Well, we continue now with the sermon that we began two weeks ago. We had a brief interlude. I trust that those of you who were here last week enjoyed hearing from our RUF campus minister here in Norman at the University of Oklahoma, James Post. And let me just say, he's not here, and this is not last week, but let me encourage you if God so leads that you see fit to support that ministry. It is our sister ministry in the PCA, RUF works, is called directly to the campus to establish a fellowship group. And we work with RUF as a local church. And so that is a very strategic ministry. Most of you, I'm sure, are aware that much of the opposition to Christ and to the Christian faith is propagated and promoted through our university system. That's not to say that everyone that's associated with the university is evil, they're not. But God's witness, the witness of his word and his people needs to be there and RUF is doing that. And that is a very key place, that's a place where, that's a front line of the battle. And so, if you can support that ministry financially, that would be wonderful. If you can't, then support it with your prayers, and support it with your prayers even if you do support it financially. Just a word, I wanted to encourage you in that respect. We return to the passage to which we were speaking week before last. It's 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 20 to 28. We want to read that again, so I'll ask you to stand and honor the reading of God's word as we put this before ourselves once again. Again, it's 1 Corinthians 15, beginning at verse 20. As always, I'll ask you not simply to hear these words, but to listen, and listen with your hearts and your minds. Engage, because this really is not simply the word of man, but it is the very word of God. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end. when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says, all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is accepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Please be seated. But we've been talking about the Kingdom of God. And that's a subject that, at least the phrase, is familiar to Christians. It should be. And it is a very prominent theme in the New Testament, as we often allude to. Jesus came preaching, and John the Baptist, indeed, came preaching before Jesus. Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. And then, in developing that, for instance, the book of Matthew says, and then Jesus, after He was tempted in the wilderness, as He began His public ministry, He went about proclaiming what? The kingdom of God. And so the kingdom of God is a big subject. It's a key subject. If we're to understand the Christian life, who we are, our role, if we're to understand what Christianity is all about, we must understand the kingdom. And we've been talking about spiritual deceptions of our age. And so one of those deceptions, sadly, and I made it clear that I'm not talking about people who are heretics necessarily, not saved. There are many godly people who fall into this camp. But dispensationalism is one of those deceptions. And so we've been talking about last day's madness. We've been talking about, which really has to do with our understanding of the Kingdom. And so we asked the question two weeks ago, how do popular conceptions of the last days lead to misunderstandings of the Kingdom? And we wanted to see three things. So first, and last, two weeks ago we spent the last time we were together all the time virtually on this point, although we were alluding in developing this point to the other two points of the sermon. So the first point was this, that last day's errors distort our understanding of the timing of the kingdom of God, the timing of the kingdom of God. The question being, are we in the kingdom now or is it future? And what we saw was that, no, we are in the kingdom now. And you notice that in this passage, it says, Jesus must reign. God has put everything under his feet. That's past tense. God has put all things under his feet. Now that is, interestingly, a quote from Psalm 8, which is, in its original context, speaking about man and what God did when He created man, and He's talking about Adam. He put everything in subjection to Adam, and yet Adam lost that supremacy. And the kingdom of God was always intended to be the rule of God, but not just simply the rule of God. What the Bible is talking about when it talks about the kingdom of God is the rule of God through man. Well, that's something that was lost because to rule, man had to rule. Ruling meant reflecting what God does and what God did in the first part of Genesis chapter one, which amounted to ordering and filling. We've developed this, don't have time to develop it again, rehearse it again today, but I'm reminding you of some of these concepts. And so as God's image bearer, we were created, male and female, to reflect God and to rule, to reflect God's rule and implement God's rule as his vice regents, as his vice rulers, under him, on his terms. That is the kingdom of God. It was compromised because the image of God, because of the fall of man into sin, was distorted. And so the very thing that qualified us and enabled us, empowered us as mankind to rule for God over His creation was impaired. And Satan became the de facto ruler of this world. That's why the New Testament can call Satan the God of this world or the ruler of this world. What the New Testament says is that God's answer to that was prophesied long ago in Psalm 2. What's God's answer to the rebellion of the kings of the earth against Him? I have installed my king on Zion, my holy hill. I've said to him, today I have begotten you, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance." And so God's answer to this is to provide one new man. This is why the incarnation of the Son of God was so important. He became a man. Why? That he might restore man's position of rule that God gave to