out and if you leave you’ll only get this. I’ll leave you a dime. You’ll only get this.” Okay?
We live in this society and we can’t put the application into Christianity. We did absolutely nothing. We are like that poor little farm girl that’s got absolutely nothing.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that Jesus came and did everything. And we still have the temerity to think that something will be given back to us. This is what’s wrong. And it’s so hard to break not only the traditions that make void the Word of God. It’s so hard to buck the tide of what’s going on.
You notice how budget crunch, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa combine and everybody’s feeling kind of generous now. It lasts for a least a month and then it goes away. People get all warm and fuzzy and “God bless you” and “Peace to you” and “Jesus loves you.” And now you can’t by the way, you cannot say “Merry Christmas” anymore, it’s “Happy Holidays.” I don’t want to talk about Christmas right now that’s another subject. But if you take these paradoxes I just said.
It was much more than just being naked in flesh. It was the realization of nothingness. The communion of God was severed. Now they get a third set of clothing. See God’s a wardrobe maker. They get third set of clothing. This time animals for the first time in the Bible are slain. Thus begins the process of vicarious, if you want, sacrifice; that something must die in the place of something else to make good. And we go through the Bible you’ll see so many illustrations.
In fact last year I spent many Festivals on TV talking about different places in the Bible where God does the clothing. Why do you think the mindset of God’s covering, which becomes the Kapporeth in the Hebrew: the covering – goes through and transcends the Bible in vestments. Matthew 22, the wedding festival. The guest was there and the king comes in and says “friend why are you not wearing a wedding garment? The idea is we can’t do it on our own. There’s nothing we can do. There’s nothing we can say or do that can put something on the outside. The clothing that He puts as a type is something He gives to us. He does it. Look at Joshua in Zechariah 3:4 – the passage where Joshua stood before the angels, filthy garments. What does it say? It says remove those garments off of him. Take them away. Why? If we’re like you and me we just put something over it because that’s what we do. We just try and cover and put over. Take the garments away. Clothe him with new ones.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that straight through the Bible. That goes all the way. The whole concept, the whole way; why we needed the blood of the Lamb, the blood of Jesus Christ. Why we needed that once and for all, no more coverings. No more animals to be slain. You’d be surprised at how many people that I talk to, they do not understand. You’ve been taught.
When I said weeks ago we’re going to grow together, part of it is not just growing the ministry, but growing spiritually. All that God intended – let me speak for me – all that God intended me to be. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be a millionaire for Jesus. It doesn’t mean I’m going to have the best of this and the most of that. It means all that He intended for me. Likewise for you.
Pinkum “Why is it in seeking to present the most inspiring subject which the human mind can contemplate, we begin with facts, the most melancholy and repulsive. It is because the skill of the physician can be appreciated by those who only understand the complexity and the malignancy of the disease, which he endeavors to remedy. The skill of the craftsman may be evidenced in the beauty and utility of his handiwork, but it appears more remarkable and more praiseworthy when we know the extreme difficulties that beset his undertaking and that he alone had the courage, the devotion, the ability to meet those difficulties and overcome them. Redemption cannot be rightly studied apart from the thought of human sin and sinfulness.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that the student therefore who would see the King in His beauty and be ready to join in heartfelt hosannas to the Son of David must very studiously examine those facts over which the Son of David has triumphed. It is meet then to begin with the above text, Romans 3:23, and to consider faithfully and prayerfully the sad fact, which that text presents to us.”
Listen. This person who penned this in the 1850′s I believe or 1800-somethings. Sorry. 1895. Listen to what he says. Thank God for people like Dr. Scott. Thank God for people like Pinkum who were not afraid to say these words. “Sin is everywhere. It’s in the heart. It’s on the tongue. It’s in the actions.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that it means ‘church at Thyatira all that I’ve told you to do or to not do’ that’s what we’re talking about. He’s cautioning them. ‘Now will you hear My words church at Thyatira and do what I’ve told you or abstain from what I’ve told you.’ This is what’s being said. And “unto the end” – “keep my works unto the end, and I’ll give him exousia” – authority – “over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.” That authority, that power that He received of His Father. That’s what that last verse is saying. “I will give him the morning star” which means ‘where you are in your darkness, church of Dark Ages, I’ll light the way for you. Just keep focused on Me.’ Keep your eyes on Jesus. “To him that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto to the churches.”
As I prepared for this I read, and you probably have some note in your margin of your Bible this verse 26 and 27 is a quotation out of Psalm 2. So turn in your Bible to Psalm 2 with me. You’ll find if you go home, I’m going to just tell these few scriptures to you. You can check them out. Paul uses this Psalm 2 in Acts 13:33, Hebrews 1:5. There’s many, many references in the Bible to this second Psalm and it’s called a Messianic Psalm. Now there’s much debate as to whether Psalms 1 and 2 were connected. I don’t want to get into that debate. I just want to make a point.
The beauty of this Psalm is it’s going to help us to see something that if we just read the New Testament we wouldn’t see. It’s just very simple but it’s enough for me. We read the New Testament. I put the translation in the Greek and I tried to write small, little English letters underneath. But the Septuagint, which would be not quite what your King James reads but it doesn’t matter. You’re just going to hear what I’m going to say.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that it means ‘church at Thyatira all that I’ve told you to do or to not do’ that’s what we’re talking about. He’s cautioning them. ‘Now will you hear My words church at Thyatira and do what I’ve told you or abstain from what I’ve told you.’ This is what’s being said. And “unto the end” – “keep my works unto the end, and I’ll give him exousia” – authority – “over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.” That authority, that power that He received of His Father. That’s what that last verse is saying. “I will give him the morning star” which means ‘where you are in your darkness, church of Dark Ages, I’ll light the way for you. Just keep focused on Me.’ Keep your eyes on Jesus. “To him that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto to the churches.”
As I prepared for this I read, and you probably have some note in your margin of your Bible this verse 26 and 27 is a quotation out of Psalm 2. So turn in your Bible to Psalm 2 with me. You’ll find if you go home, I’m going to just tell these few scriptures to you. You can check them out. Paul uses this Psalm 2 in Acts 13:33, Hebrews 1:5. There’s many, many references in the Bible to this second Psalm and it’s called a Messianic Psalm. Now there’s much debate as to whether Psalms 1 and 2 were connected. I don’t want to get into that debate. I just want to make a point.
The beauty of this Psalm is it’s going to help us to see something that if we just read the New Testament we wouldn’t see. It’s just very simple but it’s enough for me. We read the New Testament. I put the translation in the Greek and I tried to write small, little English letters underneath. But the Septuagint, which would be not quite what your King James reads but it doesn’t matter. You’re just going to hear what I’m going to say.