here we got to read Psalm 119 where are we 145 to get started so go here Jim is not around. He's out of town. So just Tom and Hedeko and me today. Let's see here. I cry out with my whole heart. Hear me Lord. I will keep your statutes. I cry out to save me and I will keep your testimonies. I rise before the dawning of the morning and cry for help. I hope in your word my eyes are awake through the night watches that I may meditate on your word. Hear my voice according to your loving kindness. O Lord, revive me according to your justice. They draw near who follow after wickedness. They are far from your law. You are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are truth. Concerning your testimonies, I have known of old that you have founded them forever. Great, great, great. Let's see, we have a few things to read. The first is the mid-month Jesus film, which is paid for entirely by somebody online. And so I just read you the overall stats, and then from there, if anybody wants a copy of this with the photos, you send me an email and I will send it to you. We have 52 people attended and nine people came to believe in Jesus and he said six people are secret believers who need God's safety. So obviously you hear about this from time to time in Pakistan is that their lives may be threatened, their marriage may be threatened, whatever. And so these people came to the Lord and they're asking for, you know, Just prayers for their safety. It's a difficult situation, I understand that. I'm just happy that this guy is willing to go out and tell these people. I've read some things about Pakistan and the trials that are going on there right now. Man, you never know what people are going to do. They hear the name of Jesus and they flip out and they, you know, kill people. So anyway, very good news there. If you want the full report, send me an email. I will send it to you. And like I say, they got pictures and a lot of people showed up. Usually it's about 40. He had 52 people show up. So good stuff. And then we'll be having the regular Jesus film. What is it? The 26th. So he's probably going to be coming within the next couple days to ask for funding for that. So if you're able to, let me know. I'll get the information on that and then we'll go from there. I don't know how things are with Ruth in Trinidad. They were having martial law and she has not sent anything new, so I'm assuming that things have settled down, but keep the people of Trinidad in prayer. Doug and Doe, who are in Ireland, and there are other people in Ireland as well, but Doug and Doe emailed me and the whole island apparently is under hurricane watch. Yeah, oh they get storm, but they don't like to call it hurricanes up there because there is, they say it hurts tourism because you wouldn't expect Ireland to be a place where you get hurricanes. Cyclones, but even then they don't like to admit it because you know people, what? You know people don't come to Florida during hurricane season because they don't want to get hit by a hurricane. Well plus probably they're you know afraid to call it a hurricane because it's like a female and we can't have that anymore so that was a joke. Anyway, so hurricane, what's that? A his-a-cane, that's right. Hey there he is, how you doing there? Are you frozen to death? We have not broken 47 degrees today. 47 degrees in Sarasota. That is unheard of. Usually 50 or 55 maybe, but 47? I don't remember that happening. It was snowing in Pensacola. Snowing in Pensacola. So Doug and Doe are in Ireland. They are currently Under hurricane watch keep them in prayer and the other people in Ireland too. There's several people that attend online from Ireland Somebody sent me an email today, and it was about I I don't know the doctrine of this church There are people that attend online to also attend this church I haven't sat down and watched any of their sermons or anything because I don't have time for that, but it's at the creek in Portland Oregon and they are going to be holding a Crusade in August and I just wanted to let people know Portland, Oregon is a Distressed town. It's a place with a lot of drugs. It's a place with a lot of trouble and So they are just you know at least trying to get people to come to the Lord there so they're gonna have an crusade on August 2nd and 3rd and And so keep that in prayer if it comes to your mind. Like I said, I don't personally know the pastor. I've heard good things about this particular church, but personally I have not evaluated them, and so I'm not endorsing their doctrine or anything without, you know, knowing it. But if they are willing to have a crusade in the middle of Portland to try to get people to turn that city around, that would be a good thing. So keep that in prayer. And one more thing. A lady came in. We have met her in the projects a couple times. She's an older lady. She does not live in the projects. She lives south in Venice, but she grew up in the projects. She was at two separate houses that we have been at visiting her friends when we are there on Saturday morning. Surprisingly, her name is Marilyn Monroe, okay? No connection to the other Marilyn Monroe. But she, on August, I'm sorry, October 9th, her house burned down. She lives in a trailer, in a trailer park, but the house burned down, and she also, her car burned down. And the insurance gave her a little bit of money on her car, about a quarter of its value, which is the way insurance people work. So anyway, the reason why I'm bringing this up, she gave me a picture of her home which is completely destroyed. She also gave me all the documents showing FPL certified it. She just showed me tons of documents out in her car. She's been living in a hotel. FEMA is covering it because the roof also got damaged during the storm. And because of that, they're taking care of that. But there's a point where that's going to run out and all she has is a rental car and it's cost her more for the rental car over the past four months than it cost her to, you know, what they gave her insurance. So she's every month taking that money out of her pocket just to pay for a rental car. Having said that, we've built schools in Uganda, we've built schools in Kenya, we've got all kinds of stuff that we fund. And so, you know, this person is here in America. It's somebody I've met personally and I know her friends in the projects. And she's a very sweet lady. She is a Christian. She sang me the most beautiful song a while ago, a variant of Amazing Grace. But if you can help this lady, she gave me a person, a contact person that we can send money to. And she won't know who gave it, how much. She says if somebody sends a dollar, it's a dollar to help towards her place. And she's just reaching out, looking for assistance. So just so you're aware of that, if you can help Marilyn get a home back, that would be great. It's probably not that expensive for the whole thing. You know, manufactured homes, built cheap to start with and you know they they're not expensive all she needs is the home to put back on the lot and so if you can help with that let me know and we will get that money to them then I can give you their address and you can send it directly and save it going through me and anything like that but just so you're aware of that having said that yeah that's all the announcements so let me read this very quickly today is the 20 no it's the 23rd, 23rd of January, 47 degrees in Sarasota, Florida. Gee whiz, that's colder than New York right now, I'll bet. I bet you it's colder here than it is in Wisconsin, what? 35 tomorrow night that is that's cold the coldest I've ever seen in Sarasota was 28 then we've had freeze warnings that 35 I don't think will be a freeze warning, but it may be in areas on the inner Sarasota, but that's rare for it to get this cold and another thing is that it's lasted and Usually it gets cold and then it warms back up after a day or two. This has gone on for like three days now, four days. And it's cold, but worse than that is it's a drizzly cold. And so it just sinks right into you. And once it's in, it ain't coming out, okay? Hot chocolate doesn't get it. So, okay, January 23rd, God's image in Ebony. Work hard at whatever you do, as it is written in Ecclesiastes 9.10. Perhaps no one worked harder than Amanda Smith who learned this trait from her father. Amanda was born into slavery in Maryland on January 23, 1837. Her father, Samuel Berry, worked tirelessly to free his children. He made brooms by day, walked miles to work in the fields until one or two o'clock in the morning. He slept for an hour or two, then he was up again. Thus, he eventually purchased freedom for every member of his family. Amanda grew up committed to Christ. Her mother and grandmother were full of faith, and the Methodist revivals sweeping the area profoundly affected her. She labored in the kitchen, earning a reputation for Maryland biscuits and fried chicken. She also became known as the area's best scrub woman. When her sister Frances accidentally destroyed her freedom papers, Amanda worked hard to repurchase them. She often stood at her washtub for 12 hours, then worked for hours at her ironing board. Overcome by fatigue, she would then lean her head on the window ledge and sleep a few moments till the need passed. She somehow found time for witnessing and her power as an evangelist gained notice. She began accepting invitations and was soon in demand as a Methodist holiness evangelist. Okay, that's really not according to scripture. We'll let that know right now. But she evangelized all across the South, including such places as Knoxville, as far as west as Austin. She traveled alone by train, and with simplicity, her belongings rolled in a carpet bag. Her fame leaped the Atlantic, and she was called to England for meetings, then to India, then to Africa. She organized women's bands and young people's groups, temperance societies, children's meetings. She adopted homeless youngsters and started an orphanage near Chicago. She was called God's image carved in ebony. Though never ordained, she brought