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Transcript

Okay. So, I did announce last week a subject matter, at least a passage that passed some chapters we'd be looking at today. And so, I'm not going to ask for people to raise their hands if they actually looked at that portion of God's Word, because right now you all are trying to think, now, what was that? And I will tell you eventually.

Yeah, 1 Peter chapter 2. This is not the passage. But it's just a jumping off thing. Laying a foundation, as we say.

And actually, I think our brother Kamal read for some of these verses. 1 Peter chapter 2, after Peter has exhorted the believers to submit to the governing authorities. And that applies, folks, regardless of how these things happen on Tuesday. Verse 17, he says, Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

And then he writes this, Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable if, because of conscience toward God, one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable for God.

For to you, for to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example. That you should follow in his steps. And he describes those steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. Who himself bore our sins, and his own body on the tree that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Peter exhorts the believers to follow Christ's steps, that our Lord Jesus Christ not only came as the great sacrifice for sins, not only our Redeemer, but also as our example, as our prototype, as the one whose steps we are to follow.

So, in order to do that, of course, it's important that we know as much about Christ as the Scriptures reveal to us, so that we know what example to follow. We must know Him. We must know His ways and His words. We must know how He reacted to certain situations so that when similar things might happen to us, we can act accordingly.

So here's a question that will reveal perhaps how many of you were looked into the passage that I suggested you look into this past week. And this is sometimes what I recall some professors doing in our classes where they would not just call out a general question, but would actually call on specific people and ask them to respond to what was in the assignment. And so, I will give you at least this parameter that we are going to be looking in the Gospel of Luke to look at our Lord Jesus Christ examples. The steps, the way He spoke and acted.

So, here's the question. In this portion, we're going to be considering a great number of people that the Lord, well, we will see that there were great multitudes that the Lord interacted with, teaching and healing. There were, we were going to be looking at several of those who are specifically in specific individuals that we are going to take lessons from concerning our Lord Jesus Christ and its application to us as we seek to follow him. And so he granted these individuals, many, many of them, he granted their requests, mostly to deal with healing for what they were going through, either on their part or others.

But there was one person who made a request, who prayed. Anytime you're making a request to deity, we could consider that a prayer. This individual is actually known for some short prayers. And the Lord did not affirmatively answer the prayer of this person.

So who was that? And what was his request? What was his prayer? Praying for?

Praying for? Nope. Good. No, it's out.

It's out. I'm sorry. I should have direct made this clear. I'm not speaking very clearly this morning for whatever reason, but it's found within Luke chapter 5, 6, or 7 in Luke's Gospel.

I'm sorry. All right. The professor would say, it looks like we're going to have to read a lot of this, but that's fine. Yes, Wayne.

No, although his name does begin with P. We're getting there. He had a prayer. The Lord did not affirmatively answer his prayer.

Jonathan Burson. Yes. Who was it? Peter.

Yes. And what did he, what was his prayer? Go away from the Lord. Yes, that's very good.

Thank you. All right. So we're going to actually start with Peter's, that particular encounter that the Lord and Peter had. Just again, as a very brief background, you know, the Gospel of Luke is the first of two books, of course, that Luke penned through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

And the one of which we are studying this evening, put in another commercial for our study at seven o'clock on Zoom. And Luke does give us quite a bit of detail about the Lord's coming to this earth, more than the other Gospel writers. And gives us the only detail, really, that we have about the Lord's growing up in Nazareth. And then he goes on to talk, you know, as the other Gospels do, about his temptation, his baptism.

And then Luke, before we get to chapter 5, of course, there's chapter 4, and he brings out that the Lord was preaching around the towns there in Galilee and particularly gives notice of the time he was preaching at Nazareth and how he was essentially run out of his hometown because he preached about God dealing favorably with some Gentiles in the Old Testament, making known of course in that same teaching there that he was fulfillment of prophecy. Even though he was run out of that town, he was still popular in the surrounding areas as we'll see. And for a jumping off point, read a couple of verses at the end of chapter 4. Beginning at verse 40.

It's just healed Peter's mother-in-law and then when the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to him and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons came out of many crying out and saying, "You are the Christ, the Son of God." And he rebuking them did not allow them to speak for they knew that he was the Christ. Now when it was day, he departed and went up into a desert place and the crowd sought him and came to him and tried to keep him from leaving them.

But he said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities, because for this purpose I have been sent." And he was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee. So great multitudes were following him. In fact, so many multitudes that when he got to the shore there, the lake of Gennesaret, Lake Galilee, that he needed to put out in a boat for his podium, so to speak, for his preaching spot, so he could better communicate to the multitudes that had followed him.

And so he borrowed a boat that just happened to be Peter's boat. And we will pick up in verse 4 of chapter 5. "When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, 'Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.' But Simon answered and said to him, 'Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.

Nevertheless, at your word, I will let down the net.' And when he had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. And they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink.

And as we've already considered, Peter's reaction to this miracle, when Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Notice that he went from addressing Lord as master, teacher, to actually acknowledging him as Lord. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken. And also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men. So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed him. We're going to be looking at these encounters that the Lord Jesus had with these individuals, starting with Peter here.

And I don't know if it ever occurred to you, but think about all the multitudes that Jesus interacted with. Just in this passage that we read, there were several great crowds. There were, as we'll see, crowds wherever he went during this time of popularity there in the region of Galilee. So why is it that Luke, Luke, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, selected just a few of those to record the details of their particular interactions and the miracle that Jesus performed during that interaction.

He performed many miracles, had many, many interactions. Why these several? Well, I'm going to give you a theory. And the theory is that the Lord taught through parables, earthly stories that have heavenly truths.

And my theory is that each of these interactions was what we could consider a living or historical parable. That is, there's going to be things that we can learn through those interactions that tell us something specific about the Lord Jesus Christ. And then also we can gather from that, from what they tell us about Him, application to ourselves as we seek to follow His steps. So the first one here is with Peter.

And there's no healing involved here, but there is a miracle concerning Peter's work. So the first thing we're looking at then has to do with the Lord's interaction with somebody concerning their daily labor. Peter was not enthusiastic about putting out after he had toiled all night long with his partners, James and John, and perhaps others, seemingly without a single fish to account for. But he did put out and cast his net out because he was obeying his master.

Peter's reaction to the tremendous catch that the Lord had granted him, the Lord is no man's debtor, of course. He had borrowed Peter's boat, and so now he's paying him back, so to speak, many times full for the use of his craft. But Peter's reaction, when he realized that he was indeed in the presence of holiness, the Holy One of God, the one who would know more about the aspect of his own daily labor than he, an expert fisherman, would know. Even though his occupation, as far as we're told in Scripture, was that he was a builder or a carpenter, not a fisherman.

So Peter's reaction was what we would consider the aspect of an Old Testament reaction to the presence of holiness. Much like the prophet Isaiah had when he had his holy vision, as you will remember, the thrice holy God. And that is to acknowledge that he was a sinner and that sinners cannot abide in the presence of holiness. So his prayer, his request, was for the Lord to depart.

The Lord did not honor that request. And in fact, what he did was he commissioned him to be a co-worker with him, with the Lord, in his mission of preaching the kingdom of God. And so we see that the Lord was not desirous. Let's put it in a positive frame.

His desire was to associate Peter in that great work. And it's from that aspect that we see that the Lord is, as part of his ways, desires people, works through people, desires people to be his co-laborers. Paul mentions that in his first epistle to the Corinthians, where he comments that we are fellow workers with him. And not only fellow workers with him, but also fellow workers with other believers.

It's interesting that it specifies that James and John, Peter's partners, were also called in the same way to be fishers of men. And the large catch, symbolic course, of what happened on the day of Pentecost when there were so many thousands added to the kingdom of God that became the infant church on that day. And I would tell you that the Lord is still looking for us to be co-laborers with Him. And as much as we might acknowledge that we are sinful, the Lord seeks such to be workers with Him.

There's another individual that was caught that the Lord called while he was working. And it's found at beginning at verse 27 where Matthew the tax collector, Levi, was also called. And he specifically was one that was, his occupation was one that was not highly thought of to be, to make a very understatement by the Jewish nation. But nevertheless, the Lord called him to follow him, and Matthew left all that he had and followed him, the same as Peter, joining them as co-laborers.

So the first thing we're looking at is the Lord and his work. The next individual we come across is a leper, and beginning at verse 13, chapter 4, and it happened when he was on a certain way that, behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus, and he fell at his face and implored him, saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Then he put out his hand and touched him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed. Immediately, leprosy left him.

Here is a man not only suffering from leprosy, but was described as being full of it, and at the Lord's touch, it all left him. And he charged him not to tell anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing as a testimony to them, just as Moses commanded. However, the report went about concerning him all the more, and the great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities. So he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.

What's in focus here with this encounter is the subject of willingness. The question that, well, it was a statement that the leper made is that he knew that if the Lord was willing, he could be made clean. And as we thought about this morning, the Lord was willing. He was willing to take the cup, the cup of God's wrath, and to drink it to the dregs.

And here the request was for cleansing. Leprosy, of course, is often seen as a picture of sin. So once more we have an aspect of sin before us. One Peter acknowledging himself as a sinner as he went about his daily labor.

And here the leper who has a disease that is a picture of sin. And the question was, would the Lord be willing to cleanse him? And of course, he was. The Lord, as here, the Lord is not just not answering Peter's prayer about departing, but he's actually extending his hand.

And as was thought to be a violation of the law to reach out and to touch the leper. So not only, so we have a picture that the Lord is willing that we should be in close fellowship with Him as He identified with the leper. And I'm sure that the leper was probably just anticipating that the Lord would just speak the word and cleanse him and was probably very surprised at the Lord's touch. But this is, of course, in that area where He is able to do abundantly above all that we ask or think.

So the question is, as we consider this aspect of willingness, how willing are we to extend our hand to help others in their need? The next person that is encountered in our parables, our historic parables, or is the paralytic, of course, the man born by four, let down through the roof. We know this story from our Sunday school lessons. Very familiar story to us.

And here there were teachers of the law and Pharisees that were crowded around the Lord to hear what he was teaching because of his great popularity. And this one was brought in who was unable to walk. And the Lord started out not by empowering him to walk, not by healing his paralysis, but by first forgiving his sins. And of course that created thoughts, not pleasant thoughts, from those doctors of the law and the Pharisees.

So the Lord says in, we just pick it up at verse 23, which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven you, or to say, rise up and walk. But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. He said to the man who was paralyzed, I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house. And immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.

And they were all amazed, and they glorified God along with him, and were filled with fear, saying, we have seen strange things today. The Lord empowers us as he empowered this man to walk with him. It's a picture of the Lord's desire that we would have a walk that would be pleasing to him. And look, of course, into the book of Ephesians and realize that not only are we seated with the Lord in heavenly places, but then we are to have a walk, a walk that is in love.

So now, we get to chapter 6, and we see a couple of parables this time, not dealing so much with the encounter, not dealing so much with the sinner, but the subject matter of sin itself. After all, we need to know what sins are, so we can avoid them. And we have two instances here. We'll not read them for time's sake, but the one where the Lord and His disciples are going through a cornfield on the Sabbath day, and they were gleaning from them and rubbing the wheat or corn in their hands and consuming it, which would have been work on the Sabbath.

And then the other, of course, with a man whose right hand was withered and was there before them, before the scribes and the Pharisees watching on as to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath. And indeed, he did. And he comments, you know, in reaction to their thoughts against him for violating the Sabbath, he says, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to give life or destroy? And so, we see that the Lord was more concerned, concerning the aspect of what is involved in sin, not so much with the letter of the law, as to whether that might technically, these actions might technically be a violation of the third or fourth commandment, depending on which translation you're looking at, of keeping the Sabbath without doing any work at all.

And then, while we're here, we'll look at some of the Lord's teachings. So, the Lord was basically giving the aspect that we have to look at the circumstances and the details of the situation before condemning someone for violating what appears to be the letter of the law. We are to be more controlled or motivated by the love of the Lord than the letter of the law. So, then he teaches and he gives some very high bar here as to what actual morality looks like in verses, starting at verse 27.

This is a kind of a summary of the Sermon on the Plain, which is very, has a lot of the same thoughts as the Sermon on the Mount. And I'll just read a few of these verses just to give you an idea of what the Lord has commanded us to do beyond keeping rituals and regulations. Verse 27, he says, and this is speaking specifically to his disciples, says, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you.

To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away from your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back.

And just as you want men to do to you, also do likewise to them. Not only are we to love our neighbors, as he will teach later in this Gospel, love your neighbor as yourself. But we are to actually, he raises the bar even higher. Love your enemies.

This is an aspect of morality that is beyond what we are capable of doing without supernatural help. It is not natural to love those who you consider to be your enemies. He encourages us in these few verses beyond that we should pray for those who spitefully use us. That's one aspect of loving those who we might consider to be enemies.

Now, I don't know who today, as you sit here, you might consider to be an enemy or an adversary or someone who spitefully uses you. But if you think about that person, the person does come to mind. Think about how you can love that person in return to whatever harm or adverse action they have taken against you. That is what the Lord calls us to do.

That is His definition of holiness. And we should abide by that command. Now, to complete our study of these several individuals, and we want to get to chapter 7, since that was within the assignment, we have two other incidents to make mention of. The first is the God-fearing centurion, who was in pleading the Lord on behalf of a beloved servant of his.

And the Lord, we can just read a few verses here, beginning at verse 6. This man was described as one who loved the Jewish nation and has built a synagogue for them. In verse 6, then Jesus went with them, and when he was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof. Therefore, I did not even think myself worthy to come to you, but say the word, and my servant will be healed.

And of course, that's exactly what the Lord did. He stopped short of going into the man's house, and he healed the servant simply by his word. So we started off with the work, the Lord calling us to be co-laborers with him, the willingness that the Lord had that we should also share in helping and ministering to others. We had our walk, that we should walk in love as he has empowered us to do.

And now we have the aspect of his word that we can rely on it and the power it has in our lives. One final incident that we can look at, and that is, of course, the encounter that Peter had while he was, I'm sorry, that the Lord had while he was invited into the home of a Pharisee. The story begins at verse 36. We'll not read all of it, but as, oh, I did have one other question that I wanted to ask about the aspect of loving our enemies.

It occurred to me during our worship service, as we were reading out of Romans chapter 5, that who in Scripture, or specifically, described as being the enemies of God? Huh? Us. Yes.

Another correct answer from the front row. Yes, very good. Yes, us, when we were yet enemies of God. That's just an interesting side note on that, that he didn't want to pass by.

Okay, we're dealing with the Lord being in this house of the Pharisee. I mean, it seems like the interactions that the Lord had had with Pharisees were kind of, you know, kind of adversarial for the most part. But here he is sharing a dinner with the Pharisee, accepting his invitation. And this woman comes in who was known to be a sinner.

It's not specifically described as to what that sin was, but it was apparently well known in that community. And so she came in and began to worship him, demonstrating her thankfulness with her tears in verse 38 and wiping his, wiping the Lord's feet with the head of her hair and anointing her. And she was planting those feet with the fragrant oil that she brought in. All aspects of worship.

Now, the thought we had was kind of a growing closeness in some respects in the Lord's encounters. We saw him not departing from Peter, although Peter requested that. We saw him then reaching out to the leper and touching him even in his contagious state, willing to heal him. And it's one thing, you know, for the Lord to decide who he is going to be close to, who he is going to allow to have a relationship with him.

But here, he accepted the close touch of this sinful woman. A woman who had already been forgiven her sins, by the way. If you read the story, it might be a little bit unclear in some translations about whether the Lord just forgave her sins right there on the spot. But he had already forgiven her sins.

And it was out of that forgiveness that she came and worshipped him in such a wonderful and intimate. Way. And the Lord accepted that worship. And so it is today that he desires us to worship him.

And regardless of whether we think ourselves of how much of a debtor to him, because the Lord told a parable, within this historical living parable, there was a parable that the Lord gave of two debtors, of course, and the one having been forgiven a little, and the one having been forgiven a lot, and the one who was forgiven a lot loved much. And so, sometimes we would identify ourselves as we consider our lives, not that we are to be focused on our failures, but we would say, yes, I have been forgiven much. I can give that testimony. So, the question is then, applying this final encounter as an application, do we love Him much in return?

Am I demonstrating in my life the love for Him? Am I motivated to be a co-laborer of His, to be willing to reach out to others, to having a walk that would be worthy of Him? To depending upon, am I depending upon His Word and finding that to be sufficient in my life? In other words, am I loving Him in return to what He has forgiven me?

May it be so for all of us as we attempt to follow His steps. Heavenly Father, we do thank You for Your Word. We thank You once again for our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank You that He is our great example, that we can look into Your Word and see how He acted and how He spoke, and that we can use these as a guide to how we should act and how we should speak.

We do pray that You would help us in this. We pray that You would help us to have hearts that would be responsive to those around us, even to the point of loving those who are adversarial to us. We thank You again and pray these things in the Lord Jesus' precious name. Amen.

Family Bible Hour featuring David Burson. A teaching from Revelation 1:9–11 on John as our brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation, kingdom, and perseverance in Jesus, his worship in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and Christ’s message to the seven churches.

Transcript

Good morning. You can turn, please, to Revelation chapter 1. Continuing this series again. Revelation chapter 1.

Excuse me. I think by way of review, we'll read the first eight verses for context, and then we'll be looking at verses 9 through 11 today. I'm reading from the NASB 1995 version, by the way. Revelation chapter 1.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his bondservants the things which must soon take place, and he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood, and he has made us to be a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.

To him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him.

So it is to be. Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. And I was supposed to click these slides as I read this.

But reading this Scripture is hard to remember to click on slides. Sorry about that. But our passage for today begins in verse 9. I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

So why was John on Patmos? Well, did he go as a missionary? There are some people who think that actually and defend that view, but I think that's not likely. The ancient church fathers wrote that John was exiled to Patmos from fairly shortly after the time that John wrote this.

There's records of the ancient fathers saying that he was exiled. Here in verse 9, John says he's a partaker in tribulation. And in verse 2, as well as here in verse 9, he's testifying to the testimony of Jesus. And it's common throughout this book that witnesses are suffering for their witness of Christ.

So I think it's most likely that he was on Patmos as an exile when he received this revelation. And as the Apostle Paul said, the Word of God is not chained. So let's consider how John presents himself. Excuse me.

I, John. Well, he's already identified himself in verse 1 and verse 4. And despite some objections from scholars, I'm confident that we're talking about John, the son of Zebedee, brother of James, apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the human author of the Gospel of John and the three epistles that bear his name. I discussed other views and defended that view in one of our earlier sessions.

I think that was our first session on Revelation. So, if you want those notes, I'm happy to share them with you. By the way, in case you aren't aware, any sermon that's preached up here, we try to record, and it's available on lakehowellbiblechapel. org.

You can listen to it if you would like. Okay, so two points of significance about how John introduces himself. First, he's obviously well-known to his readers that he doesn't need to explain who he is. He is John.

Second, he does not assert his apostolic authority here. He writes with authority, but the closest he gets to asserting a title is he is a bondservant of Jesus Christ in verse 1. He's just John. In this book, we don't see John exercising apostolic authority that God gave him to build up the churches, as we see in other epistles.

In this book, we see what John sees with John, and that is the assertion of authority by God and by Jesus Christ as God and man. He says, your brother, I, John, your brother. So, in this book, where the rule of Christ is central, John does not assert authority as an apostle, and he doesn't even say he is our servant for Christ's sake. Like Paul did, remember, in 2 Corinthians 4-5, Paul said, For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus' sake.

John isn't emphasizing those aspects. He is emphasizing the relationships that bind us together in unity of love and hope. Note in verse 5, he says, To him who loves us. He groups himself in with the people he's writing to.

Now, the fact is, there will, in the kingdom of God, be some who are lesser and some who are greater among us. Remember this, that Jesus said, he had, telling this parable, Jesus, we're jumping into the middle of it, but I think you are familiar with it. Master, your mina has made ten minas more. And he said to him, well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing.

You are to be in authority over ten cities. The second came, saying, your mina, master, has made five minas. And he said to him, and you are to be over five cities. But John isn't thinking in these terms of who's going to be over how many cities.

He's writing as our brother. Well, I think that's in striking contrast, if you can recall, to a few discussions the disciples had when Christ was still walking around on earth before his crucifixion. They were talking sometimes about who's going to be the greatest of us. And in particular, remember the mother of James and John, with their apparent consent, pushing James and John forward.

Matthew 20, starting in verse 20 here. Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of him. And he said to her, What do you wish? She said to him, Command that in your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right and one on your left.

Well, it's clear the brothers were in agreement with this, since in the parallel account, Mark doesn't even include the mother at all. That detail is left out, that the request was made through their mother. It says right here in Mark chapter 10, verses 35 to 37, James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus saying, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said to them, What do you want me to do for you?

They said to him, Grant that we may sit, one on your right and one on your left, in your glory. So James and John were not being shoved forward reluctantly by a scheming mother. No, they were very much, this is something they wanted. In fact, they may have been the one that said, Hey, Mom, can you see, you know, whatever, you know.

But they were very much pushing for this. So back to Matthew 20, this account. Jesus answered, You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?

They said to him, Yeah, sure, we're able. Again, they didn't quite get the point that they don't know what they were asking, right? So Jesus said to them, My cup you shall drink, but to sit on my right and on my left, this is not mine to give. But it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.

Well, verse 24 here, on hearing this, the ten, that's the other disciples, became indignant with the two brothers. Well, you can appreciate that, I imagine, right? Here, there's 12 of you. Jesus chose a special 12.

And so, you're one of those 12, and maybe you're feeling pretty good about that. And thinking, yeah, when the Lord's glory is manifested to the world, and we're going to be a part of this whole thing. I can remember, I have an old friend from high school that, I haven't had contact with him since high school. Well, maybe once.

But he, after my last contact with him, he ended up being, I think, employee number 12 at a little company called Yahoo. And so, that did pretty well for him. And so, I have been able to, every once in a while, I see his name come up in the news. Not so much for Yahoo anymore, because he left Yahoo.

And he then ended up getting together with, I think, a Russian guy. And they started a little company called WhatsApp, which then eventually they sold to Facebook. And then he left after that. But any case, you can see, if you get in early on something big, you kind of expect to share in, like, the top glory of it.

Well, which he did. He's a billionaire. And, you know, somebody who was employed 10,000 isn't a billionaire, right? Well, so you've got the 12.

