Less enthusiasm this morning. I was counting the lecture blocks and this is lecture number 18 and I think what that means is that collectively you've sat in more lectures than you've slept in your beds this week and that's probably true. Okay, so we are at Lecture 18 for BWSC, but Lecture 4 for me. This will be more of a sermon. We'll go to Colossians Chapter 2 as we've begun each session in Colossians 2. I'll read verses 6 through 10. Remind you where we are. We've looked at how to beware. You've been warned and alerted to the challenges that we face. We have exposed, we've talked about how to avoid being carried away or cheated through empty deceit. We've looked at identifying the false religion of wokeness, how it is according to man's philosophy and not according to Christ. And now we're going to get where I've been wanting to go. So Colossians 2 verse 6, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you know our frame, and you remember that we are dust. Lord, you know that we're weak. And also, Lord, much study does, in fact, weary the soul. We pray then that you'd give us strength that as we attend to just another lecture at another conference, that you would remember your promise that your word would not return to you void. We especially pray that you would bless this time of meditation, not merely upon your word, but upon the glory of your son. And we ask that especially you would impress upon the hearts of each person here His unrivaled glory, and how He is the glorious Son of God, the Lord of all. Lord, please give us courage then in Him, hope in Him, endurance for His sake. Lord, please equip us then, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. The title for this fourth session is Proclaim. Proclaim Jesus Christ is Lord of all. And as I sought to emphasize in the reading of Colossians 2, what we're looking at here is especially verses 9 and 10, not so much expositionally of verses 9 and 10. I'll say a couple of comments about it, but bringing those principles to bear upon everything that I've already talked to you about in the last couple of days. As I seek to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, I'm seeking to take my own advice, putting Jesus before you as the altogether lovely one. Let me begin with actually something I had put into the end of my lecture, one of a quote that I was introduced to years ago. It was actually instructive in the Lord working to call me into the ministry, desiring to be a preacher of the gospel. Cotton Mather, who was a Puritan writer many years ago, said this. He said, the great design and intention of the office of a Christian preacher are to restore the throne and dominion of God in the souls of men. And to display in the most lively colors and proclaim in the clearest language the wonderful perfections offices and grace of the Son of God, and to attract the souls of men into an estate of everlasting friendship with Him. What I want to do is set up Jesus Christ before you, not as one option among many, but as the only Lord and Savior of all, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and to attract you today by God's grace into an estate of everlasting friendship with him, not simply because you see the barrenness and the bankruptcy and the stupidity of the world, but because I want you to see the altogether loveliness of Jesus Christ. Out there on the table earlier, there is a little booklet from Crossway by Thomas Chalmers that they have reprinted called The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. Please go find that. You can find a PDF of it. Go read it. It's one of the best things that you can ever read. It shows you that the Christian life is not spent simply running away from stupid things or running away from sinful things, but running to Jesus Christ and how when Jesus grips your soul, he will, by virtue of his glory, dispel things that are inferior to him. Well, what does it mean to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? I was talking to a brother here earlier this week, and we were talking about this aspect, and to confess that Jesus is Lord is not simply to express the sounds with your vocal cords, Jesus is Lord. Biblically speaking, what confession means, the word used in the New Testament for confess, it really actually means to say the same thing. And the referent point to saying the same thing there is actually we are saying the same thing about Jesus that the Father does. So to confess that Jesus is Lord is to acknowledge the same thing about Jesus that God the Father does. And what does the Father said about Jesus? This is my son, my beloved one, listen to him. This is my Son in whom I am well pleased. And so when you confess truly with your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord, what you ought to be confessing with your mouth is giving expression to what ought to be present in your heart, the deep-rooted confidence that He is the Sovereign, that He is the Master, He is the Ruler, He is the Governor, He is the Savior. What kind of Jesus do you need to confess? It's the Jesus displayed here in the Word of God. For in Him, this is what Pastor Robbins was talking about yesterday, in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. You are confessing the divine Christ, the Christ of ultimate power. We could spend as much time as we want talking about all these other things that we have discussed when it comes to wokeness, but in the end, The great remedy to these problems and the answer to all of these questions is the desperate need for a spiritual awakening and that spiritual awakening which will come through the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. He is the one, Jesus, who walked this earth, He was the one