Order of Jeremiah

A call to repentance is needed in our country before certain destruction comes as it did in the days of Jeremiah. After having watched the movie, “JEREMIAH”, we were moved as were many others in our congregation of the motivation this young man took in proclaiming the Words of God to his nation during that time. Inspired by his example we decided to form the "Order of Jeremiah."

We are a group of dedicated believes who have committed to take a stand against the down fall of our nation the way Jeremiah did. We are not an organization but rather a group of people committed to a task of calling America to repentance.

We believe the only hope of our country is if we as a nation repent of our sins and turn to God's grace. Believing deeply in the grace of God which is given freely to those who turn back to Him, we seek to share the message of hope and salvation to the repentant. Want to learn how you can join? Click Here.

Question About Jesus And Wine

Dear Brother Faull,

I've heard you say that Jesus never drank fermented wine. A preacher I know says that since grape harvest was in the Fall and Passover was in the Spring, they could not have possibly kept the juice from fermenting over that period of time. Therefore, the preacher says Jesus was using wine for the Lord's Supper at Passover.

What say you to this?

Signed - A Student

ANSWER:

The preacher needs to study a little bit more before assuming such a position.

In Zondervan’s Pictorial Bible Dictionary under this we read, “Means for preserving grape-juice were well known: Cato, De Agri Cultura CXX has this recipe. “If you wish to have Must (grape-juice) all year, put grape-juice in an amphora and seal the cork with pitch; sink it in a fishpond. After 30 days take it out. It will be grape-juice for a whole year.”

It also adds that the term “fruit of the vine” was a “studied avoidance of the term “wine” indicating that the drink was unfermented as the bread was unleavened.

Also, William Patton in “Bible Wines - Laws of Fermentation” says that grape-juice can be preserved in at least five other ways than fermentation.

So, unfermented juices were available all year long!

Also in “Wine in the Bible” by Samuele Bacchiocchi, he has a whole chapter of 25 pages giving quotes from Josephus, Columella, Pliny, the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Virgil, John Kitto, Aristotle, Horace, Polibius, Athenaeus, Albright, Stein, and even the Talmud plus several dictionaries and encyclopedias. These will validate the use of the methods of preserving grape juice from fermentation.

He gives the five ways to prevent fermentation of grape juice. We have this book for sale for those who need to read the information themselves.

In light of the evidence, the preacher should make an apology for his assumption. It sounds reasonable but he is way off. I doubt if he does mention it as some have a hard time saying, “I was wrong.” Others have an agenda to defend their own drinking habits.

George L. Faull

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Question About The Gift Of The Holy Spirit

Dear Brother Carter,

Are you familiar with Franklin Camp’s teaching on the gift of the Holy Spirit? He was a non-instrumental preacher. From what I can digest, he taught that the “gift of the Holy Spirit” was purely miraculous for the apostolic age. As his defense he points to the prophecy of Joel as fulfilled in Acts 2:38, 8:20, 10:45, 11:17; Ephesians 3:7, 4:7. I take this teaching to mean that the Christian today does not receive the Holy Spirit at baptism.

In his 1972 book, The Work of the Holy Spirit in Redemption, Camp quotes Lipscomb, Brents, Boles, and Campbell as holding this position (pp. 131-2). He writes in concluding his defense on page 155, “If the gift of the Holy Spirit is a non-miraculous gift that one receives when baptized, what does the Spirit do? Those who believe the Spirit leads and directs only through the Word are faced with explaining why one has received the gift of the Spirit, but the gift does not do anything for the Christian apart from the Word.” What are your views on this?

ANSWER:
I've not come across this particular view before. However, I believe the truth to be neither the extreme that he proposes, nor the opposite extreme that he refutes in his conclusion that you quoted. He is knocking down a "straw man" here. His argument is only valid against the polar opposite of his view, but not against the Biblical truth.

I know some of my brethren disagree with me on this, but I firmly believe the Holy Spirit can and does work apart from the Word. Let me explain. I am not saying that I believe in the miraculous gifts today. I am saying that I believe in the providence of God and the leading of the Spirit today. I believe it goes against Scripture, experience, common sense, faith in prayer, etc. to say the Spirit works only through the Word today. He will never work contrary to it, but always in harmony with it.