And now you've got jockeying for position within the top 12, right? And so the others in the top 12 are thinking, are probably indignant and probably thinking, I should have asked that, you know? There's a lot of, it's very natural for all of us to want to push ourselves forward, right? So, in any case, on hearing this, the ten became indignant with the two brothers.

But Jesus called them to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. Well, that's still true today, isn't it? Right? Another funny story I have to tell you.

When my kids were fairly little, we would send them out to the mailbox to bring in the mail sometimes. And they came in one day, just falling over each other, laughing. They could hardly walk. They thought it was so funny.

And they brought to us what they got, and they saw this thing in the mail that they got. It was from the Seminole County tax collector. And I'm thinking, most people don't laugh when they get stuff from the tax collector, but they were thinking, they had only ever heard the term tax collector of people in Jesus' day. And they were thinking, are these guys still around?

What's going on? Are they still tax collectors from, like, in Jesus' time? Well, I told them, actually, it's been pretty popular through the ages. That's one thing that's enduring.

It's paying taxes, but any case. It's the same today here as well. Our rulers of the Gentiles, if you look around, think of anybody you know in government, or have heard of, they are naturally wanting to lord it over. And great men exercise authority over, you know, that's their, that's a natural way that humans have always done.

Well, it is not this way among you. How revolutionary is that? That is, you know, you guys don't laugh when you get something from tax collectors in the mail, right? It's normal.

It's natural. This is the way life is. That's the way it has always been and it's always going to be. But not so.

Not this way among you. That is radical. That is a very different way of thinking. But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant.

And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. And as we remember this morning, and to give his life a ransom for many. Wow.

What a lesson. What a lesson. Back in Revelation, which John probably wrote about six decades later or so, from when he received that lesson, we see that John is no longer trying to elevate himself. He's not pushing himself forward in this letter.

I think there's a real lesson for us here. May we learn this lesson. It's so radical. The pressure of the world is so strong against that lesson constantly.

We need to learn this lesson so well that to the very end of our life, it stays with us every day. Well, John next describes himself as our fellow partaker. We are in this together. He is one of us.

Now, have you ever really thought of yourself as a fellow partaker with the Apostle John? I mean, John may not be pushing himself forward, but frankly, I've got a lot of respect for the Apostle John, right? Some of his writings are some of my most favorite writings that have ever been written in human history, right? We are fellow partakers with John, just as the original readers of this epistle were.

So, reading this verse, we are reminded of who we really are. This isn't something that we dream of and think and try to persuade ourselves of. This is the reality. This is who we really are.

We may not have it straight in our own minds, but we really are fellow partakers with the Apostle John. And as we grasp that, we can consequently share John's viewpoint, not only of ourselves, but of each other. I'm looking at a whole bunch of fellow partakers with the Apostle John. Right?

I'm reminded of my old job, writing software with an airline reservation company. The airline reservation agents, they would book reservations for AirTran Airways. At one point, there was a woman who was hired as a manager of these reservation agents. And I observed, being just in the computer department, my cubicle was just in the next room from the big reservation agency area.

And so we would sometimes mingle a little bit. I noticed that this new boss was really pretty shunned by not only the reservation agents, but the other managers. Nobody seemed to like her. And it got pretty embarrassing at times, as there were some pretty tense moments, where she was just trying to do what she could to ingratiate herself with the other employees there, that she was working with, and they weren't going along with it.

They weren't wanting to eat lunch with her. When she came around, the normal chit-chat would turn very official and proper until she left. It was pretty awkward. Well, that poor lady didn't last very long, and I don't even know the reasons why the rest of these folks.

You know, I was in a different department, but for some reason, nobody liked her. Well, she eventually left the company. Well, the fact is, John is our fellow partaker in the items that he lists here. We don't need to feel separate from him.

He is not trying to make us feel different from him, and there's no ingratiating going on either. This is just a simple fact of what Christ himself has brought us into. It's not because we're great, or he's great, or we're all scum, or whatever. It's not because of any of what we are.

It's because of what Christ has brought us all into. And so, he is our fellow partaker. And if we don't feel that way, this passage, I think, is a wake-up call to start thinking accurately about ourselves and every other believer in Christ. Clear thinking, unmuddied by the worries and pressures of the world, and I think as we grasp this, it brings us together in a real unity, a fellowship with each other in our shared suffering, our shared future, and a shared endurance now.

All right, so what are we fellow partakers in? Well, tribulation. If I was looking for something to be a fellow partaker with somebody, tribulation would not be at the top of my list. But again, we're not talking about wishful thinking here.

We're talking about reality. What is the truth? What is really going on? And the assumption is that we all suffer in this world that opposes Christ.

We partake together of Christ's reproach. Hebrews 11, 24 to 26. By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Considering the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

Hebrews 13, 12 to 14. Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate. So let us go to him, go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

Now, our suffering for Christ at this point may be minimal. Some of the original recipients of this book may not have suffered much for Christ. I really don't know. Our outlook is to be shaped by Christ, though, not by whether we're suffering at the moment for him.

And that outlook is one of solidarity with other believers, especially those who are suffering. Hebrews 13:3 Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body. And there's no shortage of persecution going on around the world in different countries. We still are largely protected from that here, but we do well to remember these folks, to pray for them.

Okay, we are also fellow partakers in the kingdom. Together, we are citizens of a kingdom that this world is hostile to. But this kingdom that we are citizens of will ultimately and permanently take over this world. Now, Daniel 2.

Remember Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel chapter 2. First, he told him the dream because Nebuchadnezzar had said, I don't believe all you crazy wise men. You're just trying to pull the wool over my eyes. And so if I tell you the dream, sure, you can come up with something.

How hard is that? I want to know. I want you to be able to tell me what I dreamed. And then I'll know I'll be able to trust your interpretation.

Well, that was a major setback, as you recall, for the wise men of the time. And they were about to all lose their heads or whatever the favorite method of execution was for Nebuchadnezzar. He had his choice, I guess. But God gave Daniel this revelation.

And so Daniel, in verse 34 here, is telling Nebuchadnezzar his dream. You continued looking until a stone was cut without hands. And we're jumping in towards the end of it here. And it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them.

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors. And the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Let's jump down to the interpretation in verse 44.

In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. And that kingdom will not be left for another people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made it known to the king what will take place in the future.

So the dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy. And we acknowledge the truth of that and trust in that interpretation still today. And that stone that was cut without hands, which I think is a reference to the virgin birth of Christ, he will come, and the kingdom is part of what we are fellow partakers in. Okay, back to the final item in the list here of what we are fellow partakers in.

Perseverance. Together we partake of endurance in Jesus. Back in Hebrews again. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, of which John and the original recipients of this letter are some, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. This perseverance, this endurance that we are fellow partakers in, we can encourage each other, yes, but the way which we encourage each other is by pointing out to each other, hey, focus on Christ. Christ is our example.

Christ is the one who has done this. He has endured such hostility. As we were remembering this morning again, has anyone endured more hostility than what Christ endured in the cross? Endured hostility by sinners against himself.

And he endured it, and he has sat down at the right hand of God, right? And he gives us the strength, the power, to endure anything that he allows as well. So we do not need to grow weary. We do not need to lose heart.

We can look at him, see what he endured, and where he is now, and what he has promised for the future. And he is coming for us. And in that, we do not grow weary, then, or lose heart. And we can even be like, I remember the old story of John Wesley.

I can't remember if it was John. I always confuse John and Charles Wesley. But I think it was John Wesley, who was feeling a bit nervous because he hadn't felt any real persecution lately. And so he got off his horse and was by the side of the road and just praying to the Lord, Lord, please show me some sign that you are still pleased with me.

Well, some guy passing by recognized him and being a man of the world was pretty hostile toward him and started cursing him and throwing rocks at him. And John Wesley, was he weary and losing heart? No. He got up from that and said, thank you, Lord.

That's exactly what I needed. And so he went on. So even the persecution itself can be a source for us to recognize that we do not need to grow weary. We do not need to lose heart.

So in all these points, tribulation, kingdom, and perseverance, we have fellowship with one another in Christ. It's also significant that John selects points of connection that we share with those believers who believe during the tribulation time. Those who are in the future tribulation, as well as those in times of tribulation now, can be encouraged in the midst of hard times by the fellowship that they know that we have with others, past, present, and future, who share in the tribulation, the kingdom, the perseverance, which are in Jesus. 1 Peter 5, 8.

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

To him be dominion forever and ever. Amen. Back in Revelation. Okay, so what happened on Patmos?

The scene is set. It was the Lord's Day. The Lord's Day. I think it's significant that John received this revelation on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week.

The Lord's Day commemorates his resurrection, as we were thinking about this morning as well. Paul told the Athenians, and I'm not sure if the group tonight will be getting this far, but he told the Athenians in Acts 17, verse 30, therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. In chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, Christ calls the churches to repent. In the rest of the book, chapter 4 and on, basically, for the most of the rest of it, we see his judgment on those who live on the earth, who dwell on the earth, who refuse to repent.

That term, by the way, those who dwell on the earth, is a very significant term in the book of Revelation, speaking of those who refuse to repent during that time. So, I think there's a triple significance to this revelation being given on the Lord's day. It points to the significance of his resurrection for our salvation. We are exhorted to heed this book.

Today is the day of salvation. Come to him for salvation. For we who are saved, it points to the significance of his resurrection for our life now. The risen Christ is our life.

He is our King, our Lord, our Master, who will discipline and reward those he loves. It also points to the significance of his resurrection for the ultimate judgment of the earth. And, of course, this book of Revelation unfolds much about that day of the Lord, that day of judgment. Now, this book should not be read as a threat from an angry God.

That's not what it is. But it should be read as a warning and an appeal from a loving, righteous, omnipotent God who will ultimately judge and rule in righteousness. The conclusion in verse 17 of chapter 22 is, The Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let the one who hears say, Come, and let the one who is thirsty, Come. Let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.

That's the heart of God behind this book. So, it was the Lord's Day on Patmos. What was John doing? I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day.

In the Spirit, an interesting phrase, and it can mean somewhat different things in different contexts. In this context, I take it to mean that John was under the influence of the Holy Spirit, or in communion with God by the Holy Spirit, not in the sense that, you know, 24-7 we can be in communion or, you know, walking in the Spirit. I think it was a conscious act of worship that his focus was on communion with God at this point in time. He was actively communing with God through the Holy Spirit.

John recorded in his Gospel, when Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, remember? He says, But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For such people the Father seeks to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

John 4, and 23 and 24. So I think it's encouraging and inspiring that John, in exile, with apparently no one else around to remember the Lord with on the Lord's day, yet was worshiping God in spirit and truth. His spirit was in step with the Holy Spirit, indwelling him, and through the Holy Spirit, he was fellowshipping with God. And suddenly, while he's in the middle of doing that, he experienced the awesome vision of the first and the last, the living one, who was dead and is now alive forevermore, who has the keys of death and of Hades.

Wow. That's the setting. He was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and he says, I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet. And throughout the book of Revelation, loud voices frequently speak with God's authority or proclaim something that's highly significant.

And in this case, the loud trumpet-like voice seems to underscore the authority and the power of Christ. So what did the voice say? If you have a King James Version or New King James Version, verse 11 includes the speaker identifying himself with the words, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. Now, Jesus takes these highly significant titles in other verses in this book, and we'll discuss them as we encounter them in those verses.

The text that I'm following, the NASB 1995, has this for verse 11. Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. We read in verse 4 that these seven churches are in Asia. Now, when we read about Asia in the New Testament, we're not talking about China, we're not talking about India.

In the first century Roman world, Asia was a western province of today's country of Turkey. You can see it labeled on our map in red. For context, you can see toward the southeast of the Roman Empire here, the regions of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. You can see where the city of Jerusalem is.

Now, John is the one who wrote the book of Revelation, but we know more about Paul's travels, so as far as trying to help us have a geographical context of what he's talking about, I'll remind you of some of what Paul did in these areas. So you can see, if you notice in that middle section of today's Turkey, just below the Black Sea, up in the northeast here of the map, you can see the regions of Galatia and Pamphylia. If you remember, on his first missionary journey, Paul planted churches roughly between Galatia and Pamphylia on this map. And on his second missionary journey, the Spirit of God led Paul west from that region, right?

And instead of going north and east, and the Spirit forbade him to speak the word of God in Asia, Acts 16. So zooming in a little bit here. So Paul traveled west across the north of Asia, received the Macedonian vision in the coastal town of Troas, which you can see on this map, if your eyes are good enough, and took a ship across the Aegean Sea to modern-day Europe, where he planted churches in Macedonia and Achaia. Now, of course, Paul did eventually spend significant time in Ephesus, but the book of Revelation was written roughly a half a century after Paul was there.

So you can see on this map the small island and harbor town of Patmos. It's in the south-central part of the map. That's where John received this revelation. The seven churches that John addresses in this book are the red dots on the map in the Roman province of Asia.

And just for this map, I made the red dots bigger, just so you can see them easier. It doesn't have anything to do with the size of the cities. They were not necessarily bigger than other cities in Asia or anywhere else. Now, there were more than seven churches in Asia when John wrote.

So the question to me is, why were these seven chosen? Why were others, like Colossae or Hierapolis, not chosen? One point that seems obvious to me is that the way Christ discerned and dealt with the issues in each of these seven churches in chapters 2 and 3 has valuable application for us. And so that would be a reason to choose these seven churches for this letter.

Well, that touches on our doctrine of inspiration. 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God, as Paul was mentioning during the announcements. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. So I think at the very least, it seems safe to say that the value of Christ's communication to those local churches, those seven churches that he picked, extends beyond the immediate recipients to all believers from that time forward.

Now, not every revelation or communication from God is recorded in Scripture. For example, consider Revelation 10:4. In this very book, When the seven peals of thunder had spoken, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from heaven saying, Seal up the things which the seven peals of thunder have spoken, and do not write them. John heard what the seven thunders said, but he was prevented from recording them in Scripture.

And certainly, we do not have recorded all the messages from God that the Old Testament prophets relayed from God to the people at that time. Think of Elijah and Elisha, great prophets. We have very little of what they actually taught the people. We have some of their miracles and some of the things they said, but only a small portion of their messages from God that they spoke to the people.

I think Balaam is an interesting case in this regard as well. He's introduced to us in Numbers chapter 22 as a diviner whose fame has spread to many other countries besides his own, and Balak sent men to him to come curse Israel, and it's clear that Balaam had dealings with God before. Numbers 22 18. Balaam replied to the servants of Balak, though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not do anything either small or great contrary to the command of the Lord my God.

Over his whole career, none of Balaam's messages from God are recorded for us, except this bit in Numbers 22 to 24 given to Balak. You can even think of Christ himself in this regard. We certainly don't have everything in Scripture that he said and did. John tells us in John 21 25, there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose, that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.

What was actually written in Scripture are those things that God deemed profitable for all of us from that time going forward. In the case of the Gospel of John, we're specifically told what the purpose was, right? John 20 30 to 31. Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

Same heart behind that book as the book of Revelation. John's first epistle. Similarly, we're told the purpose is to give believers assurance of their eternal life. This is the doctrine we call eternal security.

First John 5 13. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. Do you believe in the name of the Son of God? A whole book's been written so that you can know that you have eternal life.

That is Scripture, profitable down through the ages. So this alone may explain why Christ picked those seven churches. Now, I expect Christ may have had other reasons as well, and there's been certainly a number of very plausible reasons suggested. My impression is that those are at best sanctified speculation, and so I'm not going to get into those.

When we see the Lord, we can ask Him if at that point it's not already clear to us or if it seems like it matters. But for now, I simply accept that Jesus had reasons unknown to me why He picked these seven churches, but what He recorded, and this is what's most important, what He recorded is profitable for all of us. So, to conclude today, in Revelation 1, 9 through 11, we see that John sets us an example, an example to think of each other in a spirit of brotherly fellowship. Endurance and hope.

Hope for the eternal future. And of course, all of this in Christ Jesus. When our focus and interest is on the awesomeness of Christ, we are united in this fellowship. And there's no asserting of ourselves above each other.

Right? Because we're all asserting the greatness of Christ together, and we rejoice to do that together. So instead of pushing ourselves forward among each other, we can have an outward focus as well. What about unbelievers?

What about the rest of the world? And our desire is for others who have not trusted Christ, that they will thirst, that they will come, and that they will take the water of life freely. It's a free gift of salvation that our Lord offers, and how blessed we are to have received it. And what a blessing to have the inspired Word of God to guide our thinking and our attitudes.

And what a blessing that we, like John, can worship in spirit and truth. And unlike John, we can worship together. We have a community here. We're not in exile individually on some island.

That's a blessing that we can worship together here. We can meet on the Lord's Day with a significance, again, as we had talked about already this morning. The Lord's Day, celebrating His resurrection, thinking on His resurrection, even as we remember His death for us. Great blessings.

And these blessings are only because our Lord Jesus Christ is great. So we'll consider more of our Lord's greatness the next time we are together in the book of Revelation in the following verses. Let's close in prayer now. Our great God and Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you so much for the revelation that you gave to your servant John for us.

And we thank you that we have your Scriptures. We thank you that you have given these things to us. We thank you, Lord, for your greatness revealed in them. We thank you for the hope that we have.

We thank you for the life that you are living in us even now. And so, Lord Jesus, we pray and yearn and look for your coming. Amen.

Family Bible Hour featuring Tim Baldon. A teaching from Hebrews 11:1–7 on faith as confidence in God’s faithfulness, from the examples of Abel, Enoch and Noah, and from the warnings of Hebrews 6 and 10 on the evidence of faith in a believer’s past.

Transcript

Good morning again. As mentioned, we'll be in the book of Hebrews, and we will be looking at Hebrews chapter 11. Last time we were in Hebrews, we did kind of a big picture overview of the chapter. Today, we're going to start looking in a little bit closer.

So, we'll start in verse 1. By the way, if you're using a device or something and you want to know what version I'm in, I'm using the New King James version, although verses that I have memorized sometimes come out of my mouth in King James because that's the only version I've ever been memorizing since I was a little kid in the King James, and I can't switch over. So sometimes I may not be reading exactly what you're reading if you're looking at the New King James. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

That's not technically a definition of faith, but it is a description of what faith does in us, what it provides for us. Now, the world has some definitions of faith. There was a cynical editor named H. L.

Mencken, who is quoted as having defined faith as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. And Mark Twain said in two of his novels, faith is believing what you know ain't so. Each of those definitions involves something about belief or believing. And in that much, they're accurate.

Faith is believing. However, biblical faith is accurately, more accurately, confidence in God, confidence in God's Word, confidence in God's promises. Certainly, that involves believing, but it's specifically a belief in God's dependability or God's faithfulness. It's easy to have faith in somebody that you know will be faithful.

You can trust someone who is trustworthy. You can depend on somebody who is dependable. In 11.1, when it says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, it means that we can have confidence in the things that He has promised, and the things that He has promised will be delivered. Likewise, when it says that faith is the evidence of things not seen, it means that even though we cannot yet see with our eyes the things that He has told us, we can be confident that they are real and that they are true, because He does not and cannot lie.

Verse 2. By it, that's by faith, by faith the elders obtained a good testimony. That testimony is a testimony by God. Basically, it's their report card.

They got a good report card. They got an A-plus on their report card when God declared them righteous. When it talks about the elders there, it's not talking about the elders of a church or just the old people, but it's talking about what he said in chapter 1, verse 1. God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.

The fathers, the men of old in the Old Testament, God gave them a good report. He declared them approved. If you think about it, we all have faith. And we all live our lives based on the faith that we have.

The question is whether whatever or whoever we have faith in is trustworthy. By show of hands, how many of you believe that you were born? Okay. I'm glad to hear that.

Now, that's born as opposed to just hatching or maybe just appearing suddenly out of nowhere. Do you actually remember that event? Anybody? No.

So, truth be told, you're believing what somebody else told you. Your parents or your siblings or somebody who was in a position to know. And you believe them? Okay, it's all right.

I think it's fair that all of us believe that you were born at some point. I'm told that I was, and I believe that. Now, by show of hands, how many of you were there watching when the universe began? You see, everybody raised their hand last time, and nobody wants to raise their hand this time.

But, how many of you think that there were any scientists there when the universe began? None? All right. So, we're all in agreement that the universe exists.

What we disagree on, perhaps, is how and when it came into existence. What if we had a reliable witness to those events about how and when it happened? Verse 3, by faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. So, there is only one witness to what happened.

And that is the one who brought it into existence. He spoke it into existence. God said, let there be light, and there was light. Some people are not willing to accept the witness as a reliable witness.

Some are, some aren't. Now, many people are willing, rather, to accept the speculations and guesses of people who admittedly were not there. They didn't see it, and they can't really give testimony. They can just look back and say, well, we think it happened this way.

And their explanation for why it must have happened this way is because they ruled out the one possibility that there was a God who started it. Either way, it's a matter of faith. Do you choose to believe by faith that all of the complexities in the universe just happened by coincidence, random coincidences that happened over billions and billions and billions of years? Even one cell in your body has so much complexity in it that in a lot of cases, if one thing was not there, the cell would not work.

You take one little thing out of there, the cell would not work properly. So all of the complexities have to work together for it to work at all. It can't evolve from where it is if it can't survive to evolve. Or do you choose to believe that it was all designed by someone with greater intelligence and greater abilities than we have?

Again, what you choose to believe, that's where you put your faith, what you choose to believe will affect how you live your life. If God created the worlds, as He says that He did, then as Creator, He has the right to determine how His creatures should live for their own well-being. However, God has, in His infinite wisdom, given His creatures the ability to choose for themselves. He does not force us to do what He knows is best for us.

He gives us the choice. We can ignore Him. We can even actively, intentionally defy Him. But it will be to our own detriment.

Verse 4 By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and through it, he being dead, still speaks. Let's look back to Genesis chapter 4. Let's see if I can get there. It's all right, I have it in my notes.

Now Adam knew his wife Eve. This is verses 1 through 8. Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. Now that shows a little bit of faith on her part.

God had told her that her seed, from her seed, there would come someone who would destroy the serpent. Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord.

It's interesting that he was the first of the two to bring the offering. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

So the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

Now Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. We don't have a lot of detail given to us in the account of Genesis of what exactly Abel and Cain knew about God. We have no record in the Old Testament anywhere that Eve or Adam ever made an offering to the Lord or that they passed on any instructions to their sons about doing that, how to do it, when to do it, where to do it. We get no instruction on that, no details.