who was seen by many. He was the one who, by his own glorious divine power, as he's living under the, as mediator under the authority of the Father, feeding the hungry, preaching the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and then through his death on the cross, securing an eternal redemption. And when we come to him, what is it that you will find? You will find the Jesus in whom the fullness of deity dwells. He does not preach moralism, but majesty. He does not tolerate rebellion, but he does exercise a gracious and righteous rule. Jesus does not countenance anarchy, for he is the one in whom and to whom has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. And the rule of this Christ is not tyranny. because he is the one who is gentle and lowly and is the one who will give rest to everyone who has a weary soul. And so while my topic is everything woke, I wanna turn now to show you how Jesus Christ is in himself the ultimate and exclusive answer to everything woke. This is where all of my previous titles came from that were in your schedule but I had to deviate from. And what we're going to look at, if you have your outline there, is these kind of five prongs, although the first one's a little bit different. The last four kind of connect the five together. I want to show you how Jesus Christ himself is the answer to all of these problems raised by our current unbelieving climate. When we confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, we must first say that he is the Lord of truth. You've heard many things about this already. I've mentioned this many, many times. I simply want to read to you one portion of the word of God and extrapolate some things out as well. In John chapter one, we are given a picture of Jesus. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. That is, the one who is the word is connected intimately with God, but distinct from God. He himself is divine. He, the Word, was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. We'll come back to that later. And without Him, nothing was made that was made. In Him was life. And the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness did not comprehend it. You see how He is the answer to all things? Later on, John would say Jesus was the true light, which gives light to every man coming into the world. We have seen his glory, glories of the only begotten son of God, full of grace and. Truth, oh, you need to know that truth. Friends, humanity has long existed in a world where it is possible for even the most powerful and we would say accomplished people to stare incarnate truth in the face and say, as Pilate did, what is truth? Friends, happiness is not the truth. Your feelings are not the truth, your opinion. is not the truth unless it reflects the truth. Prevailing cultural pressures do not determine truth. Politics do not determine truth. It is vital for you to know that truth finds its basis ultimately not upon some collected set of ideas, not merely upon some sort of impersonal natural laws or agreed upon norms, but truth finds its basis upon a divine person, and that person's name is Jesus. So when Pilate said, what is truth? He's actually. Actually doing something remarkably tragic, John Murray, the great professor, said the tragedy of Pilate's bewilderment was the complete absence of comprehension regarding the stupendous character of the person whom he had delivered to be crucified. What is truth? That was Pilate's question, and I want to put it to you again today. What is truth? You must have a good grasp of a definition on what is truth. What is it? This is what truth is. Cornelius Ventile tells us, truth is that which conforms to the mind of God. I want all of you to write that down, and I want all of you to remember that for the rest of your lives. What is truth? Truth is that which conforms to the mind of God. God's mind does not change. God's mind is not wrong. God's mind is always good. Truth conforms to his mind. He must be the fixed, unchanging reference point to those things that we would make claims about that we call truth. How do we know what God's mind is? He's told us in his word. How do we know His Word? He's given us His Spirit. What does the Spirit do? He brings us to Jesus Christ, who is the truth. You must believe these things. This must be your starting point. This must be your foundation. And to confess Jesus is Lord of truth is the glorious thing, but to reject the truth is to reject the true Lord of glory and the glorious Lord of truth. Isaiah 8, verse 20, the prophet is there dealing with the incursions of false prophets, of liars, of people who would seek to draw God's people away from the truth. And he says, famous words, to the law and to the testimony, if they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Ultimately, when we talk about truth, it's not about arguments. It's not about data, as you've seen. It's not about the science. It's not about cultural deconstruction. It's about rebellion. It's about rebellion against the Lord of glory. And Calvin, John Calvin reflecting on this says, how much more boldly therefore shall we condemn men who set themselves in opposition to God? There's such a tendency to be intimidated by the institutions that are rejecting truth, staring it into the face and calling it a lie. But how should we, how courageous, we'll talk more about this tomorrow, how should we, we should be so firmly founded upon the truth Calvin goes on, if they shall not speak according to this word, he brings an accusation of blindness against every man who does not instantly and without dispute adopt this sentiment that we ought not to be wise beyond the law of God. We ought never to be wise beyond the law of God. This is one of