him in the beginning. in Genesis. And so Jesus Christ is the God-man who now is the fountainhead of a new humanity. He is the head of a new humanity. And so, for instance, in Romans 5, The whole theme of that second half is that God deals with everyone in the world now who exists in terms of two covenant heads. You are either in Adam or you are in Christ. And if you are in Christ, you are a new creation. Part of a new creation God is establishing, He's creating, He's making all things new. He is resurrecting people spiritually and He will resurrect them physically eventually. That's what chapter 15 of 1st Corinthians, that's the context of the whole thing. And He's talking about this. But when did the Kingdom of God, when was it re-established? Jesus said the Kingdom of God is at hand. Why? Because the King is there and He's doing His work. What does the New Testament say about the Kingdom of God? We saw it. Here it says, He must reign until He's put all His enemies under His feet. Now that would seem to make us think He's reigning now. And I think it does indeed say that. I want to deal with this though, just so that there's no doubt. When it says, He must reign until He's put all His enemies under His feet, someone could say, well, Yeah, He must reign when He eventually starts to reign. When He comes at His second coming. And there are so many people today who believe that the Kingdom of God begins at Christ's second coming. It's not now, it's future. But that's not what this passage says. He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. Well, when is that going to happen? When does God begin to put all things under His feet? Well, when He begins to reign. And this is an allusion to Psalm 110, where the Father says to the Son, sit at my right, or the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make all of your enemies a footstool for your feet. Sit at my right hand until I do that. did Jesus begin to be seated at God's right hand? Because when He begins to be seated at God's right hand, that's when this process of putting all His enemies under His feet begins. When you frame it that way, then, what does the New Testament say? Well, Hebrews 1 says, what? That God has already seated Jesus at His right hand. And let me read these passages to you because they're some of the most important passages in the Bible. Hebrews chapter 1, the book of Hebrews begins with this. Long ago and many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. You see the image of God? He restores the image of God. That's at the very heart of our salvation. And He is the image of God, the perfect image of God. and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs." Peter at Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2, at his great sermon, He said this, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me. He is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope for you will not abandon my soul to Hades. This is all cited from Psalm 16. or let your Holy One see corruption. You've made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence." And then Peter goes on to say, brothers, I may say to you with confidence of the Patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. having therefore, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, this is Psalm 110, until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Now, why is this passage so important? Because it addresses a fundamental misunderstanding that we see in dispensationalism and among modern Christians today. They will say, God said, that when Jesus accomplishes His work, He's going to sit on the throne of David. And they say, well, the throne of David is in Jerusalem, and something has to be rebuilt for that to happen. And they're thinking literalistically. But this passage says that Jesus has fulfilled that already. He is seated on the throne of David. What do they misunderstand? They forget that when God made the covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7, when He made His covenant with him, He said, what I'm going to do is I'm going to make your throne My throne. because you will be a son to me. And the throne of God, God will be ruling over everything from Jerusalem, where? In His throne room in the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant is His footstool and God sits enthroned above the cherubim. That's why it was so important that David brought the Ark to Jerusalem. And that David made provisions for the building of the temple, and that God established Jerusalem as the capital to bring together all the tribes of Israel under one ruler, and that was David. And so, in fact, David was the embodiment of God's rule. And the throne in Jerusalem, which was really not David's throne, literally was David's throne, but David's throne as an expression of God's throne that was there in Jerusalem in the middle of the temple in the Holy of Holies. And the reestablishment of that, so the whole thing is David's throne is God's throne. And when that temple was destroyed, where's God's throne? It's in heaven. Where is the real tabernacle? Where is the real temple as Hebrews expounds it? It's in heaven. And that's where God's throne is. And even when the temple was in Jerusalem, really God's throne was in heaven. That was just an expression of that. It was something that we could see and God was ruling through the kingdom that he had established in Israel. But that kingdom, because of disobedience, was done away with, and Israel was sent into exile, and the prophets declare, God's going to restore Israel somehow. He's gonna restore the kingdom, but how's he going to do that? He's going to do it through the Messiah that he sends. And when he sends that Messiah, what does he proclaim? The kingdom of God is at hand. Because Jesus has come to reestablish the kingdom of God. And what did that? When he sat on the throne of David because it was God's throne at the right hand of God in