Have you ever prayed for guidance and gotten it? Have you ever struggled with the meaning of a passage of Scripture, prayed about it, meditated upon it and then had some event in your life "turn on the light" for you? Have you ever studied a subject in detail only to be questioned about it within a short period of time (maybe even the same day)? Have you ever had an experience in soul winning where you "happened" to say just the right thing although it had never occurred to you before that time? Have you ever believed that God put you in contact with just the right person at just the right time? I can answer yes, many times to each of the above questions. I believe that is God's providence or the leading of the Spirit.

Call it whichever you wish, I'm not sure they are two different things.

As to the question of what the Spirit does, I think the above paragraph is a partial answer. However, the Scripture fills in the rest. The Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, Galatians 5:22-23. The Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God, Romans 8:16. The Spirit makes intercession for us according to the will of God, Romans 8:26-27. The Spirit leads the sons of God, Romans 8:14. The Spirit convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, John 16:8.

This is just a partial list off the top of my head, but I think it clearly demonstrates that there is much work the Spirit has done, is doing and will continue to do besides the miraculous.
Remember that the church at Rome had the Spirit dwelling within them, Romans 8:11. However, Paul longed to see them that he might impart some spiritual gift to them so that they would be established, Romans 1:11. What gift required the presence of an apostle to impart? Obviously this is a reference to the miraculous gifts. They already had the indwelling of the Spirit.

Don't forget either that all the crowd on Pentecost was promised the gift of the Holy Spirit if they were baptized in the name of Jesus, Acts 2:38. 3000 responded and therefore received that gift, Acts 2:41. However, only the apostles were doing wonders and signs, Acts 2:43. In fact, nobody but the apostles are recorded as doing miracles until we come to Stephen in Acts 6:8. OF course, the apostles had laid their hands on him in Acts 6:6. Don't overlook the fact that he was described as being full of the Holy Spirit before the apostles laid their hands on him or he did miracles, Acts 6:3,5. Clearly he had the Spirit, but didn't work miracles.

Regarding the fulfillment of the Joel passage, there is no doubt that the events of Pentecost, Samaria, Cornelius, even Philip's daughter's who prophesied were foretold by this passage in Joel. However, his argument as I understand it has a couple of flaws here. The first is that the prophecy involves more than just the miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It also involves salvation for all who call on the name of the Lord. There were those who did this in the aforementioned events, but does that mean it no longer happens? Certainly not. Another problem is that this really has no bearing on whether the Spirit indwells us in a non-miraculous way today. If the prophecy is only about the miraculous, it has no bearing on anything else. If it is about more than the miraculous, his argument fails because something besides the miraculous was prophesied. Either way, the argument fails to support the assertion.

Much more could be said here. These are just my thoughts as I'm sitting here this moment. However, I think this is sufficient to set a few things in order in this regard. I'd be happy to discuss it in more detail if you'd like. Hope this has been helpful.

God Bless,

Terry Carter

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DEAR BROTHER FAULL:

I read your article on homosexuality and how you have determined that it is indeed an abomination and thus something for the church to fight against. I would like you to comment on this well-known script from "The West Wing". Specifically why don’t you kill people that work on the Sabbath as explained below and in Exodus 35:2?

PRESIDENT BARTLET:
"Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination."

JENNA JACOBS:
"I don’t say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does."

PRESIDENT BARTLET:
"Yes, it does. Leviticus."

JENNA JACOBS:
"Leviticus 18:22 (You shall not lie with a male as with a woman: it is an abomination.)"

PRESIDENT BARTLET:
"Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. (When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.) She’s a Georgetown sophomore, she speaks fluent Italian, and always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?

While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath, Exodus 32:2 clearly says he should be put to death. (Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy sabbath of solemn rest to the LORD; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death). Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?

Here’s one that’s really important, ‘cause we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes us unclean, Leviticus 11:7 (And the swine, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you.) If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?
Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?"