the things that I love about John Calvin. He had a gigantic mind. He was probably smarter than all of us in this room together combined, excepting Dr. LeGates. I think he's in his own category. However, however, what Calvin would do is he would push, push, push, he would go as absolutely far as the word of God would take him, and then he would say, and to move farther is the height of folly. He loved the truth. Friends, to receive Jesus Christ as the truth is therefore the highest blessing. John 8, verses 31 to 32, the Lord Jesus said to the Jews, who believed in him, he said, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. But this is also true on the other side, isn't it? The lie will enslave you. It will enslave you into a life of darkness and a life of being deceived. Satan is a liar. He came only to steal and to kill and to destroy. And that is literally what wokeness does and what it's all about. Charles Spurgeon, the great preacher in London. said, once let the truth of God obtain an entrance into the human heart and subdue the whole man to itself, no power, human or infernal, can dislodge it. We entertain it not as a guest, but as the master of the house. This is a Christian necessity. He is no Christian who does not thus believe. Let me say that again. If you don't regard the incarnate truth of the Lord Jesus Christ as your master, he is no Christian who does not thus believe. Those, he continues, who feel the vital power of the gospel and know the might of the Holy Ghost as he opens, applies, and seals the Lord's Word would sooner be torn to pieces than to be rent away from the gospel of their salvation. Fearlessly and believingly, all of you stand upon and embrace the truth. Jesus is the truth. But secondly, Jesus is the Lord of history. Jesus is the Lord of History. This is where I want to deal a little more particularly in terms of maybe a little bit more underlying polemics. It means going back against these false claims of particularly what I've mentioned earlier in post-colonial theory. What this is is the modern, unbelieving, historical revisionism movement. The most popular one recently is about, for example, the 1619 Project, where America is not really about its founding as it happened later on in the 18th century, but really the way we should study American history is that it really began with slavery, because we're going to decenter whiteness, and we're going to think about all the ways that the oppressive lived here, and so we're going to change everything. And that's exactly what many people are trying to do, to decenter whiteness from history. Now, history is not escaping the notice of wokeness, because when you erase and revise history, you get to set the narrative. This is what's behind, for example, the tearing down of monuments or anyone associated with what is now called racist. And incidentally, I was talking with a brother yesterday, I forgot to mention in my topic when I was talking about deception, I should have talked about the term racism. Because racism is a word that has been hijacked, redefined, and is being utilized in a wrong way. When we think racist, you should possibly think an unjust enmity against someone because of their ethnicity. That's what racism actually is. But it's been redefined to mean prejudice plus power, meaning it's impossible for a minority to be racist because they don't fall into the category of power. You see how it's the same word but different definitions. At any rate, history is so very important. We learn from it. And so the question is, should we tear down monuments of the old racists? Should we stand in solidarity with those who do? Robert Dabney, if he had a monument, it would be torn down, once wrote, it is the knowledge of the past which gives to the young man the experience of age. And I think we can conclude, these are my words, that the impulse to erase the past will not only rob other young men and women of that sanctifying experience of age, but it will also imprison all of us to endure and repeat the sufferings and problems that have scarred past ages. If we tear down these things and erase them from our memories, we are consigning ourselves to absolute foolishness. Beware, friends of historical revisionists. The pen is mightier than the sword. I wrote an essay about this in seminary. The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword power, raw power creates an environment in which the pen thrives, but it's the pen, it's the writing that institutionalizes and enshrines the narratives of those who are in power. You need to recognize study history, study history that is right. But that does lead us to an important question. What do we do with the terrible things that have happened in history? Let's take colonialism for example. Is the history of colonialism a pure and idyllic thing? No. Do you think that there were people in the colonial age where people are moving out and sitting, do you think people leveraged that for their own personal gains? Do you think there were some who enslaved others for their own personal gains? The answer is absolutely yes. Do you think, though, that in the midst of that, sometimes riding the coattails of colonialism and riding the ships that were going here, there, and everywhere, that maybe Christian missionaries were also taking the gospel across the world? Yes, that was happening, especially in the 19th century. And so history is never a clean, sanitary, and clinical process. It is something that is always, like every age in the world's history, it is mixed with man's sin and God's fair purposes. You cannot study history long before you will come across the horrors of genocide, the evils of rape and of murder, of blasphemy, of infanticide, past and