heaven. That's what Scripture teaches. You see? And David proclaimed it. Jesus has fulfilled this. Scripture foresaw that he would set one of David's descendants on his throne. He has done that. And Jesus has ascended to the throne of God, to the right hand of God, to sit down on the throne with God the Father. Now, there's another passage that expounds this. All of this is just showing how Scripture expands on what's proclaimed there in 1 Corinthians 15. What does it mean when it says he must reign until he's put all his enemies under his feet? He's doing that now. That's what's so important to see. The timing of the kingdom of God is that it is now. And so, Ephesians, and I want to walk through this passage because it's another very important passage. Ephesians chapter 1, when Paul is praying for the Ephesians, Listen to what he says. And this prayer is full of biblical theology. For this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened How are we to be enlightened? How are they to be enlightened? How did he want them to be enlightened? He says, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." Now, that's a lot. There's a lot packed in there. But here's what we need to see. Jesus Christ is reigning. God has put Him in this position of rule. He has put all things under His feet, but that has to do with us because He is the head of the church. He has given Him to us as the head of all things. To us. Why is that important? Because His rule is what reestablishes our rule under God. That's the kingdom of God. And so in chapter 2, in saying what He's done for us, look at chapter 2 in Ephesians, He says, but God, let's pick it up in verse 4, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, and I have to point this out, before we were saved, and before these Ephesians were saved, what was their condition? Notice in verse 2 He says, trespasses and sins, you were dead and trespassing, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air." Who is that? That's Satan. He is the prince. He's a prince. He has a kingdom. But that's the kingdom of the air. Why? Because it has no substance now. It has no basis. It has no ground on which to stand because Jesus has come and He has bound the strong man. And He has taken His house. He has taken His kingdom, that which He usurped. Jesus has done that. And so that He can say now, look at verse 4, But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. We've been spiritually resurrected. We've been given new hearts. We've been given new life. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms now if we are in Christ. We share in His rule. When? Now! This is all past tense. This is what God has done. This is the teaching of the New Testament. Do you understand that? That the Kingdom of God is now. Last day's madness distorts that reality. This is something that is already true. And so, we saw that its victory is now. It begins now. What does our passage say? He sits at God's right hand. He rules. He must reign until He has put all His inmates under His feet. And that begins now. That's happening now. That's what He's doing now. And that speaks of the Kingdom's victory, not later, not when Jesus comes only, but now. But this victory, again, we ask the question, when will the Kingdom really come? That is, when will it be realized? Well, it's already been realized definitively. The Kingdom's been established. That's what the New Testament teaches. But remember our law passage today? We've been given the land, and we're in the land. And you hear from some eschatological positions, they will say, well, where the church is now, we're in the wilderness. We're in the wilderness. And we'll be in the wilderness. We come into the land at Christ's second coming. I want to say, I think that's a flawed way of analyzing. biblical theology. I don't have time to go into all of the details of why I say this, but the wilderness would be the Old Testament period of the Kingdom of God, when Israel was the kingdom. And when the law of, it's the era of the law of Moses, when Israel is submitting to all of the law of Moses, including the ceremonial law and all that. We've been through this in detail as a congregation. If you weren't here when we were talking about all that, we'll talk about it again. But the reason I say that is, for instance, John, the first chapter of John says what? The law came through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. If we think about the entrance into the land, Moses could not bring them into the land. Moses did not go into the land at that time. It took Jesus, because that's the Anglicization of Joshua. Joshua, Yeshua is literally Jesus. When people were dealing with Jesus in the first century Hebrews, what did they call him? They called him Yeshua. His name was Joshua. It's Joshua who brought them into the promised land. Jesus has brought us into the promised land. But did Israel receive their full inheritance when they entered the land under Joshua? No, they had to take it. And actually, even in the book of Joshua, they did not completely take it during the lifetime of Joshua. And the Bible makes that clear. They did not completely drive out the Canaanites. And they still hadn't at the time of the judges. And that's why through cycles they came under the dominion of pagan peoples. That's where we are now. We're in the land, but we're supposed to take it. We're supposed to continue to take it. And listen, if you doubt this, what does the New Testament teach us about what is the land? You know, the promise of the land came to Abraham originally. I'm gonna give you this land. And it was spelled out. First, you know, there were some rather limited borders. between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. And then in Genesis 15, God expands that and He says, I'm going to give you from the sea, from the Mediterranean Sea, to the great river, the river Euphrates. And that's all the way to Babylon. That's a lot