He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not obey the Son does not have life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Because we know that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ even so we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified it is not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Before we open God's word together this morning, let's bow our heads together and ask the Lord's guidance on our study today. Father, we're thankful that we have your word to enlighten us. We have your word to tell us about reality, that we might be conformed to your truth and not be Conform to the world that the word your word by the ministry of God the Holy Spirit will transform us from faith to faith Into and conforming us to the image of Christ Now father we pray that as we study today coming to a better understanding of what it means That Christ is seated at your right hand and that he is waiting and we are waiting until that time predicted in Daniel 7 a time when the kingdom will be given to him and he will come to establish it. Father, help us to understand the things we study today in Christ's name. Amen. All right, we are continuing our study in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 6. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 6 uses the phrase that we are seated together in Christ. And what I'm doing is taking the time to ask the question of why the session of Jesus Christ is so important. What has that got to do with us? And what does it mean that we are seated together with him? He is at the right hand of the Father. So if we are seated in him, we are positionally seated at the right hand of the Father. And we need to understand what is going on here in the plan of God, because understanding that enables us to orient our own thinking to God's plan for our life and understand the mission that God has given for believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in this church age. Ephesians 2.6 says that we were raised up together with Christ and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So what this tells us is at that instant of salvation, whether you were four, five, six years of age, or 19, or 20, or 30, or 40, at the instant you understood the gospel and trusted in Christ as your Savior, along with the fact that you were given the righteousness of Christ, that you were declared justified, that you were regenerated, made alive together in Him, at that same time you're raised up related to the resurrection of Christ, we're given new life in Him, and we were made to sit positionally. At that instant, you're made to sit in Christ at the right hand of the Father in heaven. And we need to understand what that means, its significance for us today. And as we look at this, we must understand that this is cuts across the grain of what is typically taught in many churches, in many conservative evangelical churches today because of the fact that there is this gross misunderstanding of who Jesus is today, his role today, what it means to sit at the right hand, and so they get all confused about the things like the kingdom and the kingship and dominion of Christ. So just by way of review, so you get the vocabulary down, we have this sort of cobbled together word called amillennialism. The word mille comes from the Latin, it refers to a thousand. The a prefix comes from the Greek, so it's compounding a Greek word with a Latin word, and it means no. So it negates any kind of thousand year rule of Christ on the earth. So they do not believe in a literal earthly kingdom. Part of what goes on in Amillennialism is that they hold to some form of replacement theology because they believe that the church has replaced Israel and so the church has brought this spiritualized kingdom on the earth today. So if we chart it out from the time of the ascension of Christ In the beginning of the church age on the day of Pentecost, there is a spiritual kingdom. When Christ ascended to heaven, he is seated not only at the right hand of the Father, but on David's throne. So Christ is reigning from his throne in heaven. In amillennialism, they don't hold to a consistent literal interpretation of scripture. And so they think of the first resurrection, the first resurrection is comprised of Christ, the first fruits, then the church age believers at the rapture, and then the resurrection of tribulation believers and the resurrection of Old Testament saints. That's all part of the first resurrection. And so they believe that the first resurrection isn't that what I just said. It is spiritual. and it takes place at conversion. So if you come out of a Reformed background, or Lutheran background, or Roman Catholic background, or just about any other background other than a dispensational background, then that idea is that you, that first resurrection takes place when you were saved. See, they've spiritualized it. Okay, they reject literal interpretation. The second coming of Christ takes place at the end of this church age, and Christ comes to the earth. There's no future tribulation. There's no future literal kingdom on the earth. We're there. We're in a spiritual form of the kingdom today, and Jesus comes, and that ends, and then we all go into eternity. What's important is to recognize that in amillennialism, They believe that Jesus is now ruling on David's throne from heaven. So they've spiritualized David's throne. It's not a literal physical throne in Jerusalem where Christ is reigning over a geophysical literal kingdom on the earth. Now