It seems possible and pretty likely that they must have gotten something from their parents to know to do this. We have to be careful how dogmatic we get with things like that. Many have suggested that the difference between the two offerings, why God accepted Abel's offering and not Cain's, was because Abel's offering was a blood sacrifice and Cain's was a bloodless sacrifice. That may be, that may not, I don't know, and God doesn't tell us.

From what I could find, looked at the Hebrew word for the sacrifice there, and said that usually the word that's used there refers to a bloodless, voluntary, not obligatory offering, but it can at times be used of a meat offering. If you look at the Greek in Hebrews chapter 11, the Greek word for Abel's sacrifice would typically include fire, but it does not necessarily involve blood. Now, certainly in Abel's case, it did involve blood because he brought of the fat of his flock. Now, what is certain from this is that Abel's offering was made in faith.

I don't know what that means about Cain's. I mean, obviously, his was not offered in faith. I don't know if he was not really believing that there was a God, and he was just bringing it just in case, or what was happening there. But God actually spoke to, we don't have any record of God talking to Abel, but we have a record of God speaking to Cain when he said, Why are you upset?

If you do what is right, if you do what is acceptable, will you not be accepted? God told him. But instead of doing what God told him, he opted to kill his brother. Think about it.

Abel was born in chapter 4, verse 2. And by chapter 4, verse 8, he had been murdered. Question. This says, in verse 4 of chapter 11 of Hebrews, he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and through it he being dead yet speaketh.

Where do we find, I didn't see it in Genesis. Where do we find God testifying of Abel's gifts that he was righteous? It's not going to be in Genesis chapter 4. Actually, where we get that is from Matthew chapter 23, verse 35, takes place between the triumphal entry and the crucifixion.

And Jesus said it. He's speaking of Jerusalem. And he says that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Jesus Christ, as God, gave testimony that Abel was righteous.

And he was righteous by his faith, according to this. Next question. In what way is Abel still speaking? It says he yet speaketh, or still speaks, in the New King James.

It seems we don't have any record of any word that Abel ever spoke, unless you count that God said that Abel's blood called out from the ground. It seems more likely that the verse is talking about Abel's example of faith still speaks to us. We can look at Abel and say there was a man who had faith, and there was a man who was approved of God. He was the first person in the Bible to die physically, and he died for his faith.

The next person introduced in the chapter here, verse 5, is a man who never died, the first of two men in the Bible who never died. By faith Enoch was translated so that he did not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God. If you looked at Genesis chapter 5, verses 21 to 24, Enoch lived 65 years and begat Methuselah.

And after he begat Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years and Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. We're not given details of how exactly Methuselah walked with God, but it's clear that he spent time with God. He spent time fellowshipping with the Lord and he stayed in a good relationship to God.

That doesn't mean that he never sinned. He never did anything that he shouldn't have done, but it's clear that he didn't leave his own sins undealt with. That would have come between him and God. He did whatever was prescribed at the time that dealt with sin, and he walked with God.

We're told in the New Testament that he was a prophet proclaiming judgment. Jude 1, 14 and 15, says, Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Whatever sins Enoch had, like I said, he dealt with. He had fellowship with God, and he kept that fellowship in good order.

So God took him out of the world without him dying to get out. There are people who believe that Enoch will return as one of the two witnesses that are mentioned in Revelation 11, who will prophesy during the end times, and we will have to wait to find out if that speculation is correct. We do not know for certain. It is clear that he had a good testimony on earth while he was alive.

People knew that he pleased God. The author of Hebrews tells us that Enoch pleased God. May we all have that aspiration that we would please God. If we have that goal, then we need to pay very, very close attention to the next verse.

It is impossible, without faith, it is impossible to please Him, that is God. For he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. How could we please Him if we didn't even believe that He existed? If we doubt that His promises are genuine, then why would we bother to believe?

God keeps His word. Interestingly, God keeps His word not only to people who believe, but God keeps His word even to unbelievers. What He says, He does. He makes promises of good things to those who believe, and He makes promises of judgment to those who do not.

And both promises will be fulfilled. The ones He is pleased with are the ones who trust Him and act on what He revealed to them. Take Noah, for instance. By faith, Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

That single verse covers four chapters' worth of Genesis. The author of Hebrews is intent on showing us that faith is made visible by action, the actions of those who have faith. Noah had not seen a worldwide flood before. Neither had anybody else.

The only thing he had to go on was when God told him that there was going to be a flood. It was going to wipe out everything on earth. And Noah responded with godly fear. Fear of the Lord.

And he knew he needed to take action. And God gave him instructions exactly what kind of action he needed to take if he wanted to escape this flood. God gave him everything he needed to know. He needed to build a big boat.

Get into it. Noah didn't turn away because of the size of the task. He spent a hundred years building that boat and took the action that God recommended. And it does make it, it does appear that he made an effort to convince others.

If you look at 2 Peter 2, verses 4 and 5, it tells us, if God did not spare the ancient world, but save Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing the flood on the world of the ungodly. He was a preacher of righteousness. He told others. The only people who listened to him were his own family.

When it says that Noah condemned the world, I don't think that means that he spent his time going around telling people, you're going to hell. You're going to hell. You're going to hell. You're going to hell.

All you people are going to hell. God is going to destroy all of you people. I don't think that was his approach. And he certainly was not the one who brought the judgment on the other people.

When it says he condemned the world, it's not that he was the judge and he said, okay, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, all of you, you're out. God is the one who pronounced the sentence of judgment. Noah simply agreed with God's assessment, and he agreed with God's plan to escape the judgment. He recognized God's ownership of the world and God's right to judge it.

And the fact that he acknowledged those things was enough for God to declare him righteous. Any other people who might have agreed with Noah would have received the same mercy. But they didn't. God's testimony of Noah is that Noah became the heir of the righteousness which comes by faith.

So he inherited the same righteousness that Abel had. The same righteousness that Enoch had. Each of those men trusted that God is gracious. And he applied the righteousness of Christ to their accounts proactively, beforehand, before Christ walked the earth.

His righteousness was already being put on their account. And he forgave, God forgave, all of their own unrighteousness. Now, as we've seen in the past few chapters, God promised not only to forgive sin, but also to forget it. I've got a question for you.

What will God not forget? Then turn back to chapter 6. The scary part in verses 4 through 8. Well, that's the portion of chapter 6 that many people think the author is warning his readers that they're in danger of losing their salvation.

Now, God, well, the author of Hebrews here, assures them that he has confidence that they are believers, that they were believers, because there was evidence that they were saved. Listen to this. Verse 9. But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you.

Yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward his name, in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. God tells us in chapter 8 of Hebrews, in Jeremiah 31, that God forgets sin. But he says here, God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward his name.

He is not in any way suggesting that their works saved them. But he states clearly that the works accompany salvation. They were saved, so they did work. Just like in Ephesians 2, by grace you were saved.

Through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. The salvation is by gift. Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.

Good works won't save you, but if you're saved, you're created unto good works. In other words, we see like we did a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago with the rat trap faith tester, that faith itself cannot be seen, but there is evidence of faith that can be seen by works. They provide the evidence of a saving faith. Now, in chapter 10, the other scary passage, the other really scary passage, 26 to 31, a lot of people get the impression there as well that God is, or that the author of Hebrews is telling them, folks, you're in danger.

You are in danger of losing your salvation. But he never actually says, you are in danger of losing your salvation. In fact, in verse 32, he goes back to what he did in chapter 6, right after the scary part. Fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

And he says, but recall the former days in which after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings, partly while you were made a spectacle, both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated. For you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. He takes them to the same thing, and he says, folks, there is evidence. I have personally seen the evidence that you have faith in God, that you are believers, you are saved.

I know it because you treated me. When you first got saved, and I went to jail, you guys aided me, and you were joyful in it. In spite of your suffering, in spite of the ridicule that other people heaped on you, in spite of the fact that you lost property over it, there was evidence of your faith. I find it interesting that the Holy Spirit used the same sort of illustration both times when he was talking about when their faith was faltering perhaps and they're thinking, man, I don't know.

He takes them back and says, look back. Look back. I see evidence of your faith. I see evidence of salvation in your lives.

From the past. And then here in chapter 10, he tells them, you recall the past. Recall where you were then. There is evidence of your salvation.

They might have been concerned that they had lost their salvation, or that they were about to lose their salvation, or that they might lose their salvation. And he says, no. There's evidence. So there was evidence in their past that they were believers, they had faith, and they had proven it by their actions.

And the Holy Spirit had the author remind them of that evidence, and then to tell them in chapter 10, verse 39, but we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul. I know that sometimes the we, in some of these verses, like verse 26, it says, if we sin willfully, and people say, well, the author was not actually including himself, because he was definitely saved, and he wasn't going to lose his salvation, but they might, and he was warning them, and he was using a we, like the nurse says, we're going to have a bath now, and you know good and well that she's not going to have a bath, you're going to have a bath, so. But then the same people, that we, they take it and they say, you. He's really saying you, not we.

He's not including himself. But then when you get to verse 39, they want to take that we and say he's using the royal we, you know, we are speaking from the pulpit this morning, which we are not, I am. But they take that and they say, we are not of those who draw back, that he is saying, you guys are in danger, but let me tell you, I am not one of the ones who is going, if it's we here, it's we here. And when he said, let us, let us, let us, earlier in chapter 10, he's talking about us, all of us, not just them.

He's not pointing at them. I don't believe. I don't think he is writing to unbelievers or to almost believers or whatever. He is writing to people who are saved.

They may be doubting. They may be scared of one thing or another. But he knew from the evidence that they had faith. And he was told by the Holy Spirit to remind them of those things.

It makes me think that perhaps when someone among us is discouraged, disgruntled, whatever, tempted to withdraw from assembling of ourselves together, like it talks about in 10, 10, 24, and 25. Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. When we see somebody who is discouraged, when we see somebody who is drifting away from the faith, we should do the same thing. Remind them of where they were in the past.

If we have seen evidence of salvation in their lives in the past, we need to remind them of the evidence that we have seen. We need to remind them to look back and see where they were then. And if we are discouraged, you or I are discouraged, then we should take that advice. Recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings, etc.

Look back at the past, at the evidence that was there before. Let that build up, let that strengthen your faith, and continue to do what you ought that provides evidence. In either case, if we look at someone else who is discouraged and thinking about giving up, going back to the old ways, and we don't see any evidence in the past of any actual faith, then we need to be trying to get the person saved. You know, okay, there's a reason why you're feeling like leaving, why you're feeling like, you know, it's not worth it.

Are you really a believer? If we look at our own lives and we say, hey, there is no evidence, really, of faith in my life at any point, we need to be asking, why not? I hope that each one here can look back in their lives and say, yes, there is evidence back there of salvation. And I will continue to walk with the Lord.

He has been faithful to me in the past. He has always come through for me in the past. I can tell you that God has brought me through a lot of things in my life, and I am grateful for every one of them. And I lean on them when things get tough.

I look back and I say, God has always been faithful. He will be faithful in this. What I am facing now, he will be faithful. Father, we come to you and we give you thanks for your word.

Thank you that it is trustworthy, that you are always faithful. We ask that you would help us to continue to believe and to continue to live in such a way that others can see that we believe. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Family Bible Hour featuring Sam Mikhael on “Christ Speaking of His Cross”. A teaching from the Gospels on the five ways the Lord Jesus spoke of His cross (a height, a baptism, a cup, an hour, and glory) and why His cross is unlike any other.

Transcript

Well, good morning, everyone. Somebody's been peeking at my notes. I didn't say it was a bad thing. Very good.

Very good. Well, in the will of the Lord, we're going to spend some time this morning. Having a look at how our Savior speaks of His cross. Now, we read a lot in the Word of God about the cross of Christ.

The Apostles discuss it. The Gospel writers discuss it. Evangelists throughout the Gospel discuss it. But how does the Lord Jesus Christ refer to His cross?

It's very interesting. It's something that maybe is a little bit unique. And this is what I want to start out with. Given the centrality of Christ's redemptive work on the cross, it is interesting that He never refers to it as His cross.

Throughout the Gospels, you will never see that the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of His cross. It's interesting. Now, that's not to say that He didn't clearly foretell of His crucifixion. By the way, this is somewhat of a summary, so I haven't put everything up here, but most verses are here.

Please feel free to refer to your Bibles and look up these verses at your convenience. He does refer to the crucifixion. He says in Matthew 20, and again in 26, that there will be those who will take the Son of Man and they will crucify Him. But this is actually speaking about the act of crucifixion rather than speaking of His cross.

Now, men of the day knew what crucifixion was. There was really no reason to describe it. It was something that was very well known. But His cross was far more than the act of crucifixion.

And this is what we want to spend our time on this morning. His cross is singularly unique. It is unlike any other crucifixion that has or afterwards took place. It's impossible to know how many people were crucified by the Romans.

Historians have estimated anywhere between tens of thousands, probably more likely hundreds of thousands, and it's conceivable that it even reaches into the millions. There were multiple crucifixions. History records that 6,000 men were crucified on one single day in 71 A. D.

It is a remarkably common, although tragic, sight. But again, the cross of Christ our Lord is singularly unique, and that's where we want to spend our time looking at this morning. But we will ask the Lord's help to do so before we get Thee for what He did the message. Father, we thank Thee again for our Savior, the Lord Jesus.

We thank Thee for what He has done on Calvary's cross. We readily admit to Thee that our minds on this side of eternity, limited as they are, plagued by sin, cannot fully understand what Christ has done. But we can say this, the Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me. Father, as we look at these things, open our understanding, help us to get a deeper appreciation of what the Lord Jesus Christ did.

And in so doing, in appreciating what He has done for us more, may we be better servants, may we be more conformed to the image of His Son. We ask these things in our Savior's name. Amen. Amen.

All right. Christ speaking of His cross. If our Lord indeed never referred to it as His cross, how does He speak of it? How does the Lord Jesus Christ refer to the cross if He does not say, My cross?

Well, let me tell you. There are five unique expressions that the Lord is going to use to refer to His cross. And in the will of the Lord, we're going to go through those this morning. Collectively, they describe the wonder of the Lord's work for His Father's glory and His people's good.

By the way, just as an aside, because I put this in after having done this series somewhere else, I was asked the question, does not the Lord refer to the crosses of the disciples? Yes, He does. He refers to them and their identification with persecution for His sake and the death of the old life, and the references are all there. But again, these are the crosses of the disciples, which are not the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is not the redemptive work of Calvary's cross. But yes, He does speak of those things as an aside. Well, the first time that the Lord speaks, at least chronologically, of these five statements, His cross's height is referenced. And it is spoken of in John chapter 3, verse 14.

And of course, He's speaking to Nicodemus. As Nicodemus came to Him by night, He says, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Now, the high and the lofty one who inhabits eternity stooped to taste death for every man. Now, I just want to stop here for a minute.

Have you ever thought what Isaiah is trying to reveal to us? The high and the lofty one who inhabits eternity. What do you inhabit? What period of time do you inhabit?

Yes, lifespan, indeed, absolutely, absolutely. But even in your lifespan, can you go back one minute or go forward one hour? Can you change what happened yesterday or appreciate what will happen tomorrow? We live literally a fraction of a second at a time.

And there's nothing more. James makes reference to this and he says, Our life is but a vapor. It appears and presently does disappear. Yes, the lifespan of man is short, but the inhabitant of that lifespan, what we can actually modulate and do with, is so infinitesimally small.

Boast not yourself of tomorrow. That's what the Word of God is telling us. But the God of heaven inhabits eternity all at the same time. A day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day when it is spent.

That's the concept that Isaiah is trying to describe. This is the one who inhabits all of eternity at the same moment. Time does not limit our God. As a matter of fact, time is a construct of our God.

In the beginning, time, God created the heavens, matter, and He created the earth. Sorry, in the beginning, God created the heavens, time. He created, oh boy, let me go that way. This is what happens when you go too fast, try to get everything.

Because I can't go back in a moment and change it. In the beginning, time, right? In the beginning, that's time. God created the heavens.

That's space. And He created the earth. That's matter. All of this was His creation.

He's external to these things. He's not limited by them. These things are things that He has made and are not things that control Him. Quite the contrary.

He controls them. The one who inhabits eternity stepped into time. And moreover, not only did He step into time, but He stooped to taste death for every man. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9.

Now, I come to certain points in Scripture and we accept them. But I must suggest to you that it's almost impossible to understand them. God cannot die, but He who died was God. These two things are true.

How they are reconciled. Well, we'll wait to eternity to find out exactly what it was. The one who inhabits eternity tasted death for every man. He stooped.

It's interesting, you know. He speaks of it as being lifted up. Being lifted up. If I be lifted up, He said, I will draw all men unto me.

But what a stoop it was. Paradoxical in its concept. So, this phrase that we've read, this passage that we read in John chapter 3, is drawn from Numbers chapter 21, where God's judgment arrived in the form of fiery serpents. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among, this is obviously Numbers 21.

Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many of the people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, we've sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpent from us. I want to look at three comparisons between what happened in Numbers and what the Lord is describing in John chapter 3.

Now, the serpent obviously recalls mankind's fall, Genesis chapter 3. Reptiles are associated with the ground. I don't know about you, but they're not really my friends. I don't care for them.

I know there are some people who like snakes. I don't mean to offend anybody, but if a snake is coming towards me, I'm typically going in the other direction. And I think most people are quite comfortable with that concept. They're associated with ground and humiliation, and it's a ubiquitous reminder of the curse.

Remember, there's going to be enmity between the woman and the serpent. Have you ever wondered why the method of Christ's sacrificial death was crucifixion? Now, I'm going to have to go down a little rabbit trail here. When we read of Psalm 22, which the Lord clearly references in crucifixion on the cross, that is roughly around 1,000 B.

C. , 1,000 years before Christ. Historically speaking, the first time that we read in history of crucifixion is probably in the neighborhood of 600 B. C.

, somewhere possibly in either the Far East or in what's commonly known as Persia today. Historians can sometimes argue back and forth, but there's at least a 400-year period between when David wrote Psalm 22 and when crucifixion first appears. Man didn't have any concept, thank God, of what crucifixion was when David wrote Psalm 22. They pierced my hands, my feet.

You stand in deep mire where there is no standing. That's suffocation that takes place on the cross. And yet, the Lord was subject to these things. Why?

Why crucifixion? Well, I'd like to suggest to you this. To answer this, we need to go back to Genesis, where the ground was cursed on two occasions. The ground was cursed, in Genesis chapter 3, for man's sake.

Cursed is the ground for thy sake, Adam. You sinned, and you cannot rule over an unfallen earth. As a matter of fact, there's many reasons why the cursing of the ground was actually a benevolence from God. But the ground was cursed for man's sake.

The second time is also in Genesis. It comes a little bit later, Genesis chapter 8, during the flood, where in retrospect, the Lord says, I will never again curse the ground because of man. In other words, the ground was cursed during the flood. So it was cursed in the Garden of Eden, and it was cursed in the flood.

But the Lord makes this statement after the flood. He says, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake. On these two occasions, it's clear that the ground was cursed. In the flood's aftermath, though, the Lord promised it would never happen again.

But there was a third time when a curse emanated from heaven, and it came hurtling down towards the earth. But it stopped short of the earth, because the Lord was lifted up. He was suspended between heaven and earth. It was a matter of the Lord receiving the blow that the earth deserved.

But God had promised He would not curse the ground for man's sake. That curse fell short, because the Lord Jesus Christ took it. It fell upon our Lord at Calvary's cross, who was suspended between heaven and earth, as if to say, neither had any place for Him. He was going to be the sin bearer, so He was not part of heaven.

And yet God, and I say that very cautiously, but God would not curse the ground, so He was lifted up, suspended between these two places. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. How? By becoming a curse for us.

It's a remarkable concept. He was cursed for us. That which was deserved by every living human being came down from heaven in the form of judgment and fell short because Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree because He was lifted up. It never touched the ground.

Now, two. Let's talk about man's plea and God's provision. Man's solution to the fiery serpents back in Numbers 21 was very limited. They merely wanted the serpents to be removed.

Lord, there are these serpents. They're biting us. Get rid of them. That's all we want.

We want to get rid of the momentary trouble. You know, that is the problem of mankind today. When they have problems in life, when we have problems in life, I won't say they. When mankind has problems in life, what do we do?

We cry to God and say, take it away. Take it away. And there were no different back in those days. The serpents are biting us and we want you to take it away.

But I want to point something out. God's salvation was far greater than just removing the serpents. You see, God would not remove the serpents, but He would remove their sting. It's a wonderful picture of what the Lord Jesus Christ did.

You see, had only the serpents been removed, all future bites would be, only future bites, sorry, would be resolved. But God's solution healed past, present, and future bites of these serpents. It's a beautiful picture of what Christ has done for us. Sin is gone.

Past sins, present sins, future sins, they're all gone because Christ was lifted up. You see, He did not remove the serpent, He removed the sting of the serpent. You know, we often go to funerals, probably too often. It's a terrible reminder of the consequence of what sin does in this world.

And we often hear Psalm 23. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. When was the last time a shadow hurt you? I have a wonderful house, and I'd like you to come and buy it, alright?

And you can buy the shadow. It casts a lovely shadow. It's beautiful. You can see the gables, and you can see the columns through the sunlight.

Who's going to buy that? When was the last time a shadow was of any value? When was the shadow ever going to harm? When was a shadow ever going to help?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Why is it a shadow? Because Christ has removed the consequence of death from the believer. For me, to live is Christ.

Ah, but to die, that's gain. That's gain. Oh, death, where is thy victory? Oh, grave, where is thy sting?

It's gone. The Lord did not remove the serpent. He removed the sting of the serpent. And it is just merely for us, a shadow.

Believer, we are all going to walk that veil one day. Some of us sooner than later. I remember speaking very distinctly on this subject. Not this particular message, but this subject.

And days later, a young lad who was in the meeting was taken by the Lord in a motorcycle accident. It wasn't his fault. Absent from the body, he is present with the Lord. You see, the serpent is still there.

Death is still there. But the sting is gone. We don't fear death. We know what's on the other side.

We know who is on the other side. And who is awaiting us. So, believer, whether it's a long time away, God forbid, if it's sooner than later, don't fear what is on the other side. Christ is on the other side.

Why? Because he's removed that sting from us. He finally lifted up the humiliation of the cross. You see, initially the cross does not seem to be an elevated state.

Well, physically it was an elevated state, but certainly from a moral or from a pragmatic or from any other vantage point, it was not a place of honor. After all, this was a shameful place. The final end for humanity's worst criminals. But nonetheless, it was God's intent to use it as the centerpiece of his great plan of salvation.

