EPHESIANS, 19.
DIVINE DECREES, PART 16.
GREEK DRAMA, PART 7.
GREEK ACTORS DECREE RESULTS.
GRACE BIBLE CHURCH
PASTOR ROBERT R. MCLAUGHLIN
WEDNESDAY 11-02-2022
GBIBLE.ORG
EPHESIANS - 0290-019
DIVINE DECREES, PART 16.
GREEK DRAMA, PART 7.
GREEK ACTORS DECREE RESULTS.
2PE 1:5-7;
The Doctrine of the Divine Decrees.
On Sunday morning we closed by noting the difference between personal love and impersonal-unconditional love.
Also remember, I explained to you the chronological order of the decrees;
By chronology I mean that one actor is based upon the one that follows.
- Virtue = respect, loyalty, devotion.
- Knowledge = perception of doctrine.
- Self-control = organized life.
- Perseverance = endurance or consistency.
- Godliness = living the spiritual life.
- Brotherly love = for the Royal family.
- Impersonal-unconditional love = for all.
A believer with impersonal-unconditional love does not rely on the object of his love for strength and support.
He is sustained by the Bible doctrine in his own soul.
The believer who, over an extended period of time, learns to apply doctrine can solve or cope with the problems of personal love and maintain a marvelous relationship with others.
He functions consistently whether faced with hostility or admiration, or antagonism with others.
Why is this true?
Because impersonal love does not depend on emotional stimulation or attraction.
The individual cannot be manipulated by flattery or approbation.
This is the genuine and honorable independence of the believer who is spiritually self-sustaining.
He does not depend on the advice of others or on a pastor's counseling.
Bible doctrine in his own soul gives him the strength and wisdom to live his own life before the Lord.
Although genuinely humble and teachable, he is not controlled by what anyone else thinks, says, or does.
Now, remember that the Lord said in;
JOH 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
Why is this called a NEW commandment?
Impersonal-unconditional love requires the power of God the Holy Spirit enabling the believer to love which is impossible with man, but possible with God.
TLJC loved the disciples with impersonal- unconditional love.
And the reason why it must be impersonal is because;
Some Christians are admirable while others are among the most arrogant self-righteous, obnoxious, people on the face of the earth.
Even a wonderful, mature, believer can have a personality, background, lifestyle, or combination of interests that makes him utterly incompatible with you.
But "Brotherly love" demands that you love all believers and treat them as you would the Lord.
MAT 25:40 "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, {even} the least {of them,} you did it to Me."
Obviously, your exclusive personal love cannot be given to rude, arrogant, believers.
Nor should you burn up your nervous energy trying to do the impossible, which is "love all Christians” with a personal love."
The only love you can possess for most individuals is based not on their weaknesses or incompatibility with you but on the strength of your own character.
Through " impersonal-unconditional love" your "brotherly love" toward everyone will be basically the same.
It will be manifested by courtesy, thoughtfulness, sensitivity to the feelings of others, including tolerance and flexibility in non-essential areas of disagreement or dispute.
Such attitudes can be consistently maintained toward any believer regardless of how incompatible your personalities may be.
Real virtue-love is not hypocritical or self-righteous.
ROM 12:9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.
Impersonal-unconditional love is not an artificial emotionless facade but rather a gracious attitude consistent with the doctrine in your soul.
The policy of impersonal-unconditional love is simple "integrity toward all."
This is the love that honorably represents Christ in the devil's world.
The key to this virtue love is when you as a believer priest have personal love for God, for that is where real virtue begins.
You do not begin by adjusting to mankind.
You begin by adjusting to the Justice of God.
In our term book we describe it as;
Adjusting to the Justice of God reveals that all blessing or discipline from God to us must be filtered through His justice.
As goes the justice of God, so goes blessing or cursing to us.
You do not solve the problems with people and interaction with mankind from psychology or philosophy or any other new gimmick.
It has to come from your personal love for God.
If you're going to have true virtue it has to come from truth, which is learned from your "personal love for God."
It is only "personal love for God" that will ever develop the "inexpressible happiness" of 1Pe 1:8.
1PE 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
1PE 1:4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
1PE 1:5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
1PE 1:6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,
1PE 1:7 that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
1PE 1:8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
Without "personal love for God," the believer will react to injustice and unfair treatment.
And the very fact that you have reacted to some injustice or some unfair treatment means that you have not yet acquired this love from virtue.
Apart from occupation with the person of Christ, the believer is going to react to things in life.
He's going to react to man.
He's going to discover man makes him miserable.
Once you react - you enter into the cosmic system.
People make you unhappy.
People disappoint you.
People upset you, etc.
A stranger can cut in front of you on the road and make you unhappy
Why?
Because your happiness or unhappiness depends upon how people treat you and therefore can depend upon a stranger.
However, your happiness and unhappiness depend upon your relationship with the Lord.
If you do not have "personal love for God" that means you will not have impersonal-unconditional love for man.
And anyone can get the best of you and make you miserable.
That means a husband or a wife, children, strangers, or friends, etc.