post-millennialism, post means after, And this is the view. It grew out of Amillennialism, so it has many of the same features, such as a non-literal interpretation of especially prophetic passages. And they believe that Christ returns after the Millennial Kingdom, but it's not a literal 1,000-year kingdom. If we chart it out, we have it begin with the Church Age, but notice that somewhere during the Church Age, the kingdom begins to Come in, let me get, here we go. The kingdom begins to gradually come in. It's brought in by the church in one sense, but they would say that it's brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit. It's not something that the church militant brings in. It's the, as the church through the Holy Spirit and evangelism expands and expands and expands, things are going to get better and better, and eventually we realize we're living in that utopic phase, And after a while, then Jesus will return to the earth. So they still have the same view of the first resurrection as spiritual and that the kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. And then everything comes to a conclusion at the second coming in the same way as it is in amillennialism. And then there's all judgment that takes place. And then we go into eternity. Premillennialism. builds a different case, that Christ returns before the kingdom, before the millennium. Pre meaning before. Jesus returns before the kingdom and establishes the kingdom. We are living in the church age according to dispensational premillennialism. The church age, the church age believers will be raptured to be with the Lord when he returns in the air and the dead in Christ will rise first and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord. But when the rapture occurs it leaves a lot of people on the earth who are unbelievers. So it is after the tribulation at that which concludes the tribulation is the literal physical bodily return of Christ to the earth. And he comes and this concludes the end of the four stages of the first resurrection. And then he establishes his kingdom which lasts for literal 1,000 years. And we get that because in Revelation 20 1 through 7 the word 1,000 is repeated about six or seven times which indicates that this must be taken literally. Every other number in Revelation is taken literally, and this also must be taken literally. And at the end of the Millennium Kingdom, there'll be a revolt. Satan is bound during that thousand years. He's then released at the end of the Millennium, leads a revolt against God and against the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's going to be vaporized with fire and brimstone, and that ends the millennium, and there will be another judgment, the great white throne judgment, a second resurrection of all those who are unbelievers, and that is where they are judged. And then God creates the new heavens and new earth, and we go into eternity. In premillennialism, Jesus is not ruling on David's throne from heaven. That is in traditional dispensational premillennialism. In amillennialism, Jesus is now on David's throne. They spiritualize or allegorize those passages. In post-millennialism, Jesus is reigning today from David's throne at the right hand of the Father. But in pre-millennialism, Jesus is not ruling on David's throne. He is waiting. He's seated at the right hand of the Father according to Revelation 3.21 where he says, If you overcome, you will sit with me on my throne even as I overcame and sat on the Father's throne." When Jesus went to heaven, he didn't sit on his throne. He didn't sit on David's throne. He sat on the Father's throne. Now, there's been a screwy view that comes along that is not dispensational premillennialism. Some call it historic premillennialism. This also applies to progressive dispensationalism. which is not really dispensationalism and it's not very progressive but it is the idea that the kingdom was inaugurated at the beginning of the church age on the day of Pentecost and that it is progressively coming in through this church age. It is called realized eschatology because they believe that certain aspects of the new covenant are realized today but not fully. not fully until Jesus returns at the Second Coming. So in their view, like pre-millennialism, there's the Second Coming at the end of the Tribulation, which concludes the stages of the First Resurrection, and then the Great White Throne Judgment at the Second Resurrection. But in their view, just like amillennialism and postmillennialism, Jesus is now ruling on David's throne from heaven. Now what's interesting about this is to get to this point they have spiritualized certain passages so they do not have a consistent literal interpretation just like amillennialism and postmillennialism. And in progressive dispensationalism to get this they had to invent a new hermeneutic, a new way of interpreting scripture called complementary hermeneutics. That's another discussion. But when somebody has to invent a new way to interpret the Bible, your spiritual radar ought to be going off with all sorts of bells screaming that something's wrong and somebody's getting into false teaching. Now last time, as we're looking at this whole issue about the ascension and session of Christ, I pointed out that This idea that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father is mentioned numerous times in the scripture. At least 19 passages mention it. And there are probably others that allude to it. So we have to pay attention to this as a very important doctrine, a very important