Only God's Son was found completely sufficient for its propitiatory sacrifice for the world's sins. We marvel when the Lord said to his enemies, which one of you convinces me of sin? Boy, I wish some politicians would say that. You see, Peter writes of the Lord Jesus Christ, he did no sin.

No, that's good. He did no sin. But it also says there was no guile found in his mouth. I don't know if you're close enough to the sea, but where we live, many, many men make their living on the sea.

And they know all about this word guile. The word guile is actually where we get our word bait. Because when you go out to fish, what do you do? You want to beguile the fish.

Oh, this is good. This lure is tasty. Yeah. It's got the right little angle.

It flickers the light. This is a really good piece of fish that you need to eat. We beguile the fish. You see, what the Word of God is saying is not only did the Lord Jesus Christ commit no sin, He beguiled no man to sin.

Of course, when you come to the book of Colossians, we read that the beguiler of all men is Satan. But the Lord Jesus Christ was able to say, which one of you convinces me of sin? He was absolutely perfect. But His worst, greatest proclamation came from heaven itself when on at least two occasions, God Himself says, this is my beloved Son.

You remember the first occasion? It took place on the Jordan. And there it was that John the Baptist was baptizing. And the Lord Jesus Christ came to him.

And John says, hold on a second. I need to be baptized by you, not you by me. I think we've got things backwards here. And the Lord said, well, look, let's leave it because it is for righteousness' sake.

We don't have time to get into that. But that's a very interesting concept. The Lord indeed humbled himself and became obedient. And part of that obedience meant he fell under the law and its responsibilities.

And the Lord allowed himself to be baptized. However, all of heaven decided by this statement to make it clear that this one who was being baptized was different. This one was not like all the others who'd come into the water and came up out of the water. This is my beloved son.

He was distinguished from the worst of men. But there was another time when it was proclaimed the same phrase. Put my hands in front. You see, heaven proclaimed the same phrase.

When did that take place? That was on the Mount of Transfiguration. And he stood between two of the greatest patriarchs of the faith, the Jewish faith. He stood between these two men, Moses and Elijah.

And heaven still made the same proclamation. You see, God distinguished him from the worst of men. And God distinguished him from the best of men. Because the best of men are still men at best.

And this was an absolutely unique individual. Unlike anyone else, God proclaimed his perfection. You see, only he could ascend to the heights of Calvary's cross with the requisite sinless perfection. It wasn't good enough to have a spotless lamb anymore.

Innocence. There needed to be perfection in this sacrifice. And there was only one who was found good enough to take the penalty of sin, and that is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did so by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God to save all of mankind.

And this is where the height really meets its full meaning. You see, Christ was lifted up and distinguished from all men, yes, in sacrifice, yes, in crucifixion, but He was the only one who was worthy, if you could think of it that way, to be crucified for us. He was the only one who was perfect. You see, at the end of these things, at the end of these things, when He was lifted up for us, and He bore the sacrifice for us, God was satisfied.

Every single time there was a sacrifice in the Old Testament, there was a necessity to have another, and another, and another, and another. But the height was met when Christ was sacrificed on Calvary's cross. And so He refers to His cross as a height. Well, the second time, and we need to keep moving, the second time He refers to it, we find it in Luke chapter 12, He refers to it as a baptism.

He says to His disciples, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. Here the Lord refers to His cross as a baptism, something that submerged Him in suffering under divine wrath. Now, the physical sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, we don't have the time to completely discuss these things, but we don't have an understanding. 21st century man has no understanding.

You know, in this day and age, many of us look back, and we think of people from that era as being simple, you know, not having the understanding that we do. Well, talk to the mathematicians. They still haven't quite figured out how the pyramids were built under the limitations physically that they had of the day. The math that they used then, they haven't quite figured it all out yet.

It's intriguing. We think of these people as being simple, but they really weren't. You see, the Romans were experts at crucifixion. They were experts at suffering and torture.

Let me give you a simple example. The Lord Jesus Christ had a crown of thorns placed upon His head. And yes, that was for mockery, and yes, that was for shame. But there was also a medical reason for that.

That suffering was immense. Those thorns, in my front yard, I have a little palm tree which came all the way from the Middle East. And I'm not saying that it is the exact type of tree that was taken, where the plat of thorns was crowned, but it very likely was very similar. They're about three and a half inch thorns, you see.

And if you look at them, they're green at the part where they leave the branch. But at the very end, they're brown and dry. And the purpose was to plat these thorns into a crown, place it upon the head, and then beat it into the head. You see, and it would go through the scalp, and I don't mean to be too gruesome or medical, but it would go through the scalp, and it would hit the skull, and the tip would break off.

So long after the crown had fallen off, these little dried pieces were underneath the scalp, and they would begin to abscess and postulate, and the pressure upon the head was a remarkable thing. They knew how to cause suffering, these Romans did. We could go on and on about the flagellum. The physical sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ are not something to be treated tritely.

They're awful. They're beyond our imagination in this century. Thank God they are. But He endured tremendous suffering on our behalf.

The Word of God says this. By His stripes we are healed. The sufferings that He went through were because of us. The psalmist in Psalm 42 describes it this way.

Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of the water spouts. Thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Deep calleth unto deep. This is where we get the concept of supersonic.

Something that literally sonic booms of sound. If you've ever lived near an airport, you understand what a sonic boom is. When a plane exceeds the speed of sound, it's a remarkable force which causes a tremendous shockwave. And it's deafening.

This is the concept here. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts and the waves and the billows. They've gone over me and they were severe and they were repetitive and they were overwhelming. God made the firmament, if we went back to Genesis chapter 1, and He separated waters from above from waters from below.

And the psalmist here is drawing upon that metaphorically to say that these two great waters, literally above and below, they collapsed upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The physical sufferings that He went through. You see, they offered Him up as a drink offering. But then there's the spiritual sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Did you know that no eye ever beheld the consequence and punishment for sin? Let me give you an example. You remember during the Exodus, back in Exodus chapter 12, where the Paschal Lamb was to be sacrificed. And the Paschal Lamb was to be taken out and He was to be examined for three days and to be found spotless.

And at the end of the three days, He was to be sacrificed. And then the night of the Passover, the blood was to be applied on the doorposts and the lintel. And what were the people supposed to do? They had to go inside the house.

If they were not inside the house, under the blood, there was no salvation for them. And then, when night time fell, that's when the angel of the Lord came. And no eye saw the saving power of the blood. Because they were inside the house.

No eye has seen the saving power, human eye, has seen the saving power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because God closed the door. He shut the window. No eye saw because it was not something that we could take in.

We have some concept of the physical sufferings, although it's feeble at best. But they pale into insignificance when we consider the spiritual sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have some concept of this. Forgive me.

Time is running, so I don't want to spend too much time. We have some consequence of this. When the Lord speaks of it. And we're going to let that go for time because our time is running.

Forgive me. So the second was a baptism. The first was a height. The third is this concept of a cup.

John chapter 18, the Lord Jesus Christ says, So Jesus said to Peter, Put your sword in its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup that my Father has given to me? We know the story here, right? Peter didn't want to see the Lord arrested, so he pulled out a sword, right?

And he decided to go after the adversaries. And Malchus was standing there. Do you think Peter was aiming for his ear? I don't think so.

But there was poor Peter, heart beating, 200 beats a minute, anxious, swinging for all he was worth, and he just took off the ear. And this poor, poor man, Malchus, was there, and he'd lost his ear. It's a wonderful metaphor, by the way. If you want to propagate the Gospel by violence, what do you end up with?

Let me say that again. If you want to propagate the Gospel with violence, what do you end up with? A deaf audience. You see?

But the Lord healed him. And then after he healed him, he makes this statement. He says, The cup which my Father gives me, shall I not drink it? You see, a well-meaning Peter did what he did in the garden.

But Christ's cross was a divine appointment that he willingly took from the hand of his Father. We read about it prophetically in Psalm 75. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well-mixed, and he pours from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it to its dregs. This judgment wine, instead of the wicked drinking it, was consumed by the Lord Jesus Christ for us.

It's described in three ways. It's described as being foaming. It was rapidly poured out. Rapidly poured out.

There was no period of grace or rest on Calvary's cross. There was just moment by moment of suffering. This was a foaming mixture. It was well-mixed.

The bitter sediment was in each sip. There was no respite for the Lord Jesus Christ. And he drank it down to the dregs. Now, I don't know if there's too many vintners here, but they tell me, I am no vintner, but they tell me that you have to be very careful to remove the dregs from the wine because if you don't, some of those dregs can be poisonous.

And yet the Lord Jesus Christ is described as having drunk it to the bitter dregs. Only Christ could consume the entire wrath of God against sin. Only He could do it. Only He could consume that cup.

The cup, for those of us who are here at the first meeting, it wasn't the cup of wicked curse. It was the cup of blessing that we consume because the Lord Jesus Christ consumed it. You see, in every other sacrifice, the fire consumed the sacrifice. But at Calvary's cross, the sacrifice consumed the fire.

You recall Elijah on Mount Carmel? You know the story. There he was, and there was no rain. There was a drought, and there was a competition between the servants of Baal and the servant of the true and living God.

And when they had done all that they could do, and there was not anything from heaven, not a peep from heaven, what does Elijah do? Well, he fashions an altar. Out of stone. And he puts wood on the altar.

And on the altar he puts a sacrifice. But he doesn't stop there. He says, I want 12 barrels of water. Now wait a second.

Hold on. It hadn't rained. Where did they get the water? Well, that's simple.

It was seawater. Because Mount Carmel is right by the sea. So they went down and they got 12 barrels. And they said, well, we want to make sure that the water doesn't drain away.

We want to make sure that the water stays. So we're going to dig a ditch. And the water that is on top of this soaked sacrifice, wet wood, wet stone, will be caught. And it will still be there, part of the sacrifice.

And then the Lord showed his power. And the fire came down from heaven. And that sacrifice? Ash.

And the wood? Gone. The stone licked up as well. Do you know what fire needs to be applied to consume stone?

Oh, the wrath of God is great against sin. And every single drop of water was gone too. What a sacrifice that was. But did that end sacrifice?

No, it didn't. There was sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice after that. But that same wrath fell upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in the form of the cup which he drank to the bitter dregs. And there is therefore now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.

You see, the fire consumed the sacrifice in the Old Testament. But the sacrifice consumed the fire at Calvary's cross. Fourthly, we read of the cross as a duration. The Lord Jesus Christ answered them and said, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

The hour. Though he spoke of it as an hour, just a drop of time drawn from eternity's endless well, how horribly long it must be. I don't know if you've ever been in pain. But the first thing that flashes through your mind is how long.

How much longer? If you don't understand what I'm talking about, ask any woman who's gone through childbirth. Ladies? Okay, I got the heads going now.

How much longer is this pain going to go on? How much longer is this pain going on? In my previous profession, I've stood by bedsides, and I've been asked that question. How much longer before it goes away?

I just need this to go away. The Lord spoke of it as just an hour, but oh, what an hour. From the beginning to the end of this hour, He cried, Father. At the beginning, it was, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

At the end, it was, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. But in the middle of the darkness, it was no longer Father. It was, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Jeremiah gives us a wonderful picture, prophetically speaking, of this.

In the book of the Lamentations, he says, Look, look, and see if there be any sorrow, like unto my sorrow, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger. It was a remarkable thing that the Lord Jesus Christ endured that time. And here's the thing. Men on the cross would often spit back vile at those who had put them on the cross.

But what does Peter say? He says, when he was reviled, he reviled not again. And when he suffered, he threatened not, but commended himself to him that judges righteously. All these men could do on the cross was speak ill of those who had put him there.

But the Lord did no such thing. But there was one other great difference. He could have extricated himself from that place at any moment. Do you not think that I could not call twelve legions of angels from my father's house and deliver me from this place?

Do you think that's not a possibility? Oh, but thankfully we read in the book of Isaiah this. That as a lamb is brought to the slaughter, and as a sheep before shears is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Why do you think that's important?

He didn't open his mouth manward, but he didn't open his mouth Godward either. He didn't call down that which was his right or ability to call. You see, justice demanded that man suffer throughout eternity for his sin, and thus equity demanded that Christ suffer through the infinite depths of agony. If your sin requires that you suffer the countless ages of eternity as a penalty for that sin, then the Lord had by equity to suffer all of that.

Not just for your sins or my sins, but for the sins of the whole world. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. John makes it even clearer. He says, little children, these things have I written unto you that you sin not.

But if you sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sin. And not our sin only, but for the sin of the whole world. How many sins were committed in Maitland last night? Saturday night.

Yeah. How many? How about Orlando? How about Florida?

The United States, North America, the entire world one night. God hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. What a cup. What a cup.

And he drained it to the bitter, bitter end. Our time is running, so I want to spend just a moment on this last one. The Lord lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify you.

It's fitting, you know, that the first reference is a height and the last reference is glory. The last reference is glory. Just as we may not initially see the cross as being a height, we may also miss its glory. But was it indeed glorification for the Son of God to suffer, bleed, and die on the cross?

Praise God it was. Praise God it was. The great paradox of suffering and glory put together is seen when one understands that the cross accomplished reconciliation. Then I restored that which I took not away.

It was glory for him because he saw the end result of what would happen via that suffering. His cross work was the culmination of his obedience to the Father. He said to Pilate, for this purpose was I born, and for this purpose I have come into a world to bear witness of the truth. I wish we had some time on this.

Calvary was not about power. Power was solved eons before. When the devil was cast out of heaven, when the man and the woman were cast out of the Garden of Eden, that was power. Calvary was not about power.

Calvary was about truth. Who was telling the truth? Was it the serpent? You shall be as gods if you eat the fruit.

If you disobey God, you will be as God. Was that true? Or was what God said true? There will be the seed of the woman, and he will crush the serpent's head, and he will bruise his heel.

Which was going to be true? Calvary was all about truth. Of course, the truth lay with God. And Calvary was proof that God's Word is and was true.

Via the truth of the cross, he would reconcile all things unto himself. I love this hymn. I don't know if you sing it. I thought maybe we could sing it on the way out, but our time is long spent.

But here we are. John Nelson Darby, And is it so? I shall be like thy son. That's the reconciliation we're talking about.

Oh, it's not a matter of reconciling us back to the garden. It's not a matter of reconciling us back to a state of innocence. It's a matter of reconciling us back to sons of the living God. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons of God.

The sons of God. We are the firstborn of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, of course. Because, indeed, we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. We enjoy the privileges of the firstborn, not just sinless perfection in the garden with Adam.

We have more in Christ than Adam could have ever hoped for. And is it so I shall be like thy son? Is this the grace which he for me is one, Father of glory, thought beyond all thought and glory, to his own blessed likeness brought. So, just to summarize, the cross is unlike any other.

Because its height, only Christ had the prerequisite sinless state. Because of its depth, he could be vicariously submerged into suffering and he could come out the other side. Its bitterness, only he was able to drink to the bitter dregs all the judgment of God. The duration, no one else.

Think about it this way. If you enter eternity in your sin and you are condemned to hell for all of eternity, forgive me, all of eternity, will you have then paid for your sins? No. There's no end.

Only Christ could endure the duration of agony on our behalf. And then finally, the glory. Only He could glorify the Father's will in bringing many sons to glory. Small wonder that from henceforth all true believers join Paul in saying, but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.

Rightly viewed, Christ's cross is the eternal demonstration of God's incomparable character and His love for mankind. So I hope in these few simple moments we have a greater appreciation of the uniqueness of Calvary's cross. That's why I'd like to suggest to you He does not refer to it just as a cross. It's far more than just a cross.

It was all these things that satisfied the heart of God and has benefited His people. Father, we thank Thee again for this time together. We pray Thy blessing upon these simple thoughts. We ask Thee to use them so that we would love our Savior more and serve Him better.

We ask these things in His name.

Wednesday Devotional featuring Dan Burson on “Remember them that are in bonds”. A devotional from Hebrews 13:3 on remembering persecuted believers in prayer, drawn from the testimony of a former imam who suffered for coming to Christ and from the plight of Christians in Afghanistan, North Korea and Nigeria.

Transcript

There are words to that hymn and the reason I picked it out is it goes with the theme for this evening. A subject dear to my heart, what happened, is in 1970, Marilyn and I were smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain into Eastern Europe with literature crusades. In that process, we made another trip to bail some Christians out of prison who were in Hungary and who were Hungarian Christians. And who had been caught with the Bibles.

So Marilyn and I found out that their fine was $2,000, which was the equivalent of a year's wages. So there was no way that these people could pay the fine and be released from prison. So Christians here in the United States put together the money and Marilyn and I went over. And Marilyn's mind was so sharp back then that she memorized all the directions to people's houses that we need to go to so that nothing was written down.

So if we were ever caught or searched, as we were once or twice at different times, there was no evidence. And so we would rely on Marilyn, and she would give us exact directions to, in this case, the woman's house whose husband was imprisoned so that we could deliver the funds. And so we did that. Now the reason I bring that to your attention is because that's what we're going to look at tonight.

Hebrews 13, 3, Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them, and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body. I'm talking about persecuted believers, Christians who are imprisoned for the sake of Christ. And around the world, there are many tonight suffering. And so as we pray this evening, I'd like us to remember in our prayer, we don't have a prayer sheet tonight because Tim Baldwin, unfortunately, hurt his knee badly and had to go to emergency.

He's in a hospital emergency room because he has sepsis in his knee. And so he's in an emergency room right now. So that's why he's not here with our normal prayer sheets. But I'd like to at least add this to our prayer request tonight for imprisoned believers who are suffering for their faith.

Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them, which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. Matthew 5:10 says, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. So this evening I'd like to give you a concrete example of what I'm talking about. This is testimony of a gentleman who they're referring to as Peter, modern day Peter, because some of the things that have happened to him actually happened to Peter. His real name is Jadrah.

Jadrah was an imam over 50 years, and then Jesus appeared to him. When he became a Christian, his nephew severely beat him, and mobs tried to kill him. Extremist imams tried to force him to return to Islam. Jadrah's prayer is to witness to all his previous followers before he dies, so they will believe and be baptized.

He said, I was searching to be closer to God. One night he heard a voice say, Go to the place. A light appeared, and he followed the light into a mosque where the light shut off. Someone called his name.

Jadrah asked, Why did you lead me here? Who are you? And a voice said, I am Jesus Christ. You are looking for me.

That's an unusual thing. And sometimes in these Muslim countries, very unusual things happen in terms of leading people to Christ who have no other resource to bring them, where missionaries cannot go, where the Word of God is not at all available. And he said, I had no peace. I needed to find books that come before the Koran.

So he found a Bible and a Christian who answered his questions when he read that Jesus is the life and way to heaven. He believed. He continued leading prayers in mosques and preached about Jesus based on passages from the Islamic teachings. Isn't that interesting?

Because I've read the Koran and in it there are parts regarding Christ. But you never think of people using those parts regarding Christ to teach other people. At any rate, the persecution began with his family. His nephew, a Muslim extremist, confined him in a room and beat him so badly he couldn't move, demanding that Jadra leave that religion and revert to Islam.

He actually hired nine men to keep Jadra from escaping. Jadra prayed, God saved Abraham's son from the fire and Jonah from the fish. I believe God has the power to save me from this room. He didn't get angry or scold his nephew because he knew that Christ was persecuted in this world.

Jesus said that if anyone believes in him, they will be persecuted and humiliated. And that's why I behaved very well. His nephew let him go but forced him to leave the village. Then told a mufti and an Islamic legal expert where to find Jadra.

The mufti incited 5,000 people to surround Jadra's home. The elderly man was mercilessly beaten and forced to say that he did not become a Christian. That's why we sang that hymn tonight. Did you see about renouncing Christ?

In that hymn it mentions renouncing Christ, being forced to. But they did not believe his denial. After two days they decided to kill him. They bound and stuffed him in a bag and were ready to throw him in a river where Jadra prayed.

The bag opened and he fell out and got away. Extremists found him and took him to the mufti's compound. But the next day the mufti suddenly became paralyzed. Jadra escaped again.

Three months later the mufti came to Jadra's village. He saw Jadra's injuries and asked for forgiveness. Jadra said, I don't have any problem with you. Jesus Christ will forgive you.

To this day people mock him. His children abandon him. Some of his former followers threaten to kill him. And the anguish of being rejected by his loved one is worse than the physical torment he mentioned.

If I'm in need, no one in the village helps me. They look at me like I'm an animal, not a human being. They treat me like a street dog. Yet he secretly spreads the good news.

I make friendships, share a bit, then invite them to a quiet place where no one can see us. And there I share the Gospel with them. I have to do this very carefully. Many of his former followers now believe in Christ.

But no one will hire him. They must travel for where they are not known as Christians to find work as field laborers. Jadra said that when he was an Iman, he said, I had no financial problems and no peace in my heart. After believing in Christ, I have no food, but I always feel peace.

Jadra's friends call him a living Peter because, like the apostle, God revealed to him that Jesus is the Christ. And like Peter, he uses sacred books to reveal Jesus to others. He is beaten, mistreated for preaching about Christ, and he once, under torment, denied Christ. It is hard for us to fully grasp the extreme pressures put on Christian converts to force them to recant and return to the religion of their society.

Many Christian converts in high-risk nations are rejected and abused by their families and communities. They lose their meager belongings, their jobs, health, from injuries. They are outcast from society. Some converts are pursued by extremists who are determined to make them revert or die.

That's why they especially need our prayers and support and pray that God will encourage believers like Jedra to persevere. It makes us think how blessed we are to live in a nation where we have freedom to meet like this and not be persecuted for our faith in Christ. Jesus did warn his followers that they would be persecuted. He promised that the ones who perseveres to the end will be saved.

Over 388 million Christians face high levels of persecution and discrimination, and here are some examples to focus on our prayers. The extremely dangerous countries are Afghanistan. Christians in Afghanistan face the death penalty for leaving Islam. Even those who flee the country are at risk of persecution from other Afghan refugees, but God is reaching Afghans, especially ones dismayed by Islamist cruelties and drawn to Christ's love.

North Korea. North Koreans suffer unimaginable persecution under a cruel regime where the Bible is banned and Christianity is illegal. Some escape through China. If they are found, China forcibly returns them where they face punishments of hard labor, torture, and execution.

But God is reaching North Koreans who take great risks to follow Christ. Nigeria. More Christians are brutally killed in Nigeria than all other countries combined. Isn't that incredible?

Than all the other countries in the world. Islamist terrorists attack Christian villages, mutilating and massacring people, and destroying property. Massive numbers of Christians are displaced, orphaned, and traumatized. But God is equipping Christians to care for and restore those who are hurting.

