Morning Star Testimony - Sermon Notes
Jesus' Flesh - The Way Into the Most Holy Place Into the Very Presence of God – Session 3 by Pastor Doug Riggs
by John Mark on 10/27/24
My notes:
Jesus yielded His life on the cross to the Father's judgment as the last Adam, not only on sin but on sinful humanity, the first man, Adam-life, flesh-life, outer man, our natural soul-life. Jesus offered His flesh as the final comprehensive and final sin offering pictured in the countless blood sacrifices required for many years beginning with Adam and Eve in the garden. It was this sacrifice of His flesh that is equated with the veil in the temple between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies being torn from top to bottom, no longer needed to keep man out from the presence of God. This inaugurated a new access to God for all who would come by faith to enter this most holy place, fellowship with God in Christ Jesus by the indwelling Holy Spirit. This act not only dealt with the sin issue, but the evil forces of darkness. "In the circumcision of Christ, principalities and powers are dealt with, and they're dealt with not only in a judicial way, but dealt with specifically and judicially in terms of a practical way in which the judgment of Satan is practically being executed." Doug explains this briefly in this message, but goes into much more detail in his series The Celestial Court . "The work of the cross is, through the circumcision of the heart, is removing that which represents an interface, a place for Satan... no more place found for him."
"That which separates us from God is the veil of the flesh. So, He (Jesus) becomes that by taking on our identity. And, so, on the cross, in His death there is the removal of that which represents the whole species in Adam, which is the veil... That which connects Satan with the human race was removed, taken into death, and Satan is rendered completely inoperative; he is rendered powerless." Since we know he still goes about roaring like a lion seeking people to devour, he may not seem so powerless. But if we allow fear to come in, we are giving him a place to attack us. He has no ground, no access in who we are in Christ as the new man, but when we fall back into that old humanity, we find ourselves in peril. "If we choose to walk out in that uncrucified life, he (Satan) has access to us. In Christ it's gone."
"You want to continue on in your carnal ways? There's a time coming, the day of visitation, when the prince of this world will come; and if he can find something in you - it's dinner time, and God's going to allow it." (See Proverbs 1:20-33.) "Satan is God's legal agent to deal with everything in mankind that is legally under the judgment of God. And the flesh has been legally judged. And when we walk in that, we come under legal accusation of the adversary." We might want to argue, 'Yes, but what about Romans 8:1, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"?' There is no condemnation for those "who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (verse 4). But when we are walking in the flesh, Satan has ground to accuse and condemn us. "Satan must be allowed judicially to come and to seek if there's anything he can devour" (1 Peter 5:8), that which is not on the ground of Christ.
As a reminder for any who might be new to hearing Doug's teaching, towards the end of the message he refers to the Greek word exanastasis as the condition of the people of God who will be raptured. He's speaking of Philippians 3:11, "that I may attain to the (out-)resurrection from (among) the dead." This refers to a resurrection before we physically die or experience rapture.
Link to Audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/8-2-17%2Bwednesday.mp3
Recommended Resources:
Eric Sauer: In the Arena of Faith
T. Austin-Sparks' Day by Day (August 1) (available for daily email subscription)
Maranatha!
John Mark
...hereby committing this unto the providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!
Jesus' Flesh - The Way Into the Most Holy Place Into the Very Presence of God – Session 2 by Pastor Doug Riggs
by John Mark on 10/23/24
This was originally recorded on July 26, 2017.
My notes:
As
Jesus referred to Himself as the "I AM" (Exodus 3:14). In the passage
from John 6, Jesus is revealed as the bread from heaven, the bread of life, one
of the seven designations of Jesus as the "I AM" in the Gospel of
John. "When He says that He is the bread of life, that picture is given to
us of the Lord Jesus as that which is to be consumed; that which is actually
taken in to become the sustenance of our very life." This Jesus equates to
as His flesh, His humanity, that which brings us into the presence and
fellowship with the Godhead as we partake of Him.
As
Doug was speaking of Mary wanting to hold on to Jesus in His unglorified state
prior to His bodily resurrection and ascension, it reminds me of a book I read
decades ago that really bothered me, along with its most popular acrostic
gleaned from "What Would Jesus Do" written by Charles Sheldon. For
me, I can't say that when I'm wondering what I should do. I say, "What IS
Jesus doing?" If I am abiding in Him, and He is abiding in me, living in
me His life, then that is what I'm thinking about, not what would He have done
if He were still alive. Certainly we have much to learn about Jesus and how He
lived on earth 2,000 years ago. "In
My unglorified state, you can never know Me in and through the Spirit as the indwelling
reality that came at Pentecost." Doug refers to wanting to cling to a
pre-glorified Jesus as a soulish emotional attachment.