present, modern day called abortion. You cannot study history without having to grapple with the effects and the evils of chattel slavery, including the abominable African slave trade and the continuing slave trade that happens right now in a large part of the Islamic world. It is a reality. Incidentally, do you know what the capital of the world is for the sex slave trade? Atlanta, Georgia. Largest airport, most busy airport in the world. But you don't hear that in the headlines, do you? What do we do with the evils of history? Is the West particularly egregious in this respect compared to the sins of the East? The answer is no, not at all. So what do we do? What should you do? You need to be willing to study the evils of history. Learn what happened. Learn why they happened. Learn about colonialism, what was good, what was bad. Learn from the errors and the successes of our forefathers. Don't be embarrassed with those things and then also be very vigilant of the liars. Sharpen your mind. Understand that the study of history is not a fast discipline, it's complex. One example. One of my favorite men from the past is the great missionary John Payton, who gave his life to evangelize the cannibals in what was then called the New Hebrides, but what is now called Vanuatu. And in his autobiography, he writes, do you know who his worst enemies were in his missionary work? His worst enemies were not the ones who chase him all over the island trying to eat him, literally. His worst enemies were not the ones that he had to defend his own son who died, his little two-year-old or I think like six-month-old boy who dies because his wife had just died. They wanted to dig them up and eat them. He did not say they were his worst enemies. You know what they were? It was the white traitors. who would come and try to manipulate the locals in order to profit from them. And then as they did their evils against the locals, the locals took off their bitterness against John Payton. Do you see Satan at work here? That's what's going on, and we need to use discernment. Develop, friends, a philosophy and a theology of history. And in an effort to develop a theology of history, I'd ask you to turn to Revelation 5. I want you to see something here, and I'm going to do my best not to go too long, but you'll be OK. Revelation 5, I want you to see verses 1 through 7. Pastor Dykes read this the other night. Years ago, I was teaching a Bible study on Genesis, and we were in Genesis 2 and the description of the Garden of Eden. And there's beautiful parallels between Genesis 2 and Revelation 21 and 22. And so I was teaching some of my young men there. And when we were in Genesis 2, I said, well, now flip over to Revelation and told them where to go. And one of the young men said, oh, you're going to make me scared. Because many people, you don't know what to do with the book of Revelation. But if you're scared to read the book of Revelation, I want to hopefully take away one reason for you to be scared of this book. Listen to these words. I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll, written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy? to open the scroll and to loose its seals. And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it. Now let's pause for a second, don't read forward. If you go to Revelation 6, you're gonna see the seals being broken and there's a white horse and a red horse and a black horse and a pale horse or even, it's actually a green horse, kind of a sickly green. And people are scared about reading about the four horsemen of Revelation. You think it might be evil. Is it just God bringing destruction on the earth? But I want you to see something. Look at verse four. No one was worthy to open the scroll, to break the seals, and so what's John's response? Does he go, oh, thank goodness. He weeps. Why is John weeping if the contents of this scroll are not open and brought into execution? What's behind his tears? And then if the scroll being opened is a scary thing or a bad thing, why does the elder or an angel come to him and say, do not weep? Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne under the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he came and he took the scroll out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. Do you know what that scroll is? It's history. It's God's plan. filled up on the front and back, nothing is missing, nothing to be added to it. And who is the one who is capable, who is worthy of bringing into perfect execution every iota of God's plan? It's King Jesus, crucified and risen. It's Jesus Christ who will then command that these seals be broken. And yes, as judgments go forth, The enemies of God are punished. The people of God are purified and purged, and the kingdom of God prevails. That's what history is all about. That needs to be your history or your theology of history. And so when you ask your question, well, how can a sovereign God allow these evils to happen? How can a loving God allow these things to happen and do nothing? I want you to think about the question. Is God doing nothing? He's not. He is ruling with absolute sovereign glory in heaven. If you flip back to chapter four, you don't have to, but you just think about it. John sees that throne, and before the throne, there is a sea. And in the book of Revelation, the sea is chaotic, it's raging, it's scary. Out of the sea comes that massive beast that lays waste to God's people in God's appointed time. But do you know, from heaven, that sea, it is as smooth as glass. You see, from God's perspective, everything is working out exactly as it ought to be. God's not doing nothing. He is visiting his enemies with judgments temporally now. He is storing up wrath