Nigeria. So the cost for those who believe. Christian converts in militant Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and communist countries. They force extreme pressure to deny Christ.

They face extreme pressure. They are harassed, beaten, imprisoned, outcast, threatened with death, and their property stolen or damaged. Christian in hostile societies that are hostile to Christianity face harsh discrimination. Overtly or subtly, they are denied jobs, education, and aid during crisis.

They are falsely accused of crimes out of hatred or vengeance. Officials abuse their authority to allow or perpetrate discrimination. Of course, widows, orphans are traumatized. Christian widows and orphans face persecution and are extremely vulnerable and ill-equipped to provide for themselves when they lose the breadwinner of their family.

Christians traumatized from persecution need God's supernatural healing to flourish. So we need to pray for grace and endurance for these people. 1 Peter 5:10 says, And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. Secondly, pray for God's strength and weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9 My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Paul experienced suffering, but learned that God's grace was enough. And through his weakness, God's strength was revealed. Number three, pray for those who persecute the church.

Acts 7:59 says, While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep, and Saul approved of his execution. So, of course, being a Christian convert and evangelizing in Muslim countries is very dangerous.

And even getting baptized is risky for everyone who's involved. So we need to pray for our fellow believers who are facing this kind of constant persecution. And also give thanks for the fact that we have opportunities to spread the Gospel unhindered and without governmental interference, at least at this point.

Family Bible Hour featuring Trenton Tuggle on “Do Not Be Afraid”. A teaching from the youth group’s Life of Christ study on the kingdom offered and rejected, God’s sovereign plan, and Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2), applied to an anxious age.

Transcript

Sorry about that. Well, as I was doing some research leading up to this, I stumbled upon a number of poll results, which had interesting numbers in my mind. I found this one from the American Psychiatric Association, and this is from May of this year, so a number of months ago. And in May of this year, the APA polled a number of people, and the respondents that answered that Americans are either very or somewhat anxious about, 53% of them said that they were anxious about the impact of emerging technology in everyday life.

I thought that was really interesting. 53% either very anxious or somewhat anxious about the impact of emerging technology. This was way back in May. 60% said that they were either somewhat anxious or very anxious.

60% about keeping myself or my family safe. I thought that was really interesting. 60%. And even larger, 62% said that they were very or somewhat anxious about current events happening around the world.

Now, this was published in May, and probably the respondents, the poll was probably taking place right about when we kicked off this thing in Iran. So perhaps that was part of it. 82%, though. That seems like a high number to me.

So, I also have a bit of a cough. Please excuse me. I'm going to have a drink of water handy. So just last week, published in the New York Times, there was an article titled, The Problem with Apocalyptic Thinking.

And it's subtitled, From Climate to COVID to AI, we face a terrifying feeling of exponential growth spinning out of our control. Are we right? In other words, is this feeling right? In other words, translated, is the feeling grounded and based in reality?

Are we indeed spinning exponentially out of control? So you might recognize some of the faces on the right over here. But it talked about climate alarm, COVID, and artificial intelligence. And on the right-hand side, you'll see at the bottom is, of course, the COVID shopping in masks.

Second up, we've got Greta Thunberg, the face of climate alarmism. And at the very top, you might not recognize him. That's Dario Amode, who is the CEO of Anthropic, one of the top two AI companies. OpenAI with ChatGPT and Anthropic.

with their product called Claude or Claude Code. You might have heard of it. It's changed lives, to say the least. I know, right?

The article went on. So I thought this was a fascinating article, but it talked about a number of other forms of existential dread. I wish my remote was working here. I'm sorry.

I'm going to have to stand here blocking you all. But it talked about the fertility crisis, a bunch of different things, the woke mind virus, 5G, the great replacement, and most important, perhaps, they talked about the fall of American democracy. Now, I found this really, really fascinating because in the very same paper, when I clicked back to the homepage of the New York Times, they had this article about Mamdani's surprisingly persuasive solution to a world on fire. I found this interesting because Mamdani is an admitted socialist and, of course, famously, both Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

He explained that socialism is the required number one step on the path towards communism. So I thought that was interesting that their concern was the fall of American democracy. Here's a quote from it, and the feeling that all these visions share is the drop in your stomach sensation of contemplating sudden and overwhelming loss of control. That was really interesting.

So I found a more recent poll. This is from Quinnipiac University, taken only last month, and it found that Americans are very or somewhat concerned that future AI systems could potentially threaten human survival. 73% of respondents were either very or somewhat concerned that future AI systems could potentially threaten human survival as a species. I thought this was really eye-opening.

This was very, very interesting that so many people are living in such fear. So I thought I would share what we're studying in the life of Christ with the youth group. If you don't know, every Fridays we've got a youth teaching, a class. It starts at 6.30.

I teach the class currently. And we actually start eating pizza at 6 o'clock. And the class starts at 6.30. And we usually have kids plus maybe one two or three adults sitting on a class.

And the kids are anywhere from ages 9. It's basically, if your kid has the patience to sit through an extremely boring one-hour Bible lecture, they're welcome to it. And so we have kids anywhere from age 9 to 10 on up through. We have a number of college kids.

I think we now have at least some sophomores in college. So you're welcome to join us there. But what we're studying is the life of Christ. So let's go ahead and open in prayer.

And then I want to jump into some teaching from this class for this morning. Our great God, our Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that you sent him, that he became flesh and dwelt among us. Thank you that he was made in every way as we are, tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Thank you that you made him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf, that we might have your righteousness. All those that believe in his name. And so thank you. We pray that you'd be with us this morning as we look into your word.

We pray that you'd just guide and direct our hearts, our thoughts, our minds, and that we would just learn about you and glorify you in all that we think. In Jesus' name, amen. Introduction to my class. There are a couple people here, I think, who haven't probably seen the last time I introduced this.

It's been some time. Usually what I do when I'm volunteered for a Sunday morning is I try to put together what we've been doing in youth group, particularly if it's relevant. I happen to think it's relevant. And what this class is, is it's a chronological, geographical, and theological study in the life of Christ.

And so the premise, just by means of introduction, is that most of us can place these events in chronological order. If you had to place those in order, how would you do it? You know, most of us could do that. You know, let's say probably the birth, then maybe, yeah, probably baptism.

Let's see, resurrection? No, death first, then resurrection. Pretty straightforward. But what about all those other events?

What about the feeding of the 5,000? What about the feeding of the 4,000? What about the cleansing of the temple? Did it come before that or after that?

The answer is yes. There were two cleansings. But a lot of us have a hard time putting all that together. So I'm trying, this is an attempt, to put together the chronological study of the order of events in Christ's life.

Now, it's based on a harmony originally by A. T. Robertson that was refined by Albert Cassell-Weeand, and that's the book that I'm using. And it arranges it like this.

We have a time of preparation. Then we have the Galilean ministry. We're also incorporating the geography. You can see the geography up there.

And those of you who have heard me introduce this before, you can just glaze over and say, I'm going to nap with my eyes open for three minutes. Three minutes. Go. Galilee, the breadbasket of Israel.

Fish, bread, grain. All came from Galilee. That was the breadbasket. Judea, the urban city.

The center of Israel. The capital city, Jerusalem. Perea. Over to the right there, on the right-hand side there, the Sea of Jordan.

When traveling between Galilee and Judea, the Jews would invariably cross across the Jordan and down through Perea on the east side and then back across around the location of, boy, it's hard to see in this. This is a, I might need to focus this. Focus. That's as good as it gets.

There you go. You can see Jericho right there. So they would cross over and travel from Jericho on up to Jerusalem for all the feasts. And so with that, we have the Galilean ministry.

Then Jesus takes the twelve over to Decapolis and some other areas. And we have what we call the specialized ministry. Then we have resumed the ministry in Judea. We have a very urban ministry in Judea.

And then over to Perea for a few months. He retires to Ephraim and then goes on to Jerusalem for the concluding week. So the time of preparation is things like his baptism, his infancy, the cleansing of the temple. And it leads right up to his rejection at Nazareth.

Then the Galilean ministry. He settles in Capernaum. Capernaum, if you see on the north side of the Sea of Galilee there, Capernaum is his home base. He chooses the twelve.

He gives the great sermon on the mount. The feeding of the five thousand is during the Galilean ministry. Unfortunately, by the end of the Galilean ministry, John the Baptist is beheaded. He's deserted by everyone who started to follow him except for twelve men and a handful of women.

John the Baptist is beheaded. And that's what leads Jesus to what we call the specialized ministry. Things are very hot in Israel. So he takes the boys, the twelve plus the few women, out of Israel to the land of Decapolis, Caesarea Philippi, Tyre, Sidon, those areas.

And he has some special time with them where the Pharisees can't hound his every step. And he has a little bit of freedom. It's during this time that Jesus first starts letting the hints drop that I'm going to suffer many things at the hands of the Jewish leaders and I'm going to die and resurrect. And they just don't understand.

They just don't get it. Which is fine because he also talks about church truths. He says, Peter famously says, you're the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus says, and you are Peter.

On this rock, I will build my church. A little play on words. You are Petros. And on this Petra, I will build my church.

The transfiguration takes place. Then they resume the Judean ministry and the Perean ministry. Sends out the 70. He's got 70 followers throughout all of Judea.

Every little town and village in Galilee was evangelized. Every little town and village in Judea was evangelized. Every little town and village in Perea was evangelized. Eventually, they all rejected him.

They all rejected him. And so he retires to Ephraim. And then we have the triumphal entry, which is really arguably part of the concluding week. So he comes in.

Hosanna, the son of David, on Sunday. On Monday, we have the cleansing of the temple. On Tuesday, I have it down here, parables, woes to Pharisees. Tuesday was a day of complete confrontation.

The Pharisees, the Sadducees, everyone was out to get Jesus. And he thwarted them easily. Wednesday was a quiet day, except for Judas made a little bargain on that day. Then we have the upper room discourse, his trials, his crucifixion, his burial, and his resurrection.

on Sunday again. Here's the timeline. The Gospel of John records these four Passovers by which we can make an attempt to try to fit all of this together into a timeline. So, basically three and a half years.

So, what was the message that Jesus was preaching? What was the message Jesus was preaching? If you recall, in those days, Matthew 3, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. And this was his message.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. We read in Matthew 4, when Jesus himself began his ministry. From that time on, Jesus began to preach, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.

When Jesus sent out the twelve, he said, as you go, preach this message. The kingdom of heaven is near. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom of God is at hand.

In Mark chapter 1, we read the same. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the Gospel. What kingdom is this?

I've presented this before. I'm going to jump through this quickly because I know you've seen this. But when talking about the covenants, we've got the Noahic Covenant, which provides for nations, specifically with the national right of execution of criminals from those who take a life. The government is given the right to take their life of a murderer.

But the Abrahamic Covenant narrows it down to one specific nation. The Mosaic Covenant provides laws for that nation, and then the Davidic Covenant provides a house, a throne, and a king and kingdom for that nation, kings for that nation. During the New Covenant, that one nation will again become prominent. And now we see here at the end of history, after 2,000 years of the Jewish people being scattered among the world, just exactly as the Lord had predicted, just exactly as he had foretold.

They have now been gathered into their own land again. We are ready for God's next plan. Much more can be said. In the Davidic Covenant, we read in 1 Chronicles 17, just a little bit of it, but I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever, and his throne will be established.

How long? Forever. Huh. So we currently don't see a throne in Jerusalem.

Bibi Netanyahu has, I'm told, a pretty good office. I don't think he sits on a throne, right? And so this has yet to be fulfilled. But this is what Jesus was offering to them.

If they had accepted it, it would have been fulfilled. Now, we know that he wasn't caught by surprise. Was God up in heaven thwarted? Dad, nabbit, my people aren't accepting my offer.

What am I going to do? No, right? That wasn't God's attitude, right? God was not caught by surprise.

He knew this was going to happen. The stone that the builders rejected, he prophesied beforehand that the Lord Jesus Christ would be rejected. But that's what he offered. He offered a literal earthly political kingdom with a spiritual qualification of repentance.

And so, that was the offer that Jesus said. We see a huge shift in the ministry of Jesus. Just to continue briefly before we jump into more of this. At the beginning, when Jesus sent out the 12, and then later on he sends out the 70, at the end of his ministry, he asks them this question.

He says, Have you never read in the Scriptures, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? This is from the Lord, and it's marvelous in our eyes. So their message was, Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. At the end of Jesus' ministry, he says, Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.

And so, this is the message that Jesus gave on Tuesday of Passion Week. In the top right, you see when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that Jesus was speaking about them. Although they wanted to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds because the people regarded him as a prophet. And so that's towards the end of Matthew.

In the book of Acts, when we open up the book of Acts, the apostles, the disciples, are still confused. And so when they came together, we see this quote right here from Acts 1-6. When they came together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And of course, Jesus' response, it's not for you to know.

Times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. When Jesus talked to the disciples, he said, When I sent you out without purse or bag or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing, they answered. Now, however, he told them, the one with a purse should buy, and likewise a bag.

The one without a sword should sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, the Scripture must be fulfilled in me. And he was numbered with the transgressors. For what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.

So they said, Look, here are two swords. That's enough, he answered. The point wasn't that they should be armed to the teeth and fight their way through with the gospel. The point was that the entire relationship between the disciples and the world was going to change.

The king himself was going to be crucified on a cross. And what happens to the king, the persecution of the king, is going to happen to the king's followers. Just like what happened to the forerunner, John the Baptist. What happened to the forerunner will happen to the king.

They kill John the Baptist, they're going to kill the king himself, Jesus Christ. So there's a symmetry here. Acts 4:27 sums this up. And this is something that I have really tried to hammer home with the kids and youth group through this entire time.

This has been a verse that we've used in several of our classes because you see it so clearly. In Acts 4:27 it starts, In fact, this is the very city where Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They carried out what your hand and will had decided beforehand would happen. You see this?

Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, the people of Israel, Herod. These four all conspired against. But think of what this is saying. They carried out what your hand and your will had decided beforehand would happen.

So when the people turned on Jesus, and they shouted, Crucify! Crucify Him! God was not surprised. This was not a huge, you know, God was not up in heaven scratching His head thinking, Man, what am I going to do?

How am I going to get through these people? They're thwarting my plans. No. On the contrary, they were fitting in exactly to God's plans.

Exactly to God's plans. Can we trust God to execute His plans? Of course we can. He's the only one you can trust to execute any kind of plan.

So, I showed this last time. A Christian view of history. You can view it as His story. An encouraging verse there.

Matthew 10, 29 on the left. There are not two sparrows sold for a penny, yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. God attends the funeral of sparrows. Think about that for a minute.

God attends the funeral of sparrows. There are not two sparrows sold for a penny, yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. The very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid. Is this applicable to today's situation? So AI. Is AI going to destroy humanity?

Have we to fear AI more than anything else? I don't think so. Do not be afraid. You're worth more than many sparrows.

Okay, we're going to jump through these. Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. Jesus said, if you're willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. Later, this is in Matthew 11.

Later on, in Matthew 17, after he's been beheaded, the disciples asked him, why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? Jesus replied, Elijah does indeed come, and he will restore all things. But I tell you that Elijah has already come. And they did not recognize him, but have done to him whatever they wished.

In the same way, the Son of Man will suffer at their hands. And so, that's my brief overview. Now, I want to bring you to the Galilean ministry. Let's transport ourselves to the Galilean ministry of Jesus.

He had moved. We read in a certain passage that he moved from Nazareth. He and his mother and brothers and sisters all moved from Nazareth to Capernaum. Capernaum is the hometown.

And we read in Mark 2, just a little hint of this. A few days later, he went back to Capernaum, and the people heard that he was home. You see how this Capernaum is now home to Jesus. He no longer lives in Nazareth.

So, here's Capernaum on the map. You can see it at the top, the north of the Sea of Galilee right there. That was Jesus. Okay.

So, I got a little bit excited by this, and I did cut and paste some slides in from another one of my presentations on archaeology. This is modern-day Capernaum. You can go there and see what it looks like today. They've excavated it.

As you can see, they've excavated all in this area, even outside of the walls. You can see on the bottom left there additional buildings that have been excavated. Now, of course, they've kind of protected the ones inside this little walled-in area. The white building in the center there, that is the synagogue.

Now, you could get really excited, but that's not the synagogue that Jesus was in. That's a Byzantine-era synagogue built in the 300s A. D. after the time of Jesus.

But you can go there and see it. This is literally just a few hundred years from the time of Christ. You can go there today, walk through that synagogue. I've got some photos of it.

I think this is really fascinating. Perhaps when violence dies down, we should have some sort of a Lake Howell trip over to the Middle East and travel this area. It would be so fascinating. This is not the synagogue that Jesus set foot in, but you can see parts of the remains of the synagogue that Jesus himself set foot in.

This synagogue was built on top of the first century synagogue that Jesus himself would have set foot in. The dark basaltic rock that's on the bottom, you can see in a little area on the left-hand side where they've excavated down that low. That dark basaltic rock, that's the paving, the cobblestones of the synagogue that Jesus himself would have set foot in. And you can see this for your own eyes in Capernaum today.

You can see what they did on the right-hand side there. They built the third century synagogue on top of the first century synagogue. So you can see that today. And when you go outside of that synagogue and you pass the first structure going south toward the Sea of Galilee, the second structure, they found something remarkable when they excavated it.

Here's a photo of what it looked like back when they first excavated it. I think this was in the 70s or 80s was when the original excavations were taking place before they built that additional structure there. And when they excavated this particular structure, they found the first, the next door neighbor to the synagogue was just an ordinary, large but ordinary house. The next structure down, they were fascinated because they found a Byzantine era, like a vault.

It was an octagonal structure, and this is a type of structure that during the 300s and on up to the 400s, 500s, and some into the 600s, what they would do is they would build these octagonal structures, not as a church, but to kind of venerate or commemorate a particularly like a holy place. So what was this holy place? They found when they dug down, when they excavated, that this octagonal structure built probably in the 300s, maybe in the 400s, this was built on top of a church, a church with a large central room. They found that was really interesting.

They found in the Byzantine era structure, it wasn't used as a church, but prior to the 300s, it was a large church with a big central room, and they found large vessels for serving large crowds. As they continued digging, they found that that church was in turn built out of a house church. It used to be a house church in the 200s. And they found, what indeed did this house church come from?

Eventually, at the lowest level, they excavated, and they found that it used to be an ordinary house. It was just an ordinary house, and indeed, it had been transformed from an ordinary house with lots of small vessels for serving various household responsibilities. And they had transformed from a house into a house church into an actual church. And then later, when it was destroyed, they built a Byzantine-era octagonal structure to venerate the place.

Today, you can go and see this. They've kind of built a Catholic octagonal thing on top of these remains. You can look underneath them. They've not disturbed the remains.

And inside the building, there's a glass floor there. And you can go look down on the very room, which was in the middle of that octagonal structure, which was in the middle of the church structure, which wasn't a very large church. It didn't hold that many people. But the verse there in Mark 1 29, as soon as Jesus and his companions had left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew.

So most archaeologists believe that this is the home of Simon Peter. This is the home of Simon Peter. And indeed, that this might have been the home that Jesus lived in during his time there at Capernaum. So you can go and see that for yourself today.

I just love this. I'm sorry. I have to cut and paste these slides. They're not even the same format.

You can see I apologize for that. But I have to interject this because it's so fascinating to me. So let's go back to time when Jesus was through. And this is going to be an example of the kinds of things we do in youth group.

And we read that one Sabbath, Jesus was passing through the grain fields. And his disciples began to pick the heads of grain as they walked along. This is in Mark 2, 23. And so they began to pick these heads of grain while Jesus was in Galilee.

In fact, through Jesus' entire ministry, while he was within the territory of Israel, he was hounded by Pharisees. He was hounded by religious investigators trying to determine, you know, what's the nature of this guy's... Because there were messianic figures that would pop up from time to time, and it was their job to basically go and thwart them, to ferret out what's the truth? Are these real messianic figures?

Now, they knew that the real Messiah would indeed be a Pharisee. They knew, the Jewish leaders did, that not only would the Messiah be a Pharisee, come out of the Pharisaic order, but the real Messiah would, as his primary job, was going to march on Rome and personally kill the Roman Emperor. So they were waiting to see, is this the man? So they were following him, hounding him, and here they are passing through the grain fields, and here are the Pharisees, also passing through the grain fields, watching their every move.

So when the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, look, your disciples are doing what's unlawful on the Sabbath. So as you know, not only had the law of Moses been venerated, but they had added to it. The Jews at the time, they looked at the law of Moses as something of, like somewhat of a leaky wall. It's a wall to try to keep us from sin, but it's got all these holes in it.

You might accidentally sin. There might be any number of ways through which sin might accidentally enter in, and so they came up with, you'll see it referred to in the Gospels as the traditions of the elders. Later, it got more formal names like Mishnah and things like that, but the traditions of the elders, this is what governed them all. And so the Pharisees saw this.

They said, look, your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath. It's unlawful to harvest grain. So here's a big grain field. Pick some grain, rub it, and eat the little seeds inside, a nice nutritious snack, granola, we call it now.

Unlawful. And so Jesus has an interesting series, an interesting family of responses to this. I want to walk you through this. Jesus replied, have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?

He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for them to eat, but only for the priests. What's he talking about here? You remember the story when David was hungry, and he entered, and indeed marched right in and grabbed the showbread. It's not lawful for them to eat.

Yet none of the Jewish leaders would condemn David, King David. We see that the law indeed was not given as, you know, Jesus is going to, he's going to push them on the purpose of the law. Is the law here to make you holy? Is the law to prevent you from sinning?

Is the law going to single-handedly by obeying the law, is it going to cleanse your heart of sin? And Jesus is going to push back on this. Indeed, there are exceptions, even to the law of Moses, because people are more important. And so David has been, they were hungry, they ate the consecrated bread.

I wonder how that response was received. I don't know, because Jesus continues. He says, or haven't you read in the law that on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple break the Sabbath, and yet are innocent? What's this talking about?

The priests in the temple break the Sabbath? What were the priests' job? What was the job of the priests? They were doing sacrifices.

They did all kinds of work for the sacrifices. Now, were there more sacrifices and offerings, or fewer sacrifices and offerings on the Sabbath? Oh, no. There were more?

Wait, these guys worked on the Sabbath? May it never be. Do you see Jesus' reasoning here? They literally work harder on the Sabbath.

What? How can this be? There are clearly exceptions to the law. Jesus is trying to get them to understand.

