His Thoughts
ZADOK PUBLICATIONS - Dr. C. R. OLIVER
May 1, 2013

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ZADOK PUBLICATIONS MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

May 1, 2013

His Thoughts

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'

Isaiah 55:8

Introduction:

Several weeks ago, I awoke to God's voice speaking to my spirit and saying, "Come up here and think my kind of thoughts. My thoughts are higher than the ones that occupy your mind." I immediately wanted to respond to this, but found myself culling first one thought, then another, as they seemed to not "fit" into what I surmised to be His thoughts. My anxiety began to rise at the frustration of realizing just how mundane and earthly were my assignations. It was then the "still small voice" declared, "This invitation is not to be a daunting task, but an adventure to higher ground."

As time progressed, my whole world began to change as I sought volitionally to "think His kind of thoughts." How "mind boggling" was my first reaction when I began to realize the difference between His interests and concerns and mine. He never considers a matter as too difficult, or time consuming or having the possibility of failing. Never once do "circumstances" altar action or purpose. He speaks what He desires and it is accomplished.
My first guidance lesson, by the Spirit, was Deuteronomy 29:29 ff. Here, it became plain that God had given His children capacity for such pursuits.

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Join this passage to those in Chapter 30.

"For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' 14 But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

With God's offer comes the power and capacity to fulfill it. We reach into those unknown regions with confidence, for we will find if we ask, seek and knock. Our frailty is lost in His provision. Covering us is a Divine interaction. Although it exceeds our descriptive powers, it, nonetheless, exists to help reach beyond ourselves into His realm. Even the Scriptures support us and carry us to elevations far beyond what we have deemed "deep thinking."

My word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. 12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.
Isaiah 55:11-15

We, who are charged to speak the Oracles of God, should envision ourselves with the capacity of the mind of Christ in order to speak forth that which will not return void and send such at our command. Instead of considerations of difficulty or failure, there comes a type of prophetic conveyance accomplishing what is spoken. If we are of His kingdom, we must speak the language of it.

Once one's thoughts stretch and expand, there is a desire for more. David's Psalms are full of pursuits after the mind of God.

Psalms 25:4-5
4 Show me Your ways, O LORD;
Teach me Your paths.
5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day

Having been reared in the atmosphere of such desire, Solomon's answer to God's inquiry came in the form of his request for "more" wisdom and knowledge. God gave it to him.

1 Kings 4:29-34
9 God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. 30 Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 He was wiser than any other man, including Ethan the Ezrahite--wiser than Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations. 32 He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. 33 He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. 34 Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.

Oh, how there is a longing to hear the God-kind of wisdom and knowledge, whether from a political platform or from a pulpit's elevation. If somewhere we could hear just one word, crystal clear from "the heart of heaven," it would be like drinking from a living fountain-as it should be. (Words come out of our thoughts and our thoughts have been too beggarly.) Consider now our "capacity" gift from God, versus the use of that facility.

Jesus, who lives within us, once rose to declare:

Matthew 12:42
The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.
(What do we rise to declare?)

It was Paul who wrote:

1 Corinthians 2:13-16
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

Paul's treatise to the Corinthians is full of truth about the wisdom of God and how we can and should rise to a level of knowledge and wisdom beyond the conjecturing of an unredeemed world. There is such a thing as a "wisdom of the age" which flows through society and seeks to saturate and corrupt those who adhere to it. There is also a "Godly wisdom" which the anti-Christ cannot ascertain, because it is a mystery.

1 Corinthians 2:6-9
However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written:
"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

Prior to this verse, Paul established the root of Godly wisdom as Christ, the personification of God's wisdom and knowledge. (Wisdom is the ability to apply to the proper time, place and person the knowledge received in revelation.) Early in his text, Paul says God will destroy the (earthly) wisdom of the wise. Destroy means not just to kill, it is to annihilate it to the point of extinction.

The time has come for this generation to realize that leadership and world powers will run out of their solutions. Their thinking will hit a dead end and their logic will fail and have no place to turn, for their rationale has no other future than oblivion.

1 Corinthians 1:19-23
19 For it is written: "I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified.

This was when the sons of God will be made manifest, for they will shine in a darkened world! They alone possess the wisdom to guide a generation which has been filled with facts, but has little wisdom.
Solomon wrote the following passage about three thousand years ago:

Proverbs 2:6-8
6 For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk uprightly;
8 He guards the paths of justice,
And preserves the way of His saints.

Paul echoed in Romans:

Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
34 "For who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counselor?"
35 'Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?"
36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

National disgrace is openly displayed when politicians and pulpiteers spout their warped thinking. Anti-God and Anti-populous, their diatribe reveals what the ancients well described.

Isaiah 47:10
Your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you.

Jeremiah 8:9 (Reviewing the exhausted leadership of King Zedekiah)
The wise men are ashamed,
They are dismayed and taken.
Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD;
So what wisdom do they have?