teaching of scripture. So we're taking the time to look at it And the foundation for understanding this takes us back to the Old Testament. That even though we're talking about something that takes place during the church age, in these passages there's no mention of the church, but there's mention of something that will occur in the career of the Messiah. That he will be seated at the right hand of the Father. But there's no hint as to what is actually going to be taking place there other than he is waiting for something. So we've asked these questions, what happened to God's plan when the Lord Jesus Christ was rejected and crucified? The plan for Israel was put on hold, but something new came in that was not prophesied in the Old Testament, was not laid out in the Old Testament, and that's why it's called a mystery. And that's a term we've run into in Ephesians before, and we'll run into it several more times, And a mystery is something that has not been revealed before. It was something unknown and unrevealed. And so this is something new that came in. If God had told Israel in the Old Testament that you're going to reject the Messiah and I'm going to choose another people, that might have skewed the results. So nothing is said. they're given a clear opportunity to accept or reject the Messiah when he comes and they reject it and God says okay we got a plan that was always in effect but I didn't tell you about it and so we're going to put your plan on pause because of your rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and we're going to go to a second people of God the church the church age and so this that the kingdom was going to be postponed. This is what Jesus is talking about, why the disciples are asking him, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Notice, they knew that the kingdom hadn't started yet, and Jesus instead said, no, no, not now. He doesn't actually say that, he implies it. He said, just wait here in Jerusalem until the Spirit comes. That there would be something new, this unforeseen inter-advent age, the present church age. Now the first thing I told you about that is important in the ascension of Christ is that Jesus said he had to go to the Father in John 16 7 so that he could send the Holy Spirit. This was again something different. Now a future ministry of the Holy Spirit that is similar to the church age in some ways was prophesied in the New Covenant but similarity does not mean identity. A lot of people get confused over that. Just because the Holy Spirit is the primary agent for the spiritual life in the church age doesn't mean we're in the time of the New Covenant. Just because somebody had their theology messed up and decided to call the Old Testament the Old Covenant and the New Testament the New Covenant, which is how it is in the Greek, kaine deotheke, is New Covenant, doesn't mean we're in the New Covenant. That's just a wrong title that was given to the New Testament. There are a lot of similarities between the spiritual life and some things that go on in the church age and that which will be true under the New Covenant. But there are a lot of differences. That's why you'll hear people say, well it's already here but not yet fully here. But just because you have similarity doesn't mean they're the same thing. Just because you have an indwelling of the Spirit today doesn't mean it's like the indwelling of the Spirit in the Millennial Kingdom. Under the New Covenant, it's phenomenal. Under the New Covenant, the indwelling of the Spirit has different characteristics such as nobody's going to need to teach their neighbor. Well, if we were in the New Covenant, under that ministry of the New Testament, we wouldn't need to be here. You wouldn't need to be taught. So there are a lot of differences. It's the differences that matter. It's not the similarities. If you don't understand that, like a lot of people today, then you're going to have problems with understanding the differences between men and women. It's not the similarities. It's the differences that are important. As Maurice Chevalier said in the Film Gigi, viva la difference. So, we have a different thing going on in this church age. Now, the Psalms that I'm going to, the Old Testament passages, we're looking at Psalm 110, we looked at it last time, and this shows that Christ, at the Ascension, was to sit at the right hand of the Father until God finishes preparing His enemies for the final defeat. You set, Psalm 110.1, until I make your enemies your footstool. Making them his footstool is preparing them for defeat. Now, what I want to do this morning, although we may not get through it all, is to connect three other passages, Psalm 68.18, which is applied by Paul in Ephesians 4 to the ascension of Christ. And we'll look at that this morning because it takes place in terms of his application of that passage after the Ascension, at the beginning of the church age. Then we will look at Daniel 7, 13 through 14. We're not going to do an in-depth study of either one of those passages. Psalm 68 is quite long. I'm going to reserve saying a lot about Psalm 68 until we get to Ephesians chapter 4. And then last but not least is Psalm 2. Psalm 2 may take a little time. Psalm 2 shows the Messiah's victory over his enemies after he has waited at the right hand of the Father. And it gets into some important issues related to when the coronation of the king takes place. So last time, just a quick flyover review. Psalm 110 is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament. It's quoted seven times