Anyone can disappoint you and make you unhappy.
And life is too short to be running around reacting to everything in life.
Reacting in life is simply the result of preoccupation with self.
"Arrogant subjectivity" divorces people from reality.
They lose any wisdom they have.
Discernment and common sense go.
Happiness depends upon virtue manufactured from your personal love for God.
All of you have had some experience of some mal-adjustment in life.
You married the wrong person.
You have friends that have disappointed you.
You have children that have disappointed you.
You have parents that have disappointed you.
You have had some misery from it simply because you lack virtue.
For virtue overcomes all these things.
Virtue depends upon your personal love for God and the doctrine in your very own soul.
Virtue does not depend on what others might say or think.
Happiness depends upon whether or not you have virtue.
Happiness does not depend on your success or you fame, your money, etc.
This impersonal-unconditional love" manifests itself by the integrity of the subject exceeding the repulsiveness and obnoxiousness of the object.
We are now ready for the reason of the importance of the chorus line.
You are about to see why we spent so much time on Greek drama and the importance of learning about your Chorus line.
2PE 1:8 For if these qualities are yours
What qualities?
The Chorus Line.
- Virtue
- Knowledge.
- Self-control
- Perseverance
- Godliness
- Brotherly love
- Impersonal-unconditional love.
2PE 1:8 For if these qualities [the dramatic seven chorus line] are yours
The verb to be translated "are yours" is the pres-act-part of huparcho which means to keep on existing or to keep on being present.
2PE 1:8 For if these qualities are yours and keep on increasing,
“are increasing”is the pres-act-part of pleanazo which means to keep increasing, or to keep on existing in abundance.
Then Peter says;
2PE 1:8 they [the dramatic seven chorus line] render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
They render is the pres-act-ind of kathistemi which means to prevent.
The dramatic chorus line will prevent you from being neither useless and ineffective nor unfruitful or unproductive.
They render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Kathistemi is futuristic present tense = If the dramatic seven chorus line is presently in you it will lead you to a future action, which is the fact that you will neither be useless nor unfruitful.
The active voice, the dramatic seven chorus line produces the action of the verb which is to prevent you from being useless and unfruitful.
The indicative mood is used for the dramatic seven chorus line being a dramatic statement of fact.
So, this verse is saying that the dramatic seven chorus line will prevent you from being useless and unfruitful.
Useless is the adjective argous which means useless, lazy, inefficient, inactive.
(Worse thing to say to a wife – you are useless a wife.)
It means to shun the labor which one ought to perform which is a procrastinator; PRO 19:15.
PRO 19:15 Laziness casts into a deep sleep, And an idle man will suffer hunger.
In the spiritual realm, a spiritual procrastinator.
They will make you neither useless nor unproductive.
Akarpous means that the believer doesn't produce what he ought to produce.
In 1Co 14:14 it means to contribute nothing to the support and comfort of others.
1CO 14:14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.
In Mat 13:22, it means that the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches cause the believer to become unfruitful.
MAT 13:22 "And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
In Jud 1:12, those who are minus water or Bible doctrine are those considered to be akarpos which is without fruit.
JUD 1:12 These men are those who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted;
So far the passage is saying;
2PE 1:8 For if these qualities [the dramatic seven chorus line] are yours and keep on increasing [keep your momentum going], they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now What does it mean to be useless or unfruitful?
HEB 5:11 Concerning Him [TLJC] we have much to say,
“much to say” is two words in the Greek, the adjective polus plus the noun logos which means = much doctrine to communicate.
So, the writer says;
HEB 5:11 Concerning Him [TLJC] we have much doctrine to communicate, and it is hard or difficult to explain,
Now, why is it difficult to explain?
Is it difficult to explain because he's not advanced or prepared to communicate it?
It's difficult to explain because his congregation had become undisciplined and slow.
HEB 5:11 Concerning Him [TLJC] we have much doctrine to communicate, and it is hard or difficult to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
"Dull of hearing" means that you have been undisciplined concerning the perception and metabolization of Bible doctrine.
Next, we have;
HEB 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers [not P.T. but teachers to others], you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
These are the type of believers who do not want academia.
They don't want to challenge their vocabulary.
And by the way, remember:
An increase in vocabulary, increases your I.Q. and your sense of humor as well as your personality.
This also applies to Greek drama,
But these individuals want the pastor to keep it simple.
They want milk not meat or advanced doctrine.
Give us the basics – they say!
Tell us a nice parable or story our Lord taught!
Preach messages that tells us God loves us.
Let me tell you a story.
As I was waiting for my son Bobby to get us lunch, I put on Christian radio and unfortunately, I heard a man, that was my best friend at one time.
He played in my band and we had four different businesses together.
I was always in charge and he was always my assistant at the time.
However, that’s not the point.
The point is that even though I was close to him, I refused to ordain him, because I did not think, and still do not think, that he has the gift of P.T.
Therefore, he got ordained on line and that is why it is sad but also humorous in a way.
As an example of what I am about to say, he teaches the doctrine of the love of God.