for the day of judgment eternally. There is a day that will declare all things that will make all things well, all things right. He is directing all things for His glory. And remember, remember, remember, what is at the center of history? There's a cross. There's a cross that was appointed from before the foundation of the world. A cross that would be adorned by Jesus, the Son of God and God the Son, where He would die in order to redeem from among the nations all those that have been given to Him. I told you a couple of times ago that this is the worst thing. The cross is the worst thing that has ever happened in history. The cross is the basis upon which God will deal with every sin. Either forgiving it through the bloodshed of his son or the people who have sinned and are not covered by that will be consigned to everlasting destruction in hell forever. You need to have a working theology of history. Jesus is the Lord of history. William Cooper wrote that great hymn. In which he says blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain, but God is his own interpreter. He will make it plain. Understand Jesus is the Lord of history and he will bring it to grand consummation. A third thing to remember about our savior. in whom the fullness of deity dwells is that he is the Lord of righteousness. And here is where I want to deal a little bit with the current sexual revolution, the sexual devolution, the LGBTQIA plus movement, feminism, gender theory, queer theory. You remember what they're trying to do is attacking at its very core, the boundaries and the standards, the good precepts of God as it comes to a sexual ethic. And one of the things that you need to understand is that you're not living in a neutral world. You're not living in a world that is even inclined morally to a positive end. You are living in a world that is awash with iniquity, that is under the sway of the wicked one. Not sovereignly, Jesus is the sovereign ruler, but really. In Revelation chapter 17, as John will set forth the harlot Babylon, Her own condemnation and eventually her exposure and destruction in chapter 18. This is what it says in Revelation 17, one and two, then one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls came and said to me, come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk. The world, the harlot system, the mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations, is making even the most mighty, and if the most mighty, then certainly the most lowly people drunk, inebriated with sexual perversions of every kind. Oftentimes you will hear about disputes, and they're horrible now, a father arguing to protect his child from a mother who wants to transition the child. But rightly, you should recognize that oftentimes it's happening within a context where the parents have already been divorced. You see, the no-fault divorce laws who were signed into law actually by Ronald Reagan back, I think, in 1969, which swept across this nation, that's a starting point to the destruction of the sexual ethic in this land, unbiblical divorce. fornication, sex outside of marriage, pornography, homosexuality, sodomy, transgenderism. These are raging things, friends. And the sexual immorality that pervades our land is a sign of God's judgment. You need to recognize that you are growing up in a time of unimaginable confusion, confusion that is being not only celebrated, but sadly now it's being protected by legislation, not only in Canada, but in America. Did you know that there are 20 states who have banned so-called conversion therapy? Now, there are some kinds of conversion therapy that are horrific and ought never to be practiced. It's presently disallowing state-licensed therapists from helping minors turn away from sexually perverse and destructive lifestyles. However, what has also happened just last year in Canada is that it is also now, I think, criminalized that parents may not disagree with their children who want to be addressed by their preferred pronouns. You can go to jail for it. It's an evil thing. Friends, I've often heard, I also heard, and I don't quite believe this, but maybe those of you who are in high school can help me out with this. I hear stats that 25% of high school girls now identify as LGBTQ in some way. Now, the gay rights movement has an inclination, just like climate models, to overstate their case. But I want to pause here for a moment. Years ago, I think I mentioned to you, I was an army chaplain, and the first time I encountered someone with gender dysphoria, I was sitting with a young man speaking And he told me that his first sexual encounter was from his brother when he was eight years old. His mom would lock him in a freezer from time to time. He lived a life of just unmentionable sexual abuse. And by the time he was 22, 23 years old, he didn't know what it meant to be a man. He had gender dysphoria. And I had great sympathies for him. Now, I sought to counsel him according to the word. He did not want to repent of his sins, and he didn't want to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of righteousness, who could set him straight. But I tell you that story for this reason, and I'm very sincere with this. If you're here this morning and you're struggling with these temptations, maybe you're even struggling with gender dysphoria or temptations that the Bible is very clear about going after your own sex. with some sort of attraction if you're struggling with these things. One, I'll tell you, come talk to me while you're here. Talk to your counselor. Bring these things to the open. Bring them to the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't continue in them. The world is telling you, continue. Go down this road. You'll