in Hebrews, three different verses from Psalm 110. And it's also quoted in Matthew 22, 44, Mark 12, 36, Luke 20, 42 and 43, Acts 2, 34 and 35, at least 13 times in the New Testament. Psalm 110.1 is also quoted numerous times in the New Testament. I pointed out major issues who wrote it. The psalm itself says it was written by David, called the Psalm of David. And then Jesus affirmed that in Matthew 22, 43. But we have so many brilliant scholars in our world today, and they deny Davidic authorship. Why? If David is writing it, he's writing about somebody else. That means he's writing about the Messiah, and this is predicted prophecy about the Messiah. If David didn't write it, then he's writing about himself, or maybe he's writing about Solomon. But you don't have predictive prophecy. So since they're rejecting some of these things, this applies to a lot of conservative evangelicals who jump through all kinds of hoops to deny that this is truly predictive prophecy about the Messiah. That's a big debate that's been going on for a number of decades now among conservative evangelicals. Psalm 110.1, The Lord said to my Lord, that is God the Father said to my Lord, this is a title of the Messiah. He is David's Lord, the authority over David. The Yahweh, God the Father said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. We saw three things about this, that the future Messiah King is fully divine. He is undiminished deity. He is, the Lord says to my Lord, And that indicates that he is divine, because he's an authority over David. Second thing that we saw is that the future Messiah King is at the right hand of God the Father. He is seated there. It's a position of honor, a position of privilege. And he is waiting for something. And that is the third point, that he is awaiting the preparation for this future victory. It is a time when looking forward to him coming to rule. He is not ruling now. He will rule in the future at that time when he returns. The Lord that is God the Father Yahweh will stretch forth your strong scepter. The strong scepter is the ruling authority of the Messiah from Zion. Now Zion refers to one of three things in the scripture. It either refers to the city of David that David conquered, which wasn't very large, only about five or six acres, which was the ancient Jebusite city. Sometimes it refers to the Temple Mount. Other times it refers to a hill just to the west or southwest of the Temple Mount. And other times it refers to Israel, to the entire nation. And so his rule will be in Zion. He will rule from what we know as the Millennial Temple in Ezekiel 38, and Ezekiel 38 and 39, or excuse me, Ezekiel 40 and following. And he will rule from the temple on the Temple Mount, referred to here as Mount Zion. We looked at Psalm 110.3. And again, emphasizing that military conquest that occurs once his enemies are made his footstool, where the text says, your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power, talking about those who come with him, in the beauties of holiness, that is how they will be clothed. And then the last line should be translated, From the womb of the dawn, I have begotten you. Womb of the dawn is beginning of time for in eternity past. Another term for in eternity, I have begotten you. There's that phrase again that I talked about that was in the Nicene Creed. It is a term that emphasizes the identity of essence between the son and the father. Alan Ross writes this in his commentary on Psalm 2. in volume one of his two-volume commentary on the Psalms. He says, the verb begotten in its literal sense refers to a child who shares the nature of the father, as opposed to words like made and created. To describe Jesus as begotten indicates that he has the nature of the father, that is, he's fully divine and eternal. And if he is eternal, then begotten refers to nature and not a beginning. The description is figurative. This is why the Nicene Creed clarifies the point. Jesus is, quote, begotten, not made, unquote. When scripture uses begotten in that sense, the expression includes only, monogenes, that's the Greek word used in John 114 and John 316, the only begotten, there is only one person who shares the divine nature of the Father, and that is Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10, 12, and 13, along with other passages, says that it is from the time of his sitting down at the right hand of the Father until his enemies are made his footstool. He is in that position of sitting. Psalm 110.4 also emphasized that he would be a priest. This is the issue. Jesus is prophet, priest, and king. He exhibited his role as a prophet during the first advent. Now the emphasis is not on his royal kingship, but on his priesthood. He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek forever according to Psalm 114 and the way it is used in Hebrews. So this is the current phase, not a ruling, dominating phase of his kingship. We learn that the future Messiah King will then defeat the enemies of Yahweh. This is the last part of Psalm 110. verses 5 and following. So I concluded last time that we're seated with Him, so we're awaiting the giving of the kingdom. We're not in a spiritual form of the kingdom. We're not trying to bring in the kingdom. We are waiting for the kingdom to be given to the Son. Second, like Him, our role is to carry out our royal priesthood in Him, which involves a number of things, including intercession, It involves our ambassadorship for Christ, it includes reconciliation, and it is related to our priesthood. So, now we move to Psalm 