ABOUT  TEMPTATIONS (Part 4)

 “And he took THE CUP, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink you all of it; For this is my blood of the new covenant, WHICH IS SHED FOR MANY FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS”. (Mt 26:27, 28).

As a child, I used to think “betrayal” was a bigger sin than “denial”. Why? Because Peter DENIED Jesus and still remained an apostle, but Judas BETRAYED Him and went to Hell. However, when you come to think of it, Peter’s denial IS betrayal of the Christ and of the great relationship they had had for over 3 years. He didn’t just flat out deny Jesus, he SWORE to God he had never known Him! (Mt 26:72).

Our concern today is about an important phrase Jesus said about the cup hours earlier during the Last Supper (Mt26:27, 28). I’ll repeat it in several translations for you to see the import:

(GNB) “Drink it, ALL OF YOU ...”

(MSG) “Drink this, ALL OF YOU...”

(NET)  “Drink from it, ALL OF YOU...”

(NLT) “EACH OF YOU drink from it”

The cup represented His blood which would be shed for the forgiveness of sins, and the number of those who were to partake of that cup was “ALL”. Including James, and Co. who would all in the next few hours desert Him; including Peter who would eventually deny Him with an oath; ...  and yes, including Judas Iscariot who Satan would use in the subsequent minutes.

“All” means ALL.

But Judas made the fatal mistake that many do today: he felt his sin was unforgivable.

There is a legitimate remorse for sin; but what one does about that is very important. The devil that tempted you in the first place is very much alive and well; and while you feel you are FINISHED the devil thinks he hasn’t (Selah).

After Judas sinned he

1. Repented: “Then Judas... when he saw that he was condemned, repented...” (Mat 27:3)

2. Restituted: “... and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, (ibid)

3. And punished himself: “And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged HIMSELF.  (Mat 27:5)

That last move was where it all went wrong. His counterpart in Jesus-backstabbing, Peter, was also remorseful (Mat 26:75); however, he remembered Jesus’s words about remission of sins (see Act 10:43) and threw himself at God’s mercy rather than inflict upon himself some supposed judgement.

Brethren, we don’t hang ourselves like Judas today, but every time you expect bad things to happen because you failed, or apologize AGAIN to God whenever something good is taken from you (i.e. seeing it as a result of “that sin”), etc. you are taking the Judas approach. That is a dangerous mindset, and the devil will surely exploit it to the fullest.

AMEN.

 “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity”. (Psa 32:1-2)

“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices”. (2Co 2:11)

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN

ABOUT  TEMPTATIONS (Part 3)

“Rejoice not against me, O my enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me”.  (Mic 7:8)

When Satan set out to make a mess of God’s anointed man Samson, God (with Samson’s cooperation) turned it round and made Samson an example of faith, much to the devil’s chagrin.

God always has a way to make the devil shut up; it’s our job to cooperate with Him rather than let the devil try to have the final say.

The story of David and Bathsheba is one of the most scandalous in scripture; scandalous not just on David’s side but also on God’s side. Out of all of David’s 19 odd sons, God chose Jedidiah, a product of David and Bathsheba and the 10^th born son, to be King!

This little fact caused a big stir in a Bible Study that I attended several years ago. A member took issues with this act of God and went as far as to insinuate that God was practically endorsing the adultery of David and Bathsheba. (The pastor, unfortunately, took this personal and went on to shout and threaten curses on the member for casting aspersions on God).

Scandalous, innit?

Most people would not even be familiar with that said “King Jedidiah”. But I guess they would know him by his more popular name, SOLOMON. “Jedidiah” was God’s personal name for him.

To the best of my knowledge, Solomon is the only normal (i.e. not by prophecy) child in scripture that God named. Like a loving grandmother who hears her daughter has given birth to a baby, the Almighty sent His own name through a prophet to the parents of the baby (2Sa 12:24-25). 

And, yes, Jedidiah means “Beloved of Jehovah”!

Scandalous?

Maybe. But I believe that, just like with Samson’s story of  yesterday, God was trying to send a message to Satan:

“If you try to mess up the life of my children, I’ll bless them so much you’ll wish you didn’t.”

‘Jedidiah’ went on to be the richest king of all time with a kingdom greater than even his father’s.

Our LORD Jesus was not just the descendant of David through His adopted father Joseph (royal line leading up to King Solomon); he was physically descended from David by blood through Mary, (Lk 1:31,32; 3:23-38). King David had at least 8 wives. The Virgin Mary could have been a descendant of any of their sons; but Bible chronology tells us she came from David through a certain son called Nathan. Nathan was the son of Bathsheba! AGAIN.

I guess you already see the picture.