find fulfillment. I'm telling you that the only place that road leads is to misery in this life and to destruction for all of eternity. And that what Jesus Christ offers is not the queerness, not the distortion, not the dysphoria, not the confusion, but righteousness, but glory, but goodness, but truth. And I know that in the past couple of days, Pastor Robbins and I in particular have been hammering on pornography, but young men or even young women, if you're here enslaved to those things, let me tell you, bring it to the light. Jesus Christ will deliver you from those things. His blood can make the foulest clean, the hymn says. His blood availed for me. So don't live in the darkness of shame and secrecy. Live in righteousness because Jesus is righteous. Psalm 33 says, the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice, and the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. Friends, Jesus Christ being righteous, let me use a different word. You know, we have a tendency to think that normal means like me, right? You find someone that you think is weird, and sometimes they really are, but typically your standard is, well, normal, actually means what I prefer and what I'm used to. But I'd like us to think for a second. Jesus is actually the only normal man who's ever lived his entire life on the face of this earth. Adam was normal before he fell. Eve was normal before he fell. But see, sin is the great abnormality. And so perhaps we should elevate the status of normal to righteous. Jesus Christ is the one who is bringing the abnormality of sin to an end in this world. This world's been subjected to futility, not willingly, but in hope that that subjection will one day be broken off and the whole of creation will enter into the freedom of the children of God. Jesus Christ, as Lord of righteousness, he determines what is good and right. This, not your preference, not your history, Not your conservative or social political values, although those are usually most conformed with what Jesus Christ teaches. Jesus himself is the norm. And Satan is lying and telling you that the loving thing to do is to accept your own temptations or accept your own sinful inclinations or accept your sinning friends. It's not accepting, it's not loving. I need to move on and I want to talk. Well, actually, I need to read one last text here. First, John chapter one, verse eight about our Lord. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar. His word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. I can tell you, my young friends, these things I say to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, remember this, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation of our sins. And not for ours only, John wrote to the church in Ephesus, I say to you, to this group in Johnson City, but he is the propitiation of the sins for the whole world. Everybody who comes to him will find covering for their sins in him. He's the Lord of righteousness. He's also, fourthly, the Lord of peace. I told you about critical race theory, intersectionality, these divisive tactics, these things that will divide people and have divided people. What is peace, friends? What does it mean to have peace? I grew up in West Virginia, and I learned one side of the history of what was called, for me, the Civil War. And when I moved to South Carolina, I learned that people actually called it the War of Northern Aggression. And then I learned they called it that for good reason. But at any rate, when the war stopped in 1865, was there really peace? There perhaps was an absence of bullets and cannons being shot across the lines, but there was definitely not peace. What is peace then? Peace is not merely the absence of hostility, but peace is what I've come to define it. Peace is actually a sanctified wholeness violently obtained. That's what peace really is, sanctified wholeness, violently obtained, a holy unity that comes only through the arduous efforts ultimately of Jesus Christ, enduring the violence of wrath and of man on the cross that he might bring people together. I mentioned earlier the problem being not ethnicity, but enmity. That's quoting from Darrell B. Harrison, who preached a wonderful sermon at the Great Awokening Conference several years ago. And this was what he brought out from Ephesians 2, 14 to 16, which I've already read to you, but how Jesus Christ himself is our peace. He's made the two, Jew and Gentile one, bringing them together through his blood. It is the easiest thing to divide people. It is so easy. but it is so difficult to bring them together truly. Stirring up racial tension and enmity is a classic trick. It's behind, for example, the enmity and the genocide that happened in Rwanda that was needless and it was wicked. But you see, the Lord Jesus has accomplished everything necessary for uniting every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, and he's done it in the only way for them truly to be united without reconstructing a God-defying tower of Babel once again. That's what the world is building. It's trying to rebuild Babel, whether digitally, whether linguistically, whether culturally, whether sexually, it's all going to come down in a confused mass. Jesus is building his holy city. Throw in your heart with him. And in that sense, that's why I will say, perhaps you've heard racial reconciliation. Perhaps you've heard the kind of woke left in evangelicalism. Racial reconciliation is a gospel issue. And guess what, I agree for a very different reason. You see, Jesus determines the terms of peace and forbids rebuilding the walls of division in his church. And those who are guilty of rebuilding those walls of division or stirring up that kind of dissension, they're