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The ways things
ought to be
by Bob Jones
When we study Freemasonry, we have to wade through a lot of stuff. A lot of it is been pretty dark and the picture is bleak, but I want to share some of the bright side of things.
There are two families that co-exist in this world. There is a disinherited family. It's father is Lucifer. He is the one, who works through pride or vain glory because he's the imitator in all things. God has glory. Satan has vain-glory. Vain-glory is glory that isn't going anywhere. The glory of God is real. And that family that is seeking the glory of God, the full inheritance of the Lord.
Men and women involved in the mysteries and darkness of the lodge are buried in Vain glory. The pompous titles they wear upon their breasts, the orders of ritual they embrace bring even the stoutest Christians among them out from among the inheritance of the believe into the pit of the vain glorious. They have fully and completely given up their birthrights for a sad and empty counterfeit. Woe unto them on that day of judgement. Their inheritance will be that of the disinheritanted and of its father, Lucifer.
I worked for fifteen years as a development director in a Bible college. And I know something about inheritance, I know something about the process itself and I'm here to tell you that it is the very process the Bible uses or shows us. I wish we would all receive our full share of that ever lasting glory. It is a process that has been corrupted because there are those who would lead us from that glory that God has offered into that vain-glory of Satan.
Pride goes before a fall. Vain-glory will never do the job and there are those of us who live for the things that we can see, hear, smell, touch and taste. It is such a waste, because this is not the reality. The reality is in the things of the spirit of God.
I want to share this with you; that statement, that question, first of all by those who came to Jesus and said, "what shall I do or what must I do to inherit the kingdom?" It's a good question.
Mark 10:17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Luke 10:25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Luke 18:18 A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
It's asked in a good way. And Jesus gave them the same answer, but it is by process of inheritance that we are to receive. I think we need to go back to the beginning and I'm going to just very quickly go over this.
In the beginning there was the creator, one creator, God made all things. But there is something else revealed by John in the first chapter of his Gospel. With the creator was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word. That word was in the beginning with God. He was with the Father in the beginning; He will be with the Father at the consummation of all things. And He was with the Father when he went to Calvary.
I want to talk about this inheritance process for just a minute. First of all it begins with property. I want to say that the execution of a will is the greatest act of grace that anyone can commit. In the execution of a will you are a committing an act of grace because it is a gift; it is something that person cannot purchase from you; that person cannot earn from you; something that person does not deserve. You have chosen them because of who they are. They are a friend or they are a relative. And because of that you have promised them, in a document called a testament. Incidentally it makes you a testator when you write a testament. And that testament is nothing more than a promise on a piece of paper until it goes into affect.
If I were to write one word about the old testament which I think is the theme of the Old Testament is the word promise. If I were to write a word over the New Testament it would be the word probate and then finally distribution.
Let's begin back at the beginning again. God, who was the creator spoke with the voice of authority. He spoke with truth because He is truth and the Word of God is truth and so He spoke with an exclamation point. When God speaks you listen. And He had a relationship with Adam that was a unique relationship.
But Satan, Lucifer, came along and took that exclamation point and began to twist it subtly until he formed a question mark and created in the mind of Adam doubt. Did God say? you will surely not die. With all the subtly of the serpent he spoke a simple statement with a period at the end. He makes no commands, he makes no demands, he simply states lies. God spoke the truth, Satan came along with the lie. Paul says in that passage in Romans that they exchanged the truth of God for the lie. Not a lie but the lie. The lie that the creature can be worshipped the same as the Creator. And they began to worship the creature rather than the Creator. That's the lie and the deception of Satan in all this.
And so God made a promise. The next word is the promise. The promise is that God was going to restore everything that Adam lost when he bought the lie. God had crowned him with glory and had given him honor and had given him dominion over the earth and he relinquished all of this. It was turned over to the one who became known as the prince of the world. And now man was lost.