What's the purpose of the law? We read in the New Testament that it was meant to be a guardian. The word, oh, I forget the Greek word, but the Greek word that's used there for guardian or sometimes translated tutor, it really means it's a kind of Greek term that talked about someone who would escort a young boy to and from school. On the way to and from school, that escort would protect the boy from his own self.

He would protect the boy from perhaps engaging in altercations with others. He would protect the boy from altercations others might foist upon him, right? So he would bring the boy safely to school. The law was intended to bring the Jews to the school of God, to learn of the nature and attributes of God.

Or haven't you read in the law, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and yet are innocent. So here's Jesus continuing point after point after point. Let me get another one. If only you had known the meaning of I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent.

What's that all about? I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Well, they would have known what that's about. That's from Hosea 6:6.

This is a remarkable passage where God says through Hosea, what shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes. Think of what God's saying here.

Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth and my judgments go forth like lightning. For I desire, this is the verse here in verse 6, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. You see what God is saying here to the Jews, and you see what Jesus is saying?

If you'd only known, if you'd only known what this means, if you knew what this means, you would not have condemned the innocent. Jesus gives the penultimate point here. Then Jesus declared, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. This is a really important one.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was given to mankind, all of mankind, not just the Jews, as a day of rest. Throughout history, if we examine the French, I think, tried a 10-day work week, all throughout history, people have tried to invent better ways, more efficient ways to extract labor from humanity. And every time they've failed, man needs a rest every seven days.

Who would know better than man's creator? Every time any other system is tried, it's always failed. The Sabbath was made for man. Man was not made as a robot to fulfill the Sabbath.

Here's my rules. Good luck, people. That's not God's attitude. God made the Sabbath.

That's a blessing for us. I know I'm grateful for this Sabbath. You see his point? Ultimately, Jesus concluded, therefore, the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.

Oh, so much is wrapped up. Oh, boy. You could have a whole sermon on this one verse. I guarantee you.

This would be an enjoyable sermon, too. It'd be very enjoyable. The Son of Man, therefore, is Lord, even of the Sabbath. He's the one who made it.

He's the one who invented it. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. I invented the Sabbath. I made the Sabbath.

It is mine. I can do whatever I please. I'm the boss. I made it.

I invented it. The Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. So much more can be said, right? There they are, going their way, eating their grain.

The Son of Man is a title of humanity, a title of humility, a title of deity, and the fulfillment of prophecy. Again, you could have a whole sermon just on that one little verse, and it would be an absolutely enjoyable sermon to put together, I think. But the title Son of Man, at its face value, simply refers to someone who is the son of a human being, a homo sapien. The son of a homo sapien is another homo sapien, right?

To use, you know, scientific terms. The son of a person is another person, right? God calls Ezekiel the son of man, I don't know how many times. The son of man, though, is Jesus' favorite title for himself, because he's not just any son of man.

He is the, the son of man, the fulfillment of prophecy in Daniel chapter 7. Oh, man, we got, we are low on time. Bear with me. Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel has this vision, all kinds of crazy stuff. We don't need to get into it, because he continued to watch, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. Who do you think this is? Thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.

His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head was like pure wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels. Wait, what? I don't know.

Its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire. A river? Not a stream.

A river of fire was flowing, coming out from his presence. Thousands upon thousands attended him in myriads, upon myriads, stood, not seated, stood before him. The court was convened, and the books were opened. Who do you think this Ancient of Days is?

God the Father, the Ancient of Days. Continuing a couple verses down, Daniel says, in my vision of the night, I continued to watch. And I saw one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. When Jesus was at his trial and he finally opened his mouth, he was silent as a lamb before.

Anyway, when Jesus was at his last trial and he finally opened his mouth, he said, I tell you, you're going to see the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. And they knew exactly who he was claiming to be. Listen to this. One like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, he approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.

And he was given dominion, glory, and kingship, that the people of every nation and language should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion. It will not pass away. His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

And so they knew exactly who Jesus was claiming to be. So claiming to be the Son of Man. As Jesus comes down, he's the Son of Man. They truly didn't understand that Jesus later on in the Galilean ministry.

Actually, after the Galilean ministry ends, he comes in. From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and that he must be killed and on the third day raised to life. Good old Peter. Don't you love Peter?

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Can you imagine? You can be yourself with the Lord. Can you imagine taking the Lord aside and shaking him?

Hey, man, get that. You're not going to go die? Far be it from you, Lord. This shall never happen to you.

You remember Jesus' response, right? Get thee behind me, Satan. Right? They were afraid.

So bring it back to today. I've got to close. Which of you, by worrying, can add a single cubit to his lifespan, Jesus asked. Which of you, by worrying, can add a single cubit to his lifespan?

627. In verse 34, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Jesus said, do not let your hearts be troubled.

You believe in God, believe in me as well. And so in this day and age, this is a huge key thing. Do not let your hearts be troubled. This is super important.

The world around us seems to love fear. What's one of the most popular movie genres? You know, horror films. Can you, it truly blows me away.

I just don't understand it at all. Horror films are one of the most, what was Michael Jackson's biggest hit? Thriller. Why?

People seem to like and enjoy living on the edge, right? Not so with Christians. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Much more can be said.

I want us to all get out of here and good time for lunch. Thank you for having me here. I think I forgot to open in prayer. Let's close in prayer.

Our gracious God, our Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your love, your love for us. Thank you for your love that sent your only Son. Thank you for your love that saw fit to send Him for us, Lord. We did not deserve this.

But you, in your loving kindness, will never leave us nor forsake us, Lord. Thank you so much again for all these things. We pray that you would just keep us safe until next week again. We pray that you would help our hearts to be stayed on thee as we live in this world that seems to be more and more saturated with fear.

We pray that you give us discernment and patience and excitement as we share your gospel of peace with a troubled world around us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Wednesday Devotional featuring Micah Tuggle on “The Freedom of God”. A teaching on how God, who cannot lie, binds Himself by His word, freely limiting His own freedom for our sake through His covenants with Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David, and the new covenant in Christ’s blood.

Transcript

Good evening. So we've already covered partial differential equations, and now we're moving on to non-homogenous. Wait, what? I have to correct my mind.

So in college and career, we are going over the attributes of God right now, and the one that we're currently on is freedom. That does not mean that God resides solely in the United States of America, the land of the free. So what does that mean? Well, here in the United States, we all have an idea of what freedom means for us.

So our government recognizes certain, it affords us certain freedoms, and you can kind of categorize this in two ways. Rights that are recognized according to the worldview of our founding fathers when they wrote the Constitution, and privileges that we are afforded. So an example is your right to free speech. According to the beliefs of our government, we have a right that is protected by the government to free speech.

Versus driving is a privilege which can be revoked, and you can just not have it if you don't have your license. So what does freedom look like for God? So he's not limited by any government, and he's not limited by the laws of our nation, but he's also not limited by reality. I am not free to just fly off into outer space.

I don't have that ability. I guess you could say I'm allowed to, but I just don't have the capability. Reality is limiting my freedom in that way. But God, well, he did that, actually.

So he is unlimited by, you know, human laws and by reality itself since he is omnipotent. So in what ways could he possibly be limited? Well, the book you've heard of that we are basing our kind of, not curriculum, but maybe curriculum, off of is Ryrie's survey of Bible doctrine and basic theology. And he calls the attributes of God his perfections.

So, you know, you could say the attribute of God, one of his attributes is truth, that he is truth and truthful. And Ryrie would say the same thing. He would just say that it is one of his perfections. And that reflects the nature of his attributes not having any negative connotation.

So let's just think about some of the ways that the attributes interact. Because God is omnipotent. How does that interact with itself? Well, can he make a rock so big he can't lift it?

I'm sure you've heard this before. That question doesn't even make sense. Because it's not that his ability to make a rock is limited. It's that his ability to lift a rock is unlimited.

A rock cannot have the quality of being so big that God can't lift it. So he's all-powerful, but he can suffer hunger and thirst by not using all of his power. So when Jesus walked the earth, he was tired and hungry and thirsty, and he could feel pain. He bore our pain and our sins, which is worse than the physical pain.

So let's look at something that's, I think, potentially a little bit more interesting and has some more neat implications. God cannot lie, so if he says something, it must be true. And so when God first created the universe and you have a blank slate, he's completely free to do whatever he wants. But if he says something, because he can't lie, he cannot contradict that.

And he will not contradict that. So in this way, it's possible for him to limit his own freedoms for the sake of whatever he's talking about. And in our case, he limits his own freedoms for our sake. And it's because he loves us.

He cannot ever leave you nor forsake you because he said so. And he limited himself in that way. Because God cannot lie, when he said, I will never leave you nor forsake you, he limited himself. He not only won't, but he can't because he cannot contradict his perfect and true nature.

And I think that is just about the coolest thing. So, let's now consider God's love for us, that he would not only send his son to die for us, but would also limit his own divine, omnipotent, limitless, free power for our sakes. So, not only did he do things for us, but he made it so that he cannot forsake and abandon us. So, some of God's covenants that he has made are good examples of this.

If you open to Genesis 9, 9 through 17, we'll just take a look at some of these covenants as God has made them. Genesis chapter 9, starting in verse 9. As for me, behold, I will establish my covenant with you and your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that comes of the ark, every beast of the earth. Indeed, I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, and there shall never again be a flood to destroy the earth.

Then God said, This is the sign of the covenant which I am giving to you, to be between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all successive generations. I put my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth. And it will be when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. So the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.

And God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all the flesh that is on the earth. So, in Genesis chapter 8, it seems that God is free to flood the earth with water to destroy the earth unlimited amount of times as much as he wants to. But then, for our sake and for his love for us, he says that never again will he use water to flood and destroy the earth. And thus, he limits his unlimited power and restricts his own freedom for our sake.

So, just that one example is already, you know, knee-bucklingly significant that the creator of the universe would love us so much. If we turn to Genesis chapter 12, verses 1, 2, and 3, we read the Abrahamic covenant. And Yahweh said to Abram, Go forth from your land and from your kin and from your father's house to the land which I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great.

And so you shall be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. So again now, God is saying something, and he is saying that he is going to do something. And because of his truth and his inability to lie, he cannot lie because he is truth, he is restricting his freedoms so that he has to act in accordance with his covenant.

You know, if I were a perfectly true person who could not lie, then when I promised you something, I would be forcing myself to complete it. Of course, I'm imperfect and I can lie, so I might not be able to, or I might not be willing to, you know, complete my promise. But God here, who is perfect, he can and he will and he must. If we look over in Genesis 15, 17, and 18.

Now, it happened that the sun had set and it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch, which passed between these pieces. This is talking about the, when Abraham cut the covenant. On that day, Yahweh cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. And so, while previously, you know, before making a covenant, he was able to say, actually, I'll give you Brazil.

That seems like a nice area. But for our sakes, he makes us promises. And this is significant because if he wanted to, let's just say, you know, give Abram that land, he could have just done it. He could have just said, trust me.

And then he could have just left it off there. And he could have allowed himself, he could have afforded himself the opportunity to change his mind or just decide not to. Which, of course, he's omniscient and he knows the future and the possibilities of the future. But here, for our sakes, we can trust and rest in the Lord and rely on him because he is truth and because he limits his own freedom in these ways.

Exodus chapter 19, and we see the Mosaic Covenant. I'm going to read verses 5 and 6. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.

So Moses, sorry, that was verse 6. So I'll read 5 and then I'll read 6. I started in 6. Verse 5 of Exodus 19.

So now then, if you will indeed listen to my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my treasured possession among all my covenant. Then you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And these are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.

We see a conditional covenant where he says the word, if. I am obviously not, you know, in a position as God is, but if I had the power to say something and then limit myself, it would be a lot less scary for me to say, if you do this, then I'll do this. And that's not to diminish his conditional covenants to us, but I think it helps us to just reflect even further about the unconditional covenants of God and how great they are. If we move to 2 Samuel chapter 7 quickly.

We're going to look at 12 through 16. 2 Samuel 7, 12. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up one of your seed after you who will come forth from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will reprove him with the rod of men and the strikes from the sons of men. But my loving kindness shall not be removed from him as I removed it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever.

Your throne shall be established forever. That's another time where he doesn't have to say, I will do this, you know, regardless of your actions, I will do this, but he does. And then we get to a very exciting covenant in Jeremiah 31, verses 31 to 34. We can read through that.

Jeremiah 31, 31. Behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the old covenant which I cut with their fathers in the day I took them in the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke, but I was husband to them, declares Yahweh. But this is the covenant which I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, declares Yahweh.

I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know Yahweh, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares Yahweh. For I will forgive their iniquity and sin, and their sin I will remember no more. How great is that covenant?

And we read in Luke 22, verse 20. And in the same way, he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. So how great is that? That we are so beloved by the Lord our God that he would make such effort and go to such lengths for us and for our confidence in him.

We don't have to hope that God decides to take care of us. He already has from the moment he first spoke it. And from the very beginning, he had a plan for us. If we finally turn all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, 14 and 15.

And Yahweh God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you more than any of the cattle, and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you will go, and the dust you will eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.

So you can see that God made up his mind with his, another perfection of God, his omniscience, from right here in the very beginning. So it's encouraging and incredible to reflect on what God does with his freedom. And with his freedom, he has decided to love us and take care of us and make provision for us to live with him for eternity and glorify him forever. That is what God has decided to do with his freedom.

He's made covenants. He has sent Jesus to die as a payment for our sins and thus justified us. He has made a way for us to be with him, and he has freed us from sin. So he used his freedom to afford us freedom from sin.

If we turn to Romans chapter 8, I'm just going to read 1 and 2. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. So if you're ever wondering how much does God love us, don't stop thinking when you think of the crucifixion. Keep on thinking until you think about all the covenants that he's made with us and all the times that he has promised us that he will look out for us and care for us.

Let's close in prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for your love for us. Thank you for freeing us from sin. Thank you for giving us abundant blessings.

We pray that you would help us to be a good steward of all that you've given us and glorify you. Amen.

Family Bible Hour featuring Tim Baldon. A teaching from Hebrews 11 on the faith of the Old Testament saints, whose failures go unmentioned because under the new covenant God remembers sins no more, and on true faith as trusting what God has said, shown in how we live.

Transcript

And that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.

For he waited for the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, In Isaac your seed shall be called. Concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him, in a figurative sense. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin.

This is a chapter of season. Esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith, he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them.

By faith, they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with them, with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace. And what shall I more say?

What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and dens and caves of the earth.

And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. From what you know of the Old Testament, what's missing in this chapter? These people all seem to be perfect, don't they? Yet, in the Old Testament, when we read this chapter, they all seem to be perfect.

But, in the Old Testament, we read about Noah getting drunk and exposing himself. Abraham asks his wife to conceal their relationship of being married in order to protect himself. Sarah laughed at God's promise to give her a son when she was old. Isaac lied about his wife being his sister to protect himself.

We read about Jacob's various schemings. We read about his favoritism toward his younger sons. We read about his self-pitying complaints about what a rough life he's had even though he had achieved a great amount of wealth and God had taken care of him in every situation. He talks about near the end of his life how rough he's had it all his life.

We read about Moses striking the rock in anger even though God had plainly said speak to the rock. We read about Samson's failure with Delilah. We read about David's sin with Bathsheba and his arranging for the death of her husband. We read about Elijah fleeing in terror from Jezebel despite the clear demonstration of God's supremacy and God's power on Mount Carmel just hours before.

Why are none of those things mentioned in this chapter? That's a question that I ask myself when shortly after I spoke from Hebrews chapter 10 I read through Hebrews chapter 11 thinking about what am I going to say next time and as I read it I'm looking at it and I'm thinking this doesn't sound like the Old Testament I mean I've read this chapter multitudes of times but I found myself asking that question why are these things missing? the answer I believe is because Hebrews chapter 11 comes after Hebrews chapter 8 chapter 9 and chapter 10 what did we learn in chapters 8 through 10 that would tell us why the faults and flaws and failures of these Old Testament saints aren't mentioned in what we call the Faith Hall of Fame let's turn back to chapter 8 where Jesus is declared to be the mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises we're going to start in verse 6 when it says now he that he is referring to Jesus the Son of God the author that the author of Hebrews has been writing about ever since chapter 1 verse 2 so all this time he's been building up to where we are now but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry in as much as he is also mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises for if that first covenant had been faultless then no place would have been sought for a second because finding fault with them he says behold the days are coming says the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt because they did not continue in my covenant and I disregarded them says the Lord for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people none of them shall teach his neighbor and none his brother saying know the Lord for all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities their lawless deeds I will remember no more now that sounds promising as an explanation to why those things don't come up in chapter 11 their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more that passage there the author of Hebrews is quoting from Jeremiah chapter 31 where Jeremiah was giving that prophecy that that there would come a time when God would change from the old covenant the old testament and would create a new covenant and as a part of that new covenant he would not remember the sins of his servants chapter 10 verse 12 speaking about the same man Jesus but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down at the right hand of God from that time waiting till his enemies are made his footstool for by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified now this is telling us that something is now past Jeremiah was looking forward and saying there will come a time when a new covenant will be established this is talking about something that is past at this point he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified but the Holy Ghost the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us for after he had said before this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days says the Lord I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds I will write them then he adds their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more so Jeremiah is prophesying this is coming and the author of Hebrews is telling us it's here the time has come we are now at the new covenant which as I was thinking about it the folks mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11 were not part of the new covenant they weren't they weren't around when the new covenant was established it didn't come until Christ came gave his life on the cross so how do we reconcile that how are their sins and iniquities gone we can find that in Hebrews chapter 9 Hebrews chapter 9 verse 15 says and for this reason he is the mediator of the new covenant there we go tells us flat out Jesus is the one who is the mediator of the new covenant by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant that those who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance so the new covenant is not just for those who have lived since Jesus' death and resurrection but it's retroactive in order to remove the sins of those who were under the first covenant the Old Testament now how are our sins forgiven is it by what wonderful people we are and how many good deeds we've done did we earn it? no of course not Ephesians 2:8 and 9 we're probably all familiar with for by grace you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast grace and that grace includes the forgiveness and the erasure of sins that are from God's memory comes only by faith you can't get it any other way comes only by faith and that is what each of these people in Hebrews chapter 11 has shown at some point in their life they demonstrated faith in God the only difference between us and them is that they were looking forward to Christ's death burial and resurrection and we are looking back at Christ's death burial and resurrection now if you wonder whether folks in the Old Testament even believed in the resurrection of the dead you know obviously in Jesus' time there were Pharisees believed in spirits and they believed in resurrection of the dead the Sadducees didn't believe in spirits and they didn't believe in resurrection of the dead but what did the Old Testament say about resurrection from the dead?

Consider these passages Job chapter 19 25 to 27 For I know that my Redeemer lives I didn't say will live I know that my Redeemer lives and he shall stand at last on the earth and after my skin is destroyed this I know that in my flesh I shall see God whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another how my heart yearns within me. Does your heart yearn for the day when you will see God face to face? Psalm 16 8 through 10 says I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices my flesh also will rest in hope for you will not leave my soul in Sheol nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. That one is talking about Jesus it's talking about Jesus being raised from the dead that he would not stay dead he was the one the the Holy One that it speaks of there you will not allow your Holy One to see corruption and that's something that the early apostles used regularly to talk to people who doubted resurrection or doubted at least Jesus' resurrection and they went back and they said hey we got these prophecies from the Old Testament about resurrection that resurrection is coming and that's what their faith was in Isaiah 26, 19 says your dead shall live together with my dead body they shall arise awake and sing you who dwell in dust for your dew is like the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead there will be a resurrection Daniel chapter 2 chapter 12 verse 2 and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting fire some to shame I'm sorry some to everlasting I can't read some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt I beg your pardon Ezekiel 37 verses 1 through 14 I'm only going to read a portion of that but you can read that whole passage starting in verse 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them Thus says the Lord God Behold, O my people I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel Then you shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people and brought you up from your graves I will put my spirit in you and you shall live and I will place you in your own land Then you shall know that I, the Lord have spoken and performed it Perhaps most importantly from the Old Testament for the passage that we're considering today Hebrews chapter 11 go back to Genesis chapter 22 verse 5 the story when Abraham was told to take his son Isaac the one that he had been promised would be the father of all these descendants that that Abraham was supposed to have God said take him up and offer him up to me and Abraham had gotten up bright and early took what he needed along with some servants and along with Isaac and headed for the place I think it's three days that they've walked to get to the place gives Abraham some time to think now what are you going to do if God says okay I've given you a son and this son is going to provide you with more descendants than you can count and then God says after you get the son he says now take your son and offer him on an altar to me you'd be thinking this is confusing what in the world but in 22.5 when they get to the place when they can see the place far off Abraham stops and he tells the servants you stay here and Abraham said to his young men stay here with the donkey the lad and I will go yonder and worship and we will come back to you I don't know exactly when, where, or how but Abraham figured out God cannot lie if he said that I was going to have descendants by this son I will and if he says offer this son on an altar to me there's only one conclusion I'm going to offer my son on an altar and God is going to raise him from the dead that must be what God has in mind now it turns out that that's not exactly what God had in mind he wanted Abraham's example he wanted Abraham to work it out in his own heart that God was faithful and he wanted us to be able to see Abraham's faith so it seems likely to me that when the author of Hebrews was making the point in Hebrews chapter 11 17 to 19 By faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said in Isaac your seed shall be called accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from which also he received him in a figurative sense.

It seems likely he was making the point that from the time of the ascension of Jesus the new covenant was established and the sins and failures of all believers those all believers who have faith in Christ are forgiven and forgotten by God and he illustrates that for us by recounting only the acts of faith that these people demonstrated and leaves out or forgets all their failures, their sins, their unfaithfulness God will never call them back to remembrance it's interesting that in this chapter Hebrews chapter 11 you go from verse 29 by faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land whereas the Egyptians attempting to do so were drowned then by faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days what did that leave out? 40 years of wandering in the desert and failing failures of faith it's completely left out in this chapter our salvation is based on faith our faith God can see our faith because he knows our hearts question can others see our faith? you might come up with different answers on that depending on whether you're looking back at Romans chapter 4 which talks about justification of faith apart from works or if you're looking at James chapter 2 where we're justified by works and not by faith alone but in fact they're not contradicting each other in Romans chapter 4 the emphasis is on justification before God by faith whereas in James 4 the emphasis is on justification before other people so if I may well let's look for a moment just flip over a page or two to James chapter 2 verse 14 what does it profit my brethren if someone says he has faith but does not have works can faith save him if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them depart in peace be warmed and filled but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body what does it profit thus also faith by itself if it does not have works is dead but someone will say you have faith and I have works show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works you believe that there is one God you do well even the demons believe that you know and tremble but do you want to know oh foolish man that faith without works is dead was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar do you see that faith was working together with his works and by works faith was made perfect and the scripture was fulfilled which says Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God you see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only likewise was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way for as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also God knew Abraham's faith before Abraham even figured out what he thought God was going to do but verse 24 here says you see you see Abraham's faith by Abraham's works I'd like to offer an illustration which I believe can make the matter perhaps a little bit clearer or hopefully will make it stick in your memory how many of you trust me? my wife had her hand up first I'm glad of that all right now obviously it might depend on what I'm asking you to trust me for for instance if I say yes, I will go home and I will put your prayer request on the prayer sheet for Wednesday night guess what?

