When it says, “having predestinated us,” proopisas hemas eis huiothesian, not what it sounds like in the King James when it says “adoption.” What does the text say? It says, “the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.” That’s okay, but the Greek says “sonship.” It says, “He foreordained us to sonship,” which is a lot different. You can be adopted and become part of the family, which is what the Bible says. We, by the spirit of adoption, we cry, “Abba, Father!” But He foreordained us to sonship, which means His children, of His blood, by His blood, through His blood, which we’re going to look at in a minute. And, “according to the good pleasure of his will,” same kind of feel that we saw in last week’s text that we looked at. “To the praise of the glory of his grace.” There it is again.
And if one takes enough time to read this, you’ll see it’s almost on the cusp of a doxology. When Paul gets going, it’s as though he has to hold himself back, “the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” And I have coined something there where it says, “made us accepted in the beloved.” Verse 6 says, “the grace of Him, by which,” and it’s a grace word echaritosen, which means, “He graced us of the glory of the grace of Him, by which He graced us in the beloved one.” Very subtle changes, but they give depth to the text, so when you read it, this should come alive to you. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” Let’s start with the “in whom” to begin with.
All giving should be worship. It is a contraction of two words: “worth-ship.” I once saw an engineer say the offering was a “downer” on the service. I thought, “My Lord, what a bad foundation of truth has been planted in him.” The most worshipful act that we do in the Church is giving out of a heart of gratitude to God, an expression of value. When you go out in the world to buy something, you express value. You put down hard-earned money, the fruit of your labor, for something that you value. The true Christian values God and His Word above all things. We express that value by bringing the fruit of our labor, the tithe and firstfruits, and then making offerings beyond what is already the Lord’s.
Q. You’ve already answered most of the questions. I know you have to hear somewhat often people say, “I don’t know if I can make it. I don’t know if I can participate in firstfruits.” What would you say to that?
A. Well, would you rather make it with God on your side, or make it alone with God against you? That’s the simple answer. In other words, do you want to do it your way or God’s way?
Q. If there was one thing in the Church world today that you would like to see happen, what would it be?
A. A change in the frame of reference to where God is preached because of who He is rather than God being preached because of what He does for you.
Q. Where do you send your firstfruits, tithes and offerings?
A. You send them where you get your spiritual food, to “the storehouse.” (Malachi 3:10) You pay where you eat.
Q. Who do you make the check out to?
A. Whomever teaches you. Well, Pastor Scott you are my teacher. Thank you.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that what’s so amazing is when Paul catalogs what we call the autobiography section. You’d be surprised at how people say, “Well this doesn’t correlate with some other accounts elsewhere.” Let me just say this to you. If we had to chronicle Paul’s life, every single day, we’d have volumes and volumes of just the life of Paul. So it’s like saying you’re going to write a diary. You make one short entry and that’s it for that day. Does that represent your whole life? No. We just get a little glimpse.
So Paul is saying he was basically the superseding mind in the Jewish way. He was, you know, top of his class under the study of Gamaliel. It says, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” Now see these are the debates I like to get into. I don’t like to debate whether or not God’s Word is true or who wrote it because that’s been settled. What I like to get into is you’ve got some great Bible teachers that will say, “Well what really happened is he did confer with flesh and blood because after his Damascus Road event, he was told to go into Ananias to get his sight, to receive his vision.” No. That was what the Lord instructed him to do.
He didn’t confer with any man to receive the Gospel for he received it as a revelation from Jesus. And he’s defending his position now because many of these Judaizers that came, they came under the guise of saying, “I have a revelation” – and by the way anywhere you go that’s what people will say, “I have a special revelation from God. I’m going to share it with you. We’ll be back in two minutes after the commercial break”; and you don’t hear it. That’s the revelation. Wow.
I Corinthians 10:16, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion,” koinonia, “of the blood of Christ?” This text became the passage for people to grasp for transubstantiation. It is not. Please don’t ever think that I even go that way.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that but we are joint-participators. Think again in the spirit realm that we just read and in the spirit of your heart. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the koinonia of the blood of Christ” the sharing of that, “The bread which we break, is it not the koinonia of the body of Christ?” I want you to think about this because the word expands not only to what we do, but what He’s already done, what He did. What He ‘koinoniaed’ to us already. So easily said, so easily taken for granted.
I have one more and it’s actually maybe my favorite one of them all. Go to II Corinthians 13:13. I could have picked more but I settled on three to make my point. It’s actually 13:14. II Corinthians 13:14 the last verse, chapter and verse of II Corinthians “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the koinonia of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.” I cannot say this enough. It’s not enough to just say “Well I understand the principle of what I’m supposed to do.” I don’t want to talk about right now how much you give. I don’t want talk about anything except the spirit in which you give and understand there’s a flipside to it. And it’s not by some Aristotelian formula that you’re going to get there.
