Our king is still on the throne. So again, we're talking about the true identity of Jesus. Right now we're going to look at a passage in Romans 10, verses 9 through 13. It is so easy for us to read the New Testament with Gentile eyes and not see the impact that it had on first century AD readers, even Gentile readers, who because of Christianity, because Christianity started in the Jewish culture and was the faith of the Jews, even Gentiles who came to Christ had to be schooled in Jewish ways of thought. So, you know, when we hear Jesus is the Son of God, nowadays we think, well, Jesus is, you know, one of many sons of God, and we think the Son of God is not fully God, it's not God the Son, it's not the way the Jews thought. John 5, 17 and 18, it was very clear uh... to the jews that whenever jesus called god his own father he was making himself equal with god Personally, I don't care if you don't like that. It's not my job to preach to you what I like or what I want to be true. It's my job to preach the word of God. Jesus was a Jew. He communicated his truth to Jews. He spoke to them in their thought forms and in their terminology and they were very clear he was claiming to be God. If he wasn't claiming to be God, he should have made that clearer because they nailed him to a cross. The Jewish Sanhedrin found him guilty of blasphemy because he being a man was making himself out to be God. Even a Catholic scholar, a philosopher, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is really interesting too, because he was raised in a liberal Protestant home, so he wasn't supposed to have any faith at this point when he was a little guy, but he was five years old. I'm reading his work, My Battle Against Hitler. you know, like Bonhoeffer the Protestant, Hildebrand was a philosopher and a Catholic who opposed Hitler. But when he was five years old and his sister was eight, his sister was trying to explain to them what their mother believed. And their mother believed that Jesus was the Son of God in a way that we're all sons of God. And so at five years old, this little boy jumped on the bed. They don't even know where he got it from. I think he just heard stories about Jesus and was young enough and naive enough to actually take those stories literally. I pray that we would be. naive enough to accept the truth, the literal truth of what the Gospels teach, but he ended up jumping on the bed. This is a little guy who's willing to rebel against what his mother was teaching him when he's five years old, but he clenched his fist and threw it, threw it to the sky and stood on his bed and said, I swear to you, Christ is God. We need the understanding that that little boy had, okay? Let me tell you, if we don't have that understanding, we're not going to be able to do what that little boy did when he was a grown man, when he resisted the Nazis. okay um... he was a german and he was accused of not being accused of being a traitor and not being a patriotic german because he wouldn't get jump on hitler's bandwagon and um... so uh... but that's the kind of courage we need but that kind of courage will not come unless we embrace jesus and his full deity okay um... Yesterday we went to a fundraiser for my grandson and the Bremerton Symphony and the music and all this culture and I saw all these good people there embracing it and it really struck me because as I'm reading about Dietrich von Hildebrand I recognized that Germany was very cultured and they loved classical music and they loved the arts and they loved the humanities, they loved philosophy and all but we have to understand that you can have tremendous love, a culture can have tremendous love for the arts and the humanities, the arts and sciences if you will, okay? But if you don't have that love for Jesus your culture is just as likely to fall into paganism and tyranny as other pagan lands. And this is what we're trying to do in America, we're trying to remain civilized while we flee from the God of the Bible, the God who blessed us so abundantly. And now we still think we have moral high ground over other countries and we slaughter over a million babies before they're born each year. What's wrong with this picture? Look at Romans chapter 10 verses 9 to 13. So we want that understanding of the true Jesus of the Bible. that we acknowledge Him as our Savior and as our God. Romans 10 verses 9 through 13, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, now the construction in the Greek is interesting. Literally, if you go word for word, it's the Lord Jesus. But that's the same way you would say, Jesus is Lord. You don't even have to put the verb in there. And so some translations say that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. So for the ancients, to say the Lord Jesus, or to say Jesus is Lord, is one and the same thing. Okay? That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Now stop right there. Now, this they believe was a very ancient baptismal confession that you had to make. So before they would baptize you, you had to say, I believe Jesus is Lord and I believe that God the Father raised him from the dead. They wouldn't baptize you unless you said that. Okay? Now keep in mind, this is at a time when you were being forced, the Romans forced you to say Caesar is Lord. And the Jews said no. Yahweh is Lord and the Jews had