Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Our God is a consuming fire. Pastor John Farley.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
The concentration and the focus of elect and fallen angels were greater at the time of the Hypostatic Union than at any other time.
In the dispensation of the Church-age, angels observe members of the Royal Family of God in their failure or success to execute the pre-designed plan of God, 1CO 4:9, EPH 3:10, 1TI 5:21.
EPH 3:10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
The elect angels want to see this work of God in progress, revealing His love, and proving Satan wrong in the courtroom trial of the angelic conflict.
God loves the born again believer with the same love with which He has loved the Beloved, His Only Son, from all of eternity.
The love who is God seeks to reach out and extend that love farther and farther, to the farthest reaches of the universe, to the most sinful sinner, the most lost loser, the darkened soul living in the darkest darkness.
ROM 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
In our dispensation, for the only time in human history, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Shekinah Glory, is manifesting Himself through the church. He is relying on fallen creatures to demonstrate His love.
ROM 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
The more you love, the more you will suffer.
PSA 22:6 But I am a worm and not a man, A reproach of men and despised by the people.
God became a worm so the worms could be godly.
COL 1:13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,
For whatever reason, the nature of things is such that in order for God to save us, He had to become a man and suffer for us.
The truth is, that in this fallen world and our fallen state, love and suffering are inextricably bound together.
DEU 4:24 “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
LUK 19:10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
The Bible is clear that the mystery doctrine of the Church Age boils down to one word: Christ.
These treasures are hidden in Christ, who is in heaven, seated at the Right Hand of the Father.
GAL 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
First, Christ is formed in you, GAL 4:19 = spiritual self-esteem.
Next, Christ is at home in your thinking, EPH 3:17 = spiritual autonomy.
Finally, Christ is glorified in your body, PHI 1:20 = spiritual maturity.
The work includes canceling out the old man, making us into the new man, and placing Christ Himself in the new us. Leaving us here on earth so that all that God has worked in us can be worked out, to the praise and glorification of His name.
The angels want to see the clay pots that have the treasure inside.
How will they recognize those pots?
This treasure is the word of God circulating in the souls of men.
“tested” in 1PE 1:7 = present middle participle – dokimazo = to test, to examine, to scrutinize. To recognize as genuine after examination; to approve, deem worthy.
Affliction, pressure, and suffering are the examination of the soul. The trial by fire proves the genuineness of the doctrine within.
1PE 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.
To angels the thing that is amazing is that God the Son would have enough love to come down – humble Himself – and take on the nature of a man – a worm, in our frame of reference.
LUK 9:23 And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”