The Sons of Issachar

THE SONS of ISSACHAR

 

Issachar is the name of one of the 12 sons of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. His name is mentioned many times in the OT, especially in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and First Chronicles. We want to look at (1 Chron 12:32) in the NLT version, “From the tribe of Issachar, there were 200 leaders of the tribe with their relatives. All these men understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take”. How we need men like that in the Church, as well as in government positions in our times, that Paul describes in (2 Tim 3:1-5) as “very difficult times”. If you keep up to date on the world wide news each day you realize how true these statements of Paul are for the days we are living in nearly 2000 years later. Those who are followers of Jesus know from reading our Bibles that the main reason the world is in the shape it is in, is because of the problem of “sin” that entered our world through our first human parents Adam and Eve. See (Gen 3:1-7) and then (Rom 5:12-21) for the details of how it happened.

 

To the Apostle Paul God revealed many secrets that had not been made know before Paul came on the scene. He explains these truths about God’s original plans for our universe, and also His plans for His Church, that are recorded in (Eph 1:3-14; 3:1-13). It would seem that these sons of Issachar in the OT were something like Paul, to whom God made known certain secrets. Now that God has given His Holy Spirit to indwell His children who have been “born again”, and adopted by Father into His family; He probably intends us to be like these sons of Issachar, “and know the signs of the times, and what the Church should do”. Is that too much to expect from followers of Jesus who are filled with His Spirit? The fact that we may not be seeing men functioning like that today is not the fault of God I’m sure, but the lack on the part of the men involved.

 

So I’m not sure if that is expecting too much of men today to be able to function like the Men of Issachar in the OT or not. Perhaps it is, although why should it be since we have the Holy Spirit to empower us today, since Jesus’ death and resurrection did away with the effects of sin in our world. If we really understand the tremendous victory that Jesus won against Sin and Satan on the Cross of Calvary, there should not be anything that we can not do in the strength and power of The Name of Jesus!! This is probably a topic that should be considered and discussed prayerfully, but it just stood out to me when I read this passage from (1 Chron 12:32) recently. Why should men of old have understanding of the times they lived in any more than us who live in the 21^st century? If anyone has some thoughts on this topic, please let me know, as I am open for a discussion!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                          04/02/14                                                                                    

 

Tell it on the mountain

TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN

 

I read a devotional message in ODB today Feb 21, 2014 by David McCasland by this title. He starts with a story that was written up in the “Summit Daily News” about a group of teenage snowboarders who held weekly church services on a Colorado ski slope. This story apparently caught the attention of many people about this group of teens, who loved to snowboard, but also loved to tell how Jesus changed their lives and wanted to share the Good News of the gospel with others. One of the snowboarders in Colorado stated “I’ve never been able to build relationships with family or friends; I’ve kept them at arm’s length. The [program] has showed me God’s love. It opened me to reach out to people”. This should be the result of spending time together with other followers of Jesus no matter where we choose to meet. Building healthy relationships is certainly necessary, but not always easy to do. It often depends on our personal relationship with Jesus, and depending on the Holy Spirit to draw you together with other followers of Jesus.  

 

We often read in scripture where Jesus went up in a mountain to pray, and in (Mark 3:13-19) we see that He took certain disciples with Him, and chose 12 of them to be his original disciples to spend time with Him. He trained them to spread His teaching to the Church He said He would build (Matt 16:18), and this Church was started shortly after His crucifixion and resurrection. This “Biblical Church” is sometimes referred to as the Body of Christ and is different from those buildings with a steeple on top, and stained glass windows that we call “churches”. The true Church that Jesus has been building is a “Living Organism” and not an “organization” like these other groups that go under the name of “churches”. Our brother McCasland ended his article with a poem:

 

 “Let us go forth, as called by God.

Redeemed by Jesus’ precious blood;

His love to show, His life to live,

His message speak, His mercy give”.

 

His last word was “Witnessing isn’t a job to be done but a life to be lived”.

 

I believe this article by our brother is true and deserves our attention!!

Sincerely submitted.

DaveJamer                                        21/02/14                                          

The High PlacesTHE HIGH PLACES The Bible has a lot to say about "The High Places" where the inhabitants of the Land of Canaan lived, and worshipped their false gods. See (Deut 12:2) to see the instructions God gave to His people Israel before they entered the "Promised Land of Canaan". The tribes who lived there at the time Abraham first visited were very wicked followers of many false gods that they chose to worship them "upon the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree". When God's people moved into this Promised Land, they did not obey God's command to destroy completely these tribes, and they started to follow them in worshipping their Idols in the same way. When we study the history of the reign of the kings of Israel and Judah for example in (2 Kings 12:1-3) we see that Joash was one of their better Kings, yet he "did not destroy the pagan shrines, and the people still offered sacrifices and burned incense there". Of course this made Jehovah the true God an

THE HIGH PLACES

 

The Bible has a lot to say about “The High Places” where the inhabitants of the Land of Canaan lived, and worshipped their false gods. See (Deut 12:2) to see the instructions God gave to His people Israel before they entered the “Promised Land of Canaan”. The tribes who lived there at the time Abraham first visited were very wicked followers of many false gods that they chose to worship them “upon the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree”. When God’s people moved into this Promised Land, they did not obey God’s command to destroy completely these tribes, and they started to follow them in worshipping their Idols in the same way. When we study the history of the reign of the kings of Israel and Judah for example in (2 Kings 12:1-3) we see that Joash was one of their better Kings, yet he “did not destroy the pagan shrines, and the people still offered sacrifices and burned incense there”. Of course this made Jehovah the true God angry with them, and eventually led to the dispersion of them by their enemies to Assyria and Babylon.