sinning like Peter did when he withdrew from the Gentiles in Galatians chapter two, where Paul rebukes him to his face. Racial reconciliation is a gospel issue. But those who are committed to fomenting divisions along these lines, they don't know the gospel. And that's why I would encourage you to learn about these things. And I was asked last night about using woke tactics against woke people. Turn sometimes these projections back against them. They're saying racial reconciliation is a gospel, you should say amen. And if you don't understand it, you don't know the gospel. Because Jesus Christ has actually done everything that's necessary to bring people together in Jesus Christ Woe to you if you rebuild those walls and keep people out. If you harbor enmity against other people for no good reason, you need to repent and go to the one who bore our reproaches upon whom chastisement was laid for our peace. And I would encourage you this morning that if you've been deceived by this divisive woke rhetoric to go back to the cross and consider the work accomplished by Jesus Christ who suffered more than anyone And in his name and by his grace, we are able to forgive others, even as we have been forgiven and to walk in love with those who used to be our enemies. Finally, Jesus is the Lord of life. And this, again, is where I'll circle back and deal with this kind of strange. Very odd area of critical theory thought in ableism fat studies, which is ultimately seeking to normalize the effects of the fall. to normalize, to embrace them. A brother just told me that the state of Minnesota just passed a law that public buildings need to start installing adult-sized changing stations because it's discriminatory for them not to be in public buildings. It's just ludicrous. Now we know that there are some adults who need that kind of help, but they're a slim minority. We ought not to normalize or celebrate. And sometimes what's happening here, this is how much Satan hates you. He wants these things to be embraced. And what it will often do is it will inhibit people who actually suffer from the effects of the fall from finding ways to be helped. Satan hates life. Friends, we live in a culture of death. We live in the midst of an ever increasing and ever darkening death cult. I got a note just a couple of days ago that there was a man who was praying outside of abortion clinic praying, he's probably a Roman Catholic, so we could have some problems there perhaps, but he's praying for these people and he got his face beaten in. Why? He doesn't want babies to killed, but the baby killers want to beat the face in of the guy who is wanting to save children's lives. It's a death cult, friends. This has been our case since our first father, Adam, ate the fruit and plunged us into that aspect of the misery of our society. Pastor Robbins mentioned over 60 million children murdered over the last 60 years. We see perversion, we see war and imperialism. Another friend of mine just told me that in the last 12 months, Canada has euthanized over 20,000 people. Now they're going to military veterans who have PTSD and can't quite get over it since their trauma-informed care didn't work. You know what they're giving them as a viable option? Just kill yourself. Just kill yourself. They don't call it that way. It's euthanasia. End your sorrows, they think. It will only be the beginning of sorrows. There's endless murder in our cities, violence in our homes. Art has become nihilistic. Psychology is humanistic and perpetuates those things which are demonic. Let me tell you a true story. When I was out, I think I've told you a couple of times, I was out at this Pride event talking with people, I was witnessing to some people, and I was talking to this young lady, and she claimed to be a Christian. She was a Christian psychotherapist, she claimed to be. And she was embracing this LGBTQ trans push. And I was asking her some questions, and let me show you how deceived the psychiatry industry in many respects, not in all respects, is. I asked her, okay, so you don't think that it's helpful to take a young man who thinks he's a girl and try to help him see the right way? She says, no, I'm here to embrace my, I'm here to affirm my patients, my clients. I wanna help them. I said, okay, so what would you do if a child came to you and said, 12-year-old came to you and said, I'm on meth. I do meth. What would you do to help that person? Would you not tell them you should stop doing meth? You know what she said? I'd make sure he had clean needles. True story. It's demonic. Satan hates life. He hates it. Jesus the Redeemer brings life. This is what I want you to see. In him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. God is the God of life, and when we depart from Him, when we move away from Him, all we will find is darkness and death. This is the effect of the transformation that Jesus Christ brings. I have there in your outline three different words that we can think about on the quality of life that Jesus brings. I hope you're all agreed, you must understand, Jesus actually came to bring life. But he also says, he says, I came to bring life, and he didn't say, and that life is going to be miserable. He says, I came to bring life, and that life abundantly. Some of you have grown up homeschooled, some of you have grown up not having all the accoutrements and all the opportunities that you might see your colleagues in the world having. But let me tell you, while parents need to find opportunities for their children, the world has nothing to offer you but a sham. The world has nothing to offer you but a lie. Jesus came to give life and not abundantly, Satan came only to steal, kill and destroy. You see, that's why