In Matthew 19 we find Jesus in a discussion with a rich young ruler who allegedly desired eternal life. Said another way, he wanted to know how to return to the life and blessing of the Garden that his great, great, great, great ... grandparents were banished from, in the Genesis story. The young man already had most everything he wanted through financial status and community influence, yet he was admittedly unsatisfied in his own heart. Jesus not only showed him how to find redemption from his own slavery to material wealth, but apparently invited him to become the 12th Apostle of the Lamb (to replace the thieving CFO on staff at that time - Judas Iscariot - who was actively embezzling funds for himself). The central theme of finances in this context are remarkable to consider. Our Redeemer's very birth in the stable was the direct result of the profound generosity of our Father in Heaven. Generosity, among other virtues, remains a chief characteristic we must all embrace in order to truly follow Christ. In this sermon, Pastor Gordon explains why Jesus' invitation for the ruler to become a disciple was preceded by an invitation for him to cease living in dysfunctional dominion (building one's own private wealth) and, instead, sell everything chaining his soul, donate it to the needs of the poor, and follow Christ into the true riches of the eternal life. In the end, a very rich man asked for eternal life, but, ironically, decided it was too expensive. There would be no redemption for anyone without the generosity of our Father God. There is no other path to Heaven but through the gift Father God gave the world in His son, Jesus Christ. There is no way to accept Jesus Christ while rejecting His body on the earth, which is His church. There is no other path to taking righteous dominion than through the grace of giving. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus!

The Jews had a saying that went like this: "...As a man is bound to provide for his wife, so he is bound to provide for his sons and daughters, the little ones, until they are six years old; and from thenceforward he gives them food till they are grown up, according to the order of the wise men; if he will not, they reprove him, and make him ashamed, and oblige him; yea, if he will not, they publish him in the congregation, and say such an one is cruel, and will not provide for his children; and lo, he is worse than an unclean fowl, which feeds her young.'' (Maimon. Hilchot Ishot, c. 12. sect. 14.) This teaching was inferred from the foundation of the Decalogue, which commanded honor within the context of a family. The explicit command was for the children to honor their parents, but the implicit obligation followed that the parent must obviously care for the affairs of their children and house. This immutable principle of financial stewardship and family fitness applied to all the faithful and obedient Hebrew people who lived righteous before the law of God. This included Mary and Joseph, as stewards of the Christ child, but also later extended to each of the married disciples of Jesus, who, despite being in full-time ministry with Him, had lawful obligations to their own wives and children. The principle obviously extended itself upon Jesus Christ, personally, as the head of His ministry. Therefore, from a strictly Biblical sense of poverty being the result of personal sin, Jesus COULD NOT have been living in true poverty as the result of His personal failure(s) to diligently obey the Law of God in His work ethic, nor could have Mary and Joseph, nor could any of the disciples who followed Christ under the strictest sense of how Scripture defines abject poverty. Along this same vein of thinking, the Great Apostle declared: "But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers." (See 1 Timothy 5:8.) The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentary states: "Worse than an infidel—because even an infidel (or unbeliever) is taught by nature to provide for his own relatives, and generally recognizes the duty; the Christian who does not so, is worse (Mt 5:46, 47). He has less excuse with his greater light than the infidel who may break the laws of nature. This truth regarding the concept of abject poverty and one's duty to one's own relate to so much more than mere financial stewardship (but certainly include it) and must be understood even if it requires the modern Christian to repudiate popularly held sacred cows concerning the alleged "poverty" of Mary and Joseph, the "poverty" of Jesus Christ, or the "poverty" of His twelve disciples. When did Jesus TRULY become "poor" and why? Is it true that Jesus was so poor he was "a homeless man" as so many have claimed? Pastor Gordon continues to show the evidences of Scripture to the contrary, and by doing so, provides a basis for the modern Christian to come to faith on something more reliable than the traditions of men. God has commanded for man to take dominion of the earth and subdue it. This requires man to overcome the sins that cause his own poverty. Jesus became poor on the cross and defeated poverty by His resurrection!