When the devil causes you to fall, your duty is to run back to your Heavenly Father’s arms to receive His unconditional forgiveness purchased by the blood of His Son Jesus.

But know this for sure, the devil will not have the last laugh over your life in Jesus name. Who knows, the LORD might even use your life to send a reply back to the devil... by blessing you scandalously.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today, you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN

ABOUT  TEMPTATIONS (Part 2)

“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Rom 11:33).

When Potiphar’s wife asked Joseph to lie with her, the devil in her that was instigating the strange lust wanted to eclipse Joseph’s destiny. He wanted to truncate not just the young man’s life but also the extended salvation plan that God had in store for the Jewish race.

This was not the first time, and this would not be his last. Many centuries later, he tried it again with a certain Israelite judge named SAMSON. This time, he succeeded.

Or so it seemed.

Sometimes, God has a way of messing up the devil’s mess.

If Satan had looked at Samson’s life after Delilah, he must have really thought he had him there. He didn’t just tempt Samson; he actually succeeded and got him blinded, literally. But clearly, GOD AND SAMSON had other things in mind. Samson turned around in the end and wiped out a great deal of the devil’s people in the process.  The plan to push Samson into oblivion didn’t succeed because, clearly, his story is set in scriptures for all eternity.

However, it is not simply the fact that Samson is mentioned in the Bible that’s the big issue here, but WHERE he is mentioned. Samson is mentioned in the book of Judges, and also somewhere in the New Testament; in Hebrews chapter 11, OF ALL PLACES!

Hebrews 11 is a listing by the Holy Spirit of the names of great people of faith that are worth emulating. He mentioned Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joseph... and in the end, He said, “And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of ... SAMSON”.

I can imagine the devil’s heart skipping a beat the first time he saw that.

SAMSON?

Satan really went to great lengths to bring Samson down. He probably assigned special demons for his case. We know Delilah was not just any prostitute; she was, for all purposes and intents, a hired assassin. If that’s what we see in the physical we can infer even more was going on in the spiritual realm.

“And all that effort for what?” (Says the devil), “To have his name listed among the spiritual giants of the Old Testament?”

Hebrews 11:32 is probably one of the most frustrating verse for the devil.

If you are blessed, you are blessed. The devil CANNOT have the final say in your destiny. When he thinks he has done his worst, then comes God to do His best. Never let the devil trick you into thinking he has destroyed your destiny; (he doesn’t know it anyway, he just has an idea).

Do not let him deceive you into believing you have sinned beyond recovery, or that you have really disappointed God this time, (it’s impossible to ‘disappoint’ an omniscient being in the first place).

Be like Samson, believe and know that God still loves you and will receive you back. God will turn every mess into something so beautiful, the devil will have to bang his head on the nearest wall.

Remember Hebrews 11:32!

AMEN.

We’ll continue on these thoughts tomorrow.

More Blessings Await you today, you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN

ABOUT  TEMPTATIONS (Part 1)

The devil is wicked. No, scratch that.

The devil is VERY wicked.

He has no iota of good in him. When he looks at a man, all his thoughts are geared towards hurting, destroying, and bringing that man down.

I say this because one day I was thinking about the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. It’s on oft-repeated tale about the Master’s wife trying to seduce a dedicated slave. The Bible says, “She kept begging Joseph DAY AFTER DAY, but he refused to do what she wanted or even to go near her”.  Gen 39:10 (CEV).

Why Joseph? He was not the only man in that large house. Potiphar doubtlessly had other male slaves in that house who would be more than happy to oblige her, so why would she keep insisting to sleep with Joseph?

I was somewhat bothered about this until one day it occurred to me that, though there were dozens of male slaves in that house, only Joseph had a throne in his DESTINY! Joseph may have been a slave, but sitting inside him was the ruler of Egypt! Potiphar’s wife may not have been able to know this, but the devil inside her that was instigating her lust definitely knew.

If she had said to Joseph, “Come lie with me, no one will ever know”, she would have been absolutely right. NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!

Potiphar wouldn’t know

The slaves wouldn’t know

The Egyptians wouldn’t know

And yes, YOU AND I too wouldn’t know

She was right, Joseph’s destiny would have closed up there and then and his bones would be part of the sands of Egypt today.

The glorious story of Joseph moving from slavery to being the de facto ruler of Egypt that we read about would never have occurred and we probably would never have known anything about him, at least that was the plan.

The devil is very wicked.

“Don't give the devil any opportunity to work”. Eph 4:27 (GW)

“So place yourselves under God's authority. Resist the devil, and he will run away from you”. Jas 4:7 (GW)

“Put on all the armor that God supplies. In this way you can take a stand against the devil's strategies.” Eph 6:11 (GW)

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”.  (1Co 15:57)

“Now thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ”.  (2Co 2:14)

AMEN.