MR. FAULL’S ANSWER:
This is not going to be easy to answer for two reasons:

I doubt the sincerity of the person called President Bartlet.

It is obvious the person is Biblically ignorant of the purpose of the Law of Moses and the Jewish nation at that time of history.

LET’S THINK TOGETHER

The objector ought to be a little suspicious that his questions are not the problems that he imagines because they are not often asked. I have never seen the questions asked before by any scholar because they all are aware of the intent of the Law of Moses.
No one with even an ounce of knowledge of what God was doing in the Old Testament Law would ever wonder about these questions.

The absence of the slave issue, the Sabbath issue and the pig question in the New Covenant Scriptures should have raised another flag of the inappropriateness of his questions. The homosexual condemnation does appear in the New Testament Scripture but these others do not appear after Jesus’ death.

The use of the "Reducto Absurdum" argument also proves that the objector can see the difference between the scenarios.

The desire to reduce a prohibition against Sodomy to an absurdity by showing that wearing mixed clothing was also not allowed is used to try to take away the force of the prohibition against sodomy. It does not seem to have entered Mr. Bartlet’s mind that his objection could have been used as soon as it was pronounced by Moses.

Maybe Mr. Bartlet should think, "Why didn’t someone use that argument in Moses’ day? Could it be that they understood what Moses was doing by the many ‘mixture’ laws?"

Why didn’t Mr. Bartlet quote the Laws of Leviticus 19? In that Chapter there are laws of no mixed cattle, no mixed seed, no mixed garments, no shaping of the beard and other "Laws specific to the Jewish nation."

However, in that same Chapter we are told not to steal, lie, swear falsely, defraud our employees, curse the deaf, put a stumblingblock in a blind man’s path, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Now does Mr. Bartlet want these universal laws to have no instruction for us because of the obsolete nature in the same chapter with unique Jewish prohibitions?

But men saw God’s judgment on homosexuality before the Law of Moses was even given. It is not uniquely Jewish. The "No touch the pig" law, "Mixed clothing law" never existed until the Law of Moses.

It was the Law of Moses that revealed these new unique Jewish laws, but the world had already seen Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed for the perversion of homosexuality.

Can Mr. Bartlet name any cities or nations that God destroyed before the Law for "touching pigs" and "wearing linen and wool together" or "planting mixed seeds"? A little thinking might have stopped him from even using these "Reducto Absudum" arguments.

But here is the REAL answer to Mr. Bartlet’s mocking:

The Law was not given in a vacuum. The children of Israel had just left idolatrous Egypt. They were going to be a nomadic people for sometime. Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers tell their journey and the forming of the new redeemed nation.

They were going into another terrible evil and idolatrous land (Canaan) where seven wicked nations existed. They were known for their debauchery.

Deuteronomy means, ‘second law’. In it, the Law is repeated and many new laws would be given on how they should conduct themselves in that new land.

What Mr. Bartlet seems to be ignorant of is that the Law of Moses was given for several reasons:

The nation of Israel would be a Theocracy where God ruled as King. Moses was the spokesman. This means this was their national law, it was not given to all mankind.

The Law was given to a people who had been living in the darkness of Egypt and going into an even deeper darkness in Canaan. Many of the laws that seem strange to us were given to prevent idolatry among the Jews or even the appearance of idolaters.

This was the nation through which God would send the Messiah to bless all nations. It therefore needed to be kept distinct and pure from the idolatry of their heathen neighbors. Their superstition must be avoided so Israel’s Messiah could come.

SO HOW DID GOD DO IT?

He gave them the unique Sabbath law. It was for Israel and for those who may live among them. God says: Exodus 31:13-17, "13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. 14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16 Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed."
The breaking of Sabbath was therefore the breaking of the covenant itself. It would be an act of treason. It would be like an early American burning the flag. (Since nothing is held as sacred today, I realize it will be hard for some to grasp this.)

To break Sabbath would be to rebel against God’s Theocracy, the nation itself and a denial of Israel’s unique position where God was King.