many to Christ through her preaching. She said, the thought of ordination never entered my mind, for I received my ordination from him who said, have not chosen me but I've chosen you. and ordained you that you might go and bring forth fruit. Colossians 3, do willingly as those you are serving the Lord himself, not just your earthly master. In fact, the Lord Christ is the one you are really serving, and you know that he will reward you. I do have some problems with that. Some people will come to Christ and they may go out and start preaching or whatever, not knowing what the Bible says, okay? And that's kind of a problem, but at least they have a zeal and they're doing it. But once you aware of the words of the Lord, you have to say, I'm going to submit to the word of the Lord. People inviting her to England to preach tells you that there's a problem already going on in the Methodist Church, because they should not have done that. She's not to be teaching or preaching men, as it says in We're right here in Timothy right now, 1 Timothy 2, 11 and 12. So it's the responsibility of people that are, you know, inviting people like that to say, that's not allowed. You can come and talk about, you know, your life as a slave and that kind of stuff, but to preach to people is not acceptable. So I take exception to that particular article there. Some are good in this book, some of them are lacking a little bit. But you've got to hold to the Word. If you don't hold to the Word, then you really have nothing to base your faith on. It's either the Word or it's nothing. See, constantly Catholics making these posts all over the place about Mary and this and that one thing has nothing to do with Scripture. And if you tell them, you know, that's not in the Bible, then they default or defer to the Catholic Church as the authority for what they're doing. Well, where did the Catholic Church get its authority? And then, of course, they go to verses in Scripture Right? Which is supposed to be the directive. They're taking out of context, but they're defaulting eventually to Scripture. They're saying, well, Scripture ordained the Catholic Church, which it didn't, but if the Bible that supposedly ordained their Catholic Church says something contrary to what they're doing, then you would think there's a complete disconnect in Catholic thinking. A complete disconnect. If I'm going to take the authority for the church out of the Bible, and then something else in the Bible contradicts what I'm doing, there's a problem there. And they're not thinking that issue through, and they're not willing to. And I see this constantly with them, and other people as well. I'm not just picking on the Catholics, but the Catholics are notorious for this. I mean, it's all about the church, the church, the church, and then when you Well, that's right, but for the church, but for these people, they don't know that. And you try to reason with them, they can't go beyond what they have been, it's just a giant, it's a worldwide cult, is what the Catholic Church is. It's not really a church in the sense, what Tom said is right, money and power, okay, and that's what cults are. therefore is to exercise their authority over people, to gain a lot of wealth, to gain a lot of whatever they think is right, but it's very sad that people are not willing to put the Word of God first, because the Word of God tells us of Jesus. You know what? I did something this morning. I meant to write it down. I've got it on my computer, and I got busy with a lot of other things before I left the house. So I will do this, but Hebrews 12.2, my favorite verse in the Bible, right up there, let us fix our eyes on Jesus. I translated it myself for the first time today, because I was evaluating a verse from Matthew for a commentary that comes out in about two or three weeks, and I translated it. And the wording in Hebrews 12.2 is exceptional. It's just wonderful, and I wish I had done that so I could read you that today. I'm talking about a literal translation, and I could probably quote it to you right now, or I could pull up, you know, the Greek, and I could translate it for you, but I may not get the nuances of it, because it always takes a while to make sure you get everything right. And, wow, Hebrews 12, too, just, it uses a participle verb to describe the words, let us fix our eyes, okay? And so, It's just very well, very interesting in the Greek, so I will do that and hopefully I'll remember to bring that to you next Thursday. I just hope I remember that. It's on the computer. Unless the computer goes out and I lose that page, because I didn't save it, I'll remember that probably tomorrow because I'll have more time. Anyway, good stuff. Heavenly Father, how grateful we are that we can come into your presence and we can talk about your Word, we can share in your Word, and we can understand who Jesus is, what he has done, and what you intend for us because of what he has done in your church and in the entire span of redemptive history. It's not just the Church, but everything is pointing to Jesus. Every person that is listed in this book as a saved person was either anticipating His coming or is trusting in the fact that He has come and that this Word is telling us the truth about Him. Please open eyes from these Catholics that are so deceived by the church that they are in, believing that it is the church that will get them where they're going. Lord, it isn't. It is Jesus and Jesus alone. Help us to hold fast to that and to understand that you have a plan for your people only because of Jesus. So we thank you for him. We thank you for the word that tells us of him. We pray that we will handle it properly and that we will be clear in our thinking about what you are telling us. May it be so to your glory. And we pray for these people we mentioned earlier, all of the needs, all of the situations, And we just ask that your hand will be upon your people, Lord. And anybody else I may have forgotten to mention, which is a problem with me, Lord, but thank you. Thank you that we can lift these people up, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Oh, one more thing. Rhoda, I just, he just told me, and so I didn't write it down. Rhoda is also sick again. You know, it's been going around, but it's to be expected. When you go up to New York, or Washington, I should say, Washington, D.C., and you stand out in the cold snow and rain for four or five days handing out tracts, it's to be expected you're going to get sick. I'm not blaming them. I'm just saying that if they came back healthy, I would have been like, these are Superman people. Now, Jose probably won't get sick, and the reason why Jose, you know, the guy that comes here a couple times a year, he, and I may have mentioned this before, but he drinks a bottle of Tabasco sauce every day. He just sits there and drinks it. And so that probably will just embalm him. He won't even need to be embalmed when he kicks off. But anyway, I think that's a lot of the reason why he stays so healthy. He will be here in March. He will be here in March. Yes, he will be here in March. So we're anticipating his arrival and it's always good to see him. And he's just, I've never known anybody that sleeps as little as him except one guy in Malaysia. Anyway, we're in 1 Timothy. Jim is not here. He's out of town. So we're just going to read read one version of the Bible and that's that. We've got 1 Timothy, we're in, I'm sorry, 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 1 verse 10. And we're starting in, let's see, I'm going to take you back to verse 8 because that's the starting of a paragraph. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner. But share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. Verse 10, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Okay, I just got to stop. I'm so excited reading that, because that is Paul taking the gospel and just kind of breaking it down before he even says, you know, as through the light of the gospel. Okay, Jesus, if you believe what he just wrote, that is how you are going to be saved. It's, you know, you've come from outside Christianity and you hear, what is the message about Christianity? And you tell him, well, somebody came out of the grave. He came out of the grave. He prevailed over death. I mean, the thought of that, if you think, we take it as an axiom. Oh yeah, Jesus came out of the grave because that's what we've been considering in our head all this time. But if you tell somebody that has never heard that before, That's like, you know, being pounded on the head with a skillet. It's like, how can that be? And then you explain what God did and how he did it and why he did it. That is when they get the message. But if you believe that, that God actually sent somebody that was perfect enough to justify coming back to life, not because of, you know, a doctor not because of, you know, whatever, but simply because of his own perfect goodness. That will change people's lives. That is the gospel message. And when you hear that and you say, how can that be? But it's explained to you, it suddenly dawns on some people that that really is the answer. And it happens all over the world. It happens in every culture. It happens in every place that people have gone to evangelize people. And the reason why is because in every place that people have gone to evangelize people, people die. and they know that death happens for a reason. They haven't processed why, but if you tell them it's because you've sinned. Having said that, for the second time in my life, I have heard the words with my own ears. I've heard other people say this to me, but I actually have heard it for the second time in my life. This past week, Sergio and Rhoda were doing a video, a live stream, and they're handing out tracks, and one lady gets a track and she says, I don't need this. I've never sinned. I had somebody tell me that to my face, and like I said, it was a girl I dated in high school, and I said, I know that you have sinned. Okay, there's no doubt. We dated, okay? No