Later
in this message, Doug assures us that we do have access to the life of Jesus
lived out on earth. "Everything that represents our life in our mortality,
He knows what it is to live a life in mortality. That life is for us now."
That life is what Jesus refers to as the bread of life. To eat that bread, His
life lived out as son of man, is to feed on Him who is our life. That life is
released in death, our taking up our cross to follow Jesus. "The blood
shed, the blood released provides consecration - provides a way in" to the
most holy place. It is here we have access to God. "If we're going to have
His life, we're going to continually receive that life. It's going to involve
death. That blood means death... Everything of what we are in the natural has
to die if we're going to come into that life."
Speaking
of Jesus' flesh being our access to Heavenly Father, "That humanity that
experienced death in our place removes the barrier between us and God. But that
doesn't mean the barrier in us has been removed. There's still a veil that
remains over our heart to whatever degree the heart has not been circumcised;
to whatever degree the outer man has not been brought into conformity with
Christ in His death."
"None
of us can experience abundant life without recognizing that that life can only
be entered through death to everything we are in the flesh."
Doug
makes the distinction of the meaning of the blood of Jesus shed and that blood
sprinkled. "Blood shed: that provides atonement, the cleansing from sin...
In that shedding of blood, that life is released, and the priest would take the
hyssop and sprinkle the blood, that is: the life is released through death to
provide access to God, and to consecrate, and to sanctify, and to cleanse for
service and worship." These are "the two aspects of the saving life
of Christ." "The shedding (of the blood) is for forgiveness; the
blood sprinkled is for consecration; it’s for sanctification. The life of
Christ released through death becomes that which consecrates us to the
Lord."
Link
to Audio:
https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/7-26-2017%2Bwednesday.mp3
Maranatha!
John Mark
...hereby committing this unto the
providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is
blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!
Jesus' Flesh - The Way Into the Most Holy Place Into the Very Presence of God - by Pastor Doug Riggs
by John Mark on 10/20/24
This was originally recorded on July 23, 2017.
My notes:
"Jesus
Christ is our access into the presence of the Father."
"The
human spirit has to be so released to come into a place of ascendency in our
life that God in Christ through the Holy Spirit is governing the mind, emotion,
and our wills."
"From
the fall (of man), the body, the soul, and the spirit is the way we relate to
reality; this is how we determine reality until the sanctification process
begins (after new birth). Then that whole thing is reversed and becomes spirit,
soul, and body." (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
You'll
hear Doug say, "If we are to go on be being filled with the Holy
Spirit...", it may sound like there's an extra "be" in that
sentence. In an earlier message that Doug gave, he broke down the grammatical
verbs and tenses used in Ephesians 5:18, "be filled with the Holy
Spirit". More literally, though not great grammar in English, it says for
us to be (passive) being (present) filled. In other words, to allow yourself to
continually be in the state of being filled. He continues, "We've got to
understand that the soul can only be filled with the Holy Spirit to the degree
that the human spirit has been released from the flesh, the foreskin of the
heart." What is true circumcision? "It is by the Spirit where the
heart is circumcised... If we still have the foreskin over our hearts... then
there's a veil... that veil is called the flesh." This is how "the
god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might
not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
This veil doesn't just disappear when we're born again. It takes the work of
the cross, dying to self, the knife of circumcision to cut it away so we become
sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit indwelling our human spirit.
Without this, there is no filling with or by the Holy Spirit.
"We
all enter heaven with a different measure of Christ being formed in us."
Therefore, as the Apostle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 15, "star
differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection....", we see that
there are vast differences in the display of the glory of God in Christ shining
through us. This relates to the shakedown at the bema seat where all that is
worthless is burned, and only that which conforms to Christ is left.
We
also discover it's not every man for himself. We have the example in the Old
Testament with Israel conquering Canaan. They had to help each other gain their
inheritance which qualified them to obtain their own. "The measure of
Christ to come to fullness in one another is interrelated and interconnected
with others coming into that fullness together."
So,
what about the life of Jesus while here on the earth? He lived in complete
dependence on His Father. "If we're to walk as He walked, that means He
had to walk our walk first... He's the prototype; He's the template. For that
work of the Spirit in Him in the days of His flesh to be transferred to us,
there has to be a circumcision; there has to be a removal of the veil."