We’ll continue on these thoughts tomorrow.

More Blessings Await you today, you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN

SPECIAL TOPIC: EUGENE PETERSON WARNED US, 13 YEARS EARLIER

(Excerpt from my Book, "Believers Ask")

Have you heard of ‘The Secret’?

If you’ve a Christian and a member of the Pentecostal movement and have never heard of ‘The Secret’, you will definitely feel left out of something BIG. And ‘The Secret’ is big – Hollywood-blockbuster big; New-York-Times-best-seller big.

‘The Secret’ is a film consisting of a series of interviews designed to demonstrate that everything one wants or needs can be satisfied by believing in an outcome, repeatedly thinking about it, and maintaining positive emotional states to “attract” the desired outcome. In a nutshell, it’s the “Law of Attraction” in video format. As a movie, it raked in over 65 million dollars at the box office (not bad for a movie that cost $3.5 million to produce). As a book, it has sold millions of copies and comes in various forms: cassette, CD, Kindle, etc. it even has a version for teenagers. Oprah Winfrey championed it in two of her shows and said its principles were what she lived her life by.

Impressed? You should be. ‘The Secret’ comes packaged with its own endorsement. Not only is it presented by well-known personalities who are bestselling authors in their own right; but it claims that this “Secret” is the principle that renowned icons of our human history lived by: Plato, Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Hugo, Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, the list goes on.

How did I know all this? Well, I was forced to. While I admit to being curious by nature, my curiosity didn’t get me into all this; the hype did. Everyone seemed to be talking about it. And pastors (some unwittingly, some flagrantly) endorsed the movie and the spinoff book from their pulpits.

I decided I had to know what this “secret” was all about. I finally got the book; and found myself stuck – on page 1!

There was something odd about what was being spoken. I couldn’t put my finger on it yet. However, it just didn’t fit. Then all of a sudden, three things struck me:

1.       The title, “THE SECRET”, promises to let the reader in on some hidden knowledge that others do not have access to: a promise that was once promised about two millennia ago by the GNOSTICS.

[Gnosticism was an esoteric religious movement that flourished during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD and presented a major challenge to orthodox Christianity. Most Gnostic sects professed Christianity, but their beliefs sharply diverged from those of the majority of Christians in the early church. The term gnosticism is derived from the Greek word gnosis (“revealed knowledge”). To its adherents, Gnosticism promised a secret knowledge of the divine realm.

(source: Microsoft^® Encarta^® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.)]

2.     The presentation was all too smooth and too Dan-Brownish to me and rang too familiar with the Da-Vinci Code brouhaha and all the “Lost Gospels” drama 10 years ago: Dan Brown’s source materials were, of course, the discredited “Gospels” of 200+ A.D. – written by the GNOSTICS.

3.    Finally, with shock, I realised that this type of presumptuous claim of possession of some special knowledge was exactly the problems the Apostolic writers tackled with in their days. Specifically Paul (in Colossians), John (in 1 John), and Jude.

And surprise, surprise, those claims were being made then by, well, GNOSTICS.

I quickly discovered that this material wasn’t a secret at all; at least not to Bible students. Mark Earley, President of Prison Fellowship, summed up ‘The Secret’ in just four words: “New Book, Old Lie”.

I put these observations of mine to a brother in my church who I found reading the book and he attacked me for being ignorant. He said the authors of the book were well-versed and well-learned and even know the Bible much more than I would ever know. I remember particularly pointing out to him that it was stuff like these that made Paul write to the Colossian church in the 1st century A.D. But he would have none of it and I let him be.

So you would understand my shock and amazement two days ago when I read Colossians chapter 2 from The Message Bible. The Message is a Bible translation by Eugene Peterson that is notorious for its extreme idiomatic and dynamic equivalent paraphrasing of the original Greek and Hebrew texts. (You need to read Genesis 1:1 in that version to see what I mean). Well, I was reading Colossians 2 in the Message version and this is what I found in verses 2 - 4. (Emphases are mine).

“I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on CHRIST, God’s great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery AND NOWHERE ELSE. And we’ve been shown the mystery! I’M TELLING YOU THIS BECAUSE I DON’T WANT ANYONE LEADING YOU OFF ON SOME WILD-GOOSE CHASE, after other so-called mysteries, OR “THE SECRET”.

Yes, you read it correctly; he put THE SECRET in quotation marks.

Colossians was translated by Eugene Peterson in 1993.

“The Secret”, by Rhonda Byrne, was released in 2006 – 13 years later.

SELAH.

Greg Elkan