doubt that you have sinned. This is the second time I've actually heard a human utter those words. I don't need this. I've never said. And I thought, you know, my friend from high school, I could say, maybe she said that just to make me angry or something. You know, you don't know why people say things. But this person was absolutely sincere and said, I don't need this. And I think that's a person that can never be saved, ever. until their thinking about the nature of sin in their life is corrected. They have to come to the resolution that they are not perfect after all. And how do you overcome that type of thinking? That I'm so perfect that I don't need a savior. Yeah, Ray Comfort. Well, that's right. He has a way of getting people to think that through. But if you ask a person like that, if you say, I've never said, and they are unwilling to acknowledge that, the way even if Ray Comfort talked to him. How do you overcome that type of thinking? So, you know, you have to be willing to first reason, which is what Ray Comfort does, and what any good evangelist will do. Well, let me stop you there, and let me ask you some questions. But they may deny that what you're saying is sinful. They may say, well, that's a part of, I don't know what would prompt somebody to say that. But the whole point of this is that you realize, whatever culture you're in, you realize that you are sinful. and you understand that God sent somebody that could take care of your sin debt and that he died and rose again, that is when things change. That is when missionaries have an effect. That is when people in the projects that are telling about Jesus have an effect. When you go down there as a Jehovah's Witness and you tell people God loves you and He sent Jesus into the world to die for your sins and He came out of the grave to prove it, and later you find out that that wasn't God incarnate, there will always be a disconnect in your thinking about salvation. Because if God can create a being that isn't himself that will take away your sins. It diminishes the entire structure of the Bible. All the way through the Bible, God is the one that initiates, God is the one that acts, and God is the one that accomplishes. All the way through the Bible. It says in Jonah, which I've said before, salvation is of the Lord. For the Lord to create Jesus and to send him on a mission, it's not salvation of the Lord, except secondarily, not primarily. And so that's the fault of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the fault in their theology. If you were properly explained the gospel that God did this by uniting with human flesh, people get that, they will be saved. The people that believe that God created a being that took care of their sin debt can't be saved. And the reason why is because it is not the gospel. Galatians 1, 6 through 8, it's another gospel. So, just some thoughts that came to mind immediately when reading those verses, those words of this verse, because it is such a wonderful... Let's read it one more time, just so you remember it, and then I'll give you the evaluation. but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Okay, he's abolished death. It's done. Okay, but people could say, well, how come Christians have been dying for 2,000 years? And that is theology waiting to be explained. Okay? Yes, people die now, and there's a reason for it. There is a sequence of events that God is going through in redemptive history in order to demonstrate who He is, what His character is like, but ultimately the reason why we we continue to die right now is because if we didn't, there wouldn't be anybody to give the gospel to, because we'd just be translated to heaven and we'd be gone. We'd be up with God in heaven, right? That's not the order of events. The order of events is for us to die, to go into the grave, to corrupt, with a promise that we will be resurrected to life, okay? And ultimately, all of this is coming back to God's relationship with Israel. He made promises to Israel, the whole promises to the people of the world, anybody that believes in a Redeemer. But Israel has been given promises based on the coming of the Messiah, okay? And if He was to not bring them to the fullness of that promise as He promised, then it would be no good for us in our walk today. What kind of faith do we have if God has rejected the people that He made the promises to? Where is your faith? And so that's why I don't understand Praetorists and how they can think, well we've replaced the Jews. The church has replaced Israel. Where is the surety in that? Where is the hope in that? God has rejected the people that Paul says God has not rejected them, and then they have to insert themselves into those verses which the Bible doesn't allow. And all of a sudden, all of your theology about the greatness of God and keeping his covenant promises disappears. So I don't get that type of thinking. I don't know how they can mentally, you know, form something in their mind that says, this is okay for me to believe this way. I don't get that. The overall promises to Israel must stand for our walk with the Lord to be sound and secure. Okay, I'm adamant about that. Now, these people are sound and secure, but there's a defect in what they're thinking. There's a defect in the process of what they're thinking, because if you ultimately show them that you are wrong and this is what God has done with Israel, a light should come on. There should be something that says, you know, Either my salvation is in question, or I was wrong about Israel. I don't know how they cannot come to one of those two conclusions. And maybe that's why so many Reform theologians actually walk away from that and go, it's called going over the river. They go back to Catholicism. It becomes about them. And a lot of people do that because they have a disconnect. It can't be about Israel. Israel's out. It's all about us. And then they think through the process, and the next thing they do is they say, well, then there's something wrong with my theology. They know that what they've been told is wrong, and so what do they do? They just keep ignoring Israel, and they go back to works under Catholicism. I had a professor in college that did this. He did exactly that. He was so intelligent that he probably thought, I'm too smart for what the Bible is telling me. I need to do something about it and it's got to be on the other side of the river." And so he goes there and they're all patting him on the back and clapping him and saying, good job, you know, you've come home. He didn't come home to anything. That's what we got away from. But they just did not complete the process by understanding the dispensational model, which everything takes time. Everything takes a step in what God is doing because if people understood the dispensational model, 2,000 years ago, they would have been evangelizing the Jews and doing everything they could for the rest of the church age to get the Jews back into the land so that God's promises to the Jews could be fulfilled. Well, that didn't happen. And so the church has gone on thinking one thing, proclaiming one thing, until the time of God's punishment on Israel was complete. Now that's over. Anyway, we'd better read these comments or we're never going to get done with anything. Paul's previous words spoke of the grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. We talked about that last week. Spent a couple minutes on it. He now shows that despite that grace having always existed in his eternal counsel, there was a particular point in time in which he chose to reveal it. He says, but has now been revealed. As I said, redemptive history is a sequence of events leading to a conclusion. It's not just this event is an answer all by itself. It's not. Paul even says that specifically about the, let's see here, we've got innocence, we've got conscience, we've got government, we've got promise, and then what, the fifth of the dispensations. law. Paul even says specifically that the law was given as a tutor to lead us to Christ. So the law can't be an end in and of itself, and that's true with each step of the dispensational model. Man had to fall. He had to fall in order for us to have an appreciation of who God is and an ability to worship and love Him freely. Without that knowledge, it would have just been little, you know, robotic things walking around that He created that are praising Him. Okay, you know, we might have in the Psalms, it says, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. And, you know, dogs out there howling, and you say, they're really praising the Lord tonight, but they don't know the Lord. They don't have an understanding of who He is. Now, when he calls their breath home, they have the understanding that their life is ending. I've seen that in too many dogs in my life, and it breaks my heart every time, but those dogs know that they are dying, you know. Now, fortunately, other dogs get over usually pretty quickly. They don't always, but normally they're like, it's gone, time to move on. And I've seen that in other dogs. I've seen a couple of dogs that have taken the death of a dog hard, but you know, and this is worldwide. I'm just using them as an example that I know, but every animal has its own thing about death. They understand death. Elephants, years and years after the death of one of their own, will go back to the bones of the elephant that died, and they'll move them around, and they do things with them. They understand something about that, but they don't have an appreciation of who God is. They don't have the knowledge and the understanding of their relationship with God in an intimate way. The fall had to happen. Okay for us to have that knowledge we have now he has become Like one of us to know good and evil and maybe it says they have become anyway It's either singular Adam or they have you know Adam and his bride, and I'm not gonna look it up right now But yeah, I will because I want to get that right in my head now that I'm thinking about it It's Genesis. I think 224 is that yes 224 therefore a man shall leave no that's Not the end of the chapter 3 Genesis 3 24. So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim. No, I want to go back one. Where is that? Verse 22. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man, there it is, has become like one of us to know good and evil. Now lest you put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord sent him out of the garden. So it's the man. Okay, just wanted to get that settled so I don't make that mistake again. Anyway, so the man representative of all human beings has the knowledge of good and evil. That has now been conferred upon them because of the fall, okay? Satan probably thought he was winning this battle, and he had won this battle because of what he was doing. Instead, God was working the plan out. That's the first part of it. There's another part coming. There's another part coming, and every single step is not the end of the plan. It's a step in the plan. Jesus has come. What does it say right here? in the fullness of time, but has now been revealed. Christ came. He is the final I don't want to say the wrong word here, but we'll just say the final peg in the, you know, the structure of the tent. He is the one that holds everything together, okay? So Jesus has come. Now, that doesn't mean it's the end of the dispensational model, but it is the end of what God needs to do to understand all of the dispensations. Jesus is the pinnacle of everything, okay? So that when the Jews do come to Christ, it will be because of Jesus. When the Millennium happens, it is a Millennium based on Jesus. He is the one that everything is looking forward to, forward or back, okay? And He is our anticipation forever and ever. But those steps that have happened are not an end in and of themselves, not one of them, okay? That's important to understand. Here we go again. The grace was always there, but when the fullness of time had come, when Christ had come, God entered into the stream of humanity, uniting with human flesh. in the person of Jesus Christ. God united with humanity. It is not God creating a being. It is not whatever these cults come up with, all these deviations of Jesus. You know, he was really a man, but he wasn't really God. Or they will say he was here, but he wasn't really, his humanity was a, they have a term that they use. We'll just, I'll make something up just so you understand. It's an apparition. It didn't really happen. He is a spirit being and he didn't have a body, but it appeared that way for our benefit. All these different ideas that have been put out to deny the simplicity of what God has done. God, humanity, united as one, the God-man. Every single cult will have a problem with that in one way or another. They will add to it. They will depart from it. They will deny one part of it or the other. They'll say that the two overlap, which they don't. They'll say the two are actually separated, which they're not. there's always something that is a little bit off about heresies, but it's enough to say that what God has done as revealed in the Bible is wrong, and therefore, and we go off into our little heretical world where we're, you know, contained without the rest of those people that actually believe what the Bible says. And that's how you have Guyana and Jim Jones type of people, and you've got the guy in Waco, Texas. They deviate in order to control. All right, so Let's see here. This is the revelation of that eternal grace. Jesus Christ, the God-man, the incarnate man, and it was done, Paul's words, by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Okay, if Jesus is the Savior, that means that we needed to be saved. You don't need a savior if you don't need to be saved. If you're out in the ocean swimming, doing the backstroke, you don't need somebody to come up and save you. You're just doing your thing. Okay, but if you're out in the ocean and you're doing this and you're going down for the third time, here comes the guy with the, you know, he's on his surfboard and he's got that buoy behind him and he's grab on to this and that's a savior. He is there to save that human being. Needing a Savior or God sending a Savior implies that you need to be saved There is something wrong, and that's what that lady was denying when they handed her a check, and she said well I'm not a sinner. She doesn't need a Savior because there's nothing wrong when she dies She won't die. She's perfect and so she's never gonna die I Yeah, I'd probably marry who knows anyway So, you have to think the issues of life through. Every word in the Bible is given for a reason. Every title of Jesus, you know, it says he has many crowns. Why does he have many crowns? It's because each crown represents something, okay? In this case, he is our Savior. He is there to save us. If He's called our Redeemer, it's because we need redemption. That means that somebody else possesses us. We need to be bought back. We need to be redeemed. That's why that term is used. So you have a Savior. You have a Redeemer. You have all of these titles that are given to Jesus. Each one of them has meaning. He is our substitute. He is our substitution, okay? He is our mercy seat, the hilusterion. We need mercy. The hilusterion, on it was applied the blood. We need a covering because God can't look at our imperfection. Everything that is described about Jesus isn't just a word. It's not just a dubious concept or some ethereal thing that God has thrown out. It is concrete reality. These things about Him are real. He is our Savior. We need to be saved. Okay? Jesus Christ. And then what's the word Christ? Christ is the anointed one. Messiah, anointed one. It's the exact same word. Messiah and Christos are the same meaning, it's just a different language. It means the one that is anointed by God. We need somebody that has been anointed by God, qualified to take up the task. Okay? This is my anointed one. In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, Cyrus, king of Persia, is called the Messiah. Not the permanent Messiah. He's just given that term as the Messiah. He is the anointed one of God to bring back the captives to the land of Israel. That was his anointing. Jesus is the ultimate, the par excellence of anointed ones. He is the one that is anointed specifically by God to save, to redeem, to propitiate, to substitute, to do all of the things that the Bible is telling us. Cyrus is just filling one little role to show us something in the greater plan of redemption anyway So he is our Savior Jesus his name means anybody Yeshua Salvation So when he goes into, what's his name, Zacharias' house, Zacchaeus, wee little Zacchaeus, he goes into his house and Zacchaeus says, Lord, I give you all of my, I return everything that I've taken and I restore fourfold and all this kind of stuff. And what did Jesus say? Surely salvation has come to this house today because he too is a son of Abraham. He was making a pun. I'm sitting in your house. I am salvation. Salvation has come to your house. So he's making a pun on him, his existence, who he is, and what he is doing in that house by converting this person to believe that he is the Messiah. So everything that we're reading here, every word is telling us a story. Paul is repeating that to us so we can understand. Oh, here it is! A savior implies the need to be saved. Man intuitively understands this. Unless you're in Washington, D.C. on, you know, a rally against the president, the incoming president, okay? Then you might not believe that. But intuitively, most people understand that they need a savior, okay? Savior implies the need to be saved. Man intuitively understands this, and he goes about life doing things to ease his nagging conscience. Okay, and there are people that actually know that they're lost. They don't know anything about it. And so what do they do? They go spend the rest of their life in a bar, drinking their life away because it eases the pain. Okay, all of the pain that they have in their life may be directed, you know, the children left me, my wife, you know, shot my dog or whatever. You got all these problems in life. And so I go into it, but ultimately it is because there is a problem. The problem wouldn't exist if we were in paradise. Okay, so you know that things are not the way that they should be. And so what do you do? You go into a bar and you spend the rest of your life drinking. Okay. Or other people, as it says, and to justify his good standing among others. So people will go out and they'll do good things. And they'll say, see, I have done something good. I am now justifying myself in the presence of my faults. I am a person with faults and I am now buying myself out of that in the eyes of others. Hopefully in the eyes of God. Okay. That's what people are doing. They are looking for reasons to be saved, whether it's by themselves or whether God's approval because of what they're doing, which still means it's by themselves because God is accepting what they've done, all over the world. It doesn't matter where you go. But I can attest to this. Everywhere I've been, people know there is a problem. Hindus go and they do certain things because they know there's a problem. Shokugokai Buddhists go and do things because they know there's a problem. I said it before. I've talked about a neighbor there. You used to hear her. You'd walk by the house going down the road and she'd be going, you know, just praying the way a Catholic would over like the rosary or something. And you wouldn't do that if you didn't think there was a problem. There'd be no need for it. You just go out and do your stuff and you know, but people are always finding some, you know, you go in and you see somebody say, well, you need a pair of shoes and they give you $20 to the guy, right? Okay. Why did he do that? Is it simple human compassion or does he think that somehow God is watching? I would say it's probably the latter. I don't think that human compassion is necessary for people that if their life is consumed in themselves and they think that everything is okay with God, I don't think they'd bother with that. They would. I don't know. There are people, I'm sure, that just are compassionate humans that don't want anything to do with God. But I think more than anything, it stems from a fact that they know something's wrong, and they're just doing something to ease their situation by giving that guy shoes. I've been nagged several times in the past couple days about shoes. One of my friends said, are you wearing shoes yet? And I went back and I put in quotes, what are shoes? OK, that's not going to happen. It's got to get colder than 47 for me to go out and wear shoes. 