The great PUN of History
is Bait and Switch
The "pun" is that pretty much the same technique
The same kind of "spirit switch"
but this time, not presented by a deluded fallen angel who wants to be god of all yet rooted in narcissism and self-love
But One whose intent is holy and right towards us, whose fixed position as Norman Grubb describes in his book "Yes I am", is not to lie, but to always be a "self for others" God.
Nevertheless if the Serpent shocked us with his conman trickery, God shocks us to the core of our being, in that while I was yet still a sinner....actually it wasn't even that, because 2000 years ago I wasn't even born.....
Yet before I could even know about it, God DID A REVERSE SWITCH.
He never asked any man's opinion on the matter.
The "matter" was closed in terms of accomplishment in the words that Jesus the only Divinely begotten Son uttered on the Cross. " It is finished".
The serpent came with a "show stopper"......Hey Eve, you know that you are not to eat of any of the Trees of the garden?"
That was outrageous, but great salesmanship, because it was BAIT.
Now here comes Jesus with "great hooks"
Matthew 5 sounds preposterous.....but in the reverse direction
]Blessed are the [c]poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the [d]gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
10 “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
(Just an aside here....NOTICE to lose the way, Adam and Eve just had ONE PORTAL....the ONE TREE.....count how many different portals are here alone.....)
NOW Listen also to this, because this is where religious denominations are just plain wrong. They teach this sort of stuff as "works" nearly every week.
ACTUALLY THAT ISN'T WHAT THEY ARE....they are portals....Gates....Direction flows of the heart. They kickstart you in the "ways of life". They are nothing to do with the pagan idea of "heaping up things" to appease an angry God.
This is how David describes a man of God
Psalm 84.5 How blessed is the man whose strength is in You,
In whose heart are the highways to Zion!
Heart highways
out of the heart direction the heart flow, comes spontaneous God acts.
Here are some other "opening hooks".
Matthew 3 : God testifying direct about Jesus and filling Him with the Spirit at his baptism. Nobody had been filled quite like that before ever. Jesus was the first man to be filled inside and out with the Holy Spirit.....the baptism in the Spirit
Matthew 4: Jesus speaking prophetically to the first disciples, I will make you fishers of men. Prophecy can be a showstopper. 1 Corinthians 14.24Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.
Matthew 6 - a gobsmackingly different angle on prayer
- what do we really want? -always a subject that gets us where we are.
- and a subject that is really close to home....worry and fear and God's supply. ALL HOOKS and BAIT
Matthew 7 Imagery and Parables . These are Hooks. Behold the log that is in your eye....they knew Jesus worked in wood and knew about splinters
God is our Father....not some distant angry powerless God
The narrow Gate....
Matthew 8 and 9 Spiritual Gifts as demonstrable signs of Power that Jesus means what He says in announcing the Kingdom.
The switch was originally a change in Genesis 3 from the Kingdom of Light to the Kingdom of Darkness. Here was Jesus demonstrating that He wasn't just mincing words when He announced God's Kingdom was at hand again!!
Matthew 10 is gripping. Here is something new. Jesus is conferring His own authorty upon the 12 disciples already. This is true of our Jesus Generation Move. Unlike in previous history we hardly knew that we had properly repented. In fact, down the road, I had many lessons to learn. But right from the "get go" (in the UK we say right from the word "go") Jesus baptised us in the Spirit from the start. We didn't know anything. And this was actually much the same at the birth of the Church in Acts 2 for the 3000 men who were saved. (Note the Jewish numbering system. Women and kids numbered even more!!!)
So in baiting us God is less concerned about His Name than He is about getting us to taste of the "Waters of Life". Repent, be baptised in water, and be filled with the Holy Spirit from the get go.
Which brings us to the sort of "hooks" Jesus was using with the Jews in particular. The gospel of John lays these out for us.
Israel was called by God to carry His Name.
Don't say Muslims, Buddhists, English people, Taoists are just the same.
Israel was called as an external blueprint setter to better identify Jesus when He came talking about Spirit realities and how they work.
Israel culturally had FUN HOLIDAYS, well fun and serious....But they all meant something spiritually. They were ordered and sequenced.
Coupled with this Moses saw the heavenly Tabernacle Blueprint on the mountain when He sought God, and He was shown exactly how to construct a simple 3 D version for people to meditate on.
NO OTHER PEOPLE ON EARTH HAS THIS.
And the two things.....the 3 Feasts and the 3 rooms of God's heavenly places dovetail in together.
Passover is NOT LAST. There is a reason that Passover is first.
Day of Atonement is one of the Last things.....there is a reason for that.
The Apostle John as a Jew but now baptised in the Spirit picks up on these details more than any other gospel writer.
But to the BAIT and SWITCH theme there is no more important passage than John 10.