Well if you look through and we’ll be looking at these different things in the Hebrew come maybe next week, God willing. I put a text on the board that accompanies those texts that I just read you of a willing heart, of a good heart, freely, because the burnt offering was done voluntarily just like the kinsman redeemer. We read in the book of Ruth the kinsman redeemer had to be one next of kin or near of kin, willing, being able to pay the full price, and willing not coerced, to fulfill the role that Jesus did: Kinsman Redeemer. This passage is out of II Corinthians, don’t turn there, II Corinthians 9:7 I believe the text is. Pretty good when my mind has drawn a blank. Let’s look it up just to make sure.
I know some of you will take a note and say “Well that’s not the text.” Just stay there, stay where you are, hold your brains everybody. Some can do that, they didn’t leave them outside. II Corinthians 9, yes, which reads in your King James where “God loveth a cheerful giver.” Right? “God loveth a cheerful giver.” This word here hilaron from which we get our word ‘hilarious,’ hilaron which the King James says ‘cheerful.’ It reminds me of like this, it’s with the heart. “For,” the first word that’s put there is the most important, ‘For giver loves God,’ hilarious giver.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that some people want to take what is in the New Testament and not recognize it was already there in the Old. What I just read to you about people offering of a free will, voluntarily of a good heart the burnt offering. Any of those offerings as you go through as they brought them and God said “Bring them.” And the way to bring them was God sees the heart, bring it with a good heart. Well I know there will be people who will say “Well I’ve been taught. I know how to give. I pay my tithes.” Some of you have been taught there is a first, a second and a third tithe. I’m not going to touch that today. I just want to get to the spirit of giving God’s way. You will be taught in the Word and I’m going to look in the camera – I should have done this from the beginning.
I don’t normally do this, but I want to answer a question.
Somebody called in and said “I can’t believe,” some response from a viewer, “I can’t believe that she doesn’t believe in evolution.” But when that call came in, whoever read me the message, I laughed and I said “I have to address it because it’s just so funny.” Well, the first thing is, evolution – this is not my message I just feel like saying this – evolution is something that is easy to swallow because it’s a simple solution to a complex universe and complex people. But the fact of the matter is, if you take the time to read your Bible and study your Bible you have to come to the conclusion that it can’t be.
Even if you are not a Christian, if you are Jew if you are Muslim, whatever you are put the Bible aside for a minute and study the amoeba cell, the compound makeup, chromosomes of animals verses man, human kind and you will find that the chromosomal makeup is slightly different. We may have our mimicry in the primates, the chimpanzees and the monkeys, but where we differ – I taught in this on Genesis where we differ is God breathed something into man that supposedly, I say supposedly, was suppose to make us make good or moral judgments. So evolution is problematic if you are not a Christian, if you are not a believer, then please take the time to study the physical compound chemical makeup that makes us different. Just as creatures what separates us, without God in the equation and you will encounter problems.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that it’s not an easy answer, but I can tell you if you do believe in the Bible and you want to believe in evolution you have a problem because “Let us make man in our image” sets the stage. I believe there was a pre – Adamic earth between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. That’s – listen to my husband or me teach on that some other time. I don’t want to get into that.
Now, because it’s easy to paint it something else. It’s easy to say well far removed. Why is there a ‘but’ attached to what Jesus did? And please don’t laugh. It’s not meant to be funny. If Jesus paid like the song says ‘He paid it all.’ Then it’s paid in full. And whatever somebody is putting on me or thinking to put on me or do to you or you do to yourself, because we can turn just as well – let me play some psychoanalysis on you.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that we can turn from the objective what the world perceives me to be to the subjective, which is what I perceive myself to be. Huh? Well, okay. Let me go back to the subject of original sin – what split the church wide open. It’s like which came first the chicken or the egg? Does it matter at this point? You know the little baby chick is out of the egg. Don’t worry about it now. Don’t try and figure out how it happened. You’re in it now. Well I can simplify it and say like this: if one has a problem with the concept of what Adam did at the beginning, from Adam’s time, and you have a problem with that then let’s progress.
A child is born in this country. This could only be applicable in this country as an analogy. A child is born and wears diapers. Does the child know that it’s naked if the diapers come off? The answer to that question is ‘no’ until either the child feels cold or the child is old enough to see around him that everybody else is clothed. And there begins the element of shame. That’s one type of guilt. There’s another type that becomes the freedom to misuse your freedom. And just like what Adam did in the garden, given a measure of freedom – the freedom to misuse, which he did. He wasn’t a windup toy or a robot. The freedom to misuse freedom.