based in Jesus Christ, a life lived in union with him is actually a life that will pursue those things that are truly beautiful. You think about the construction of the tabernacle. The construction of the temple. Getting to go back to the making of the Garden of Eden. It wasn't just slapped together. It was very carefully designed. It was symmetrical. It was beautiful. It was a dwelling place fit for God. God gifted Bezalel and others to craft together these things in order to bring together beauty, not to be worshiped, but to be displays of God's gifting and God's glory. This is why Christians, you here today, if you're a Christian, your schoolwork should be done with excellence. Your stewardship of what God has given you should be done with excellence. You shouldn't be sloppy and haphazard. You should exercise true dominion and bring out the potential of the things that God has given you, because Jesus Christ is Lord of life, actually brings forth beauty. Let me make another observation. This might strike you as odd, but it's true. A woman in my congregation once pointed out to me, she says, women who are loved well by their husbands get prettier as they get older. And I've seen that to be the case, especially for my own life. However, I've also seen the other side. I've sadly seen women who are haggardly. Who are bitter and frustrated. God really does in his kindness sanctify and elicit true beauty. He brings about true order, not the chaos of Babel, not the chaos in judgment that the flood brings. There was a question yesterday about wilderness and chaos. You know, one thing that's very interesting is actually my question. But one thing to think about is actually God's blessing brings order. God's judgment brings chaos. And if you don't believe me, there's a very clear picture in the narrative in Exodus where what does God do with Egypt? What God does in Egypt as he brings the 10 plagues is he's actually uncreating Egypt. He's spiraling them down into chaos. What happens? The order gets destroyed. Why? Frogs are jumping everywhere, flies are going everywhere, the fish are dying. You see, life is becoming unraveled and it's being uncreated down into a dismal dust heap. That's what happened to Egypt. But see, the counter happens as you follow after God. This is why what we've been hearing about bringing people out of poverty, God's blessing actually brings order. I promise you, the Garden of Eden was not a haphazardly constructed place, but beautiful, beautifully placed and nurtured and manicured, as we would say today, God is a god of order, not a god of chaos, though he brings chaos to those who are deserving of judgment. And I hope not to fall to step too much into what Pastor Robbins is going to get to when he gets to consummation. But you see, Jesus, who is the redeemer, who brings life, is the agent, is the one who's bringing us to new creation. I'm almost done. If you're worried about your break. If you would just turn to Revelation chapter 22. I want you to see. The end state of all of this. Now, I've heard this read at funerals. I've heard maybe you've been to a funeral and the pastor has read this and said, and this is what so and so is now experiencing. It's not true. OK, this is what will be experienced after Jesus comes back after the resurrection. But it says that he showed me a pure river of water of life, Revelation 21 clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and of the lamb in the middle of the street and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore 12 fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the trees were for the healing of the nation, sorry, the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, and there shall be no more curse. But the throne of God and the lamb shall be in it and his servant shall serve him. What did Jesus wear upon his head when he was crucified on the cross? lose sight of the typology that's happening there. The blessed one of God was cursed. He wore on his head thorns. Why do thorns exist? Because of the curse. And so, Jesus, the blessed one, becomes the curse of one wearing the signs of the curse on his brow as he's suffering so that he might bring about a place that will have no curse. That will have no immorality, no incorruptibility, nothing wrong. No one will be there who ought not to be there. No one will be missing who ought to be there. It will be a place of unending glory, of undiminishing love for all of eternity. This is what Jesus Christ, as the Lord of life, is seeking to bring about and is not seeking from a position of weakness, but from his position of complete glory. This is why it is so important for you to understand and to believe unflinchingly. As John says in 1 John chapter 5, this is the testimony that God has given us His Son. And that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. And he who does not have the Son does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And then you may continue to believe in the name of the son of God. I began by encouraging you into a state of everlasting friendship with Jesus Christ. And I would impress that upon you again, because he alone can deliver us from the mess of our society. And he will, because he is the one in whom the fullness of all the Godhead dwells bodily. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray that as we have thought about him, not as an option among many, but as the exclusive, exclusive Lord and solution to the disaster of our society and our sin, we pray that you would increase our faith, that we would walk in him, rooted and grounded in him and find joy as we walk. So, Lord, we thank you that you are so kind to us for revealing him to us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.