more territory. Right? But then what does the New Testament say? What does Romans 4, I believe it's 11, it might be 13, what does it say? for the promise to Abraham that he would be heir of, what does it say? The world. The world. And he says that was the promise to Abraham. If you go back and read Genesis, listen, you will read and read and read and you will never find that said in Genesis. But what the New Testament is saying is that was always the complete fulfillment of the promise of Abraham. It was nothing less than the restoration of the kingdom of God that Adam lost. Restoration of dominion over all of God's creation, for God, under Him, reflecting Him. That's why Jesus, in preaching in the kingdom, the central sermon on the kingdom in the New Testament, what is it? The Sermon on the Mount. And what does He say? Blessed are the meek, for they shall what? Inherit The earth. See, that's the kingdom. That's the extent of the kingdom. And inheriting the earth, bringing everything under the dominion of God's law and God's will, ruling over it for Him, that's what we're to do. And so that leads us to the second question. Last days' madness then restores what? Well, last day's madness distorts the timing of the kingdom. Then we need to go through these last two very quickly. We will. Last day's errors distort our understanding of the nature of the kingdom then. This teaching distorts the extent of the kingdom. And notice in 1 Corinthians 15, Just to point you again, look at verses 25 and 26. He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. What are these enemies? It is everything that stands against God that is to be defeated. That's what 2 Corinthians 10 is saying. We take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. What do we do? What does our welfare consist of? We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. What does that say? Listen to me, folks. What we are to do is we are to put down everything that represents a rebellion against God in every sphere of society. In the arts, Hollywood belongs to Christ. The museums of this country belong to Christ. The educational institutions of our society belong to Christ. Definitively. Your home, your household, your finances, everything about you belongs to Christ. As Abraham Kuyper put it, there is not one square inch of ground in this world about which Christ does not say, mine. That's the kingdom of God. And so, what's the nature of the kingdom? The nature of the kingdom is bringing everything under God's ruler. Through us. Through us. Through the church. Christians, those who are united to Christ because He's doing it through Christ. And what God is doing now, the nature of the kingdom, is that God through Christ and through His people, His body, which is united to Him, He is subduing all things to Himself. That's what He's doing. The question isn't, is God for us? The question is, are we in line with God's program? You remember what Joshua said to the angel of Yahweh, which I believe was a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. He sees a warrior And Joshua says, are you for us or for our enemies? And the answer is so telling. The warrior says, neither. But as captain of the Lord's hosts, I have now come. Are we on God's program or not? That's the question. Have we enlisted? And do we believe that that's what God is doing? And do we believe that He can do it? And let me say, folks, I believe that because we have, in the Christian church, we have succumbed to a teaching that says that we can't win. We can't win now. And the kingdom isn't now. It's sometime future. And so what do we do then? What's our program? Well, it's to get people into the lifeboat. And that's it. It is to get people into heaven. It's to make converts so that people are forgiven of their sins, and that's all we can expect now, to get as many people into the lifeboat, but you don't try to fix The world, you don't try to address things like, heaven forbid, politics, or law, or the arts, or education, or science, or understanding of any of these things. No, we can't do that because that belongs to the world, and it's gonna continue to go down, down, down until Christ comes back. That is not what the Bible teaches. Our program is to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. And what is the Great Commission? What is the Great Commission? Is it just make converts? No, it's make disciples. And of whom are we to make disciples? All nations. All nations. Why? Because Jesus has proclaimed, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. And so what do we do? We incorporate people in, baptizing them into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's incorporation in. That's extensive growth of the kingdom, more and more people. But then, what's the heart of it? teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded. That's the Great Commission. That's what the church is supposed to be doing now. Why? Because we are to bring all things under the dominion of Christ as we take dominion in His name. That's taking the land. That means that Christians need to understand that it's not just evangelism that's spiritual. When we talk about science, we better talk about it in subjection to the principles of the Word of God. And we proclaim that to the world. We take those things for Christ. We ask, what is education supposed to be in light of the Word of God and the truth of God? And we take that for Christ. And we do it boldly. Why? Because it belongs to Him. It belongs to Him. That's the nature of the Kingdom. Is building the Kingdom limited to the Great Commission? Yes, but it's not limited to a reduction of the Great Commission. What is our role? What's our duty with respect to the Kingdom? How should we live now? Listen, we look back to biblical theology, we look back to David again. David is a type of Christ. And when David fought Goliath, what do we learn from that story? David goes and he fights Goliath because