This is why young people are more confident, cocky, and brash than older people. And the older you get, the less confident and sure you get. When I was young, I could pound the pulpit about everything. Now I can pound it on one thing. Jesus is the Christ, and two, and the King James is his Bible. And then there's other things I'm not sure about. Why is that? Remember that example of the whole whiteboard being all knowledge? And what you know is inside your circle? Well, when you're little, you got a small circle. So the circumference of your circle is very small. The circumference represents what you don't know. It's your interaction with all the things you don't know. If you go to school, college, and begin to learn, you begin to start learning all these disciplines that you never heard of. Like you probably know nothing about fluid dynamics or fluid mechanics, do you? That's a very interesting study, by the way, to help you understand the difference between the spirit and the soul. Don't worry, the Lord will teach you this in the millennium. It's not necessary now. But all these pictures that he puts. Now, you know what going to school really is, education? It's about becoming consciously aware of how unconsciously ignorant you were. That's really what it's about. Because all of a sudden, as your circle starts expanding, you touch on an area I didn't even know that exists. And then your circle gets a little bigger and you learn a little bit about that thing. Then you, like aerodynamics, what do you know about, do you know the laws of aerodynamics? Do you understand the four fundamental laws? Probably not. OK, so wow, aerodynamics. Oh, this got four laws. Then if you learn the four laws, then you start learning more. And as your circle expands, you're branching out into the unknown. And as your circle expands, your recognition of your circumference of how much I don't know expands too. And you start thinking, I don't think I know as much as I thought I know. When you're a little circle, you're a big shot because your circumference is small. The more you know, the less certain you are. So now I'm setting this up. and I'm going to take it to the next level for you. So one of the things I want you to get is your salvation is born of the Spirit. Now back to Flatland. All the knowledge that men have collected through the course of mankind is Flatland in that it's either empirical or it's rational. And I'm not saying those are bad, but they're limited in scope and dimension. Empirical is scientific. Rational is philosophical. All science is bad. All philosophy is bad. Wrong. There's good philosophy. There's the philosophy that believes that Jesus is the Messiah. The philosophy that thinks the way Jesus taught us to think. Not the philosophy of the rudiments of the world, which is the way they think. There's good science. There's bad science. There's mostly bad science. And if you get a chance, pick up a book by Martin Anderson from the mid-90s called Imposters in the Temple. And he was a 50-year scientist who went around the world and interviewed scientists all over and asked them in Europe, Japan, America, how much good science is in your discipline, your field? And they said maybe 10%, 90% of it's bad. Remember, there's more chaff than wheat in every area because there are liars that abound. There are always phonies in every discipline. So, but the point is there is good science. There is some good flat science. There is some good flat philosophy. But the greatest thing that happens is when you're born again, remember in Flatland? God looks down on Flatland. We can't even see him. He's above. He's out of our dimension. And when we begin the interaction with God, it's when he first touches us with his point. And then what he begins to do is he begins to expand our circle. But remember, he's both above and beneath it. That's the spiritual component. So here's my point. Jesus said to some guy one day, he said about the scriptures, he said, not only do you read the scriptures or having not read the scriptures, one day he looked at the guy and said, how readest thou? How do you read the scriptures? This is where the spirit enters in The the portion where it says rightly dividing the word of truth. Okay, so we think old new testament israel and church Okay, that's possible. But if you read, uh, even a simple passage like He says it's expedient that I go away for if I go not away I can't send the comforter and when he was come and and you ask anything in my name, uh, my father will give it you How do you read that verse and how do you divide that verse? If you read that verse like ask anything quote-unquote in my name Then you might think I can ask for a Rolls-Royce or a Rolex watch in his name and think I might get it But if you read the verse this way ask anything quote-unquote My name close quotes and you'll get it then it's anything that's in the name of Christ. Well, what is the name of Christ? What does that name stand for? What did he do? What's he all about now the the very dividing of how you read a verse? This is spiritual. I It's beyond intellect. It is true that someone with an IQ of 150 has a potential of, in Flatland, having a circle that's 1.5 times bigger than a guy with an IQ of 100, but that doesn't mean he's got the spiritual dimension above and below. And that's where the spiritual enters in. That's where humility enters in. That's where nobody can teach you but God. And so one of the things