 

Derek Prince declares that even today the “church” still have their “high places”. According to him the only proper place to worship God is described in the NT in (Matt 18:20), in the NLT version it reads “For where two or three gather as my followers, I am there among them”. But Derek says the proper understanding of the Greek would sound like “Where two or three are led together by the Holy Spirit, I am there among them”. He claims it is the Holy Spirit who leads us based on Paul’s statement in (Rom 8:14) “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God”. In other words the proper place to truly worship God is where two or three born again children of God are led together by the Holy Spirit of God.

 

Derek believes there are 3 wrong bases for worshipping God; they are 1/ the basis of nationality, 2/ the basis of a particular doctrine, and 3/ the basis of loyalty to a specific human leader. Some churches were considered as being part of a certain nation and were called state churches, such as “The Church of England”, or “The Church of Scotland” etc. And of course many churches are known by their particular denominational name, such as Baptist or Catholic etc. And then other churches are known as followers of a certain preacher or leader. In Derek’s mind these would all be examples of “High Places” where we worship today, that he considers as similar to the high places that we considered from the OT examples. Whether you agree with Derek or not, I think he makes a good point and this we should give some consideration to. We do know that when we worship Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Father is pleased, and we enjoy His presence!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                                    31/01/14

Two Rules to Live by

TWO RULES TO LIVE BY

 

God gave 10 commandments to Moses on the mountain (Exod 20:1-17), which were multiplied to 613 rules that religious Jews were expected to keep. These were enforced by the Pharisees during the time that Jesus lived on the earth. These were reduced to only 2 by Jesus, which He repeated several times in His teaching, as recorded in the 4 gospel accounts. They were simply, 1/ “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength”, and 2/ “Love your neighbor as yourself”. These are simple rules, but there is a lot more involved in keeping them than most people realize! I am slowly coming to understand what is involved since watching the “Agape Road” teaching by Bob Mumford on his DVD’s. I first read his book by that title, and then listened to the audio CD’s series given at a large seminar about 10 years ago, and am now enjoying the teaching much more by seeing Bob deliver the teaching in the original setting. I enjoy reading about the way Jesus replied to the Pharisees, who were the most religious crowd of Jews who were always trying to point out how Jesus didn’t keep some of their religious traditions. One example of this is recorded by Matthew in his gospel (Matt 22:34-40), and then in the next chapter he records what Jesus thought of these “religious” leaders. He uses some very uncomplimentary names for these guys, like “hypocrites”, “blind fools”, and “whitewashed tombs”! Not the type of descriptive words you would expect to hear from the “gentle Jesus”, that some people consider Him to be

 

I often wonder how He would describe the “religious leaders” of the church today that most people believe to be the Church that Jesus said He would build. When you compare the church we see in the book of Acts with what we call the “church” today, you are hard pressed to see any resemblance. This has caused me to use the terms “Biblical Church” and “unbiblical church” to describe the two very different organizations! Actually the Biblical Church that Jesus has been building for the past 2000 years is an “organism” because it is a living thing. An organization is not a living thing, but simply a group of people who are joined together to accomplish certain worthy goals, similar to the Kiwanis Club, or some other service club. We must always remember that the True Church is composed only of people who have been “born again” by the Holy Spirit, and are “New Creatures in Christ” as described by Paul in (2 Cor 5:17)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                               20/04/12                                                                                                   

KOINONIA

KOINONIA

 

True Christian fellowship, what the Greek New Testament calls [koinonia] is the Spirit's gift to the church. Today whenever we think of "fellowship", we associate it with coffee and sweets after a church service! This is definitely not the New Testament understanding of the word. We see this type of real fellowship in the Spirit displayed in (Acts 2:42), and referred to by Paul in several places such as (2 Cor 13:14), or (Phil 2:1). The church today is suffering a "koinonia crisis"!! Part of this crisis is due to the typical church structure, which is designed to facilitate "pulpit to pew" one way communication. There can be little or no real fellowship in this type of structure. Someone has remarked "the only fellowship we have is with the back of the head of the person sitting in the pew in front of us". In the NT church they didn't have this problem because they met in homes, in a very informal setting. Church buildings, as such, were unheard of until Constantine married the church to the Roman Empire in the fourth century. The other factor in this crisis is the fact that until people experience real koinonia, they don't know what they are missing. Some churches have "cell groups", or some type of small groups that meet in homes to facilitate this koinonia, while some people are finding it in a new move of God known as "The House Church Movement".