When you write a will you always put people in that will; those people who are going to be the recipients of your grace. And God made a will which can be found in several places. But in Genesis chapter 12 there is a dynamic that takes place in that occasion when Abrahm was put to sleep after having divided the carcasses of the animals and created the setting for covenant. And God walked between these parts of the carcass while Abrahm was asleep.
Now the dynamic is this, that God and the Word passed through those carcasses. This same word that John was later to say became flesh and dwelt among us. There were two parties that were present at that occasion with whom God spoke by immutable oath, based on His own name that He would fulfill this promise that "through thee and thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. "
Two people went into the testament or the will of God. A friend, Abraham, and a relative, Jesus Christ. Two people. These people were the heirs of salvation. The heirs of the will. Now this Jesus was unique. Because He is the one to fulfill all this. You see God had made a will but a will is only a promise on a piece of paper until the death of the testator. And in the fullness of time this Word made flesh who dwelt among us who spoke truth came to Calvary and He died on the cross as the testator of the will of God.
Do you understand the significance of that? Because at that point the promise went into probate. Up until that time it was just a promise. Hebrews 11 says, by faith Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice while Cain did not. By faith Abraham left the Ur of the Chaldees to follow God, by faith, on and on through that great list. But He says in the thirteenth verse, these all died in vain never having received the promise. It was impossible for them to do it without those of us who are heirs in the new covenant.
The beautiful thing about this is that the two heirs cannot receive until both of them are heirs. And Jesus, who was the testator of the will of God, died and was buried. That's the normal course. But on the third day He arose from the dead, He was raised by his Father. I want you to know that the cross is total submission to the will of God.
Jesus was put to death by His foes. He was buried by His friend and He was raised by His Father. This was not His work at all, it was submission to the will of the Father. I don't know of anybody else in all my experience of working with wills, whoever wrote a will, who died to put it into affect and then came back and showed up at the reading of the will to receive the inheritance. I don't know of anybody else who has ever done this. That's sort of unique, isn't it. And that's what Jesus Christ is, He is unique! And this is truth, this same Word of God made flesh who became the heir; who returned again the Father; who is glorified is now prepared to come back for the distribution of the estate.
What will we receive? We will receive everything that God is and everything that God has and God has everything. There is reserved in heaven for you an inheritance that will not fade - that's glory! It will never fade.
Now you see vain glory is fading glory. People say, well I'm going to live by my looks; I want you to know that Brook Shields and Tom Seleck are beginning to wrinkle, sag, and shed just like everybody else. Those people who say, well I will make it with my wealth - listen - it's all going to be gone. I have a friend, who was a friend of John D. Rockefeller, and this man was a member of the Gideons. He said John D. Rockefeller used to boast that when he died he was going to take his money with him. He said I was in the room when John D. Rockefeller died, it was two o'clock in the morning and the banks were closed. He couldn't take it.
You see this is vain, this is vanity. Everything that you see in this room is fading. There is no glory in this, everything that we see is fading and decaying and passing away. But the righteousness of God is incorruptible and this is the righteousness that we have now in Christ. The operating words are " in Christ. " He is my covering, He is my peace, He is my righteousness, He is my joy, He is my health, He is everything, He is everything in everybody. And Lucifer ain't nothin'! And I'm nothin' without Him! I can't do anything without Him!
When I stand in the presence of God I do not want to stand there as Robert Jones, I want to stand there and say take my hands, Lord and want Him to see nail prints in my hands. I want Him to see nail prints in my feet, the covering of Jesus Christ over me. I don't want to stand in the presence of God without that covering. That precious armor that we wear, the righteousness, the truth, the peace, I want to be there covered by the blood and the life and the love of Jesus. He is everything, everything! And there is reserved in heaven for you an inheritance. It will not fade, it will not decay, and it will not pass away, it is eternal. Friends we have already eternal life. We are seated with Him.
We are joint heirs with Jesus. I'm gonna have it because of Him. I can't do that stuff, He did it for me. And I am to be conformed to His image. I've been called, and justified.