you need to learn to do is to bring, and it's okay, bring some questions to me, but you go home today and now you go, well, that guy up there said such and such. I'm not sure what to think because that guy said such and such and he said such and such. That's when you lay it before God and let him show you. And it might take him a while, but you need that spiritual, not the flat land circle. Now we're ready for question and answers. I hope that made some sense. And that was just a setup. Okay. But not like Daniel three, it's not a setup that way with an image. It's just. All right. Before we get the first question, let's pray is ready. Father. We love you. We thank you for the opportunity to be here. We thank you for Dr. Caesar Lord. Most of all, thank you for Jesus Christ, for the Word of God. We ask you to bless our time. I pray that the Spirit of God would be, Lord, in control of what's going on here, that you'd guide Dr. Caesar's mind, and that you'd, Lord, open the scriptures to us. Give us a discernment, Lord, to understand what you're teaching. And I pray, Father, that above all things, Christ, to be glorified, your people would be encouraged and strengthened, and that our love for the Word of God and our love for our Savior would grow. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, who's up first? Let's eat. Time to go. My question is lately I've been studying out the path of the body of Christ from the rapture to the second advent and along that path There's waypoints. I'm pretty good with the rapture, the judgment seat of Christ. But can you expound from Scriptures the marriage supper of the Lamb? Specifically out of Revelation 19, verses 7, 8, and 9. Please. All right, Revelation chapter 19, chapters six, well actually chapter four, verse one, the division of Revelation is given by the Lord Jesus Christ in the first chapter. He divides it in verse 19 of the first chapter. So the Lord Jesus Christ says how this book is going to line up in terms of timeline, verse 19 write the things which thou hast seen and that's described in chapter one the things which are that's the the things in chapter two and three because the more churches mentioned about seventeen times there and the things which shell be here's the key word here after and revelation four verse one after this i looked and i will show you the things which must be here after and from four verse one 4.1 is the rapture, we go up, and from the fourth chapter on, now we're looking at future events. And the first two, and here's where the Book of Revelation is kind of like a television producer setting a two-camera work that he's doing, and he's got one camera in one direction and one camera in the other direction, and Revelation now flips cameras, and it either has the earthly view or the heavenly view, and it flips back and forth. And so four and five is looking at heaven, and then six brings you back down to planet Earth, and chapter six through 19 works chronologically hereafter from after the rapture through the trib until, let's say, the end here. And what's happening here in this 19th chapter And he says here, the very verses you're looking at, you know, after these things, this is 19 verse one, and this is after the final judgment of Babylon. And as you saw, Babylon had two chapters, Babylon 17 and 18, just background setting up. Babylon always is a dual setup. It's a church-state setup. That's why they say separation of church and state. That's all baloney. What they're going to do is unite the church and state. That's what a harlot is. Whenever a church unites with the state, it's a harlot. Lutheranism, married to Germany. Romanism, married to Italy. Roman Catholicism. Anglicism, married to England. Those are harlots. The bride is married to Christ. The church is married to Christ, but the false churches are married to a government. And so Babylon, when it started in the 11th chapter, he says, they said, let us make us a city and a tower. The city is the political, the tower is the religious with the steeple. that may reach to heaven. We don't know if it'll get us there, but do the sacraments, you'll find out after you die. And all religions are set up that way. And so in the 19th chapter, he's now judged both the political and the religious Babylon. They're out of the way, and now there's much rejoicing in heaven. Hallelujah, salvation, glory, honor, power to the Lord our God, for true and righteous are his judgments. He hath judged the great whore which corrupted the earth. Everybody's exciting, and there comes Out of the throne, amen, hallelujah. Verse four and verse five. Praise our God, the voice says, and all ye servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters, as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him for the marriage Now, what's happening there is the marriage, not the marriage supper. The marriage supper is in Isaiah chapter 25, verse 6. And what's going to happen the way this, the best I can see it. And again, these things I'm going to give you my thoughts on the scriptures as I read it. I'm not going to pound a pulpit and call you a knucklehead if you don't see it this way, but it appears to me that the way that this is going to occur is Jesus Christ, the bridegroom, is going to be married to his bride, which is the Church of Jesus Christ. The father, who is maybe conducting the ceremony and paying for it, he's going to pay for it. Don't you think the The father of the bride