But going through and really looking at it. Well then I asked one of the staff people, in fact I asked a couple of staff people. I’m going to ask you the same question. We’ll see if you’re honest enough – like that? – if you’re honest enough to admit to something. I asked two staff people ‘When you partake do you have guilt issues or do you wrestle with guilt? And the answer was from the heart, ‘yes.’ Now don’t look to your neighbor.
This isn’t some everybody’s going to look at you now. I want to see hands because I want to know how many people wrestle with this before I start talking. Show me. How many people wrestle with that issue? Is there anybody who partakes of the elements – at least you’re honest enough to admit it. Thank God for you. Because you know what? Those of you who didn’t raise your hand I have news for you. Just as you are forgiven of your sins – and you’re forgiven, I’m forgiven – but we commit sins daily.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that when we live under this canopy of people who preach a perfectionist doctrine whereby ‘go and sin no more’ because Jesus said it to somebody. We can’t. We are in this body called Adam. That means I sin daily. I need to seek forgiveness, which has already been bought and paid for with what Jesus did. And the double happening when you do something inadvertently or in advertently there are emotive feelings that well up inside of you. Whether or not you want to admit it – and I’ll be the first one stand here and admit it. It’s part of being a Christian. You want to be something for God. You want to be all that God has meant you to be. And I’m not talking about the rich doctrine and the seed doctrine.
You’ll see something. If you have occasion go and read back in Matthew 13 at a later time – maybe this week – you’ll see all of those: the sewer, the four different soils. Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that all of these are depictions of a type. There are people who believe that the whole world can be saved. Well if that was the case and if that was true – I wish it was true. The fact of the matter is there will be evil until the end. And God will leave the evil there it says until it’s harvest times. And if you don’t know what that means, well you need to read about harvest time. I think we’ve been talking about it the last couple of weeks. It leaves us all there, lets it grow together. The wheat He puts in His barn. The tares He goes to burn up afterwards. So think about that.
What does He say now? He says “I gave her space to repent” – no; ‘I gave her time to repent’ the original reads. “I gave her time to repent of her fornication; she repented not” which tells me He’s already warned the church: ‘change your ways.’ He’s already told this church ‘Stop doing what you’re doing.’ We just don’t have a perfect record of it. But He’s already said ‘Stop what you’re doing.’
“Behold, I will cast her into a bed” – no; ‘I’ll cast her into a sickbed’ “and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds” – ‘except they change their mind and their heart about the way they’re doing things.’ “And I will kill her children with death” – ‘with plagues.’ Now let me say this. You notice He doesn’t say ‘I will kill her.’ What does it say? It says “I will cast her into a sickbed, I’ll smite her with something terrible” but He doesn’t say ‘I’ll kill her.’ Why? Because she represents the church and He can’t kill the church. Maybe some of you will have already gotten my point and I’ve killed that point. Thank you very much. Now you know that He’s talking to the churches one more time for this confirmation.
Now why does Jesus have to say ‘the Son of God.’ And by the way somebody wasn’t sure that it was Jesus talking. He just confirms it. A lot of people say ‘well I can’t believe that’s Jesus. I need…’ This is what He’s saying. Why Son of God? Why is He using that? First of all because He can; don’t even mess with that. That’s just too simple. He can. There’s another reason in fact multiple reasons. One of them is this Jezebel proclaims to have the infallible oracles of God. And only One can put the claim as Son of God. By the way I didn’t bother to put the Greek of that up on the board. But huios, which is ‘son’ in the Greek is nominative and Theou is genitive. And I like the fact that the Father nominated the Son and none other can take that place. Only Jesus can save – Son of God. But yet in the realm of this church which is the church of the Dark Ages.
Pastor Melissa Scott tells us that it was very common for high ranking officials – let me give you a type in the Roman world it was very common for a Roman official to take the title as ‘son of god’ as deified recipient of a titulary like for example Caesar son of god Julius because they were deified. Not our Lord, but their own version. They deified themselves. He talked to the people at this church exactly where they were at. This is what I love. If you’re reading this and you’re reading it with the eyes, same eyes that I’m looking at – you’ll see Jesus comes to the people and relates to them with a little – there’s a little unusual thing. I’m just going to mention it.
It’s not going to make or break anything but I’m just going to say it. As I analyzed the whole thing in Greek the ‘Son of God’ appears forty-six times in the New Testament. That’s not a big deal. I mean that’s wonderful but the anomaly is that is only appears here in the book of Revelation once like this. The subject: Son of God; the subject itself is subject of a transitive verb ‘saith’ which is very unusual. Usually ‘Son of God’ would be God as the subject or the Son as the subject, but not of a verb that’s moving. That is He that speaketh. It’s just unusual. And if you recall in the first message when I started in this book I said there’s some unusual grammar. There’s some unusual things. This is one of them, which tells you this is not somebody just kind of writing down makeshift. This is something spoken out of Jesus’ mouth and it is just completely unique. It doesn’t appear anywhere else like this.