Justified, you know that's a beautiful word. I've been a terrible sinner in my life and I wouldn't begin a recitation of it for you here. I've been a terrible sinner and not that far back either, unfortunately. I've gone through some pretty heavy stuff. But in the last six wonderful years I've come to know Jesus as I have never known Him before. And I've come to hear and to walk with Him and to love Him, and to be loved by Him. And to know that I'm loved by Him. And to be loved by my heavenly Father through Him. And that's beautiful.
You know the most beautiful picture of justification I've ever seen is what happened in the garden of Gethesemene when the men came to take Jesus prisoner and Peter had said, Lord they'll take you over my dead body. He drew his sword when they came after Jesus and he reached out and he sliced off the ear of that man Malcus who had relatives in high places. Now Peter was picked to preach the first gospel sermon but he was a criminal. He could have been in jail on that occasion, not even present. But Jesus did something remarkable, He stooped down, picked up the ear of Malcus, put it back and made him whole again. And in that one move He not only healed Malcus He eliminated every shred of evidence against Simon Peter and crime was blotted out. That's what it does for us. He blots out our sins. They never were! Because He has taken them away - that's justification. And then I am set apart in Him and His Holy Spirit is in me.
There is a story that I have been so impressed by that I would like to share it with you. I think that in the church we have overlooked so many things. In our whole approach to the idea of demons, I work as a chaplain in a rescue mission, many of the people who come through the front door are loaded down with demons and its a very real problem. Some people don't recognize the problem but we have to deal with that day after day. We do work with that. And without God and without the Lord Jesus Christ I don't know where we'd be. Well I certainly wouldn't want to be in that kind of work, that's for sure.
The church today has lost it's sense of the inheritance, it has lost it's sense of what Jesus has done to put all of this beautiful program, everything that we have into affect. So that when they pull out that final book, they will began to read the list of the heirs of salvation from the beginning, those who have been written there. You see, many of those people who are caught up in this will Freemasonry stuff never understand. Because their eyes are blinded and they cannot not see, they will never see.
I want to tell this story because it is so important to me that we not only begin to look to the future but I want you to know that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. And we walk so often every day that close to miracles and we walk on by, we miss them. Merlin Caruthers says that God was calling him to a ministry of praise and if you know Merlin Caruthers you know that he's involved in that ministry of praise.
But the story that he tells is that he was a chaplain in the army. And a young man came to him, a young private, one day and he said, " My wife is going to commit suicide, I have a problem. What do I do? She said if I go to Viet Nam she will take her life. She already attempted suicide once when I was drafted and I'm sure that she will accomplish it now because she almost succeeded then."
And Merlin Caruthers said, "Send your wife in and let me talk to her. So he did. Now God had been dealing with Merlin and teaching him how to praise and not grumble and complain all the time. Most of us grumble and complain but if we begin to, as I Thesselonians 5:18 says, "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ concerning you."
In everything! And so Merlin asked God, "What am I going to tell this lady when she comes?" and God said, "Tell her what I've taught you." She came in, sat down, and began to tell a sad story. She had been adopted as a young girl before she was born. She had been separated from her adopted parents and no family. And when she married Ray he was all she had. She said , "If he goes to Viet Nam I'll kill myself. "
And Merlin asked the Lord, "What will I tell this woman?" And the Lord said, "Sit back, fold your hands, open your mouth and I'll tell her." He sat down, folded his hands, opened his mouth, and the Lord said, "Sue, there is just one thing I want to ask you to do, kneel down and lets thank God that Ray is going to Viet Nam. "
She was angry and in the natural that would seem to be the only reaction. That was a stupid thing to say. And he could tell that she wasn't about to do that, he said well lets pray anyway. So they prayed and he said his prayer went absolutely no place.
He got through with that and she said, "Chaplain, I don't understand a thing your talking about ,"and out she went. He got a phone call from her husband a little bit later and he said, "Chaplain, what did you tell my wife?"