I'm a forgetful, forgetful person and it may not happen so don't trust me necessarily when I say yes, I will do that I will try I try always to say I will try to remember when I get home but if I were to tell you and I will I'll tell all of you right here I will not do anything in the next 15 minutes to hurt you and I will not allow anything that I can prevent I mean obviously if a tree falls on the building I can't stop that but anything that I could prevent I will not allow it to happen to you that will harm you I'll ask again would you trust me on that and by the way I will not be offended anybody who does not say they would trust me on that that's fine but how many of you would trust me? okay most of you most of you alright I'm not offended alright you know what this is? it says it's a rat trap but this is not a rat trap this morning because it has never been used to trap a rat and it's not going to be used to trap a rat today what this is at the moment is a faith tester it has never trapped a rat it's brand new and I will pull this little staple out that keeps it from being able to be set you know how a faith tester works works pretty much the same way as a rat trap but now you pull this thing over here and you put that thing right there and then you put some bait on it I'm going to turn it around here now I don't want to get injured so alright so how it works is you reach in there and you touch that thing there and when you touch that we'll find it later so that's basically how it works that is how it works so anybody want to retract their statement of faith in me? all right so most of you would still trust me I will state it again I will not do anything to harm you and I will not allow anything to harm you if I have a way to stop that from happening so who would like to volunteer to come out and and by the way whoever whoever comes up have you seen this before?

you've never seen this before but you would you would trust me you sure? okay I'm a volunteer I don't even have to pick somebody usually I have to pick somebody and coax them up here but alright well Wayne come on up now sure so Wayne you've never seen this before right? I mean other than I've seen a rat trap you've seen a rat trap but not a faith tester alright so I take this thing whoops I gotta get that out of the way and I set the trap I mean the tester I set the faith tester and before we start I wanted to let you know that I'm not going to stop him as his finger gets here and say now I know you trust me because you put your finger close to it I'm just going to tell you that I will not allow anything to happen to you what do you want me to do? I would like you to tap that thing do I get the pencil or whatever?

no but you can have you can have you can have that if you'd like I don't know if that will help you at all You want me to touch that? I would like you to touch that, yes you keep pointing at it and not touching it You mean the thing that just fell off? Yes, I am messing up All right he could have touched it and nothing would happen Really? Yes that's correct You never did touch it all right All right, I was going to ask you guys to be the jury and say does he trust me or does he not?

I'm not sure we got that far All right, I'm done I need to make sure that you understand that it is not your faith If he had stuck his finger in there, it would not be his the amount of faith he has or doesn't have that stops the rat trap from going off the faith tester. And it's in the same way. It is not how much faith I have. It's not my faith that changes the situation.

It is God who is in control. Now, when we were talking, I took these two springs off. of the bar. Now it will get you.

Now it will not. It still looks like it's set. Because my thumb is under it, holding it in place. Only I wasn't able to keep my thumb there, holding it in place.

Shame on me. But then if you touch it, nothing happens. Some people get mistaken on that and they feel like, okay, whatever I can believe, if I can believe hard enough, if my faith is strong enough, then I can get whatever I want from God. And that's not the way it works.

Faith is believing what God says. What He tells you. Where He tells you to go. What He tells you to do.

And that comes from here. So we're not out there using faith to do things that God has never promised He would do. Don't talk yourself into believing you can do something that God hasn't said to do. Live your life in such a way that the world around you can see that you have faith in what God says.

You trust the Word of God. When God says that He will save you from your sin, and you say, Lord, I believe, God knows your heart, whether you actually believe that or whether you're just, I've heard people give the Gospel and say to somebody, well, you know, it can't hurt, you know, go ahead and people will say the prayer and think, well, okay, at least I'm covered. No. God knows your heart.

And people around you will know, too, if you're saved. They'll be able to see it in your life if you're following what God says. Live your life in such a way that the world can see that your faith is in him. Father, we come to you.

We give you thanks for your word. Thank you for what you have promised. Lord, we ask that you would do for us what you, what the man asked in the Gospels. Lord, I believe.

Help my unbelief. Father, we ask that you would help our unbelief when we face situations that we're tempted not to trust you. Strengthen our faith. Cause us to live in such a way that they see you in us.

In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Family Bible Hour featuring Junior Watson on “The Eternal Christ.”  A compilation of Scriptures from John, Isaiah, Zechariah, Philippians, Daniel, Colossians, and Revelation, showing Christ as the eternal Word, the Creator, the pierced Savior, the exalted Lord, and the coming judge.

Transcript

Thank you, Brother Jonathan. And good morning to everyone. Good morning to visitors and those who came before. You're welcome.

My subject this morning that I've been speaking on, the eternal Christ. The Alpha and the Omega. God with us. It's going to be a compilation of Scriptures, so if you want to write them down, I'll quote them out for you.

If not, I'll just tell you what it is. First one is John 1 and 1. Then you have Isaiah 48, verse 12 to 13. Isaiah 46, 8 to 10.

Isaiah 45, 21 to 23. Philippians 2, verse 5 to 11. Daniel 7, verse 9 to 10. Revelation 1, verse 8 to 16.

Revelation 22, verse 12 to 13. And Revelation 22, verse 16. Zechariah 12, verse 1 to 11. Isaiah 9, verse 6 to 7.

Colossians 1, verse 15 to 20. Acts 20, verse 28 to 29. The eternal Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, God with us. The main theme: Jesus Christ is not merely a great teacher, prophet, or a created being.

He is the eternal Word, the Creator, the pierced Savior, the exalted Lord, and the coming judge. God revealed in the flesh for the redemption of his people. Key text here is John 1 and 1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

Introduction. There is one question greater than every other question. Who is Jesus Christ? The answer determines how we worship, how we understand salvation, how we face death.

And how we prepare for eternity. Scripture does not present Jesus as only a moral example or religious leader. It declares that he is the eternal son. The one who was present before creation.

The one who, the one through whom all things were made. The one who humbled himself to death, to die. And the one before whom every knee shall bow. The Bible gives titles that belong to Jehovah alone.

And it applies them to Jesus Christ. The Old Testament reveals the eternal God. The New Testament unveils that same God in the person of his Son. Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the eternal Word. John opens his Gospel, not at Bethlehem, but before time. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1 and 1.

Notice the three declarations. In the beginning was the Word. Before creation began, the Word already existed. The Word was with God.

The Word is personally distinct from the Father. The Word was God. The Word fully possesses the nature and deity of God. Jesus did not begin in a manger.

His earthly body began in Bethlehem, but his divine existence is eternal. Isaiah recorded God saying, I am He, I am the first, I also am the last. My hand also had laid the foundation of the earth, Isaiah 48, 12-13. The one who calls himself the first and the last is the Creator.

Yet Jesus said in Revelation, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Revelation 22, verse 13. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. Omega is the last.

Christ is declaring, I stand at the beginning of all things. And I will stand at the end of all things. History begins with me and ends with me. He is not contained by time.

Time is contained by him. Jesus is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. Isaiah 46, verse 9 through 10 says, I am God and there is none else. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning.

God alone knows the end from the beginning because God alone stands above creation. He is not guessing about tomorrow. He rules over tomorrow. Colossians applies his divinity, his divine authority directly to Christ.

For by him there was all things, for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth. All things were created by him, and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Colossians 1, 16 through 17. Jesus is not part of creation.

He is the one by whom creation came into being. The stars made through him. The angels made through him. The visible and invisible realms were made through him.

Earth breathes. Every breath is sustained by him. Every atom remains in order because he upholds all things. John 1, verse 3, agrees.

All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. If everything created was made through him, through Christ, then Christ himself cannot be created. He is eternal God.

This means our lives are not accidental. We are created by him and for him. The heart will remain restless until it returns to the one for whom it was made. Jesus is the promised child and mighty God.

Isaiah prophesied of the coming Messiah. For unto us a child was born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. Isaiah 9, verse 6. A child was born, speaking of his humanity.

A son was given, speaking of his eternal divine identity. Then Isaiah gives him names no ordinary man could bear. His name shall be called Wonderful. Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9, verse 6. Jesus is the child born in time, yet he is the Mighty God from eternity. He is the Prince of Peace because he alone reconciles sinful humanity to a holy God. Peace is not merely the absence of conflict.

Biblical peace is restored fellowship with God. Christ made that peace through his cross. Isaiah continues, after the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end. Isaiah 9, verse 7.

Earthly kingdoms rise and fall. Presidents change, nations shift, empires collapse. Glory be to God. Hallelujah.

But the kingdom of Christ has no end. His throne is not threatened. His authority cannot be voted away. And his reign will never diminish.

The Lord was pierced for our salvation. Zechariah gives one of the clearest prophetic revelations of Christ's crucifixion. They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him. Zechariah 12, verse 10.

The speaker is not yet, the speaker is the Lord, yet he says, they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. The prophecy points forward to Calvary, where Jesus pierced in his hands, his feet, and his side. The eternal Creator entered his own creation and allowed sinful people to nail him to a cross. Acts 20, verse 28, gives a staggering description of the price paid for the church.

Feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. The church is not bought with silver, gold, or good works, tradition, or human effort. It was purchased with the blood of God manifested in the flesh. Jesus Christ.

This is why the cross cannot be reduced to an inspiring story. It was divine rescue. At the cross, the only one bore the punishment for the guilty. The righteous one died for the unrighteous.

The creator was rejected by his creation. The shepherd laid down his life for his sheep. Mercy and justice met. Sin was judged and grace was offered.

Zechariah said, there will be mourning. A true encounter with Christ produces godly sorrow. We do not merely mourn because people in general sin. We recognize my sin required his suffering.

Yet that mourning leads not to hopelessness, but to cleansing, forgiveness, and new life. Jesus is exalted above every name. Philippians 2 reveals both Christ's humility and his exaltation. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 2 verse 5. Jesus, though equal with God, did not cling to his heavenly glory. He took the form of a servant. He entered our world.

He obeyed the Father completely. He humbled himself even to death on the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name. Philippians 2 verse 9.

Then comes the universal declaration that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Philippians 2 verse 10 to 11. This echoes Isaiah 45. I am God and there is none else.

And to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Isaiah 45, verse 21 to 23. In Isaiah, every knee bows to Jehovah, the only Savior. In Philippians, every knee bows to Jesus Christ.

The Apostle is not lowering Jesus beneath God. He is proclaiming Jesus is the Lord to whom Isaiah's prophecy belongs. Every person will ultimately acknowledge Christ. The redeemed will bow with joy.

The faithful will bow in worship. The broken will bow in gratitude. The rebellious will bow in judgment. The nations will bow before the king.

The enemies of God will bow before the judge. The question is not whether every knee will bow. The question is whether we will bow now in saving faith or later in inevitable judgment. Daniel saw a vision of heaven.

The ancient of days did sit. His throne was like a fiery flame and its wheels as burning fire. Daniel 7 verse 9, Daniel saw a courtroom of eternity. Thrones were set.

Books were opened. Fire proceeded from the throne. God is holy, eternal, and judge over all humanity. Revelation gives John a vision of the glorified Christ.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord. Revelation 1, verse 8. John then sees one like unto the Son of Man, clothed in glory. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire.

Revelation 1, verse 14. The imagery parallels Daniel's vision of the ancient of days Jesus revealed in divine majesty. His eyes are flames of fire. Nothing is hidden from him.

He sees private sin. He sees public hypocrisy. He sees every wound. He sees every act of faithfulness.

He sees the hidden tears of his people. He sees the plans of the enemy. Revelation 22 and verse 12 declares, Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. Jesus is coming.

He is not coming merely as the suffering lamb. He is coming as the righteous judge and reigning king. He comes with reward for those who belong to him, and he comes with judgment for those who reject him. Jesus is the root and offspring of David.

In Revelation 22, verse 16, Jesus said, I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. How can Christ be both David's root and David's offspring? He is David's offspring, according to the flesh. Jesus was born into the line of David.

He is the promised Messiah King. But he is David's root, according to his divine nature. David came from him. The one who descended from David is also the one through whom David was created.

Jesus is fully man and fully God. David's son, yet David's Lord. Born of a woman, yet eternal before all worlds. Hungry, yet the bread of life.

Thirsty, yet the giver of living water. Weary, yet the giver of rest. crucified, yet the resurrection and the life. Buried, yet forever alive.

The bright and morning star announced that night will not have the final word. Christ brings the dawn of God's eternal kingdom. For those who belong to him, the darkest hour is never the end of the story. After my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.

The warning follows the truth that the church was purchased by God's own blood. Because the church is precious to Christ, wolves seek to distort the truth, divide believers, and diminish the person of Jesus. The church must guard the Gospel. We must not accept a Christ who is only a teacher, but not Lord.

We must not preach a Christ who saves, but does not reign. We must not proclaim a Christ who was born, but deny that he is eternal. We must not celebrate a Christ who died while forgetting that he is coming again. The biblical Christ is the eternal Word, the Creator, the Majesty, the Mighty God, the pierced savior, the exalted Lord, the ancient of days, the root and offspring of David, the alpha, and the omega.

Conclusion. Jesus asks every generation, whom say ye that I am? John answered, the word was God. Isaiah answered, the first and the last.

Colossians answered, by him were all things created. Zechariah answered, they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. Philippians answered, every knee should bow. Revelation answered, I am Alpha and Omega.

The proper response is worship: repentance, faith, obedience, and exultant expectation. Preach in close. Church, behold your king. He was there before the first sunrise.

He spoke the world into existence. He came down through the virgin's womb. He walked among sinners. He carried the cross.

He shed his blood. He rose from the grave. He ascended in glory. He intercedes for his people.

And soon he's coming again. So bow before him now. Trust him fully. Serve him faithfully.

Guard his truth carefully and lift up your heads, because Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, is coming quickly. That's my portion for this morning. Thank you.

Family Bible Hour featuring Charles George on “What’s in your wallet?” A teaching from the book of Proverbs on God’s wisdom in regards to finances.

Transcript

Good morning. Good morning. That quote, Benjamin Franklin, as the founding father of our nation, this, this quote is for my kids. Spending $7 Starbucks coffee.

I must warn you, this is going to be long. This is going to be fast. At times, boring. The PowerPoint might work or it might go haywire.

My wife has been asking me to do the PowerPoint. So here we go. First, let's pray. Father, we are so thankful for thy beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, coming down to this sin-sickened world to save wretched sinners like us.

Thank you, Lord, for accomplishing all that thou hast purposed in thy mind. Lord, give us light from thy word and the grace to obey. Bless all those who are gathered here. Speak to us, O Lord, through thy word.

Bless thy servant, give him utterance. We pray for those not able to make. Because of various reasons, we ask for a special blessing upon them. Bless them, O Lord.

Grant them peace. Once again, bless our time together. Pray thy name be glorified, exalted, and magnified. We pray and ask the most precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen. Amen. We have been in the book of Proverbs for the past few months discussing various topics. Larry has put the topic as, what is in your wallet?

What is in your wallet? So everyone, take your wallets out. Let's see what you have. Anyone here as a Capital One?

Oh, yeah, you're set for life. Just kidding. This came in the news, so I thought I'll share with you. This happened on a Sunday morning.

A prominent pastor, not sure if his car broke down, but came in an Uber. He instructed the ushers to close the door and start aggressively demanding a donation for a new car. He made sure that everyone contributed to that cause. Another news, just the headlines, ABC 7.

The headlines raised like this. Pass a different decision to buy Lamborghini for wife as an anniversary gift. You know how much a Lamborghini costs? Six can go up to $600,000.

The famous quote, the secret of happiness is money. That is the biggest lie. It's not true. Financial wisdom, that is our topic.

God willing, we are going to look at the subject of getting money, keeping money, spending money, and giving money. Getting money, keeping money, spending money, giving money. Four steps of financial management that includes wealth, poverty, generosity, and greed. You know, in the assemblies, we did not talk about money.

In fact, in our 22 years at Lake Howell, I'm not sure if anyone has preached a sermon on wealth. I have spoken once on giving on a Wednesday evening. I'm sure you don't remember anything. After studying on this subject, money and wealth, I feel like I'm not the right person for this topic.

However, with the help of the Holy Spirit, I'd like to proceed. We do not speak about money due to two reasons. First is a biblical reason. I don't want to go into the details.

I was just reading the verse, Matthew chapter 6, verse 3. What you do, you should do it secretly that your left hand should not know what your right hand is doing. That is the primary reason that we're not taking an offering on a Sunday morning. You know, worship comes from a glad and an overflowing heart, and so is giving comes out of worship.

So for that reason, we do not speak about money. The second reason is a cultural reason. Sadly, there's a strong association today between ministry and financial manipulations. We all have seen scandals in the American media.

I'm not mentioning any names. Tell evangelists using the hard-earned donations of everyday believers to buy private jets, mansions, luxury items. Therefore, we have made a practice to de-emphasize the whole issue of money. Now, people think that the Bible has very little to say about this topic.

Surprise, surprise. Roughly one out of every seven verses spoken by our Lord Jesus addresses money, stewardship, material possession, and so on. Out of 38 parables given by our Lord Jesus, 16 of them deal directly with money or financial management. Unfortunately, we don't have time to get into that.

The Bible contains more than 2,300 verses related to money. And that's the reason it's going to be long. Proverbs itself has over 100 verses, 130 to be exact, a staggering number. It's not because money is the most important topic, but rather because money is one of the most accurate indicators of what's going on in our heart.

If you show me your bank statement or your credit card statement, I can tell you what kind of a person you are. The Lord Jesus explicitly warns us in Matthew chapter 6, verse 24, you cannot serve both God and money. The New Testament writers spend a lot of time warning us about the spiritual dangers of wealth. 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 10, Paul clarifies that the love of money, not money itself, is the root of all kinds of evil.

Bible scholars often point out that Scripture mentions money and possession more than faith and prayer combined. So clearly this is an important topic. Now when we look at the subject of money and wealth, there are some questions you might have. For the sake of time, I'm not going to read the whole thing.

You can take a look at it. Does my financial security come from my bank account or my faith? It speaks of my heart. Am I satisfied with what I have or am I constantly craving more?

How much should I give to the Lord, my giving? Should I buy a house or rent one? Should I buy a car or use Uber or rely on public transportation? Should I get life insurance?

As we know, proverbs are not promises but guidelines. They contain general principles for wise living, not guarantees for wealth, for health and wealth. Now first, let's build a foundation for our study. Proverbs 22, verse 2.

The rich and the poor have this in common. The Lord is the maker of them all. We are all made in the image of God. We are all equal before Him, whether we are rich or poor.

Psalm 24, verse 1 and 2. We are reminded that the earth is the Lord and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. Furthermore, God does not just make us.

He owns everything we have. Let us look at a few more verses to come from that. Haggai, chapter 2, verse 8. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts.

The resources that God has placed on this earth belongs to Him. He owns all the wealth in the world. Psalm 50, verse 10. We just sang that song.

For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. God owns the natural resources. In Deuteronomy, chapter 8, verse 10. When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.

The harvest and the produce that comes from the land are direct blessings from God. So we see this principle even applied to secular rulers. Esther 1, verse 2. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of heaven has given me.

Cyrus, King Cyrus, understood this profound truth. It was the God of heaven who gave him authority over all the kingdoms of the earth. First Timothy, chapter 6, verse 2. Through these Scriptures, we see that God is the ultimate owner of everything.

He owns the earth, the silver, the gold, the cattle on a thousand hills. He is the true landlord of creation who gives individual the strength and ability to produce wealth. Furthermore, he hands the entire empires to rulers according to his sovereign plan. So we see that God is the source.

He is the owner. He is the director of all wealth. This is the absolute foundation for our study this morning. Everything we have belongs to God.

People often think that when you give 10% to the Lord, the remaining 90% belongs to them. Wrong. 100% belongs to the Lord. He is the source of every blessing.

We are just stewards. We are just managers or caretakers of the financial resources God has entrusted to us. Deuteronomy 8, verse 18, that he may, but thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth. From this we see that God gives us the physical strength.

He gives us skills and intellect to produce wealth through our labor. As we have already established, God owns all the resources. Therefore, your job as a wage earner is to wisely manage and multiply a portion rather than consuming it all. Now, the challenge of money management.

The truth is, earning money is often much easier than managing it. Consider this example. In 1995, a 22-year-old young man, 6'9", power forward, I'm not naming the name, was selected as a first-round draft pick for the Orlando Magic. That is our basketball team.

This was exactly 30 years ago. He signed a multi-year rookie contract that paid him roughly, whatever, throughout the brief career we can see. Believing, he believed that his money would never run out. He bought an expensive mansion and accumulated massive collections of luxury cars.

Cars for his mother, cars for his friends, and so on. By 1999, his NBA career was over. Within just a few years, he went completely bankrupt, ultimately spending six months on the streets of Orlando, out of his Chevy Impala. What a sobering, tragic reality.

God has given him the power to get wealth, but he lacked the stewardship to manage it. This is why God challenges us not to place our trust in uncertain riches, but to remember that we are merely caretakers of what is ultimately his. Proverbs 16, verse 26, goes on to say that we must work to survive. Money is essential for survival, providing food, clothing, shelter, and so on.

In early societies, if a man had no wages, he faced literal starvation and death. Ecclesiastes 10, verse 19, a feast is made for laughter, and wine makes merry, but money answers everything. While this may sound cynical, Solomon is highlighting a practical reality, that feast and wine can give you temporary joy, but they cannot pay your bills. Money is needed to solve everyday earthly problems and acquire basic needs.

Proverbs 10, verse 15, the wealth of the rich is their fortress. The Bible realistically acknowledged that financial resources offer a layer of protection and stability in a harsh world. Because money is required to survive, God commands us to work diligently to earn it. 1 Timothy, chapter 5, verse 8, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Taking care of basic survival needs for a family is framed as a core duty. Now, when wealth becomes a problem, moving the goalposts, now if money is essential tool for survival, where does the problem arise? The problem arises when the pursuit of money has become an end in itself. Look at the world around.