The Bible tells us that God paved all the streets in Heaven with gold. Why did He do that? In this sermon, Pastor Gordon continues to clearly explain the truth of the doctrine of the atonement. He specifically explains how the atonement of Christ defeated the three great pillars of Satanic evil (sin, sickness, and poverty) primarily used by the enemy to distract and stop each of us from obediently fulfilling our duty to take dominion and subdue the earth as commanded in Genesis 1:28. The situation we face as the modern church, when it comes to understanding the sacred doctrine of the atonement, is that if we merely agree with Scripture about WHAT Christ accomplished without also understanding WHEN He accomplished it (on the cross), our faith can be completely short-circuited. Many of today's preachers tell us that God paved His streets with gold in an effort to flaunt the wealth of Heaven. Pastor Cary suggests that it was done for a much richer (pardon the pun) lesson. This heavenly paradigm on economics is directly connected to the work of Christ in His atonement on the cross, and connecting the dots between them ignites our faith while walking Earth's dusty roads. God took gold (which He called "good" in Genesis and left as a means of exchange between goods and services) and paved the streets in Heaven with it. Listen now to find out why, and ignite your faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ, release your faith, and begin taking dominion for the Kingdom of God.

Continuing from last week's message, "Prosperity Heretics and Poverty Heretics - Satan Loves Them Both," listeners discover that in the midst of an entire chapter of the New Testament (contextually dedicated to the practical subject of little more than church fundraising) comes one verse that may have won the most Bible-butchered contest of the ages - 2 Corinthians 8:9. Few verses from the Bible have caused preachers to do interpretive gymnastics more than this verse. Pastor Gordon appeals to reason without caving to popular theological pressures emanating from the parallel ditches (ditches of hyper-prosperity and/or poverty) by carefully laying out the evidence. By carefully reviewing the passage with an eastern paradigm, he slaughters yet another sacred cow in our times: when was Jesus "rich" and when did Jesus become "poor" for our sakes? Put on your thinking caps, lay aside presuppositions, and prepare yourself by embracing objectivity. Jesus did become poor. The Bible says so. Jesus was rich. The Bible says so. But WHEN did these things happen to Jesus "...so that we might become rich"? Further, is it true that when the verse blatantly says the words, "that we might become rich," it isn't talking about money, even though it is written in the middle of a fundraising letter written for the purpose of teaching Christians about the grace for generosity? Inquiring minds want to know! This is a "No Eisegesis Zone."

Much confusion abounds concerning the dominion mandate which began in Eden and was refreshed by Christ during His delivery of the Great Commission. The appropriate repulsion caused by hyper-prosperity heretics, who have misled millions into believing that wealth is an accurate indication of righteousness, has driven many into another ditch of equally disturbing heresy - the perverted lie that poverty is in any way connected to righteousness. On both ends of these exaggerated doctrinal abuses, false assumptions of truth have been repeated so often from their respective pulpiteers that masses of Christians have allowed Biblically unsupportable myths to become mental strongholds mistaken as truth. In this message, Pastor Gordon invites students of the Bible to navigate the hard facts as they are actually presented in the Scriptures. He leaves the cliches behind to carefully consider Satan's recorded resistance against all believers in every covenant since Eden. The Bible teaches four things: 1) Being wealthy does not mean you are righteous. 2) Being impoverished does not mean you are righteous. 3) The sin of laziness brings poverty. 4) The virtue of hard work mixed with faith brings blessings and success. How has Satan primarily resisted all believers? In the two primary dimensions of our twice-born call to take dominion of the earth: by resisting or perverting the property instinct and the sexual instinct.

Justice is a very good thing. Death entered the world in response to the injustice of Adam. Life entered the world in response to the justice of Father God toward Jesus. Because God is a God of justice, death became a necessary remedy for the rebellion of mankind. God essentially predetermined that He would not allow rebellion to continue endlessly, so death made all rebellion a temporary nuisance. Yes, justice is a very good thing. This is also why life entered the world in response to the sinless and just life of Jesus Christ. Because Father God is a God of justice, eternal life also became a necessary remedy for the restoration of mankind. God also predetermined that He would not allow rebellion to infect humanity without countering the plague of eternal death with an antidote for it offered to all mankind. God made eternal life a reality through Christ for those who repent and enter the Kingdom from Heaven. Yes, both death and life were and are extensions of God's perfect justice. Will you be resurrected when the trumpet sounds? Let's look further at whether you are taking dysfunctional dominion as a "once-born" child of Adam or whether you are taking dominion as a "twice-born" child of God.