So no, Mr. Bartlet, since you’re not a Jew and your Chief of staff works on Saturday you won’t have to kill him today. Besides, Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath and today we rest in Him from our works.

Hebrews 4:9-11, "9 There remaineth therefore a rest (keeping of a Sabbath) to the people of God. 10 For he that is entered into his rest (Sabbath), he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. 11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief."

The Sabbath has been fulfilled. Colossians 2:16-17, "16 ¶ Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday (annual), or of the new moon (monthly), or of the sabbath days (weekly): 17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ."
He gave restrictions from the practices of the heathen around them.

The heathen made cuttings in their flesh for the dead and tried to move their god’s by doing so. Remember the 450 prophets of Baal in their contact with Elijah (I Kings 18:28) and how they cut themselves. By forbidding cutting and tattoos it stopped the idolatrous practice of worshipping the dead.

The heathen shaped their beards and made baldness on their heads (like Friar Tuck). They were sun worshippers. By forbidding them to dress like the heathen and forbidding them to make baldness on their head and other such prohibitions He curbed sun worship or even appearing as one.

In addition to not learning the heathen’s ways, consider this:

Look at Deuteronomy 22:9-11, "9 Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled. 10 Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. 11 Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together."

What is the excellent principle that he was trying to teach in these prohibitions? Is it not that distinctions need to be made? An ox is a clean animal where an ass is an unclean animal. Paul interprets it, "Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers." Do not mix with the heathen. This is the same lesson of mixed seeds, animals, and garments.

The law was given as a middle wall of partition to separate His people from the idolatry of the rest of the world. Let them keep themselves separate. Their dress, diet, deportment, and duties kept them separate from the other nations until the Promised seed of Abraham that would bless all nations should come.

Now about Mr. Bartlet’s "pigskin". He wants the boys to keep handling a football. Why not touch a pig? Deuteronomy 14:8

The heathen offered swine on their altars. By forbidding them to touch the pig there was no danger of them offering to other gods. They were forbidden swine flesh to eat therefore they could not eat of the sacrifices of the heathen. It is reported that Gentiles often held a pig when making a covenant so when God forbade them to touch a pig he forbade making a covenant with them.

Later, Antiochus would force Jews to offer swine as sacrifices to God and eat the pork. This was the greatest of insult to the Jews because the world knew of their abhorrence of swine.

The Prodigal son feeding the pigs is the ultimate horror to the Jewish mind. Again, this was a national law to the Jews. It would be treason to offer a swine on God’s altar. However, in the New Testament whenever the law, the middle wall of partition, was broken down the Christian were told they may eat what God had cleansed. It was no longer unclean. I Timothy 4:3-5, Ephesians 2:14-16 So now that Jesus has fulfilled the Law, Mr. Bartlet may go play football.
As for selling his daughter, Mr. Bartlet needs to understand that in that day Jews sold themselves and families into slavery for 7 year periods. The girls were not returned at the end of 7 years as they were often made wives. As I said earlier, the Law of Moses was not given in a vacuum. This kind of slavery was practiced. It is not that God approves of it, He just regulated a practice that was common in that day.

Now he did more than regulate slavery that came from kidnapping. The penalty was death. Deuteronomy 24:7, "If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you."

There is nothing immoral in agreeing to be a bond servant to another in a bartering world. Jacob did so for his wives and his cattle. To steal another man and sell him into slavery is another matter.

Women, however, could be sold for wives and did not come back to the father at the end of the 7 years, as she and her children would belong to the man who purchased her.

So Mr. Bartlet might have gotten a good price for the girl he described in his attempt at "Reducto Absurdum".

I realize this may be difficult to understand for an unbeliever, or a mocker who is naïve of the times in which these laws were given, being ignorant of the scope of God’s purposes in keeping Israel a distinct or Holy nation. However, to the thinking believer we marvel at God’s Wisdom in the Law. The self-wise will stumble over these things of old specific Jewish laws.

Laws against homosexuality, lesbianism, and bestiality on the other hand, is not uniquely Jewish. Every nation, every race and every religion has considered them abominations. Sodomy is against nature as well as against God. Sodom shows God’s judgment on it.