the army of Israel are terrified and they're standing back. They don't want to do battle. And so David goes and he says, I will go and fight. this uncircumcised Philistine. Because I know God's power. I've seen it in my life. When I've met a bear or a lion and I kept them from the sheep, this Philistine will be like one of them. And so he goes and he fights and he defeats Goliath and he cuts off his head. And when he does, is that all? No, that's just the beginning. Because what happens is the armies of Israel who see His victory rush forward and they rout the Philistine armies. That's what we should learn. Because that's us. That's our role. Jesus has won a definitive victory. But our role is to say, because of Jesus' victory, now we go in and we take the land. We mop up. Because the victory of the kingdom of God is in three stages. There is the definitive victory of Christ. There is the progressive victory as God's people put His enemies under His feet progressively in this world and subdue them to the truth of the Word of God. And then that's consummated when Christ comes at his second coming. But what does our passage say? After he's put all his enemies under his feet, what does he do? Then Jesus comes and he presents the kingdom to the Father, a kingdom that has been subdued. Not he comes and everything's still, it's worse than it's ever been and he mobs everything up. No, He's been putting His enemies under His feet all that time. That's the picture in this passage. His second coming is just the consummation. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. What happens at Christ's second coming? The resurrection. That's the last enemy that's destroyed at that time. What is the picture that we should expect? We should expect victory for God's people in history. We should expect more of God's enemies to be subjugated, more and more and more. Why isn't that happening? It's because what we've been taught has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's because exactly what happened in the book of Numbers has happened to the church today. We have teachers who are telling us, you can't win. It takes Jesus coming back. You can't win. And that's completely, completely opposite of what the Bible teaches, or what the New Testament teaches. Why? Because we have God's power now. What did Jesus do when He ascended on heaven? He poured out the Holy Spirit. What does the Holy Spirit do? He empowers us. He makes us new. The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. And if we believe that God is at work and God goes before us, nothing can stand in our way. What did Jesus say? On this rock, the rock of revelation about Jesus Christ, on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Do you believe that? Do you believe it? The greatest need right now for our country is for Christians to believe what God has said and to begin to step out. And yes, it may cost us something. It cost the first century disciples something. It cost some of them, well most, if not, with the possible exception of John, all of them, their lives. But not really. Because what did Jesus say? I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live. And he who lives and believes in me shall never die. That's God's promise. We may die physically, but we have an eternity of life before Him to look forward to. What's our role? We speak the truth of God, the whole truth, to all of life, wherever we are, which means we have to know it. But then we speak it. We proclaim it. In Jesus' name. That's our role. And then finally, last day's errors distort our understanding of the prospects of the kingdom of God. I've already dealt with it, so I can just do this very quickly. It's progress. How does the kingdom of God progress? And what does this look like in the world? It progresses, it keeps going. We should see increasing, we should see society increasingly conformed to God's word. Now you may think, I've never heard that. I've just quoted so much of Scripture that teaches exactly that. The reason it's not happening is because we don't think it can. And we've been unfaithful, like that first generation of Israel. But that's what we should expect. And so what's the key to this? It is optimism. It is optimism. I'm saying optimism that can be kind of shallow, but what I mean by optimism is that we believe the Word of God and we know that it's true and we act on it. That's what's needed. That's what's needed for the church. That's what's needed for Christians. That we don't settle for getting a few people into the lifeboat. We don't settle for a few people praying a prayer with us to become Christians. We say, no, look, we have just as much as right. In fact, we are the only ones who really do have a right to say, this is how things should be. Because Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God ruling. We are His servants. We are His body. We speak for Him. He has commissioned us to do so. And so in the marketplace of ideas, we aren't the people who should be relegated to, well, look, you don't have a right. That's religion. Everybody's got a religion. Everybody's pushing a religion. Ours is the only true one. What are we supposed to be doing? We're supposed to believe God and that as we are faithful, God will give us victory. You know, one of my favorite memorials, patriotic memorials in Washington is the Iwo Jima Memorial. And some of y'all may know the story of the Iwo Jima Memorial. It's a statue of soldiers who are huddled together and they're holding a flag that's about to fall on the ground at Iwo Jima. And Iwo Jima was an island in the Pacific that the Japanese, if you've ever seen the movie with John Wayne, I can't even remember the name of it. But they say as they're preparing to go into Iwo Jima, the Japanese have had 40 years to put fortifications here. And we don't know what all they have, but it's just a lot of stuff. And it was one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. It