Because what Adam and Eve had been conned out of was a direct unsullied pure spiritual connection at spirit level with Almighty God. And here was One announcing that His purpose was to SWITCH US BACK ON TO LIFE, to REPLUG US as if Genesis 3 never happened.
7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and [a]have it abundantly.
11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18 No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
So in baiting us God is less concerned about His Name than He is about getting us to taste of the "Waters of Life". Repent, be baptised in water, and be filled with the Holy Spirit from the get go.
Which brings us to the sort of "hooks" Jesus was using with the Jews in particular. The gospel of John lays these out for us.
Israel was called by God to carry His Name.
Don't say Muslims, Buddhists, English people, Taoists are just the same.
Israel was called as an external blueprint setter to better identify Jesus when He came talking about Spirit realities and how they work.
Israel culturally had FUN HOLIDAYS, well fun and serious....But they all meant something spiritually. They were ordered and sequenced.
Coupled with this Moses saw the heavenly Tabernacle Blueprint on the mountain when He sought God, and He was shown exactly how to construct a simple 3 D version for people to meditate on.
NO OTHER PEOPLE ON EARTH HAS THIS.
And the two things.....the 3 Feasts and the 3 rooms of God's heavenly places dovetail in together.
Passover is NOT LAST. There is a reason that Passover is first.
Day of Atonement is one of the Last things.....there is a reason for that.
The Apostle John as a Jew but now baptised in the Spirit picks up on these details more than any other gospel writer.
But to the BAIT and SWITCH theme there is no more important passage than John 10.
Because what Adam and Eve had been conned out of was a direct unsullied pure spiritual connection at spirit level with Almighty God. And here was One announcing that His purpose was to SWITCH US BACK ON TO LIFE, to REPLUG US as if Genesis 3 never happened.
7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and [a]have it abundantly.
11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18 No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
God , you remember had breathed HIS LIFE into the lump of clay and formed ADAM - EVE out of which He took Eve. But this life breath was now contaminated.
One had to come " in the likeness of sinful flesh yet without sin" ,laying His life down unto death even the worst form of physical torture death....the Roman terror emblem - crucifixion.
More later....
Back to our theme of baiting. Turning on the Lights regarding Jewish concepts.
John 3 People were familiar with"entering a Temple but not a complete rebirth. In the Spirit they are the same thing.
John 4 The amazing meeting with the woman at the well, and the water of life. In Feast of Tabernacles there is the Feast of the Pouring out of the Water. Water is a theme of two Gates in Jerusalem, the 6 th gate- The Fountain Gate and the 7th Gate The Water Gate. See also Revelation 22 and Isaiah 55
John 5 Jesus deliberately guided by the Spirit to "break" into the "charismatic-like" supernatural tradition of waiting upon a angel at Bethesda , but on a Sabbath!!! This BAIT brought up questions of authority...Jesus answered 1. John's human testimony 2.His supernatural works 3.His Father testified directly and 4.Scriptures testified of Jesus
John 6 By now the bait itself was starting to get in the way. Jesus reminded them that He was the Bread come down from heaven, the Living Manna.....the Living version of what the people experienced with Moses
John 7 It was one thing to be led by the Spirit within a small gathering situation at Bethesda, but this was now a national Feast, and He began speaking directly to those that had criticised His healing of the man at Bethesda. God FINGERS events which are specific and which show the leaven of sin and religion. Acts 2 was also specific. This Jesus who you crucified.
Jesus spoke on the Last Day of the Feast of Tabernacles which was the Feast of Waterpouring and Feast of Ingathering the harvest.....
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “[g]If anyone is thirsty, [h]let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From [i]his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
John 8 Now things were getting really interesting : Jesus begins questioning their authority for saying they were sons of Abraham. They certainly were not acting in faith like Abraham and they didn't recognise Jesus who was acting in faith.
John 9 Continuing the division of mere religion in name only and one who had spiritual power, this time healing a blind man. All the healing events had meaning on several levels. The Spirit meant it so. Like Marmite....you cannot just quietly cohabit with the kingdom of God....you are either for it or against it, and the Spirit is like that hovering torch of fire passing between the carcasses in Genesis 15. You are drawn to a decision. This is the "work" of the Kingdom, quite often attacking the Tree of Good.
John 10 Getting pretty near the heart of the BAIT and the SWITCH of the gospel. The subject of Deity. Well that's obvious Chris....Jesus was the Son of God. Yes but you are not getting what Jesus is saying, which is the heart of God's PUN....This second switch.
If scripture (which can't be broken since it was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) calls those to whom the scripture has come as gods....what about the One who expressly came from God and is now forming a people out of this same Divine life?
John 11 And the spiritual authority behind these statements has power to raise Lazarus back from the dead, and this after 3 days of death in a hot country.
In the next post P3 we will examine
God's version of
THE SWITCH
 |
| Bait |
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