Tuesday – October 18, 2016
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Remember to pray for our nation, we individually must abandon wickedness in our lives and then we individually and as a nation can be healed, over a process of time made whole. Be sure you are registered to vote and do vote in spite of the fact that we appear to have two very flawed candidates. If you have any question of the right choice just look at the Democratic and Republican Platforms. https://www.gop.com/the-2016-republican-party-platform/ or https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Democratic-Party-Platform-7.21.16-no-lines.pdf Let me give you a hint, the Democratic Platform is almost universally opposed to God.
God is so wonderful (delightful, pleasing, great, brilliant, perfect, ideal, magnificent, superb, breathtaking, amazing, astonishing, fantastic, and marvelous). Let’s remind ourselves of this old song written and published by Charles H. Gabriel in 1905, called My Savior’s Love.
- I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner, condemned, unclean.- Refrain:
How marvelous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous! How wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!
- Refrain:
- For me it was in the garden
He prayed: “Not My will, but Thine.”
He had no tears for His own griefs,
But sweat drops of blood for mine. - In pity angels beheld Him,
And came from the world of light
To comfort Him in the sorrows
He bore for my soul that night. - He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calv’ry,
And suffered and died alone. - When with the ransomed in glory
His face I at last shall see,
’Twill be my joy through the ages
To sing of His love for me.
What a wonderful song, a delightful reminder of His love for all. Today I am moving into the second chapter of the Book of Ephesians. Oh, what a wonderful book, a tremendous study of the Word of God for us, and to us.
Ephesians 2:1-3 (KJV)
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
The ‘you’ in verse one above is you and me, those of us who have named Jesus as Lord. Notice the words “hath he quickened” are italicized means these words were added by the translators to bring flow, continuity, and understanding to the text. It is always good to read the text with and without the italicized words and then look at the context of the verse. In this case the added words do indeed strengthen and are accurately placed. In the preceding chapter we find the Father by the Holy Spirit raising Jesus from the dead and seating Him at His own right hand in Heaven and we will shortly see that we have been raised with Him and are also seated with and in Him at the right hand of Majesty on High. Only the saints, the righteous have this place of honor, it is those raised from spiritual death to spiritual life with an incorruptible, eternal body, to follow.
Notice that we were dead in trespasses and sins. A trespass is to fall aside, to apostatize, or fall away according to Strong’s Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary. Sins are to miss the mark in ignorance or on purpose (and so not share in the prize) per Strong’s Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary. In the context of verse one, which is describing the dead us (who were in the kingdom of darkness and Satan was our god/lord), not the alive us (born again) who are still walking as natural and not spiritual men. Sin separates and sin kills, just think about what happened in the Garden of Eden. The Apostle Paul goes on to describe this situation a bit further.
Ephesians 2:2 (KJV)
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Before our salvation we were operating according to the world’s policy and procedure manual which is written by Satan, “the prince of the power of the air”. The prince is Satan the prior archangel named Lucifer. You can see this in the Greek word translated to English as prince: the transliterated Greek word is archon, it is quite easy to see the derivation of Arch as in Archangel, Strong’s Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary. The word translated to English as ‘power’ is the transliterated Greek word, exousia, which is authority (dominion), a first (in rank or power), chief (ruler), magistrate, prince, or ruler, Strong’s Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary. We could say this just a little bit differently to convey the full message, Satan is the ruler of those who had the authority over the air. The ones who had authority over the air was you and I but when Adam, when we bowed our knee to Satan, we transferred that authority.
Genesis 1:26 (KJV)
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Romans 6:16 (KJV)
16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
The air spoken of here is the air, the atmosphere surrounding the earth. There are three heavens, the physical air surrounding the earth, what we call outer space where the moon and the stars reside, and the abode of God, Heaven. So when we were dead in our trespasses and sins the power, the dominion, we were given of God was in the hands of our new god, Satan. This was by our choice, a conscious choice, we are free-will being.
By: Dr. David Wood, Author, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