an exemption because they were so stubborn going all the way back to when they were held captive by the Babylonians and then the Meds and the Persians and then the Greeks and then the Syrians and now eventually the Romans and the Romans said you know what these people are so stubborn we'll never be able to force them to say Caesar is Lord just give them an exemption But eventually, even that wasn't good enough for the Jews, the Jews kept rebelling so eventually they said forget the exemption, let's go from exemption to extermination. Okay? And let me just touch on something there. If we receive an exemption from a tyrannical government Will we, unlike the ancient Jews, be nice little puppy dogs and look the other way when that tyrannical government oppresses other people as long as it's not us? Because that was the big sin of both Catholic and Protestant churches in Germany. As long as they had an exemption, you can do with the Jews whatever you want, okay? As long as they had an exemption, we'll pretend, we'll look the other way when the Nazis put innocent human beings into ovens. So keep in mind, even if, you know, right now we have an exemption because I've got the freedom. Nobody's going to come in here, at least today, and arrest me for preaching God's truth. And we don't hide what I'm preaching. This will be on, because Pat worked so hard, this will probably be on next Sunday or the Sunday after that. So we're not preaching this in a corner, okay? We're out in the open. So right now we've got pretty much, it's kind of like our government does not like Christianity. Sometimes it wishes it would go away, but they've kind of exempted us from their full wrath. so the temptation then would be to just act like okay we'll act like this government does no wrong you know my government right or wrong I'm just going to back it and stuff but no we've got to do what the ancient Jews did and that's sometimes you've got to be the thorn in the side of your government and uh... and so I appreciate that the Jews even with their exemption they would still butt heads with Rome now eventually you know if the the tyrants if the exemption is not good enough for the church eventually you get the extermination side of it. Okay? But last I heard the people of God are called to proclaim God's truth regardless of whether the government or anybody else likes it. Okay? We've got to proclaim God's truth. So the Jews would say, no Yahweh is Lord, Caesar is not Lord. Well, the ancient Christians, they would say, yeah, well, since Jesus is Yahweh, Jesus is Lord. So this confession, the Lord Jesus, or Jesus is Lord, was basically saying, Caesar is not. Only Jesus is Lord. Okay? And eventually, again, nobody Nobody was being put to death in the early history of the church the first 300 years for worshiping Jesus. Nobody. They were being put to death for worshiping Jesus alone. Okay? So we're going to, I'm going to tell you, we are going to be perfectly comfortable saying we worship Jesus as long as we worship the state. And by the way, any time a state turns its back on the God of the Bible, you move in the direction of what I call the deification of the state. If a state will not acknowledge the true God who was created the heavens and the earth, eventually the state will try to play God. Okay? And so you've got to say two things. You've got to not only say Jesus is Lord, you've got to also say and Caesar is not. Okay? I don't care. I don't care if we're talking about, you know, some guy in the White House or some guy in the Vatican or some international bureaucrat. Jesus alone is Lord. That's true Christianity and that's what tyrants can never tolerate is true Christianity. So the Christians said Jesus is Lord, okay? Now what do they mean by Lord? Look down at verse 11. For the scripture says whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him, for whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Okay? Now, that's a quote from Joel, chapter 2. So, turn back to Joel, chapter 2, the Old Testament book of Joel, chapter 2, and verse 32. It says, "...and it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Sinai and Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls." So there's where the quote comes from. Paul is quoting this. "...and it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." So follow Paul's reasoning here in Romans 10. Whoever says Jesus is Lord Okay? And acknowledges that God the Father raised him from the dead will be saved for whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Okay? Let me tell you something. We have watered down the way the New Testament uses the word Lord. Sometimes Lord does mean like a landlord or a human lord or a government official. but many times, especially when it's applied to Jesus, it almost always means Yahweh. In this passage in Joel 2, if you look at the word LORD there, Joel 2, verse 32, LORD has all capital letters, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. If you read the little front of your Bible, they'll tell you how they translated the words into English, and what they tell you is whenever it's the word Yahweh, we would sometimes call that Jehovah, they would translate it with Lord with all capital letters. If it's Adonai, which is also a title for God, but that's more commonly used, it is also commonly used for human lords, then it would be capital L, small o-r-d. So what these translators are telling us, they're translating the word Yahweh. So when Paul tells us that to be saved you have to say Jesus is Lord, he's explaining to us what I mean by Lord is Yahweh. the God of Israel. And so we must never water this down or diminish this. Jesus is very clearly being called Yahweh here. Now, let me show you, just look at 1 Corinthians 8, another letter that Paul wrote, 1 Corinthians 8, verses 4 to 6. This is a really interesting passage, and in the English, we just miss it, okay? We've really got to get into the Greek and then see what Paul is doing with it. But 1 Corinthians 8, verses 4 to 6. 