35 gets a little dicey, though. We'll find out. Let's see here, so anyway, Savior need, where was I? Yes. Okay, so we've got the guy with his nagging conscience, conscience to justify his good standing among others, and in order to appease the God he knows he must face someday. Now, this is kind of a tricky one. I've seen, I think it was Ray Comfort, but I've seen somebody talking, it was a video, probably Ray Comfort, maybe one of the people with him, but anyway, This person, we'll say it was Ray, just to, okay, Ray is talking to somebody and it was a girl. And he came up and he's talking about, you know, you need Jesus because you gotta, you know, and she's, well, I don't believe in God, I'm an atheist. Okay, that was where she started with. And so Ray just kept talking and we just ignored that she said this. So she's an atheist, she doesn't believe in God. And then he says, well, someday you're going to die and you're going to go to hell. And she said, no, I'm going to go to heaven. Well, that's not thinking things through very well. If there's no God, then there's no heaven. But she's not thinking it through. She assumes that she gets to go to heaven, even though she denies the God that makes any notion of heaven possible. This is the problem with humanity, is we haven't thought the next issue through. So, what do you mean heaven? What are you talking about? You're a bug, and when you die, you are going to where bugs go, which is nothingness. You know, I saw and I actually had to applaud what they did. I had to applaud what they did. The lady Cecil Richards, Planned Parenthood, she's killed millions of babies. She died, I think it was 67, two or three days ago. obviously, unless she called on Jesus, she's got a real, real debt to pay, which she'll never be able to pay. In other words, she's got to look forward to the great white throne and then the lake of fire. And Babylon B didn't waste any time with doing a article on her. And the title of the article was, Lump of Cells dies because that's all she's called babies in the womb for the past 30, 40 years of her life. They're just, it's just a lump of cells. We're not killing a human. And so they turned it around and said, here's a lump of cells that has died. I have to applaud them to get people to think through the truth about what they are doing. She was a lump of cells in a mother's womb. She was a lump of cells when she came out of her mother. She was a lump of cells in second grade. She was a lump of cells in her job at Planned Parenthood, and now she's just a lump of cells that is gone, right? That's not how humanity works. They will at times do something, write an article or a title that is just so profound. And if you say, oh, she was just a lump of cells, the people I left would go crazy. Well, that's not true. She was a great woman. No, she was just a lump of cells. And now she's gone back to whatever happens to lumps of cells. Anyway, however, if God sent Jesus Christ as Savior, which he did, that's where our faith lies, it means that man still needed to be saved. It is not of works but of grace by which salvation of the human comes. We are the fallen ones. We are in the pit. God sends Jesus. He sends Jesus and he doesn't need to. He does not need to save Hedecho. I'm glad he did, but he doesn't need to do it. He doesn't need to save anybody, including the people listening right now. That is not a requirement of God. There's nothing that says, I have to do this. There is something in God that says, those things that have rebelled against me and continue to do so constantly, have merit. They have value. And so what does he do? He sends Jesus. That is grace. There is nothing that can be added to it. Nothing. You know, listen to this. I'm sure he's going to talk about it in his video. He's got a video coming up. And if he doesn't, that's fine. But when they were in Washington, D.C., there was a group of people out there that had a megaphone. And all they did was yell at people and tell them, you're all going to hell. You're all sinners. And unless you stop sinning right now, you're going to go to hell. They have become the arbiter of everything. about every person out there. They have no idea what people are going through. They have no idea if somebody's called on Jesus. And they have no idea about their own imperfection. Because if they were no longer sinning, why would they... the whole thing, everything about their presentation is wrong. And all they're doing is harming any chance of real Christians going out and evangelizing people because they've made a mockery of what Christianity is in so many people's eyes. They're just... Yelling at people about That's exactly right. They have made the judgment and that you know who are you? Who are you to determine that the Bible determines that? Because of what Jesus has done The Bible tells us what we need to do about being saved not you saying stop your sinning and come to our side of the fence Why would you even go? Why would you even go up to Washington D.C. just to yell at people? I don't understand that thinking, but either Jesus did the work as revealed in Scripture, and then we can trust in that. Or whatever anybody says on any street corner in the world must be of the same value. And what they say has no value at all. It's pointless what they're doing, and yet they're doing it. And it takes you right back to the thought of a minute ago. They must be doing it thinking they need to keep doing it in order to be saved, which means it isn't about grace in the first place. It's about them telling people how bad they are so that they can continue to be saved. Terrible. Christ came to make this grace known. He is the one that brings the grace of God. What does it say in John 1, 14? You know, I had this on the side of my truck for years, my old Jesus truck. Man, I had stickers. You know, when I sold that truck, I took it in and I turned it in to get another one, that Toyota that just got ruined last year. Anyway, when I did, they I thought, you know, I could clean this up and I could get a lot more money for it if I took all those stickers off and cleaned it up. It would have taken forever. They were, you know, they get baked into the thing. I felt so bad, as I was handing that truck in, I felt so bad for whoever the kid was that had to sit there and take off, I mean thousands, I had literally thousands of words and letters and flowers and that thing was so covered in decals. and every one of them had to be taken up. That kid must have spent hours, days taking that. They wouldn't have hired an adult to do it because, you know, broke paying a person a decent wage for that. It had to be some high school kid that got paid seven bucks an hour. And he probably got done and said, I just, but maybe he read the gospel on it several times and got saved. So who knows? Anyway, John 1, 14, what does it say? Oh, I just, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father. full of grace and truth. Jesus is the one who brings that grace alive, the grace of God. Whatever prompted God to say there is value in those people, those rebels, Jesus is the one to present that to the world. Okay, so he made this grace known. The wages of sin is death, this is why men die, but it is through the grace of our, Paul's words, our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death that sin is dealt with. If God has abolished death through Christ Jesus, That means that sin has no power over the one who is saved. It takes us back to a couple of my favorite words in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 5.19, which I can quote to you directly, but I'm going to go there and read it to you so you don't think I'm making it up because it's so profound. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 19, that is God, that God was in Christ, God in Christ, not created Christ, God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. When he says the world, same as John 3.16, the word cosmos can have a lot of different meanings, just like the word heaven can have a lot of different meanings. But the word cosmos can be the universe, it can be the physical world, it can be the people of the world. Well, he explains it right in this verse. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses. So he's equating directly the word world, kosmos, to their trespasses. And, you know, I didn't check the Greek, so I'm making the assumption that world, which is usually translated that way, is from Cosmos. It's almost always, if not always, from Cosmos, so I'm assuming it is without checking it. But anyway, he's saying that the world is the people of the world in this context, and he is not imputing sins to them. Well, if there's a law then there must be sin imputed. That's why we have laws. We have a law in the books and somebody breaks the law, sin is imputed. Now, if you're in a Democrat-ruled state, they no longer uphold the laws of the land. That doesn't mean that the law is no good. It just means that the people who are supposed to take care of the law are no good. They're not doing their job, okay? And that's a problem because you have a city like Portland that we were just talking about, which used to be a hugely beautiful city. It was prosperous and wonderful. Everybody that's been there says the same thing. I know people that live there. They say it's just trash. it's just completely ruined because they are not upholding the laws of the land that they, somebody in the job they are now in, gave them. But if you have a rightly running government with a law and somebody breaks that law, sin is imputed. I'm saying sin because we're talking about God here, but it means it's wrongdoing. We'll say wrongdoing is imputed, and then you give them a punishment for that. Whatever punishment the law demands for that particular wrongdoing, you get that punishment, okay? The unjust judge is the one that doesn't meet that out. We know that God is just, and therefore you will be imputed sin. But if God is not imputing sin, it means that we are not under law. We can't be under law, and that's the purpose of why Christ came. It's the purpose of all of the dispensations. The first thing ever spoken to man, the first words ever given to man were words of law. Every tree of the garden you may eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat it, you will surely die." It's the first words ever spoken to humankind as recorded in the Bible. Law. Everything from that point all the way through until the coming of Christ is about man versus law. Everything. Every picture is pointing to that in one way or another. We need Christ. That's the lesson of the Bible. We need Christ. So when you stand up and you say, I'm going to observe the law of Moses, you are rejecting the very thing that everything in the Bible says. You're rejecting all of it. I'm going to put myself under law. I'm going to say I have to do this or this or this. And that's why I say something as simple and basic as teaching tithing is an offense because tithing is a precept of law. And when you tell somebody they must do that, you are now diminishing the grace of God which fulfilled that law. And tithing itself is a picture of the coming of Christ, so you're kind of double slapping God in the face. Now, people that don't know that They're just not teaching properly. It may just be because that's the way they were taught and that they're repeating what they've taught without ever studying it properly. Okay? I understand people do that. I'm sure that I'm teaching you something incorrect from time to time. I wouldn't intentionally do that. And people that just don't read their Bible but they get into the pastorate, they are teaching incorrectly. And it's not intentional, it's just that they haven't thought it through or they haven't, you know, done the study. That is a problem. They will be judged more strictly for it according to the Bible, but it's not an intentional thing. But once you hear that what you are doing is a violation of what Paul is writing down, You think that they would stop doing that? You would think that they would say, I'm not going to teach tithing anymore. I'm not going to do that because I understand that I am violating the very precept that I'm being taught by the words of the New Testament, the coming of Jesus. And that's just one little precept. It doesn't matter what the precept is from the law. You are bringing a burden on a person that the Bible does not impute sin to. So why would you? Why would you? I don't get that. Okay, here we go. 2 Corinthians 5 18 and 19, I just read you that. God is not imputing sin. He is the Savior, Jesus Christ, in order to save He must eradicate sin, through which is earned the wages of death. In order to save, He's called our Savior. In order to save, He must eradicate sin, because sin is the problem. Genesis chapter 3, that is the problem. Man has sinned against God. Man now has a new head. People don't, you know, I talked to somebody about Jesus one time, right at the house. And we were talking about, he was agreeing with everything I said. And then I said, and that's how the devil got his power. And he said, whoa, wait a minute. What are you talking about the devil? And I'm like, what do you mean? And he says, how did the devil suddenly creep into here? Oh, what do you think we're talking about? We need to be saved. What do you think from? If we don't have somebody in control over us, then we don't need a savior. I mean, the whole point is that we have a head. The devil, all of this is mine. And God has said, I can give to anyone I want. If you will just bow down and worship me, I will give you all of this glory. The devil said it to him, and Jesus didn't challenge him on it. He acknowledged by not challenging him on it that he had the right to it. That's why Jesus came, was to take away that right. And he wasn't going to take the quick way and bow down to the devil. Instead, he was going to take the hard way and earn what we cannot earn of ourselves. Okay? If Jesus bowed to the devil, then the devil would still have power over Jesus. And if Jesus is in charge over every human on earth, he is still under the devil, which means the devil still has power over every human on earth. This is the problem. Okay, so he came to make this known. Jesus Christ is the Savior. He's got to eradicate sin through which is earned the wages of death. That's why we die. I'm going to talk about that on Sunday. Here comes death. Why do we die? What does that mean when it says we die? Okay. once and for all those who believe the problem is sin. His atoning, substitutionary death, Christ Jesus has dealt with the sin problem. Okay? Atoning means covering. That's the blood. That's the picture of the blood being sprinkled on the mercy seat. The mercy seat is Christ's body. The blood is his death. It now covers us because we are in Christ. Everybody get the symbolism? Christ is here. He's dead. He's lying there. We are now in Christ through his death. The blood, which is sprinkled on the top, is a picture of his life. Blood and life are equated one-to-one in the Bible. It's not the blood of Jesus, like we have to drink it like Catholics teach. That's not it. The blood means death. The blood of Christ means the death of Christ. The life is in the blood, the Bible says. His blood was shed. we are saved by his blood, meaning his life. His blood being shed means that there is no longer life in him, and therefore, see that? Okay, because people take the concept of blood and they twist it, and they suddenly say, well, you're trampling on the blood of Christ. No! The blood is the life. When it says that Christ's blood was shed, it means that he died, okay? We're not Catholics here. We don't believe that that literally becomes his blood every week and we drink it and say, the blood of Christ. It's, you know, reenactment of, not even a reenactment, it's actually a re-crucifixion of Christ. They're crucifying him every time they take that, because they say this is his blood, real and whole. That's not. It is a picture of what he did, his life. This is his life being poured out for us, okay? Blood, life. Get that one right. Okay, so Jesus Christ is a Savior. I've read that, okay? And His atoning, that's the blood, the atonement, the kaphar, the covering. His blood covers our sins, because we are in Christ, the blood, His death covers us, okay? So, His substitutionary death. I am here, he is here, he now takes it and does this with us. I am accepting his sin, he became sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. My sin is imputed to him, or it is imputed to him, and his righteousness is imputed to me. The difference is that our sin, being imputed to him, did not violate him in the way that our sin stuck to him. In other words, he assumed our sin. He became sin for us, but it didn't mean that it was put into him in a way that if he had sinned on his own, here's the point, if he had sinned on his own, he never would have come out of the grave. Our sin is not saying that he has taken our sin and accepted it for himself that he now has sin. Okay, He substituted his righteousness with our sin. That's what happened there. I want to make sure I get that right so you don't think that somehow sin clung to him. Our sin didn't. He went into the grave with our sin and he came out, meaning our sin remains in the grave. That's the baptism that Paul speaks about in the book of Colossians. We are baptized in Christ's death, he says. It might be Corinthians, but I think it's Colossians where he says that. Anyway, we are baptized into Christ's death. He has taken our sin, He has gone into the grave with our sin, He came out of the grave because He prevailed over sin, not having sin of His own. That's probably what I should say right there and leave it alone without giving you more carefully structured words, okay? But He became sin who knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That is substitution, okay? So He is atoning, substitutionary, Christ has dealt with the sin problem. once and for all for those who believe. It is a one-time thing. Christ will never be crucified again. The Catholic re-crucifixion of Christ is not reality, okay? That's just something that they do, and they are wrong. Okay, he will never be crucified again. There is no need for him to die again or for his blood to be drunk by us. Literally, that is not what it's speaking of. It is speaking of his death. The blood is the life. One-to-one comparison. Even Baptists will get this wrong. I've seen Baptists that do that. They say, you know, I've already said it, you're trampling on the blood of Christ. You're saying there's no value in the blood of Christ. You are misunderstanding what the word blood means. The word blood means life. His blood was shed for us, okay? It's not the blood in, you know, like... blood and life. Just leave it at that, okay? Until I've sat down and typed it up where it's logical. I don't want to say something that is going to be incorrect, okay? But we have the sin debt, the problem dealt with once and for all. It is one time. It is forever, okay? Once again, if you think that one through, eternal salvation is on prominent display, okay? He died once for the sins of the world. We go into Christ. We are in Christ. We are covered with his blood, his righteousness. We have received the atoning sacrifice. There's nothing else we can ever do to get it again. It must be a one-time and forever deal based on the fact that it is a covenant in his blood. A covenant is an eternal decree of God, okay? it's