He said , "Well I told her that everything works together for good to those who love the Lord, and so on."
He replied, " well what ever you told her she's twice as bad as she was when she came in." And so he said, "why don't you just come back and let me just talk to you."
So later, Ray came back to the office, but meanwhile Merlin was praying, "Lord, what am I going to tell this man? I've got to tell him something. What will I tell him? He needs an answer." The Lord said, "Sit back, fold your hands, I 'll tell him."
He sat back, folded his hands, and spoke the young private across from him and he said, "Ray, there's just one thing I want to ask you to do. Let's kneel down and pray and thank God that Sue is exactly like she is." Well, he looked a little strange but he did pray for him and nothing happened. I mean he said, this is terrible.
The young man said, "Now chaplain, I don't want to be disrespectful but now I understand why Sue doesn't understand a word your talking about. I don't understand either." And so, he went out.
As the young man went out Caruthers said," Ray, why don't you come back with Sue, let me talk to the two of you." He said, 'All right, we'll do that but we have to have an answer, Chaplain. We've got to stop fooling around, we've got to have an answer."
The chaplain got down and he said, Now Lord, we've got to stop fooling around. I mean we've got to tell this man something. He's got to know something. " And then He said, "But anyway, thank you for them just exactly as they are. "
The Lord said, "Finally! Finally, Merlin, that's what I've been trying to get across to you all along. You can't help them." That's right Lord I can't help them. But the Lord said, " I can. Now when they come in this time, sit down, fold your hands, open your mouth, and I'll tell them." And Merlin said, "Oh praise the Lord, that's what I wanted Lord."
They came in and sat down across from him and he said, "Now Ray and Sue, there is just one thing that I ask you to do. Kneel down with me and let's thank God for things exactly the way they are."
Well, Ray looked at Sue and he said "Sue I don't understand what the chaplain is talking about, and I know you don't understand what the chaplain is talking about but he seems to think that he knows what he's talking about. So let's just kneel down and thank God for this." And so they knelt down and prayed. "Thank you Father, thank you Father," said Ray," that I'm going to Viet Nam." Sue prayed, "Thank you Lord, that Ray is going to Viet Nam and I might try to kill myself."
Then they got up and they walked out. They walked out into the little chapel outside the office door and Merlin knelt down to pray, to thank the Lord at that point. But when they got outside the door, Ray turned to Sue and he said, "Sue, did we really do that? "
"Well, yes, I guess we did."
"Did we mean it?"
" Well I guess we did."
He said, "Well let's just give it another try," and they went over and knelt down at the altar and they prayed again.
And this time he said, "Father I thank you that I'm going to Viet Nam."
She said, "Father I thank you that Ray is going to Viet Nam and things are just the way they are."
Well, Ray had to go back to his company so he left. Sue sat down and very shortly the door burst open and another private, another young man, came in that door. He said, "I got to talk to the chaplain."
She said, "Well, he's inside his office and the door is closed. But he'll probably be out in just a little bit."
And he said, "You don't understand, I've got a problem, I've got to talk to the chaplain."
And so he came over and he began to explain to her, he took about ten or fifteen minutes telling his problem. She said, "Well, there is one thing I can tell you. If you go in there to talk to that man he isn't going to help you one bit."
But, he said, "You don't understand this, and he pulled out his billfold, and said look this is a picture of my wife, and this is a picture of my children", and then he turned over the next picture and Sue said, "Oh my God, who is that woman?"
"That's my mother. Why?"
She said, "That's my mother!"
"It can't be! "
She said, "Yes it is! That's my mother. When I was a girl I was adopted and they didn't tell me. But one day I was going through a door and I found the adoption papers and there stapled to the corner was that same picture. I know that picture, that's my mother."
He answered, "I can't believe this is so, but let's go make a phone call." They went and made the phone call and she came in and knocked on Merlin Caruther's door a few minutes later. She had her arm around another private.