The New Testament, in first Corinthians chapter ten, reminds us that the Old Testament's invaluable records of the lives of the men and women of antiquity were preserved for our sakes. They are meant to be examples for those of us living in the present, "upon whom the ends of the world are come." How kind of God to inspire men across history to make careful records of the victories and failures of those who came before us, so that we could learn how to avoid reliving their tragedies, and, instead, strive to achieve their victories. In this sermon, Pastor Gordon continues explaining the concept of the "zoe" life of God through the examples set by Amram and Jochebed when confronted by government tyranny.

In the Gospel of John, (5:26) it says, "For as the Father hath ('zoe' in the Greek) life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have ('zoe') life in himself." In this message Pastor Gordon unpacks the remarkable meaning of this truth from John by showing how it relates to Father God initiating the first living person by breathing into his nostrils in (Genesis 2:7). "...[God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being..." Next, Pastor Gordon juxtaposes the pivotal moment when Jesus did the exact same thing for a second-time in world history (John 20:22), saying: "[Jesus] breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld'." Father God's breath of life at creation, and Jesus' breath of life upon the disciples are two moments of extraordinary importance to the Christian world. Both are connected to the primal instincts of the sexual impulse and the property impulse. These two God ordained desires are what makes the world go 'round, and Satan has been trying to exploit them both since the very beginning. Buckle your seat-belts as Pastor Gordon begins a ride through Bible history uncovering a repeating pattern that will help us prepare for our enemy's traps by recognizing his tactics.

Church authorities estimate that approximately fifty billion people have lived on the earth since the Garden of Eden. Every single one of them, along with you and me, inherited the promise of eternal death from their exponentially great, great, great, great, grandparents, Adam and Eve. Then Jesus threw Himself into the grinding gears of the cosmic vending machine of our collective doom in order to provide what He described as "life more abundantly." Most of us have some reasonable idea of what life is, but what exactly is "life more abundantly"? What does abundant life, in the mind of Jesus, actually mean? Find out in part two of this teaching on divine dominion (discussed in show #30 as "Dysfunctional Dominion Demands Death"), and let the abundant grace of God usher you into the abundant life that Jesus made available!

"Dysfunctional Dominion Demands Death!" Said another way, perverting their job description through sin guaranteed that all things in Eden (and beyond) would die. Death has always been and remains connected to Adam and Eve's refusal to "take dominion" on behalf of God's Kingdom. They chose to take dominion on behalf of themselves, instead. Jesus solved the problem created through Adam's rebellion, when He arrived on the scene in history and retook dominion on behalf of God the Father, for the sake of man's rescue from the threat of eternal death! Jesus walked on the water demonstrating His authority over gravity! He calmed the storm at sea demonstrating His authority over nature! He healed the woman with the issue of blood demonstrating His authority over the human body! He healed the blind, the lame and the leper demonstrating His authority over disease. He cast out demons demonstrating His authority over Satan and his minions. He raised Lazarus from the grave demonstrating his authority over physical, spiritual and eternal death! Jesus refused sin, and thereby refused dysfunctional dominion in the midst of His wilderness temptation, and instead, took divine dominion as God originally commanded Adam and Eve from the beginning. When we become twice-borns through the work of Christ, and enter into citizenship in His kingdom, we too, by His grace, are commissioned to embark on a journey where we partner with Christ in His dominion of the earth. In this sermon, Pastor Gordon continues to juxtapose the Genesis dominion mandate with its New Testament reiteration commonly called "The Great Commission". He declares to us that Jesus' Great Commission did not rescind or alter Father God's original perfect mandate for mankind. What does "taking dominion" look like in your life right now? Are you really taking it? Have you been born a second time? Find out the answers to these questions and more.