was incredibly hard to take this. And we lost a lot of men in that battle. But that memorial pictures soldiers in the midst of that battle when the American flag was about to touch the ground, and they're huddled to keep it from touching the ground. Because they knew what that represented. And the story is told, I don't know, I don't know how accurate this is, I don't know, I think it probably is very accurate, is that when the American army seemed, it looked to them that they were going to be defeated, machine gun, assault over the place, people just being slaughtered, how are we ever going to do, how are we going to get rid of Trump? They saw that group of soldiers lifting that flag, Taking fire, lifting that flag. And that rallied the troops. And they won the battle. Listen folks, we need the troops to be rallied. Today we need something to give us hope. And hope in the Bible, let me remind you, is not Like, I hope the homecoming queen will go out with me. You know, it's not that. Hope is certain in the Bible. It's a promise of God. It's something that will certainly happen. And we can be confident of it because it's based on God's promise. Now I want to close with this. There's one last thing. There's one nagging question. And that is, Mike, if all this is true, why does the Bible talk about in the last days people will be disobedient to parents, lovers of money, so on and so forth. It talks about an apostasy, particularly in the pastoral epistles. What about that? Isn't that what's going to happen? Isn't that what we should expect? Well, let me just tell you. Let me ask you, what is the apostasy spoken of regarding the last days in the New Testament? For instance, in 1 Timothy 4, 1-3, 2 Timothy 4, 3-4. Let me just say this. I think it's clear from the chronology of the New Testament that that is an apostasy that accompanies and is parallel to the fall of Jerusalem. The Jews are the major enemies of the first century Christians. Unbelieving Jews, apostate Jews who refuse to accept their Messiah. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. And they create such intense persecution that there are many who fall away such that, listen, when did this happen? It's not something future to us. It happened in the first century. Paul said in 2 Timothy, his second imprisonment in Rome, he's about to die. He's about to go into the arena. And he says, at my first offense, everyone deserted me. There's none left with me. Everybody falls away. That's what's being talked about. There was an apostasy following the initial spurt of growth of Christianity under Paul. There was an apostasy, a falling away of many believers, a separation, if you will, between true believers and only professing false believers, just before the destruction of Jerusalem. That's not something that we should think of as something that is inevitable for us now. That's not what the New Testament is talking about. And it's not interpreting the New Testament in its context. Again, what did Jesus tell us to expect? He told us to expect that the kingdom would be like a little bit of leaven. It's put into a lump of dough, and it spreads until it permeates the whole lump of dough. That's what we should expect. And may I say this? If we don't believe it, and we don't do it, and we don't act on it, then God won't do it in our time. And you know what He'll do? He'll do it with the future generation, just like He did in the Old Testament. But He's going to do it. Do we want to see that? Do we want to see the Kingdom of God grow? Do we want to see the Kingdom of God triumph in our culture? Then be the church. Be what God has called us to be. Do what God has called us to do. And we will see it because God is faithful. Let's pray. Father, thank you now as we come to the table for this sacrament. And as we celebrate it, Father, may we remember that the path to glory that Jesus paid for us and exemplified for us is the path of suffering and the path of sacrifice. And so in this sacrament, we pray, give us the grace, give us the grace to do the same, to walk His path, as He called us, to take up our cross and whatever His commission demands of us, to be willing to pay it, just as He was. Give us that grace and encourage us and build us up and empower us through this sacrament that you have provided for us, in which we experience in an intense way our union with Him. and we follow Him. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. I'll ask those who are serving at the table to come forward now. And I've practically already given you communion meditation. It led to the table. Let me just say, again, as I do every week, God's blessings, the blessings of His covenant are received through faith. Through faith. That's how we're blessed. God gives us His promises. We believe them or we don't. But if we believe them, then we are blessed. You cannot be blessed as you come to this table unless you are a believer in Jesus Christ, which means you trust in Him, and He's your Lord. You accept that He is ruling, and He's ruling in the first place over your heart and your life. If you're not, if that's not you, then don't come and eat partake of this table. because you'll eat and drink judgment, cursing instead of blessing. You must be a believer in the way that the New Testament defines belief. But if you are a believer, And I'll ask you as I do every week, what do you believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. On the night which Jesus was betrayed, he took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it. And he said, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. After supper, he took the cup, and he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me. And he said, all of you drink of it. And so now, ministering in his name, I invite you to God's table. The table of our Lord, at which He offers Himself to us. Where He is both the host and the meal. So I invite you to come. Come and feast upon Him.