We see rich people making millions, then billions, and now pushing into the trillions. The financial goalposts keep moving because wealth has become a status symbol. There is nothing wrong with honestly earned wealth, but it becomes a trap when it begins to control us. 1 Timothy 6, verse 10, For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

Money itself is not evil. But loving it, making it the center of your life, distorts your priorities and damages your soul. Now let's look at a practical basic advice found in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 15, verse 16.

Better is a little with fear of the Lord than great treasures and trouble with it. When we first started studying the book of Proverbs, we established a foundational truth that the fear of the Lord is a beginning of wisdom. Here the writer contrasts a small, humble life lived in reverence to God against a massive earthly treasure that brings nothing but chaos and trouble. There is another verse in Proverbs 16, verse 8.

Better is little with righteousness than vast revenues or gains without justice. The word there, justice, means being honest, treating people fairly. A small bank account maintained with honesty is better than millions built on dishonesty. Now let's look at the economy of the little, how God multiplies.

Now when we investigate the economy of the Bible, our God is a God who blesses little things. He multiplies it. Just consider the entire earth when He established it, when He put man on this earth. He put Adam and Eve on this earth, and today you and I are living on this planet where there are about 8.3 billion people.

Think about the New Testament. Consider the miracle of five loaves and two fish. In the hands of a boy, it was barely a single meal. But when it was blessed by the Lord, Jesus used that little to feed thousands of hungry people with baskets of leftover to spare.

The little is significant here. The writer in Proverbs, he talks about a little with the fear of the Lord, a little with righteousness. In God's hand, your little is more than enough. In Exodus chapter 16, we don't have time to go into all the details.

God provided manna in the wilderness. Some gathered a lot, some gathered little. The Bible records that everyone had exactly what they needed. The hymn writer puts it like this.

Little is much when God is in it. Little is much when God is in it. Labor not for wealth or fame. In God's hand, your little is always more than enough.

This is a profound truth that you will find in the Scripture. Now, let's look at some of the warnings that Christ, Christ's warning on money. Now, when the Lord Jesus was on earth, on this earth, He constantly interacted with the topic of money, exposing human hearts. We don't have time to get into it, but just to say He commanded us to pay our taxes to the government.

He called the rich man a fool because the man hoarded wealth as if he would live forever. He showed the rich man and Lazarus to prove that wealth cannot save a soul from eternity. He praised the poor widow who gave her last two mites, highlighting that God measures the sacrifice, not the amount. So we see, even in the case of Judas, we see Jesus was betrayed by Judas for money, for 30 pieces of silver, because Judas loved money more than the Lord.

So the Lord, Jesus, leaves us with a sobering warning. Luke chapter 6, verse 24. This was a question that was asked two weeks back in jeopardy. My kids didn't know that.

Luke chapter 6, verse 24. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. That word woe is profound. Declaration of sorrow and curse over anyone who finds ultimate comfort in a bank account rather than in God.

The Word of God says, hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Now let's look at the only secure bank investing beyond the grave. With all these examples in front of us, let's look at Matthew chapter 6, verse 19 to 21. Actually, this was the verse.

Here he lays down a direct command that cuts through all human economic system. But God says, verse 19, do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroys, where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So if you are looking for the most secure bank in existence, this is it. Why? Because neither moth, nor rust, nor inflation, nor market crashes can ever get into the treasury of heaven. No thief can break through the walls of glory to steal what you have placed in the hand of God.

Jesus is directly calling us to invest our money beyond the grave, not only 401k, but for eternity. Now I think this is a question that we need to ask ourselves, especially concerning money and wealth. What is wealth? Wealth is when you start accumulating resources.

Maybe it's money, maybe a few houses, maybe a few cars, a few acres of land, maybe in different forms, collecting sports cards, collecting arts, watches, and so on. And the question is, where is your heart? Where is your heart? What is your heart truly anchored in?

One of our friends and his neighboring friends owned a heavy, fireproof, commercial-grade security safe attached to the wall. One of them had gold over $85,000 plus whatever things were there. You know, gold is now $4,500 per ounce. This was a few years back, believing it was completely secure when they left for a wedding.

Thieves broke into their home, and the thieves couldn't crack the safe open. You know what they did? They took the entire safe with them. Their reality is that earthly treasures are never 100% secure.

Is your heart anchored in your collection, your portfolio, your real estate? Is it anchored in a safe that can be carried by thief at night? Or is your heart anchored securely within the veil of eternity, tied to the living God? The Lord Jesus concludes this section with an absolute rule.

You cannot serve God and mammon or wealth. Matthew chapter 6, verse 24. You cannot have two masters. When you choose to serve God first, your entire relationship with money changes.

It stops being a master and becomes what God intended it to be. A tool to manage for his kingdom purposes rather than for our selfish desire. And we also need to be mindful of where our heart is. Now, I want to leave you with a question to ponder.

Imagine you had limitless money like Elon Musk. What would you do with it? What would you do with it? How would you spend it?

Your honest answer to that question reveals exactly what is sitting on the throne of your heart. Is it money or is it God? Think about it. Now, we are going to look at the framework for financial wisdom.

The financial wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs is beautifully categorized into two pairs. Two views, wealth and poverty, that is the external condition. You can be either rich or poor. The other is generosity and greed, the internal characters.

These are the four things that we are going to spend the rest of our time. The absolute foundational principle in Proverbs is that wealth must be gained honestly. The primary vehicle God has ordained for that gain is daily labor. Now we are going to look at different ways in which wealth can be gathered.

Proverbs 13 verse 11. Wealth gain hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. Let us be completely honest with ourselves. There is no such thing as free money.

Money gained quickly through gambling, scams, lottery tickets, or get-rich-quick schemes, is wealth gotten by vanity. Roslyn High School, that is in Long Island, one of the top public high schools in the nation. Pretty much almost above 95% of the kids get into the Ivy League schools. And because of that, that has made the superintendent of that school a local hero.

The committee was so thrilled with the school's prestige that no one questioned the inflated school budget, allowing 11 million theft to go unnoticed for eight long years. Easy money vanished, and two of the administrators ended up in jail. God did not design our soul or our hand to operate on shortcuts. Money managed through patience, through discipline, and hard work as a beautiful compounding effect over time.

It grows little by little. Now, there is another way you can get wealth. It is by inheritance. Best by labor, not inherited.

Proverbs 20, verse 21. An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning, but the end thereof shall not be blessed. As parents and grandparents, we naturally want to pass a blessing to the next generation. But if a person receives a massive financial inheritance before they learn how to sweat, how to save, how to budget, they will treat that money as an infinite plaything.

The ultimate biblical example for this is the prodigal son. He demanded his inheritance early, and he wasted it all. Consider this. The largest wealth transfer in human history is happening right now.

Over the next two decades, an estimated $124 trillion in assets will change hands. To the young people here today, you must be spiritually ready and financially wise to manage what comes to you. Best, if gained gradually, not with haste, look at Proverbs 28, verse 20, and verse 22, dangers of get-rich-quick mindset. A faithful man shall abound with blessing, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.

He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and consider not that poverty shall come upon him. The Scripture warns against a haste to be rich, greed, a desperate, reckless rush to accumulate money. God's wisdom always favors gradual growth, little by little, over frenetic accumulation. A faithful man is steady, reliable, and committed to doing things the right way, the honest way, day after day.

When you abandon faithfulness for haste, you end up stepping into the territory of deceit. Proverbs 20, verse 17, highlights that trap. It speaks about dishonest wealth. Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.

Wealth acquired unscrupulously, might taste sweet for a moment. It's temporary, but it will turn to absolute bitterness. It's similar to that example that I spoke earlier, Roslyn High School. Then you see the progression here.

Proverbs 21, verse 5 and 6. Verse 5, the plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty surely to poverty. Careful planning and steady work brings stability and success, while rush choices lead to lack. Verse 6, getting treasures by a lying tongue is fleeting fantasy of those who seek death.

This is the ultimate warning. Chasing money through shortcuts lies is spiritually lethal. It destroys marriages, ruins mental health, and leads to absolute ruin. Furthermore, God ensures that ill-gotten gains do not stay with the wicked.

Proverbs 28, verse 8, one who increases his possessions by usury and extortion gathers it for him who will pity the poor. The money you accumulate through deceit will ultimately be taken away by God and handed over to someone who actually cares for the broken and the poor. So these are different ways in which wealth can be gathered, getting money. Number one, it must be gained honestly through labor.

Number two, if you inherit something, that is good, but just be mindful that you need to have the value around what you inherit. Number three, gathering it gradually and not with haste. Number four, acquire wealth in the right way, righteously and completely free from deceit. Now let's look at some advantages and dangers of wealth.

Now wealth has certain advantages to it, and Proverbs spells it out, a degree of security. I do not need to explain this in detail. Those of you who have resources, those of you who have wealth have certain advantages. Proverbs 10, verse 15, the rich man's wealth is his strong city.

Proverbs 18, verse 11, similar verse. It warns that money gives you a false sense of security. Proverbs 13, verse 8, the ransom of a man's life is his riches. So certainly there is a certain degree of security when you have these kinds of resources.

The safety they feel is only in their minds, not in reality. You know, wealth is a double-edged sword. Externally it protects, and internally it can blind you with pride and attract dangers. Now, when you have money, when you have wealth, you always tend to have many friends.

Proverbs 14, verse 20. Not only that, wealth also naturally brings power and influence. People have positive opinion of you. Proverbs 27, 22, verse 7 says, The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

Owing money reduces your freedom. You become a slave to the borrower. Now, not only there is power or influence, but there is also the ability to speak freely, to express yourself, to say whatever you want. There is an element of arrogance at times with people who have resources.

They say all kinds of things. Proverbs 18, verse 23. The poor uses entreaties, but the rich answereth roughly. A person in poverty must beg, he must plead, he must speak submissively.

Entreaties. He had to beg because he lacks power, leverage, or any other option. We see this play out in the global stage at times. Just a couple of years ago, a prominent example of this occurred when President Donald Trump bluntly told Ukraine President Zelensky, you don't have the cards.

You don't have the cards. In other words, you don't have anything. Just shut up. He was putting him down, highlighting a lack of leverage and dictating terms from a position of immense national and financial power.

A wealthy or a powerful person often speaks harshly. The poor has to beg and plead. But as believers, we must pass the external condition of wealth and poverty and focus on internal character. The rich man may rule the boardroom and answer roughly today.

His strong city is built on sand. The God of heaven is still the maker of them all. Now, a moment of reckoning. Now, these are certain things that you need to be aware of.

Wealth has absolute limit. It cannot deliver a soul from death. Money or no money, rich or poor, must face a moment of reckoning. Proverbs 10, verse 2, treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivereth from death.

A similar verse, Proverbs 11, verse 4. A powerful example of this occurred when the father of one of the richest men in India had a medical emergency. He believed that he had the whole floor to himself, despite having the best medical teams and vast resources at his disposal. He slipped into a coma and passed away a few days later.

Material riches cannot stop physical death or save a person from spiritual ruin. Good character and integrity matters more than money. You know, as believers, as those who have tasted the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who have been bought with the precious blood of Christ, as believers, we know that our righteousness is like filthy rags. As our late brother Howard used to say during the remembrance service, he always speaks this verse.

Our righteousness is like filthy rags, but the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ has been imputed to us. This gives us a permanent, holy, standing in God's presence. A righteous person has nothing to fear in death because they possess eternal life and eternal reward awaiting for them. What profound truth that we need to appreciate as believers of the true living God.

Now wealth does not deliver you from death, and those who have trusted in riches shall fall. Proverbs 11, verse 28, he that trusteth in his riches shall fall. So here we are reminded that we should not trust in riches. Now there are some who tend to overwork to be rich.

Proverbs 23, verse 4, labor not to be rich. The Spirit of God is speaking here about exhaustion of overwork. There are those who take up two and three jobs, stretch themselves out, spend 16 or more hours a day. Now let me be clear here, I'm not here to judge anyone.

You know there are circumstances where people have to work for those hours to provide for their family. These are requirements, but on the other end of the spectrum, there are those who overwork to be rich. They sacrifice their marriages, they sacrifice their children, they sacrifice their assembly life on the altar of accumulation, keep paying money. They end up with a house full of goods.

They have gathered the goods, they are wealthy but exhausted and empty. No time to enjoy what has been gathered. There is another truth which is extremely important and which we need to be reminded that riches easily disappear. Proverbs 23 verse 5 says, Will you set your eyes on that which is not?

For riches certainly make themselves wings, they fly away like an eagle toward heaven. Look at that phrase, that which is not. Bible describes wealth as temporary illusion. One day it's there, the next day it vanishes.

Wings like an eagle. Wealth is volatile, just like wild eagle that sits nearby for a moment and then suddenly flies away. Money can disappear instantly through economic crashes, bad investment, health crisis, or theft. Look at the statistics of lottery winners.

Studies show that vast majority of those who win massive windfalls end up completely bankrupt within 5 to 10 years. Earthly wealth simply will not stay put. Now let's turn the coin over and look at the other side of our pair, poverty. The reality of poverty, so on one side there are riches, on the other side we see poverty.

Now when we consider poverty, there are those who are born into poverty, those circumstances they find themselves in, not out of their own doing, no fault of their own. Scripture treats them with immense tenderness. But we are going to talk about those who are pushed into poverty by the wickedness of others, so there is some wisdom for those who do that in the book of Proverbs. Poverty infused by bad actors, the greed of others.

Proverbs 30, verse 14 gives us a graphic description of those exploiters, the greed of others, keeping money. We see this clearly in our modern financial system. There is something which is known as lending market. Now lending market is nothing, but you can go to a bank and take a loan.

The bank will give you a loan at a certain percentage. Now to get a loan at a certain percentage, you need to have a credit score. Normally the credit score ranges from 300 to 850. Below 579 is considered poor, and above 800 is considered exceptional.

So you might get an interest for one person, on the other side you might get for 7 or 8, whatever. Depending on the credit score, the bank will lend you money at a certain rate for different reasons. There are those who do not have bank accounts or those who do not have financial standings. So when they go to a bank, the bank refuses to give them loans.

So what they do is they are forced to go to a money lender known as subprime lenders or loan sharks. They lend them money at a very high rate of interest. At that rate of interest is so high that if they do not pay the money, the outstanding principal will double in 3 to 4 years. This is the kind of people whose teeth are as swords and knives, devouring the poor for profit.

Proverbs 28, verse 8 warns, He that usury and unjust gain increases his substance. He shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. This is something, this is about threatening somebody or taking bribes. This is poverty infused by bad actors.

Now, poverty acts related by bad decision. Proverbs also warns that we can drive ourselves into poverty through our own choices, our own habits, and lack of discipline. Proverbs 10, verse 4, He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand. Talks about laziness, carelessness, or half-hearted effort.

So, laziness is something that we need to be avoided. Laziness is something that can lead to poverty. You know, hands folded, not willing to do, not willing to go and do something. Next, refusing to heed correction.

Proverbs 13, verse 8, Many times there are warnings. There are people who refuse to take heed to those warnings. This describes someone who is unteachable, refuses to learn from their mistakes. Next, pleasure-seeking, throwing off money and your wealth on pleasure.

Proverbs 21, verse 17 says, See, that love of pleasure shall be a poor man, constantly draining your resources. Then there is drunkenness and gluttony. Proverbs 23, verse 21, Lack of self-control. Then you are wasting time on frivolous things, like spending all your time on video games.

Proverbs 12, verse 11, One who finds his hand will have plenty of bread. One who pursues worthless things lacks sense. So different reasons, which I would say, which infuses poverty, accelerate poverty, which breeds poverty. Poverty is never just one thing.

It can be infused by bad actors, accelerated by bad decisions, or bred by bad mindsets. Understanding these differences is exactly what makes wisdom of Proverbs so practical and deep. Next, stewardship. I guess we'll skip that for the lack of time.

We spoke a little bit at the beginning. Now the second pair I'm going to run through is generosity and greed. Again, it's got to do with money. There are different verses that focus on certain aspects of generosity.

Generosity, giving money, greed, keeping money. Let's establish a profound truth. God is generous, so generous that you have a special word for His generosity, the word grace. You know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Though He was rich for your sake, He became poor. And because we are His children, we are made in His image and redeemed by His blood. We are commanded to look like our Lord. We must be generous.

Proverbs 28, verse 27. He that giveth unto the poor shall not lag. Speaks of giving to the poor. Proverbs 3, verse 9.

Honor the Lord with thy substance and wear the first fruit of all thine inquiries. Speaks of honoring God. Proverbs 11, verse 17. Speaks about the joy of giving.

Proverbs 14, verse 21. The person who has mercy on the poor. Happy is he. Speaks of happiness.

Proverbs 3, verse 10. Speaks of blessing. Then there is Proverbs 11, verse 24 and 25. There is one who scatters.

Oh, one who gives freely. One who gives freely is enriched. His substance will increase. Proverbs 19, verse 7.

He that has pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he hath given will he repay. God gives it back. So we see human logics tells us keeping money makes us rich. However, God's wisdom says exact opposite.

Keeping an open hand. Giving money allows God to bless and multiply our resources. To have this, we must develop the mind of Christ. The one who set his heavenly riches aside to be born in a humble manger with no place to lay his head.

So we see now when generosity only need to give, you only need to be concentrated. But, you know, when you give, you honor the Lord, and that is about generosity. So we saw there is joy in giving, there is happiness in giving, there is blessing in giving. And remember that when you give, you have a sense of satisfaction.

You have the peace that is in your heart. And God is no man's debtor. Now on the other side, the other contrast we see is greed. Keeping money, that dark contrast of greed.

While generosity expands, the soul, greed shrinks it. The book of Proverbs exposes greed as an insatiable trap that manifests in three destructive ways. You know, greed is accumulation. There is advice for those who tend to be greedy.

Proverbs 30, verse 15 and 16 compares greed to a leech. The host leech hath two daughters crying, give, give. You know, when a leech attaches itself to the human body, all it knows is to suck the blood. And that's what greed is all about.

The greedy person is trapped in a cycle of constantly demanding more and more and completely incapable of finding contentment. Now there is a link between greed and laziness. Proverbs 21, 25 to 26, the desire of the slothful killeth him, for his hand refused to labor. So we see laziness feeds greed.

Lazy hand refused to labor, coveting greedily all day long. Then we see Proverbs 23, verse 6, the hypocrisy of a grudging giver. So, eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meat, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, saith he to them, but his heart is not with them.

The morsel which thou hast eaten shall vomit up and lose thy sweet words. So the principle is that greedy persons are often hypocritical hosts. They may invite you to their table and politely tell you, eat and drink. But internally, they regret every dime spent on you, accepting their hospitality results in bitter, rigorful experience where you, where your compliment and gratitude are completely wasted.

Then you see the ultimate cost of greed, self-destruction. Proverbs 1, verse 19. Unjusted greed ultimately consumes or destroys the lives of the person who chases it. And not only that, Proverbs 15, verse 27.

A greedy person not only suffers alone, their driving ambition brings chaos and stress and ruins their entire household. So, brothers and sisters in Christ, our life on this earth is temporal. Money and wealth are temporal. They are passing away right before our eyes.

But while wealth is temporary, the internal attitudes of generosity and greed that we exhibit carry massive, eternal weight. The entire book of Proverbs stands as an unmovable monument to this truth. It is far better to be poor and generous than to be rich and greedy. Greed promises a fortress, but it brings absolute ruin to the soul.

True financial wisdom is not about reaching a certain number in a bank account. It's about managing whatever economic condition that you find yourself with the right godly character. How you deal with wealth is one of the most critical tests of your life as a believer. To help us anchor this truth, let us turn to Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 6, 6 to 8.

Just read the first part. But godliness with condemnation is great gain. The word there is profit. Look at that phrase, great gain.

The world thinks great gain means adding more luxury cars or more real estate to your name. But the Holy Spirit says true profit, true wealth, is godly life, godly character paired with a satisfied soul. Contentment flows naturally out of a heart of deep gratitude, whereas covetousness is nothing but greed. True wealth is simply being happy and peace with what God has handed you.

To illustrate this, let me ask you a question, a very familiar verse. I want to visualize that famous passage from Philippians chapter 4, verse 13. I can do all things to Christ who strengthens me. I can do all things to Christ who strengthens me.

As you sit here this morning, I want you to think of something specific in your mind. That you can do through Christ who strengthens you. Something you would never accomplish without Him. Just take a brief moment and think about it.

Now let me ask you a second honest question. How many of you, when thinking of that verse, were thinking about money? Probably a very few. We usually quote that verse before a difficult, when we have a difficult, when we have a tough exam, or a sports game, or when we face a trial in life.

But that entire text is all about money. It's fundamentally a passage about managing your income. If you read the context, Paul is writing to thank the Philippines for a financial gift. He's explaining his relationship with material resources.

He says, I know how to be a beast, and I know how to abound. I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. Paul is saying, I have learned how to live on low income. I have learned how to live on high income.

I have learned to be completely content with whatever comes in, whether I have much or whether I have little. Because I can do all things, including managing my budget and staying content in any economy, to Christ who strengthens me. Christ gives us the supernatural power to conquer greed and anxiety. May God help every single one of us to live faithfully within our income.

Let me close this morning with what I believe is the most magnificent, well-balanced financial prayer in the entire Bible. It's found in Proverbs chapter 30, verse 8 and 9, spoken by a man named Edgar. This is how he says, Remove far from me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches.

Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and still. Take the name of my God in vain. What a beautiful sons of prayer.

Edgar doesn't pray for a mansion or a private jet. He says, Lord, don't give me so much wealth that I might become self-sufficient, arrogant, and ask, Who is the Lord? But don't let me fall into such deep poverty that I become desperate and turn to theft and bring shame upon your holy name. Lord, just give me my daily bread.

Give me what is convenient for me. True wisdom is never about how much money passes through your hands this week. It's entirely about the state of your heart. Whether a person has a little or a lot, true wisdom means maintaining absolute integrity, staying completely teachable, working diligently with your hand, and refusing to let greed or laziness destroy your Christian character.

As we walk out of this door today and return to our daily lives, let us bring this study into an active personal application. I leave you with these searching questions to ponder in the secret place of your heart this week. I will leave the question for you to read. May God help us to be faithful, loyal, and true to the person of Christ and to his blessed word.

Thank you.