As
this message is titled, Jesus' Flesh - The Way Into the Most Holy Place Into
the Very Presence of God Himself, Doug explains Jesus' flesh is a veil. Like
the veil in the temple that hides the Holy of Holies, "His unglorified
humanity, His flesh, is a veil." So, how do we gain entry into the Holy of
Holies? Through Jesus' humanity - His flesh - His humanity that was sacrificed
on the cross that resulted in the physical veil in the temple being torn top to
bottom. Jesus had no uncrucified flesh; but we do. It's a veil that keeps us
from dwelling in the Holy of Holies until it's circumcised. "We're already
positionally there. In Christ we live in the Holy of Holies. We are in the
presence of the Father. That's positional truth. But experientially, where are
we? We're only there experientially in the reality of the most holy place that flesh in us has been
rent. And the tearing of that veil is really painful."
A
question comes to mind: How many times have we heard bible teachers, preachers,
pastors, evangelists, or anyone else talk about an inheritance to be gained and
potentially lost? If at all, they might want to equate the inheritance to
salvation, so if you’re saved, you have your inheritance; they assume the
inheritance is eternal life. "It's one of the most dumbed-down theological
realities that I've ever seen." As Doug taught us often that salvation is
a free unearned gift, and is a personal individual transaction with the Lord.
However, the inheritance is only gained through conquest, by dispossessing the
enemy and laying claim to our inheritance in Christ. It is accomplished
corporately as we fight not only for our own inheritance, but that of our brothers
and sisters in Christ.
Earlier
this morning I listened to a re-posted message by Jamie Walden originally
broadcasted August 23 of last year that is all about faithfulness, semper
fidelis, always faithful (see resources below for the link). It goes very well
with Doug's message. "When there's an exhortation to enter in, to come
into the fullness of that which redemption has provided, it always has to do
with an inheritance; full reward... That glorifies God to the hilt!"
Link
to Audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/7-23-17%2Bsunday.mp3
Link
to Discussion: https://s3.amazonaws.com/bookministry1/assemblies/7-23-17+discussion.mp3
Note:
Transcripts won't be available for some time.
Resources
Mentioned: An Asian Harvest:
An Autobiography by Paul Hattaway
Major
Ian Thomas: The Saving Life of
Christ and the Mystery of Godliness
4
Audios of Major Thomas: https://bookministry1.s3.amazonaws.com/audios/Saving+Life+01.mp3
https://bookministry1.s3.amazonaws.com/audios/Saving+Life+02.mp3
https://bookministry1.s3.amazonaws.com/audios/Saving+Life+03.mp3
https://bookministry1.s3.amazonaws.com/audios/Saving+Life+04.mp3
Gary
Huffman & Doug Woodward: The Revealing: Unlocking Hidden Truths
on the Glorification of God's Children
C.H.
Mackintosh: Notes on the
Pentateuch
Chuck
Missler: The Mystery of
Melchizedek (I'm not sure if this was what Doug was
referring to in July 2017.)
Watchman
Nee: The Release of the
Spirit
Jamie
Walden: SEMPER FIDELIS: An
Invincibility Complex For The Days Ahead
Maranatha!
John Mark
...hereby committing this unto the
providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is
blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!
God's Flexible Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility - by Pastor Doug Riggs
by John Mark on 10/16/24
This was originally recorded on April 9, 2017.
My notes:
This
is a good follow-up to the last message I posted, "The Lord has Numbered
our Days"?.
We've
learned there is the direct will of God and there is the permissive will of
God. We know God is sovereign. We know God is immutable, which means He does
not change. There are things we see in the word of God where there is no
flexibility as to the timing and circumstances things will happen. "But as
to timing and the manner in which they are fulfilled, where there is no
specificity, there's flexibility." In this message we are introduced to a
term that may be new to some of us, "flexible sovereignty". We may be
able to "effect the contouring and the sculpting of the manner and way in
which His prophecies which are certain are fulfilled... He has chosen to limit
or contour His sovereignty based upon a fellowship and a working together with
His people."
Think
of the Assyrians living in Nineveh. They were warned they would be destroyed in
40 days. Jonah didn't give them a gospel message or offer them the opportunity
to become proselytes of the Jewish faith. He warned them of God's certain
destruction on their city. It appears Jonah wanted their destruction. After
all, the Assyrians were some of the most brutal and savage enemies of God's
people. For sport they would capture Israelites and have contests to see if
they could skin them alive before they succumbed to death. The Assyrians
deserved to die. Jonah wasn't very happy when he discovered the flexible
sovereignty of God when He ended up staying His hand because the people took
Jonah seriously and cried out in contrition and repentance.