1 Corinthians 8, 4 to 6. Paul says this, therefore, considering the eating of the things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no other god but one. Even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords, you know, sometimes angelic beings in the Old Testament are called Elohim or called gods in a figurative or a functional way, but literally there's only one true, absolute, all-powerful, infinite God. So he says in verse 6, Yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. Okay? Now verse 6 doesn't just jump out and hit us in the face. Okay? However, If you were to look at verse 6 in the Greek, in Koine Greek, and then compare it with the Shema of Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint, you would see that almost all the words from the Shema are incorporated into this. And so most New Testament scholars acknowledge, even non-believing New Testament scholars, that the Apostle Paul in verse 6 is giving us the New Testament Christian version of the Old Testament Jewish Shema. What is the Shema? Shema is the cornerstone upon which the Jewish faith rests. So take a look at Deuteronomy chapter 6 Deuteronomy chapter 6 in verses 4 and 5. Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5. This is something, too, in verse 7 it says, you shall teach these words diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way. This is the essence of the Jewish faith, okay? Verses 4 and 5. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." Even Jesus later on is to say that the greatest commandments are these, love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law rests upon this. Okay? And so this is the cornerstone of Judaism, that you shall love the Lord your God with everything you've got, and that the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Now again, Lord there is all capital letters, so it's saying Yahweh our Elohim, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one. Okay? Now, come back to 1 Corinthians 8, verse 6, where Paul says, for us there is one God, the Father, and we think, wow, the Father is God, but Jesus is only a Lord. Okay? That's not what he's saying, though. There is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him, He created all things, and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things, and Jesus is the creator as well, and through whom we live. And so, basically, what Paul is saying here, there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. That is the New Testament Christian version of the Shema. That is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. And basically, when you, you know, with us, we think, well, God, boy, that's a more robust word than Lord. And in the Greek, it's theos for God and kourios for Lord. Okay? But what you have to understand is that what Paul is looking at is the Hebrew Shema. And though there are many false Elohim, there's only one true Yahweh. I mean, if you had to say, what's a more powerful title of God, Elohim or Yahweh? By far, the Jews would say Yahweh. So much so, they didn't even pronounce the word, for fear of taking God's name in vain. Okay? And so, in this New Testament version of the Shema, God the Father is called God, and that's no demotion there, but the fact that Jesus is called the Lord means he is saying, Jesus, just as he said in Romans 10, Jesus is Yahweh. By the way, if this were not true, The Christians, the early church, the apostles would have never been kicked out of ancient Judaism. It would have just been considered one branch of Judaism that happens to think Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. And whether you agree with them or not, they have a place in Judaism. But they went further than that and they said, Jesus is Yahweh. And that was too much for the Jews of the first century AD to bear and that's why the apostles and the early church were pretty much excommunicated from the Judaism of the first century AD. When Paul refers to Jesus as Lord and then quotes from Joel 2.32, Jesus is being called Yahweh. In 1 Corinthians 8.4-6, Jesus is being called Yahweh. Look at John chapter 1. I mean, the evidence is... we are just looking at just a few of the passages these past four weeks that teach that Jesus is God. If we wanted to do an exhaustive study on that, we would probably have to spend a few years on it. There's so many passages that point to Jesus being God. But look at what the Apostle John says in John 1 in the beginning. You know, he's saying the same thing as Genesis 1, when in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So in the beginning, before anything was created, in the beginning was the Word. The Word already existed. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. By the way, without the doctrine of the Trinity, this makes no sense at all. How can the Word, and we know the Word is Jesus, because look at verse 14, and the Word became flesh. and dwelt among us." The Word became a man and dwelt among us. We beheld His glory, glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And then He's mentioned by name in verse 17, Jesus Christ. But it makes no sense to say that the Word was with God and the Word was God unless God is more than one person. And so here we have two persons of the Trinity being spoken of. God the Father and God the Son, who is called the Word. And it tells us that all things were made through Him in verse 3. And so Jesus already existed in the beginning. He was with God the Father before creation. He himself is the Creator. He is God. He is a divine person. There's only one true God. But this one true God exists throughout all eternity as three equal persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. My mother used to argue with me on that and I used to tell her, I said, Mom, you're supposed to be a Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic Church teaches the same doctrine of the Trinity that the Protestants teach. But he became a man, he added to human nature without ceasing to be God. Look at what it said, what Jesus says of himself in John 8, 58. John chapter 8, verses 58 and 59. Jesus said to them most assuredly, actually in the Greek it's truly, truly, I say to you. Jesus said to them most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. Some translations read before Abraham was born, I am. Now, this shocked the Jews, because Abraham lived 2,000 years earlier, before Jesus arrived on the scene. Then they took up stones to throw at him, because Jesus hid himself, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. So they understood he was claiming to be God, and that's why they picked up stones to stone him. Now, when he's calling himself the I Am, Ego Ami, that's a literal translation of what god identified himself uh... as to moses when speaking to moses from the burning bush in exodus chapter three moses said well who should i tell you who should i tell the jews the israelites uh... sent me what is your name and he said i am who i am tell the people i am sent you to them. Okay? And so I am, ego of me, in the, ego of me, in the Greek, pretty much Yahweh, in the Hebrew, means I am. Now the thing is, I can say, as Phil Fernandes, I can say I am because Joe Fernandes and Angelina Menachino got together and had a baby boy and named him Phil and there's enough air for me to breathe, there's enough water for me to drink, and food for me to eat, and Angelina Minnichino and Joe Fernandez, they had parents, and they had parents, and trace it all the way back to Adam and Eve, and trace it all the way back to God creating them, and I can give, we could be here, you know, till Jesus returns, talking about all the reasons why I am. But when Jesus says I am, it's not I am because. It's just I am. Jesus says I exist throughout all eternity. because I am pure, infinite existence. I am the infinite God. I always was. I always will be. I never came into existence. It's impossible for me to not exist. I am. And so he's applying that title to himself He did it numerous times. He's claiming to be Yahweh, the self-existent God, the eternal God who is in covenant with His people, the Jewish people. But the interesting thing, too, is if you just take I Am, When you look at the word was for Abraham in the Greek, and this is why some translations read before Abraham was I am and some read before Abraham was born I am. Okay? The word in the Greek is genestai, genestai. You know, you can look at the Greek word and you get our word genes from it, you know, genetic stuff. We got generations, you know. And so basically, before Abraham was generated, before Abraham came into being, I am. No coming into being. Okay? So I actually think the fact that he compares himself with Abraham there and it's like before Abraham was generated, before Abraham came into being, before Abraham was, before Abraham was born, I am. And Jesus is contrasting the fact that Abraham came into being and then Jesus says of himself, I did not. Jesus is basically saying before you pick up stones to stone me, just think a little bit about who you're messing with. When the father of the Jewish faith was walking the earth, I was already there. And King David, the greatest king of the Jews until Jesus came along, When he was sitting on a throne in Israel, I was there. When Moses rescued the Jewish people from Egyptian bondage, Jesus was saying, I was there. Before anything was created, Jesus says, I was there. He just makes it very, very clear in this passage who He is. Let me say something here. Turn to Revelation 5. Let me just say something before we get into Revelation 5. This is not real obvious on earth. It's real obvious in God's Word, but if there's one thing that unites most of mankind, It's really a distaste for God's Word. I mean, there's a lot of people who like having Bibles in their houses. They don't like to read them. Or if they do read them, they like to pull verses out of context. But really, when you get to what God's Word really says and really means, most people don't like it. Because