68-16. This is fairly brief. I've given part of this already as simply a context. And this is a psalm that is written in a commemoration of establishing the location of the temple on the Temple Mount. There's a rehearsal in the first part of the Psalm of the way God has worked in the life of the nation Israel and bringing them out of slavery in Egypt and bringing them into the land and conquest over their enemies. And now finally bringing them to Mount Moriah, which is where the temple is built, bringing them to Mount Moriah, giving David the victory over the Jebusites and conquering what was the Jebusite city is now called the City of David. And that on this Temple Mount, this is where the Ark of the Covenant will come to rest. And so this psalm looks to that as a victory psalm of God's ascent to the temple mount and making his home there. When we get down to verse 18, the psalmist says, you have ascended on high. That ascension, that march started with the exodus and concludes with the establishment of the temple. You have ascended on high. You have led captive your captives. That's a reference in this passage to the Jews who were captives in Egypt and he has made them his captives and brings them to Jerusalem and says you have received gifts among men. Now this is one of those interesting passages where you have the New Testament writer under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit take an Old Testament passage that isn't talking about in context what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 4. But it is similar, and so it is used as an application. Okay, we have another example of that, and that is in the Old Testament, actually in Matthew, you have an example of the statement that there was weeping in Jerusalem. And that's applied in Matthew chapter 2 in relation to the death of the infants by Herod. Now, the event that is quoted in Jeremiah, you don't have the infants being killed, you have mothers weeping for their children, their sons who are being taken off to captivity. It doesn't have anything to do with what happens in Bethlehem when Herod has the infants slaughtered. But there's one point of similarity, and that is the weeping of the mothers, okay? So it's not literal fulfillment like Micah 5.2 which says Jesus the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. There are different ways in which fulfillment, we've gone through this in detail many times. What happens in Ephesians 4.7 is that Paul sees this comparison that as you have a victory ascent of Yahweh to the Temple Mount there is a victorious ascent of the Messiah to the right hand of the Father. But there's a difference. In Psalm 68, which is what he is quoting here, it says, when he ascended on high, you received gifts among men, But in Ephesians 4.8, Paul changes it and says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. So he's applying, it's the same kind of situation, but instead of receiving gifts, now when the Messiah ascends, he's not only sending the Holy Spirit, he's going to give gifts to men. And in the context, it talks about the leadership gifts of the church, that he gave prophets and apostles and evangelists and pastors and teachers. So that's the context of Ephesians 4.8 and we will talk about all the details of that later when we get to Ephesians chapter 4 verses 7 through 10. Now the next passage that needs to be pulled in here is from Daniel chapter 7 verses 9 and 10 and then 13 and 14. So turn with me in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 7. This is a picture of what will happen in the future when the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, stops sitting, when his enemies will be made his footstool. And so in Daniel chapter 7 what we see is a picture of these different kingdoms that will dominate earth history in the future. These are the kingdoms that represent the future kingdom of Babylon, which is the kingdom that he's in at the time that he has this vision. The kingdom of Babylon followed by the kingdom of Persia, followed by the kingdom of Greece, followed by the kingdom of Rome, which has two stages. The first stage is a historical stage that is completed now, But there is a future stage, there will be a revival of this Roman empire during the tribulation period, and it becomes the power base for the one who is called the Antichrist. And so what we see in Daniel 7, 9, and 10 is a picture of this, where Daniel says, I kept looking, now he has seen the panorama of these four kingdoms, He says, I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. The Ancient of Days is God the Father. So you have two persons indicated in this passage. The Ancient of Days took his seat, his vesture was like white snow, and the hair like pure wool. Now, that's similar to the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation chapter 1. But this is clearly not the Lord Jesus Christ. It is God the Father. His throne is ablaze with flames. Its wheels were a burning fire. This is very similar to the portrayal of the throne of God in Ezekiel chapter 1, Ezekiel chapter 10. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him and myriads upon myriads were standing before him. The court sat and the books were opened. Okay, this is very similar to the scene in Revelation chapter 4 and 5, but it is taking place not then, but at the end of the tribulation period. In Daniel 7.13, Daniel goes on to say, I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming. So you have the first person mentioned is the Ancient of Days, and then he is approached by one like the Son of Man. The title Son of Man that Jesus used comes from this passage. He is self-identifying with the Son of Man of Daniel 7.13 every time he used it, and that was the favorite title that Jesus used of himself in the Gospels, that he was the Son of Man. So one like a Son of Man was coming, And he came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. This is very similar to the scene of Revelation 5. And to him was given dominion. So he doesn't have dominion now. He is seated at the Father. He doesn't have that power, that authority now. Even though positionally he has been raised above all of the principalities and powers, it's not bestowed upon him. He is seated awaiting being given his enemies. So he's given dominion, glory, and a kingdom at that point that all the peoples and nations and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. All the previous kingdoms are destroyed. And one thing I want to add here, we're not going to get to Psalm 2, but this will be important background for Psalm 2, is the pattern of what we see with the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of his coronation, that's what happens here, this is when he's given the kingdom, comes from David. What we'll see when we get into Psalm 2 is that there is a decree referenced in Psalm 2, and that is the decree of 2 Samuel 7, verse 14, which is the part of the Davidic covenant, that he is declared to be the son. Now this is relates to David. In subsequent kings, Solomon, et cetera, they are anointed and crowned on the same day. Not so with David. David was anointed when he was about 18 years of age, 17, 18, 19, somewhere in there. He's anointed in second, excuse me, in 1 Samuel chapter 16 towards the end He is anointed to be king, but, and he's even referred a couple of times as king, but it's a, what's called a proleptic use. It's talking about what he will be. But it's clear that David is never refers to himself as king. Saul is the king until Saul dies. And we have those various episodes when David could take Saul's life and he says, I won't because he is the Lord's anointed. He can't interfere with that. And he understood that. So David is anointed And probably seven or ten years later, he finally is crowned king. That is parallel. Jesus is anointed, as it were, at his baptism, but he is not crowned as king until he returns at the second coming. In between the ascension and the second coming, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, awaiting the giving of the kingdom. And the giving of that kingdom is what's described in Daniel 7, 13, and 14. And then it is at that time that he's going to come back and take on the enemies of God, the kings of the earth, and that's what we'll see next time in Psalm 2. Psalm 2 is one of the most often quoted Psalms in the New Testament. Not as much as Psalm 110, but frequent. So what we're seeing here is a pattern. There's the ascension, The Messiah is told to sit at the right hand of the Father. In Psalm 68, it's used to show that at the ascension he gives gifts. So he gives the Holy Spirit and he gives spiritual gifts. That's Psalm 68. And then Daniel 7, he goes to the Ancient of Days and he's given the kingdom. And then he comes to the earth and takes it. And he takes it by defeating the Antichrist and the false prophet and destroying the kingdom of man that dominates through the tribulation period. So next time we'll come back, we'll look at Psalm 2, tie all this together to see why this is important. This is a foundation for our spiritual life. It's related to Christ's priesthood. He's a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. That's the focus of the session now. And so we're connected to that. Because in that priestly ministry, the focus is on reconciliation and proclaiming the message of reconciliation. It's related to intercession, praying for others, praying for the church, praying for one another. It is connected to our priestly ministry in teaching others about Jesus, carrying out the Great Commission. That's the mission for the church today. And it ultimately culminates in our role as priests in the future kingdom, which means we have to be preparing today and training today by learning the word and growing spiritually so that we can fulfill our future role as priests to God in the millennial kingdom with our heads bowed and our eyes closed. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to go through these passages to tie things together, to see the implications of so much that is here in the scripture, that we can have a greater understanding of our role and responsibilities today in preparation for the future. There's so much confusion, so much distortion, so much bad interpretation of scripture, that there's often confusion over these things, and that confusion leads to a false view of the spiritual life and a false view of Christianity. Help us to understand the truth of Scripture, make it clear. Father, we pray that there's anyone listening, anyone here that has never trusted in Christ as Savior, that they would understand that Jesus is the promised and prophesied Messiah from the Old Testament, that he fulfilled over 100 prophecies in the first coming, that he died on the cross for our sins so that we could be saved from eternal condemnation, that we could have eternal life simply by trusting in Him, not our works, but His. And that all we have to do is look to Him as the one who saves us. And we pray that that will be clear to those listening. And Father, we pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.