In
this message, Doug gives a wonderful explanation of what the fruit of the
spirit "self-control" means. "It means you're in control of
yourself? Are you kidding me? Have you tried to master self?" No! Rather:
"There's one in me that can take dominion over my self. There is that
which only the Lord can be the master of; He's the only one that can master
self... It is a rule and dominion that is exercised from within in the person
of the Holy Spirit."
The
second part of this message could be better titled: "Being Good Stewards
of our Physical Bodies". As for the previous message posted, the context
of Doug giving this is the reality of some very serious life-threatening
physical sickness in the assembly.
As
our bodies, redeemed by Jesus, are members of Christ, and the temple of the
Holy Spirit, and therefore for God, we also see God is for the body (1
Corinthians 6:13). When it comes to what we put into our bodies, Doug explains
all that is called 'food' is not necessarily food. "On our part, we want
to make sure that we are ordering things in our life so that our bodies are for
the Lord. And then I think we'll begin to more and more discover what it means
for the Lord to be for the body."
"Is
there anything on our part that the Lord would bring into adjustment that would
give the Lord the opportunity to be for the body?" ... "We don't
belong to us; our body is not our body."
"There
are rules for winning the prize. There are not rules for getting saved and
staying saved. There are no rules. We're kept; it's a standing in grace (Romans
5:1-2). It's about winning the prize... The rules are in association with, 'If
we endure with Him, we shall reign with Him' (2 Timothy 2:12). That's the
context."
Link
to Audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/4-9-17+sunday.mp3
Link
to Transcript: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/2017_04_09+God's_Flexible_Sovereignty_and_Man's_Responsibility.pdf
Recommended:
Erich Sauer's King of the Earth
Maranatha!
John Mark
...hereby committing this unto the
providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is
blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!
"The Lord has Numbered our Days" - by Pastor Doug Riggs
by John Mark on 10/13/24
This was originally recorded on March 29, 2017.
My notes:
This
message was delivered in the midst of serious physical health challenges in the
assembly, Doug cites Psalm 31:15 "My times are in Your hand." On my
motorcycle jacket I have a large conspicuous patch that reads:
"Immortal... 'til Jesus takes me home". No one nor any thing can take
our life unless the Lord gives the ‘OK’. Job 14:5 reads, "Since his days
are determined, the number of his months is with You; and his limits You have
set so that he cannot pass." Psalm 139:16: "... in Your book were all
written the days that were ordained for me." And when did God ordain the
days we would live? The verse concludes, "When as yet there was not one of
them." Before we were ever born, our days were determined by God.
"Whatever
the disease that's afflicting different people in this assembly, that does not
determine the number of our days... It does not have authority over that which
the word of God defines our stay here on earth."
As
Doug was reading the details of the awful disease and discomfort Job
experienced, I could not imagine going through something so horrible. It puts
all of my afflictions in the 'not-all-that-bad' category.
No
one could kill Jesus before His time. Since it is His life in us, no one can
kill us anymore that they could kill Him until the time determined by Him. 'Our
lives are hid with Christ in God.' "Until His (and our) mission is
complete, they (whoever wanted/wants to kill Him - or us) can do nothing."
"From
new birth to the time of our departure, our life, our times are in His hands
(Psa. 31:15), and they're in the person of Jesus Christ. His time in each one
of us is His time." Doug exhaustively demonstrates how all of time is in
God's hands, and He is sovereign; not Satan, not circumstances, not fate, not
disease, not happenstance. That should remind us of Romans 8:38-39: "For I
am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord."
"All
of hell could not lengthen or shorten anything with reference to the purpose of
God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when He comes into us at new
birth, that same Christ who had His hour then, has His hour in your life and
mine. And so, we stand on that - we stand on that fact. Is sickness real? Yes!
Is it Lord? Absolutely not!!... God's purpose and His faithfulness to the Lord
Jesus in your life and mine is what we stand on." Something Doug used to
say which I so appreciate: “Is it real? Yes! But what is the truth?”
Link
to Audio: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/Assemblies/3-29-17%2Bwednesday.mp3
Link
to Transcript: https://dougriggs.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/2017_03_29+The_Lord_has_Numbered_our_Days.pdf
Maranatha!
John Mark
...hereby committing this unto the
providential care of the enthroned Head of the Church; whose Name is
blessed forevermore, Yeshua Mashiach - Jesus Christ!