it says, you're not king, you're not boss. The Lord Jesus is. And so this is not a popular view on earth. Okay? But let me say something. This is the only view in heaven. Okay, and some of us... Some of us might never be a Dietrich Bonhoeffer or a Dietrich von Hildebrand or a Corey Ten Boom. Because some of us, just to be honest with you, Some of us care more about our reputation on earth than we care about our reputation in heaven. Some of us may even care more about our reputation in America than our reputation in heaven. I'll be honest with you, I get sick and tired of American pastors, Bible-believing, evangelical pastors that have this attitude, this ultra-patriotism where it's, you know, my country, right or wrong. We could drop bombs on just about any nation but Israel and most of our pastors would find a reason to say, well, that's the right thing to do. Okay? We've got to look at each and every time our leaders decide to drop bombs on some people, we've got to decide each and every time, was that the right thing to do? And if it's not, we've got to call sin, sin. But some of us, some of us, if we're left with the choice of having a good reputation in heaven or having a good reputation here in America or on earth. Some of us are going to say, you know, because Bonhoeffer, for what he did, he was branded as a traitor to Germany. Hildebrand, what he did, he was branded as a traitor. Corrie ten Boom and Holland, for hiding Jews in their house and resisting the Nazis, they got sent to a concentration camp. Okay? I'm telling you, when our government decides we're going to outlaw Christianity, I think that there's going to be a lot of mega churches that are going to continue business as usual. And there's going to be a lot of pastors who really were preaching the word as they're getting locked up. There's going to be a lot of powerful American pastors saying, well, that guy was, he was, you know, he's guilty of treason. What can I say? He was a bad American, okay? The early church, when they were being arrested, they were being arrested for being haters of mankind. They were being called, basically what we would say today, terrorists. Okay? Don't think that if you get locked up for preaching the gospel, don't think that there's going to be multitudes of people applauding you. There'll be multitudes of people saying, what a loser, what a traitor, what a criminal. I'm glad they locked that guy up. And all I can say to you is this, even Jesus has a lousy reputation on earth in certain places. It's your reputation in heaven that really matters. And so let's take a look at Jesus' reputation in heaven in Revelation chapter 5. And I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, that's God the Father, a scroll written inside and on the back sealed with seven seals. What is this talking about? Well, if I owed you some money in ancient times and I couldn't pay you back, okay, you might say, well, you own some property, I'm going to confiscate your property, give me the title deed. And so you get the title deed of my property and then you scroll it up And then on the outside of it, you write down, in order to redeem this, to buy this back, this is the price that has to be paid. And if I owe you, you know, twenty grand, then they would write twenty grand or whatever it is. And then they would seal it seven times. Okay? So it seems to me in the context of the book of Revelation and what leads up to this and what follows, I agree with those scholars who think that what is in the hand here of God the Father, this scroll written inside and on the back sealed with seven seals, is a title deed of the planet Earth. See, God gave man dominion over the earth and the garden, Satan stole it from us by convincing us to turn our backs on God, the one who blessed us so abundantly and put us in this paradise, this garden. We turned our backs on him, sided with Satan, and now Satan is referred to in the scriptures as the God of this age or the God of this world. Well, Jesus, God the Son, became a man And though He is fully God, He is also fully man. He was obedient to the Father in the task that the Father gave Him, so that now He is exalted and given the name above all names, and Jesus now has the right to take back the planet Earth from the clutches of Satan. And that's what we're going to see going on here. Verse 2, Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals? So who is worthy to redeem the planet Earth? See, Jesus didn't just come to Earth to redeem us as individuals. He also came to redeem this cursed creation. The day will come when the curse will be removed and Jesus will reign upon the earth for a thousand years. So they're asking, who's worthy to redeem the earth, to open the scroll and to loose its seals? And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look at it. So I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll or to look at it. Now I want to stop here. If John stopped there we wouldn't be here today. You know, what Paul says, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. If the dead are not raised, you know, it's over. But he doesn't stop there, okay? But who's worthy? No one in heaven. You see, you could say, well, what about Michael the Archangel? What about the angels? Well, they can't redeem the planet Earth, because last I heard, God never gave the planet Earth to the angels. He gave it to man. Okay? No one in heaven. But what about the Old Testament saints? What about King David or Moses or Abraham? No. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Even those who are redeemed and are in heaven are not worthy to take this scroll and redeem the planet earth. No one in heaven or on the earth, there's no one, when John is writing this, there's no one on the planet earth worthy enough to redeem the planet earth. uh... and or under the earth under the earth what he's talking about are those who are basically died and did not go to the right place you got people well-respected people that are there uh... like Gandhi uh... like Buddha uh... like Muhammad hard to believe he's respected but he is These guys are not able to save. Not able to save. And so John begins to weep because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll. So basically John is weeping because he's like, then there's no hope. If no one is worthy, it's all lost. It's all lost. And then verse 5, But one of the elders, one of the elders in heaven, said to me, Do not weep. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, that's the Lord Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, he was a descendant of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. And when he looses the seven seals, you get these horrible judgments upon the earth. In the end times, And so then he wants to see the lion of the tribe of Judah. And I looked and behold in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as though it had been slain. So he's looking for a lion and he sees a lamb. because the Lamb who has been slain is the Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb, the Lord Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins, but He also is the King of Kings, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. So He saw a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. That's highly symbolic language. The horns speak of power. He's all-powerful. Seven is the number, the universal number, the number of completion. He is all-powerful and He is all-seeing. Okay, he is God himself and then it says verse 7 then he came and took the scroll Out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne and that will begin the end times The end time scenario with the seven seal judgments leading to the seven trumpets and then the seven bowls of God's wrath Okay. Now look at how heaven responds To the lamb who was slain the Lord Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Now when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and they sang a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals. So they're singing praises to Jesus in heaven. For you are slain and you have redeemed us to God by your blood. He shed his blood on the cross for our sins. Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, God has not called us to be racist. God loves all mankind and he has believers, he's going to have believers from every tribe and every nation and every tongue and every people and have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth. Then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying." So it doesn't even matter. The day's going to come when you're going to have to acknowledge that Jesus is who he claimed to be, even if you rejected him. And we saw that when we went over Philippians 2. But he hears them saying, blessing and honor and glory and power be to him who sits on the throne, that's God the Father, and to the Lamb, that's the Lord Jesus, forever and ever. Then the twenty-four living creatures said, Amen, and the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped him who lives forever and ever. Now I want you to just look at verse 8 there. in all this praise that's going on, and the acknowledgement of the worth of the Lamb who was slain, I don't want us to miss what is going on. God, the Father's sitting on a throne, Jesus is sitting on a throne, but verse 8 says, "...now when He had taken the scroll..." See, there's a reason why in most English translations we capitalize He when it refers to Jesus. Because what I'm telling you is something that Bible translators have understood, Greek and Hebrew scholars have understood throughout the centuries that the New Testament teaches that Jesus is God. Now when he has taken the scroll, when he had taken the scroll, four living creatures and the 24 elders, what did they do? They fell down before the Lamb. And they sing him a new song and say he's worthy. Let me tell you something, okay? In heaven, you bow down and proclaim the worth of only one being, and that is God. Only God is worshipped in heaven. Now, I wish that could be said of earth, but that's not the case. Now, the day will come when God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That day is yet to come. but in heaven only God is worshipped okay and when you have the inhabitants of heaven bowing down not just before God the Father but also before the Lord Jesus the Lamb who was slain the Lion of the tribe of Judah when they bow down before him it's because they're worshipping him Okay? And so, in heaven, Jesus is worshipped alongside the Father. And so, I just want to close with that, and I hope as we move on, I think things are going to get tough for us here in America. I think we don't quite fit