She said, "Chaplain, you are not going to believe this, I found my brother! And I know who my mother is!"
And Merlin said, "Praise the Lord!"
"Do you think its because I said thank you, Lord?"
He smiled at her. "I don't know what you think but I sure know what I think." And then she left with her brother.
Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and it was Ray and he said, "Chaplain, your not going to believe this. He said, I hadn't gone but 700 yards, heading back to my company, and I ran into a friend with whom I graduated from law school and he said, he was a second lieutenant. He said, " Ray, how are you doing? What are you going to be doing? I answered, "Praise the Lord, I'm going to Viet Nam. And the man said, well, Ray, you're a good attorney, why aren't you working in the law office here with me? "
They went in his office and five minutes later his orders were changed and he wasn't going to Viet Nam. And he said, "Chaplain, do you think its because I said, thank you Lord? "
Merlin replied, " I don't know what you think, Ray, but I sure know what I think. "
I want to say this, you can say that was all coincidence. Here is a young private who passed twenty chapels to come to this one chapel, to a chaplain he didn't know and didn't even get talk to. His sister happened to be sitting there whom he had never seen. Ray talked to a man that he had not seen since he graduated from law school and in the process did not have to go to Viet Nam. Chaplain Caruthers had his problem taken care of, too. He was sweating it and God took care of it for him.
What I'm trying to say is this, God orders the steps of a righteous man. God has already taken care of things. Everything was there, he didn't just instantly perform a miracle, he didn't just instantly put her brother in that camp, he just didn't instantly put that other man in the camp, they were all there and the miracle was already set up. All they had to do was trust God and thank God and praise Him and it happened.
I've told our fellows that down at the mission. In fact, I had one young man come into me several weeks ago and I had just heard that testimony. So I praised the Lord for that, you know. And he came in and said, chaplain, I need some help and he gave me a long sad story and I immediately jumped out to help him. And I realized after a short time as doors began to slam in my face, I couldn't help this young man. And so I just knelt down and I said Lord, and I said Lord I thank you for Bill and his wife just exactly the way they are. He was wanting shelter for her, he was a street person, she was also a street person, she needed shelter.
That's what he was asking for and he needed money in order to get it. And I couldn't come up with the money for him and so I figured out what I was going to tell him now. I had it all lined up, what I was going to tell him, but I was praying, "Lord I thank you for him and I praise you for their situation exactly the way it is."
So I went into chapel, we just had a new black chapel speaker who had come in, first black chapel speaker we've had, and I was just praising the Lord for that. And you know he took my speech and delivered it, that I was going to tell this man. The man was sitting right in the middle of the audience and he took my speech and delivered to him.
I didn't even have to deliver the speech and the young man come up to me afterwards and he put his arms around me and he said, "I want to apologize to you. I asked a man to do what only God can do. "Praise the Lord! I said thank you Lord! Then I went down, I have a group in our home for battered women, and I went down before my group and who was sitting there but his wife in that refuse. She was sheltered and she's still there. And I said thank you Lord, you put it all together and I didn't have to do anything.
Wouldn't it be great if we would start trusting God more and more and not depending on the arm of the flesh for the things that we are doing. We don't need a secret fraternity to take the place of God in our lives.
Listen, we have a great God, greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. We've been talking today about the one in the world. Let's exalt the on who is over us, in us, and who is working to do these things to order our steps before us. God is a miracle working God. God has put together this conference, I believe it with all my heart. I know some of us has just said God its bigger than all of us, its yours, take it.
The inheritance begins the day we acknowledge Jesus as Lord. And it will be that final distribution when all of us will gather about the throne and we'll sing the praises of God and the Lamb forever. Our God is good and he's great. Now we need to pray for those who are out there, lost and leaning on a system already doomed to failure.. The white horse is being prepared, the rider is ready, the feast has been prepared for his people, all things are set up. Let's pray and just thank God!
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Saints Alive In Jesus
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