should pay for it, but the father of the bridegroom's paying for it. And the father can pay for it, and he's going to invite people there. And when the millennium is being set up, you're going to have three groups. You're going to have the church, that is the bride of Christ, You're going to have the Jews, they are the brethren of Christ, and you're going to have the Gentiles, who are the servants of Christ. And so the ceremony is apparently here performed in heaven, but the supper comes back to planet Earth, where all these people can attend, and that's in Isaiah 25. And so the ceremony, and by the way, it's not unlike that today. You get married, you come to a church, you have your ceremony, then you all get in your cars, and you drive to the banquet house, and you have the banquet somewhere else. So they're having the ceremony, it appears in heaven, and then in Isaiah chapter 25, And he's talking here about the restoration, the future salvation. And he says, verse six, and in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees and fat things on the marrow and wines on the lees, well refined. This is when he finally has done his work. He's going to come back to the mountain I don't know which one. I know he touches down. Is it Mount Olivet? And then he maybe moves to Mount Zion. But somewhere in one of the mountains of Jerusalem is going to be what appears to be on earth a marriage supper so that people can attend who are not in glorified bodies. because there's going to be resurrected Jews attending it. There's going to be resurrected Old Testament Gentiles that believed who are going to be there. And it's going to be a big feast and a couple of people apparently showing up that shouldn't be there. And they'll be taken care of. Some people may slip through. I don't know how that's going to work out, but it's going to be back here on planet Earth. So the best I can tell the church service in heaven, the banquet here back on planet Earth with all these people in attendance. That's my thought. Take it home, pray on it, read it, see, find other verses that make sense to you. And I want you to notice too, I appreciate the way you put that. This is how I see it. Amen. So that's, I appreciate that very much. And that was real good. All right. Brother D, any, any, uh, further questions from that? Or did that kind of help it? Hold on, hold on. In verse 9. Back in Revelation? Back in Revelation. We're going to back in Revelation chapter 19 I'm assuming. 19 verse 9, okay. And he saith unto me, right, blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. Does that encompass everybody, those three groups? It would seem to be, because Jesus told so many parables in the Gospels about a king who is having a marriage supper, and he's calling everyone to it. And those would be the verses that would complete it. Yes, he's calling people. The setup of this millennium is Difficult thing for me to fully appreciate and understand. Of course, I'm I'm not a tribulation saint and I don't full well Understand the gospel of the what's going on in the trib to be honest with you It appears that the way I see it reading the Bible God has not changed. So let me put it this way God's desire for some inexplicable reason to me is to adopt people as his children. It doesn't make any sense to me. I agree with the one that said last night I would have destroyed it in the third chapter of Genesis. but he doesn't think that way. And he's always been into adoption, and he always talks about taking care of orphans, and orphans are the fatherless, and he means no father God. And so what I can see through the scriptures is just like there are three primary colors, there are three gospels. There's one for the Jews. There's one for the church. We know ours. It's the gospel of Christ. The one for the Jews, the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. And the one for the Gentiles is the one that was mentioned back here in Revelation called the everlasting gospel. And that gospel apparently was working from the time of Adam to Abraham. And then from Abraham to Christ was the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. And right now, we're under the gospel of Christ until the rapture. And I'm not sure what he's going to do in the Trib. I don't know if he's going to overlay the three gospels. You know, there are three primary colors. Light is composed of three primary colors. The gospel is light. But if you want to make light on a color television, you've got to have red, blue, and green, which, by the way, is around the throne in the fourth chapter, verse 1. the jasper is kind of bluish, the sardine is red, and the emerald is green, and those three brought together make white light. So I'm not entirely sure what he does in the Trib, how he pulls this off, but somehow he has the gospel that's operating at that particular time, and the people that always, anyone that obeys The Word of God, which is the gospel for their time, is God's, the best I can tell. So during the trib, they're going to have people running around. They've got the Antichrist making mayhem. They've got wild people in their flesh making mayhem. They've got unclean spirits making mayhem. But if they somehow get through it, when they appear, then the Lord ushers them into the Millennial Kingdom. And those folks are invited to that marriage supper of the Lamb, yes. Okay, good? Alright, next. Next victim. Oh, come on you guys. Someone had Calvinism questions