Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
What it means to be initiated into the secret of the mystery, Part 10. The mystery of divine happiness within the believer.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Occasionally spiritual service is accomplished in a very humble way but it does not rob the one who has the authority from God of His authority.
No matter how humiliating, no matter how degrading it may be, service as rendered by our Lord, indicated His relaxed mental attitude and His wonderful sense of humor.
1. You lose your common sense.
2. You lose your sense of humor.
3. You lose your balance of resident doctrine in the soul so that you become psychopathic, neurotic, or psychotic.
4. You lose your discernment.
a. Self-justification
b. Self-deception
c. Self-absorption
“Know” - perf-act-ind - oidate - oi!date = doctrine in the frame of reference, the memory center, the entire stream of consciousness.
Nominative masculine plural noun - makaroi - makavrioi = to be happy; in the plural = “happinesses.”
Happiness is related to knowing doctrine not having your dreams and goals fulfilled.
We must never confuse happiness, as taught in the Word of God, with the various stimuli of life which are enjoyable for the moment, but have no ability to sustain us in day-by-day living.
It is only in the body to the extent that the soul is in the body, for happiness is related to the soul and spirit, to the immaterial parts of man, and is not related to the body at all.
Satan’s propaganda is that money, success, pleasure, social life, sexual life, public approbation, fame, material things, travel, health, and pleasant circumstances in life can make you happy.
By way of contrast, what God has provided for us with His happiness is a permanent factor and a problem-solving device.
Anything that is worthwhile is worthwhile in adversity as well as in prosperity.
To the extent that you are dependent on people, circumstances, prosperity, success, or any accouterments of life for happiness, you are weak.
It is not dependent on environment, associations, or circumstances of prosperity or adversity; it depends on none of these things.
Having divine happiness is very simple because all that it requires is dedication and devotion to the intake of Bible doctrine.
LUK 11:28 “Happy are those who hear the word of God, and observe it.”
God’s happiness and the relationship with doctrine -
1JO 1:4 “In fact, we write these things that our happiness [+H] might be completed.”
The relationship between our Lord’s happiness and the Church-age believer’s happiness will also be given by our Lord in JOH 15:11.
Spiritual self-esteem is only the beginning of divine happiness.
By advancing through providential preventative suffering to spiritual autonomy, divine happiness becomes stronger.
By advancing through momentum testing to spiritual maturity, divine happiness reaches its peak.
If and when you pass evidence testing, then you have the +H that will exist forever and ever; in living, in dying, and in the eternal state forever.
PRO 3:13 “Happiness belongs to the person who finds wisdom, even to the person who gains understanding.”
PSA 31:7 “I will rejoice and be happy in the provision of Your grace.”
Happiness is a form of energy.
This is energy beyond human imagination or understanding.
God in His omniscience found a way to design a plan to make us happy.
In eternity past, God made the sovereign decision to share His happiness with the new spiritual species, the Church-age believer as Royal Family of God.
Neither the failure of angels nor members of the human race has ever given God even a second of unhappiness.
“Do” - pres-act-subj - poiete - poih’te = to keep on doing the same things.
“If you understand what’s important in life you will be happy and you will never be humiliated from doing anything in life, including what I’ve just done to you.”
Eat - pres-act-part - trogon - trwvgwn = the traitor is crunching his food; to crunch food, or to munch on food.
Trogon = “to gnaw,” “to bite.”
“Has lifted up” - aor-act-ind - eperen - e*ph’ren = to reject the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The raising up of the heel means to overthrow or to seek one’s destruction, or to reject authority.
Judas has pretended to love the Lord but ignorance of doctrine and a desire for approbation means that it has always been pseudo-love.
MAR 12:30 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
If a believer really loves God, it will be manifested by his desire to hear God’s doctrines, JOH 8:47.
Hearing doctrine is not enough, not only will you hear doctrine but “if you love the Lord,” you will keep His doctrines, JOH 14:15.
“Keep” - aor-act-imp - tereo = to guard something that belongs to you as precious; to watch over carefully, to keep, to hold, to preserve and to pay attention to; to retain.
AMO 8:11-12 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord. And people will stagger from sea to sea, And from the north even to the east; They will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, But they will not find it.”
If you guard or keep God’s Word in you, God’s love will be in you, JOH 15:10.
Keeping with doctrine is the only way to love with God’s love -
1JO 2:5 “But whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.”
This loving for God is revealed by your impersonal love toward one another, 1JO 4:7.
1JO 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Receives - pres-act-part - lambano = to receive, to take hold of, to grasp, to seize, and it sets up the authority for Bible teachers.
Whomever - indefinite pronoun “tina” = anyone, or a certain one, or someone; those whom the Lord sends to represent Him on earth through the communication of doctrine.
In the first generation, He sent apostles and prophets and pastor-teachers.
TLJC is represented today by the prepared pastor-teacher and when a congregation receives the authority of their right pastor-teacher, they are receiving the authority of Jesus Christ.
When a congregation receives their right pastor-teacher they receive TLJC who sent Him and God the Father who gave all authority to the Son.