salvation is eternal or there is no salvation at all. I wish people could get that as well. So that God, who is in Christ, God in Christ, he's already said that, can fellowship with man once again. Jesus Christ is the point where man and God fellowship. Without Jesus Christ, there can be no fellowship. Okay, these are my words. It doesn't say that exactly in the Bible, but that is what the Bible teaches. Man is separated from God. forever. There is nothing we can do to undo that, because the sin is in us. We are separated from God. No Buddhist will ever be able to do something to satisfy God enough where he can have fellowship with God. No Shinto, no Muslim, no Hindu, because the sin is not dealt with. There's nothing that can take away the sin, because the sin is already committed. If you understand that premise, it's already done. You can't go back and undo it. And all of the things that you try to do are only an offense to God because God has said, I've given you this avenue. The avenue is the one that was promised at the very beginning. Now you can say, well that's not my fault. I never heard about the Messiah. It is somebody's fault. and we are human beings. If somebody, a son of Noah, because Noah was the guy, there was him and his three sons. Those are the only three on the planet that were left, plus their wives. But those people had a responsibility to continue to transmit that message down the line. If they failed to do that, that means that they failed to do that. Okay, it's not God's fault. God showed them exactly what was coming. This is my plan of redemption. He was promised at the beginning. The knowledge exists with Noah. It has to because it's there. It is a promise, you know, and so this knowledge of the Messiah and how do we know that's true is because we have a guy named Job. who was never given the law, he's outside of the covenant people, and he knew that he had a Redeemer coming. He says it in Job 19, I know that my Redeemer lives. He knew that that was the case and therefore the knowledge of this coming Redeemer should have been passed on by generation after generation. You say, well, it's not my fault I don't know. It's somebody's fault and you belong in that person. I belong in my father, my father belongs in his father, we are all sons all the way back up to Adam. If that is violated because some incompetent didn't tell his children, that's what happens. And what is the job of missionaries is to go undo that, to tell people that This was the promise, this is the promise, and it is fulfilled in Jesus. Nothing else is going to take care of that problem because there's only one avenue that God has given all the way from the very beginning and he has revealed it very slowly and methodically until the coming of Jesus. It is recorded. It is our job to undo the botched job of our fathers who failed to continue to tell the promise. Eventually, like I say, the knowledge of the one true God and his promise of a coming Redeemer would be so convoluted that nobody would ever know he was coming. ever, and that's why He gave Israel the law, was to keep the knowledge of Him alive in a body of people and in a codified body of writings until the coming of Messiah, to prove that that was God's plan all along, so that when He came, we could say, that person is the one that has fulfilled these things. Okay, it's all, if you think through what God is doing, it all makes sense. Okay, we're so helpless that even Christian people don't tell their children about you. I want him to make his own decisions. That is a condemning act on your child. That's all that is. That is a condemning act. He'll figure it out. I'm sorry, if you do not actively tell your children you're doing exactly what the fathers before you did so that you had to hear from somebody at a YMCA rally or something in high school, right? That's not the way it should work. We should be responsible enough to tell the next generation about Jesus and to try to be an example to them that, you know, I believe this. I believe that this is right, and I want you to follow in that. You know, I always get excited when I see my children come to church, okay? That excites me because it is important that they follow Jesus. You know, they work shift work, Thor and faith, so they can't always come. But it excites me that they are coming to church. I hope it's not just because, you know, Dad wants me to, because I have never asked them, ever. I've never said, I want you to come to church, okay? If they went to another church, I would be just as happy. Because I understand, I'm kind of a boring guy at times. You're a dad, so it's just not the fun thing. But they do, and it means a lot to me. And I hope that my daughter will be telling her daughter about Jesus constantly. That her father will be reading Bible stories to her. There's all kinds of nonsense they can have her watch on TV. I know, there's all kinds of stuff. Put her in a corner with an iPad. That's not being a responsible Christian parent, okay? It's not, oh, whatever she wants, I'm going to let her decide. They need to be the ones to teach those, that daughter, that granddaughter of mine, of ours, about Jesus. That's their job, and they can bet that when she's old enough, I'm going to be telling her about Jesus as well, right? We just have to make the example for our children. If we don't, it's our fault. All right, anyway, I shouldn't deviate too much here. Once for all, for all, believe so that God who is in Christ can fellowship with man once again. And for those in Christ, he is not, as it said in 2 Corinthians 5, he is not imputing trespass to them. Once you're in Christ, you're not under law. If you're not under law, then you cannot be imputed sin. If you put yourself back under law, Paul says that Christ will profit you nothing. You now no longer have any freedom from the law. You have purposefully put yourself back under a yoke of bondage, and you have to bear that burden. You can get no rewards from the moment that you put yourself under law, ever, because you have rejected the very thing that you accepted in Christ. That's why Paul says, you've fallen from grace. That doesn't mean you've lost your salvation. It means that you have fallen from grace. You are no longer living under grace. You are now living under the bondage of law. God isn't unsaving you, but he is unrewarding you forever. Romans, we are not under law, we are under grace. And he says it in all these different ways, like maybe eight, nine million times. And then in Galatians, he writes an entire book about it. And people say, oh, I need to do this. I gotta stop eating pork because the law of Moses has done. What book are you reading? Are you reading that book at all? Okay, go on. If no sin is imputed, he's not imputing sins, if no sin is imputed for those in Christ, then death can no longer be imputed as well. One plus one will always equal two in proper theology. You are not under law. You are not being imputed sin. By law is the knowledge of sin. By violating law, you are imputed sin. If you are not imputed sin, that means you are not under law. And if you're not under law, if you are in Christ, then you can never lose your salvation. You can lose your joy, you can lose your rewards, but you cannot lose your salvation. As I said, 1 plus 1 will always equal 2 if you are properly evaluating the Bible, okay? That is what God is telling us, the good news of Jesus Christ, the grace of Christ. If it is of law, it can't be of grace, because you are doing something to please God. Grace. Grace. What? G-R-A-C-F. Five letters. It's the hardest five letters on the planet for people to understand. Grace. God has saved me. I don't have to do anything. I believed and now I'm free. Thank you, Jesus. And the rest of your life, get up every day and say, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Oh boy. sin can no longer be imputed. That is why Paul says that Christ Jesus has abolished death. Death is abolished because of our position in Christ. But more, he has brought life, Paul's words, brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. It is the gospel, this marvelous grace of God, which is revealed in Christ Jesus. It is this which brings life It brings to light the life and immortality. Grace brings to light the life and immortality which has been lost since the fall of man. There is a disconnect between us and God. Once again, I'll talk about that on Sunday. There's a disconnect that exists between God and man. It cannot be undone. Like I said, Hindus cannot undo it. Buddhists cannot undo it. I don't care what religious expression you follow, if it is not belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ, your sin remains, and you will be cast into the lake of fire. It's just what the Bible teaches, and it makes complete sense if you just think it through. People that say, well, I don't believe that, they have not thought it through. That person that says, I've never sinned, I don't need this tract, has not thought this through very well. And it's sad because it's the most important decision you could ever make in your life. Okay? It has been lost since the fall of man. The word translated as immortality literally means no corruption. No corruption. I'm going to talk about corruption Sunday. I'm so glad to do this now because it's like a little segue into Sunday sermon. The word translated as immortality literally means no corruption. What does it say in Acts? No corruption. What does it say in Acts? It says here He, speaking of David, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. Jesus was incorrupt. He saw no corruption because he had no sin of his own. If we are in Christ, there is no corruption, meaning immortal. That can come into the presence of God. Corruption cannot. That's in 1 Corinthians 15. I won't take you there right now. Go read 1 Corinthians 15. You'll read all about what is corruptible, what is incorruptible, what can enter the kingdom, what can enter the presence of God, and what cannot. He speaks about it right there in 1 Corinthians 15. It