Let me show you what it looks like.
The doctrine of the love of God.
Point 1. God loves you.
Point 2. God also loves your family.
Point 3. God blesses those He Loves
Point 4. God will love you forever.
This is what he teaches his congregation even today.
And this is humorous when you listen, but sad because of how simple he is as a so-called pastor!
This is the kind of simplicity that insults God, not because the points are not true, but because people stop there and never go on at all.
In fact, look at HEB 5:12.
HEB 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
HEB 5:13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
HEB 5:14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
HEB 6:1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
HEB 6:2 of instruction about washings, and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
HEB 6:3 And this we shall do, if God permits.
What happens is that when believers become undisciplined, they become incapable of understanding advanced doctrine and then they start yearning for the basics again.
That's called regression or reversionism.
Back in HEB 5:13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed or is unskillful to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe or an infant.
And what is a babe or an infant?
What is the best way to describe and characterize an infant?
They have horizontal dependencies.
Somebody's got to pick them up.
Somebody's got to feed them.
Somebody's got to burp them.
Somebody's got to walk them.
Somebody's got to watch them.
Therefore: This is a picture of a believer who has retrogressed back into spiritual infancy looking for a spiritual nursery to baby sit them.
What characterizes these types of believers is the fact that;
They have horizontal dependencies which they have cultivated meaning that, they are more interested in fellowship with other believers rather than fellowship in the Word.
Most believers do not realize where the priority of fellowship really is.
They think it's with people.
However, The entire Trinity desires fellowship with us.
God the Father desires our fellowship in 1JO 1:3.
1JO 1:3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
God the Son desires our fellowship in 1CO 1:9.
1CO 1:9 God [Father] is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
God the Holy Spirit desires our fellowship in;
2CO 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
PHI 2:1 Since therefore there is encouragement in Christ, since there is comfort from virtue-love, since there is fellowship of the Spirit, since there is tendernesses and compassions,
The point of this fellowship is;
PHI 3:10 that I may come to know Him, and the power of [behind] His resurrection and the participation of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
PHM 1:6 and I pray that your fellowship with doctrine may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake.
So, These horizontal believers never had or they lost the ability to counsel themselves through doctrine in their souls, so they are constantly looking for advice and counsel from others.
And they'll find counsel from others who will give them advice a little bit different than the last advice they received....
and then they will end up more confused and neurotic and even psychotic.
HEB 5:14 But solid food [advance doctrine that nourishes the spiritual adult] is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
The word practice is the accusative singular feminine noun hexin which means "habit".
What are spiritual adults?
They are people who cultivate habits.
What kind of habits?
Perception, metabolization and application of Bible doctrine.
Habits speaks of routine.
These are not the people who need the dog and pony show or the clown and circus performance.
They don't need entertainment.
They don't need the spectacular.
They can handle the routine.
On the other hand,
The baby believers are the ones who need the dog and pony show or the clown and circus presentation in your Greek drama.
They need entertainment.
They need the spectacular.
They cannot handle the routine.
And that is the sign of a baby.
Prin-The baby wants the spectacular while the adult cultivates habits.
Adult believers don't stumble over the routine; they realize that their day-by-day self-control results in tremendous victories.
Just like the marching around Jericho for seven days resulted in the fallen down of the walls because God said it would work, JOS 6:3..
JOS 6:3 "And you shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.
Prin-If the believer cultivates spiritual habits on a daily basis, it will bring in fantastic rewards and blessings.
HEB 5:14 But solid food [advanced doctrine] is for the mature, who because of habit have their senses trained or they have learned to distinguish between the good or honorable from the evil or useless.
It's amazing how many believers cannot distinguish between that which is the plan of God and that which is total nonsense.
In ISA 5:20 They call evil good, and good evil; they substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; they substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
When you have doctrine and you can distinguish evil trends in Christianity, you will be controversial when you say something evil.
And while the majority of born-again believers call it good, in the eyes of God, through doctrine, it is a horrific and evil.
So, the believer who has cultivated habits is a believer who can make proper discernments in life.
This is why we are warned not to get into the terrible habit described for us in;
Heb 10:25 "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the habit of some, but gathering together for the purpose of encouragement."
So, self-control is the system of authority that gives you concentration on the subject.
You will discover the reason why we spent so much time on Greek drama is because it applies to the entire passage that we have been noting in 2PE 1:2-11.
Here self-control is just an example of what I just said.
It gives you good manners, poise, thoughtfulness of others, so that all believers have the opportunity to fulfill the function of perception and metabolization as ordained of God for the local church.
In fact, discipline is the basic system of worship.
Worship is not praying to Jesus or singing a lot of hymns that aren't even biblical!
Worship is basically self-discipline and concentration on Bible doctrine; 1CO 11:23-24.
Worship is having the right priorities which is "A time for everything," ECC 3:1-8.
A time for God.
A time for doctrine.
A time for family.
A time for friends.
A time for business, etc.
JOH 4:23 "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
JOH 4:24 "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."