Society becomes saturated with warped thinking and compromised truths, until its whole thought pattern is corrupted. Here is where we reside today. Scripture pictures it best in Ezekiel's portrayal of Tyre and why God destroyed them. We see the modern culture following the identical path. Our society is in its death throes. Hit after hit, both from national government, financial markets and terrorists attacks have caused a "bob and weave" reaction. There is no clear understanding of a path to guard the freedoms fought for by past generations. A corrupted wisdom is a sure path to destruction.

Ezekiel 28:17-19
"Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty;
You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor;
I cast you to the ground,
I laid you before kings,
That they might gaze at you.

18 "You defiled your sanctuaries
By the multitude of your iniquities,
By the iniquity of your trading;
Therefore I brought fire from your midst;
It devoured you,
And I turned you to ashes upon the earth
In the sight of all who saw you.
9 All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you;
You have become a horror,
And shall be no more forever."'"

No one understood the power of wisdom in a degenerative situation better than Daniel. So appreciative of God's revelation to him, he entered a praise and worship moment and penned some of the richest words in the Bible.

"Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
For wisdom and might are His.
21 And He changes the times and the seasons;
He removes kings and raises up kings;
He gives wisdom to the wise
And knowledge to those who have understanding.
22 He reveals deep and secret things;
He knows what is in the darkness,
And light dwells with Him.

23 "I thank You and praise You,
O God of my fathers;
You have given me wisdom and might,
And have now made known to me what we asked of You,
For You have made known to us the king's demand."
Daniel 2:20-23
(Notice "us" in the last verse. He
Considered every Hebrew in captivity
To have received this gift.)

In Stephen's sermon, he cited Joseph's use of the gift wisdom of God, which would balance out his own gift of wisdom before the rulers.

Acts 7:9-11
But God was with him and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

Relying, in faith , Stephen stood on the promise of "not worrying about what one will say before kings and magistrates. " His oration is still a masterful work of art, as well as, a carefully planned judgment upon those to whom it was directed.

And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. 11 Then they secretly induced men to say, "We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God." 12 And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council.
Acts 6:10-12

The Lord of Hosts will not withhold His thoughts and ways from His people. He gives abundantly to those who ask. Notice below the gifts brought by the Spirit for edification of His people.

1 Corinthians 12:8
8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit,

Notice these are "special" gifts and are enumerated differently. However, no saint is exempt from entering freely into the grace throne room and seeking them. There is also no such thing as a "weak baptism" in the Spirit. One does not receive 8/9ths of the gifts.

As the Spirit of the Lord rested upon Jesus, so do the three elements of the Spirit highlighted below. This is a prophetic word given about Jesus. In whom Jesus resides, should be evidence of these elements. (In these verses it is plain there are elements of wisdom that have been ignored by the church at large.)

Isaiah 11:1-5
There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.

3 His delight is in the fear of the LORD,
And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;
4 But with righteousness He shall judge the poor,
And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.

Those who are filled with the Spirit ought also to attain to the fullness of the stature of Christ. We, too, should exhibit the three strong Spirit attributes spoken about Jesus. The "Christ in us" does not function apart from them. (The shallowness of Sunday mornings would be drowned in the power of these attributes.)

1 Corinthians 1:23-25
23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Through the strength of such anointing, nothing should be usual or mundane. Review the last two verses of Isaiah 11:4, for in them is what our world needs most-from us! These verses are really the culmination of verses 1-3.

Innately in man is a desire for wisdom. This desire was the tool used by satan in the temptation and fall of God's first humans. This is also the wisdom dispensed by universities and found in experience, but it is not the "Sophia" of the New Testament nor is it "wisdom" spoken of in the Old Testament.

Genesis 3:6
...and a tree desirable to make one wise.
(the word for " wise" in this case means cunning or worldly wise; it is a different word than is used for wisdom in the O.T).
Wise: Sakal: OT:7919 consider, expert, instruct, prosper, (deal) prudent (-ly), (give) skill (-ful), have good success, teach, (have, make to) understand (-ing), wisdom, (be, behaveself, consider, make) wise (-ly), guide wittingly.

Wisdom flowing from the heart of God is part and parcel of the "spirit of Discernment," for such wisdom is companion to the mandate to "Clarify and Declare." It sees through the muddle of the issues; it confronts and defines them to their root and then declares the thinking of God upon them and calls for them to obey.

Wisdom: OT:2451 chokmah (khok-maw'); from OT:2449; wisdom (in a good sense): KJV - skilful, wisdom, wisely, wit.
1 Corinthians 2:4-5
4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

1 Corinthians 3:18-20
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their own craftiness"; 20 and again, "The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."

2 Corinthians 1:12
we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you.

Paul had a deep understanding of his gift of wisdom and power. He refused to fall into the trap of relying on his doctorate in Theology from Gamaliel University. He knew the consequences of following a corrupted ideology and that it leads to corrupted conclusions.

Acts 22:2-4
Then Paul said: 3 "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. 4 I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death."

If the church continues in its current faulty theology, it too will conclude that a call for the death of the saints will be doing God a favor. It did in Paul's day, and many other times, in church history as was chronicled in Fox's Book of Martyrs. Selah!

The Lord said, "Come Up and think like Me!"

2 Corinthians 10:5
...bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ

Until Next month,

Dr. Cosby R. Oliver, PhD.

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