is the gospel. Where was I? In no corruption. Man disobeyed God and he fell from grace. He was exiled from the Garden of Eden and his body began the process of corruption. Actually, it began immediately. He was immediately condemned as dead. The connection to God was severed the moment that he... We know that. We know that he was already corrupting in the Garden of Eden because it says that after they sinned, their eyes were opened. And what did they do? They made garments for themselves of fig leaves. That means that the corruption is already set in because they know that the connection is lost. If the connection is lost, you no longer have eternal life because God is no longer in you with that fellowship, that spiritual connection. And so that means that already in the Garden of Eden, they were corrupting. They were already in the process of corruption. Right there. They would not be sowing fig leaves to cover themselves. The fig, just so you know what I'm talking about, the fig is a picture of a spiritual connection to God. It is seen all the way through the Bible. Anytime you see the fig mentioned, it will be something about a spiritual connection to God. It is not Israel. Everybody says the fig tree represents Israel. It does not represent Israel. The fig represents a spiritual connection to God. We'll be going through that pretty soon when Jesus curses the fig tree in the book of Matthew, and I will lay it all out, and I'll explain it all, okay? We could do that now, but we don't have time. We've got 12 more minutes or 10 more minutes to go, so it would take too long, but the fig is a picture of spiritual connection to God. If they are trying to work their way back to a spiritual connection with God, which is what that is, a picture of works, covering their sin, it means that corruption has entered into them in the Garden of Eden. Okay? Man disobeyed God. He fell from grace. He was exiled from the Garden of Eden, already in corruption, then his body began the process of corruption. That's all at one time, we'll say. Eventually, he died. and he returned to the earth from which he was created. This has continued for all men since then. Every single person ever born on this planet has died and gone into a state of corruption with the exception of Enoch and Elijah. That's for another reason. God has protected them however he has done that. They are with the Lord right now. It says it right there in the book of Zechariah. They're the two olive trees and the two lampstands. they will come back and they will do their thing. That's coming soon to a dispensation near you, or actually through the tribulation period, which is part of the dispensation of law. And that's coming, and then when that's over, Israel will finally receive the Lord. It's all coming ahead of us, but This sin is inherited, and thus all men follow this same pattern. Once again, I'll talk about that on Sunday. Sin is an inherited trait, okay? But Jesus came without sin, died in fulfillment of the law, and as man's substitute, took away our sin. Okay, it says that Jesus came without sin. If you have been listening to these studies for a while, you already know this, but I'll repeat it. Circumcision is a picture of Jesus. All of these things that are going on in the Old Testament are pictures of Jesus. Circumcision is a picture of the coming of Christ. Man has sin. Sin transfers from father to child, from father to child. That means male and female. Everybody inherits sin through the father and everybody has a father. It's not saying that women are born sinless. Everybody is born of a father. The sin is transferred from father to child. So we all have sin. We all bear sin. Every person on this planet. That sin needs to be cut in humanity in order for perfection to come. Jesus is the picture fulfilled, the cutting. They cut the man's organ, which is a picture of where the sin is transmitted. In cutting the organ, it was a picture of Christ cutting the line of sin in man. Why? Because he didn't have a father. He came of a woman and of God. God doesn't have sin. God united with human flesh in the womb of a woman. Sin cut. Picture fulfilled. That's why we don't need to be circumcised and why Paul spends Galatians explaining this to them. If you allow yourself to be circumcised, Christ profits you nothing because you're asking for the sin to be reinserted back into you. Why would you do that? I'm putting myself back under law, and the law by law is a knowledge of sin, and the imputation of sin. So that's the picture that we're seeing. So when I say this here, I'm not just making up words, I'm giving you theology. Jesus came without sin. Picture fulfilled circumcision. He died in fulfillment of the law. Pictured by the atoning goat in the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16, and all of the other sacrifices in the Old Testament. All of them. they all picture the coming Christ. So he's man's substitute, also pictured in the substitute. The man will place his hands on the animal, he'll confess his sin, and the sin of Israel, the animal will be killed, and the sin will be atoned for. Well, it says in Hebrews that the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin. So why did they do it? Same thing as circumcision. Picture. Picture anticipating. Picture fulfilled. Jesus. Okay? It's not about Mary. It's not about saying the rosary. And it's not about, you know, climbing a stairway on your knees to get up to the top of the thing at the Vatican. It's not going to do anything for you. Jesus is the one that will do it for you. Okay? As Paul says in Colossians 2 verse 14, we've got five more minutes, I've got to hurry. Having wiped out, if I do this, it wipes it out. That means erased. Having wiped out, erased the handwriting, meaning the Law of Moses of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. Law is contrary to a man that needs grace. and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." He wiped it out. They took it and they put it on the cross of Jesus and they tacked it there and said, it's done. No, nobody did that. That means that Christ is the embodiment of this law. They nailed his body to the cross. He died on that cross. handwriting wiped out. Pictures equated to what Jesus would do. Okay? The law though, which sin, I'm sorry, the law through which sin is made is taken out of the way. And because Christ Jesus had no sin of his own, he was resurrected to eternal life. Sin is dealt with and life and immortality are revealed, all in one fell swoop, everything. Christ has accomplished the task and shown the grace of God to man. I've got to read quickly, we've only got four more minutes. For those who accept this, only life and immortality are left. That's it. There's nothing left because he's taken away the things that stood against us. So only life and immortality are left. This is why sin is no longer imputed to those in Christ, as we already saw. We are in Christ and thus shall live forever, forever and ever and ever, because God is eternal. If we are in Christ, who is God, we will live forever. Okay, can there be found a better verse for eternal salvation? No, probably not Paul says this in Romans 8 though Romans 8 38 and 39 Galatians Corinthians Corinthians Romans 5 6 7 and 8 and I said what 38 and 39 Gotta turn the page, Charlie. 38 and 39, it says, for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are created. We cannot uncreate or we cannot undo our salvation. Paul says nothing in creation can take away our salvation. It is done. So people that say that you can lose your salvation have not read and contemplated what those words are telling us and what Paul is telling to Timothy right now. We are saved and it is done. If we are a part of creation, and nothing in creation can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, then salvation by default must be eternal. Sin is not imputed, the law is annulled, and so sin cannot even be charged. And we are in Christ. Deal done. God has won. Glorious victory has been realized upon Calvary's tree. Yes, life application, that you ever could lose your salvation is a concept so foreign to the writings of the Bible that it is beyond comprehension that this false doctrine is taught. Beware of people who would so tarnish the glorious message of Christ that they would dare presume to say that those who are in Christ could ever be separated from Christ. Jesus did not come to give his people eternal insecurity. Be of good cheer. You are saved despite yourself. Heavenly Father, just on time, thank you. Thank you for this wonderful verse that gives us so much theology about what Jesus has done. Just in a few words, Paul has summed up a message of hope, of redemption, and of your love for us, all because of the grace that you have displayed in the giving of Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank you for Jesus who has done it all so that we can receive the grace and we are secure in that Thank you. And Lord, for those teachers that don't teach that grace is eternal, I would pray that somebody would talk to them about that doctrine so that they would have an epiphany because of your spirit guiding them in the knowledge of your word that they would no longer teach that because the goodness that you have displayed is beyond anything we can comprehend. Thank you for Jesus Christ, our Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Okay, let me back this up, say goodbye to the folks online. Thank you, Jesus. Wow, thank you. Break. Wow, not many people here today. Better turn around and say hi, because thank you for coming. We hope you have a great day. Stay warm wherever you are, if you're there, and hope to see you Sunday. Be here or be square. Bye. all right that's done this can go over here oh my gosh how wonderful thank you jesus wow so great so wonderful okay there's a chair in back i gotta go get that i gotta go i meant i was back there reading and i forgot to bring my chair back here shame on me okay i'll leave that there this i'll leave on the pulpit so i can tell people on sunday And this goes here.