 

There are two dimensions involved in true koinonia, a vertical dimension of the believer's fellowship with God, and the horizontal dimension of his kononia with other believers in the Spirit. A believer can have fellowship with God by themselves alone, but not koinonia! This is only possible in the company of fellow believers who are gathered in unity. In (Matt 18:20) Jesus said "where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them". This is certainly the basis of koinonia! We could list a few things that describe real koinonia. 1/ the fellowship among believers which the Holy Spirit gives. 2/ the fellowship Christ had with His disciples. 3/ the fellowship of the early church. 4/ the earthly counterpart and foretaste of the eternal fellowship we can look forward to. 5/ it is analogous to the unity, fellowship, and communion between Christ and the Father. A quote from George Webber sums it up "No relationship of love can develop unless there are structures in which it can grow". The koinonia we have been discussing can only grow when there are structures to nourish it! So let us strive to promote those structures!

 Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                               Revised 20/01/14                                                                                                                                    Revised 20/01/14

TWO RULES to LIVE BY

TWO RULES TO LIVE BY

 

God gave 10 commandments to Moses on the mountain (Exod 20:1-17), which were multiplied to 613 rules that religious Jews were expected to keep. These were enforced by the Pharisees during the time that Jesus lived on the earth. These were reduced to only 2 by Jesus, which He repeated several times in His teaching, as recorded in the 4 gospel accounts. They were simply, 1/ "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength", and 2/ "Love your neighbor as yourself". These are simple rules, but there is a lot more involved in keeping them than most people realize! I am slowly coming to understand what is involved since watching the "Agape Road" teaching by Bob Mumford on his DVD's. I first read his book by that title, and then listened to the audio CD's series given at a large seminar about 10 years ago, and am now enjoying the teaching much more by seeing Bob deliver the teaching in the original setting. I enjoy reading about the way Jesus replied to the Pharisees, who were the most religious crowd of Jews who were always trying to point out how Jesus didn't keep some of their religious traditions. One example of this is recorded by Matthew in his gospel (Matt 22:34-40), and then in the next chapter he records what Jesus thought of these "religious" leaders. He uses some very uncomplimentary names for these guys, like "hypocrites", "blind fools", and "whitewashed tombs"! Not the type of descriptive words you would expect to hear from the "gentle Jesus", that some people consider Him to be

 

I often wonder how He would describe the "religious leaders" of the church today that most people believe to be the Church that Jesus said He would build. When you compare the church we see in the book of Acts with what we call the "church" today, you are hard pressed to see any resemblance. This has caused me to use the terms "Biblical Church" and "unbiblical church" to describe the two very different organizations! Actually the Biblical Church that Jesus has been building for the past 2000 years is an "organism" because it is a living thing. An organization is not a living thing, but simply a group of people who are joined together to accomplish certain worthy goals, similar to the Kiwanis Club, or some other service club. We must always remember that the True Church is composed only of people who have been "born again" by the Holy Spirit, and are "New Creatures in Christ" as described by Paul in (2 Cor 5:17)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                       20/04/12                                                                                    

THE LOCAL CHURCH

THE LOCAL CHURCH

 

I recently read a copy of "New Wine", a charismatic magazine that used to come into our home every month throughout the 70's and 80's. This copy dated July/Aug 1975 contained articles by Bob Mumford, Jack Hayford, Derek Prince, Bruce Longstreth, Michael Ford and John Poole.  All these men wrote on the common theme of "The Local Church", and I was impressed by the truth they presented from a wide variety of perspectives.

There is much the church can learn from these men some 30+ years later.

Bob Mumford---Wrote on the vision of the local church with words like,

"When we begin to see the magnitude of God's plan, we see the church as the answer to the world's problems", "Thus the body of Christ can thrive anywhere, in any society, and under any circumstances". He discusses the basic plan of God for the church under the headings of 1/ pattern, 2/ principles, 3/ power. Then he points out the seven aspects of the nature of the local church, which are, 1/ A dwelling place for God, 2/ The body of Christ, 3/ An assembly for corporate worship, 4/ A spiritual school, 5/ A hospital for wounded soldiers, 6/ A spiritual deliverance center for POW's, 7/ A spiritual home to teach people about the earth's salvation. He closes with this conclusion of a local church "There will be someone over us---someone under us---and someone beside us. And God will cement us together by His Holy Spirit. This completes the structure in any given geographical location---the Church which is His Body!" Jack Hayford---Jack calls his article "Charismatic Explosion in the Local Church". He mentions "Outward and  Inward Growth", "A Resurgence of Teaching", "A View Toward Balance", "A New Experience in Worship", and "Development of Body Ministry". He speaks much about the need for teaching and instruction to both new believers as well as older saints, with a special emphasis on discipline. He ends with this "Individuals in the body need to learn to expect loving correction, and the leaders need to learn to give it in the power of the Spirit. It will finally prove to be, I believe, the factor that keeps this explosion we have discussed as an instrument of construction rather than one of high-rise dust clouds and just so much noise!", A good word, and remember it was given over 30 years ago!!

The other articles were equally impressive and each one added to the other to give a well balanced description of what God expects from local churches that are structured and functioning according to the pattern laid out in the NT by Paul and the other NT writers!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                         20/10/11