anymore. But I want us to embrace and worship the true Jesus of the Bible, not some false Jesus. Whether it's the Jesus of the Quran, I'm sure Pat's going to be dealing with that the next few weeks. Or the Jesus of the Hindus, where he's just one of many manifestations of God. No, we want to worship the true Jesus of the Bible, uh... but in heaven jesus is worshipped uh... yet on earth he's often hated or ignored okay uh... as i said before we should care more about our reputation in heaven than our reputation on earth we really care too much sometimes we live for the applause of man okay Sometimes God calls us, a lot of times God calls us to make decisions and to do things that bring pleasure to Him. So that our Heavenly Father could look down and say, I am pleased. Okay? We gotta be willing to please our Heavenly Father and not ourselves. You know? Now Jesus Let me just read one more verse. Luke 18, verse 8. Luke 18, verse 8. Jesus says this. It's a really depressing question, to be honest with you. Luke 18, verse 8. I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. He's talking about one of his parables. And he says, nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth? Okay? When the Lord returns, is he gonna find people who really believe in him and live to please him rather than trying to please man? And I'm glad that the Bible answers that question for us. There will be a remnant. And I desire to be part of that remnant. But we've got to decide that we're going to please Jesus and not please man. I'll close with this illustration. I've shared it before. I remember in eighth grade, we had to raise funds. I think it was to go to a dude ranch in upstate New York. They always like to take the city kids and show us it's really not this bad. There's beautiful parts of this country. Go upstate New York and they'd put us on horses and we'd be, we were city kids. We didn't know horses were that big. You know, I'm like, man, if I fall off of this thing, I'm a dead man. And so we were terrified and all. But we had to raise funds to pay for that coming trauma. And so we did a car wash. And I remember at the end of the day I was tired from working all day and stuff and I was soaking wet and everybody else, me and my buddies at St. Al's in Colville, New Jersey, we were all wet. and I remember at the, just a couple minutes before the thing ended some car was coming from far away and all the guys started saying, look at that car, it's so filthy that hasn't been washed in years and they were laughing and everything and I started laughing with them and joking and everything and then I looked up and I glanced, it was my father's car and my father cared so much about me that he wanted to come and visit me, figured yeah, Phil's been working all day, let me support that little fundraiser and go bring my car. But he had no idea his car was the filthiest car that was gonna be there. And I had to make a choice that day. If I cared more about my, you know, being cool and my reputation with my buddies, I would have had to continue to join them and mock my father. So I had to choose either side with my dad, either please my dad or please my buddies. And at that point in my life, I wasn't doing the stupid things I did later on in my more rebellious years. I was only in eighth grade at that point. But the choice was like automatic. My dad, he died in 2009, but I can honestly say I've had the privilege and the honor of meeting a lot of great men in my life, meeting them face to face. But I never met a man as great as my own father. If I mess up in my life and do something incredibly rotten and all and stuff like that, I'm one guy I can't blame my dad. God blessed me with such a great man. And so immediately I just was just happy to see my dad and talk with my dad and didn't side with my friends. Let me tell you, we have that choice to make each and every day. Maybe it's on the job, the work site, you know? Maybe it's when we're just hanging out with some of our friends. But we gotta make that same choice. Are you gonna? Are you going to side with the crowd? Do you care more about your reputation on earth than you care about your reputation in heaven? Let me tell you, if Jesus cared about his reputation on earth, he would not have died as if he were a criminal in the most shameful way possible, naked on a cross. We've got to care more about her reputation in heaven than on earth. And the only way to do that is to stay true to Jesus. There are things that are going on right now. There's a pull for us to become politically correct and back the big powerful government and say what it wants us to say and do what it wants us to do. All governments eventually go this way. Okay? I pray that there's revival. I pray things are turned around. But let's just as a church, And as Christians, let's choose to care more about our reputation in heaven than our reputation on earth. If they want to mock us, if they want to slander us, that's okay, because I'm in good company. Because this world slandered and rejected my Savior, my Lord, my God, and... But as for me and my house, we're going to stay true to Jesus and stay true to the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb who was slain, God the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's close with a word of prayer. Our king is still on the throne