I heard. Yes. Wasn't that you brother? You got your list? It was, you were dealing with the Romans? Was it in Romans 9? Romans 9 it was. Yeah, yeah, that's the area where everyone messes up. And can I, I want to clear this up for you in the most simple way on the Calvinism thing. Because most people, when they read through Romans 9, they get this confusion because they talk about, I think it's the 11th verse that throws them for a loop. And he's telling the story about when Rebecca is going to conceive the children for Isaac. And she's got these twins inside of her. One is Esau and one is Jacob. And it says, verse 11, for the children not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. Notice the entire verse is parenthetical. All right. So I just I just want to back off and want to help you with understanding a couple of ways The book of romans is the great doctrinal book for us Let me get It divides in three God seems to divide thing in three chapters one through eight Which is the doctrine of christ? Chapters 12 through 16 now I beseech you brethren by the mercies of god present your body a living sacrifice the duty of the christian But Paul loved the Jewish people so much that God allowed him to write a few chapters about his people. And in the middle of the doctrine of Christ and the duty of Christian is the dispensation of Israel. And he says, I don't want you guys to be ignorant brethren. And we should probably write a book called the Ignorant Brethren book because there's a lot of ignorant brethren. And he says that about seven times. I was going to do a series on the ignorant brethren, but I don't want to insult anybody. But in 9, 10, and 11, the point he's trying to make is, look, and he understands, remember my flatland thing, we kind of be little circles and we always think about ourselves, me, me, me, me, me. And that's the way we think. And how does it apply to me? And what about me? And that's wonderful, I understand. But God says, I'm doing more than just you. There's more going on in my universe than just you. But we tend to look at everything, how does it affect me? What about me as a Christian? Okay. And God wants you, don't be ignorant. I'm doing more than just you. I got this nation, Israel, I've been working with for, gosh, 19 plus centuries since Abraham. And I got real plans for them, real promises for them. And so Romans 9, 10, and 11, just to remind you, I'm not finished with them. Even though right now is Christianity, the doctrine, and right now is your duty, I'm not done with them. So Romans 9 is Israel past, Romans 10 is Israel present, Romans 11 is Israel future. So this is just some things to remember. God, just don't get all tied up on yourself. And remember, there's other things I'm doing. Now, what happens is in that 11th verse comes the word election. the election of God the election of God has to do with the elect and And here is where only a King James Bible can help you Because the key to understanding the word is to try and find its first reference so if you go back to Isaiah chapter 42 and And only in a King James Bible does this occur. It's sad, it's removed from the other Bibles, so that's why there's confusion. But if you go back to the King James Bible, to Isaiah chapter 42, you read this beautiful passage, which is quoted in the New Testament in Matthew 12. And he says, behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. I've put my spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break. The smoking flax shall he not quench. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. So here's the prophet Isaiah, God, the father's talking to him, and he's thinking, who exactly are you talking about? Now in his heart, I think he kind of knew, he must be talking about that Messiah that's coming. And you got to remember, and I'm going to step aside for a second and get back to the teaching. The Bible is about the Messiah. It's about God and his Messiah. So in the Old Testament, A faithful Jew was looking forward to the Christ, the Messiah. He wasn't looking forward to the cross. He had no concept of a cross or a crucifixion. But he was looking to the Messiah. In the New Testament, we look back to the Messiah. And we understand now the Messiah hung on a cross. But by the way, the hanging on the cross was important, but what's more important? He rose. So we look back to the risen Messiah, okay? They looked forward to a Messiah. So Isaiah is hearing this thinking, I wonder if this is about the Messiah. Now we know for sure it is about the Messiah because Matthew chapter 12, verses 18 through 20, if you keep your finger in Isaiah and you go to Matthew chapter 12, you'll see, boy, it's obviously the Messiah's talking about Jesus. Matthew chapter 12. And in verse 17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah Isaiah's the prophet and here it is behold my servant whom I've chosen my Beloved in whom my soul is well-pleased. I will put my spirit upon him. He shall show judgment to the Gentiles He shall not strive nor cry neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets a bruised reed shall he not break and smoking flecks shall he not quench till he send forth judgment unto victory and And in his name shall the Gentiles trust the name of Jesus. So the Messiah has got to name Jesus. All right. So back in Isaiah 42, verse one is the first time in the Bible, the word elect shows up and it is Jesus Christ. The elect is Jesus Christ. The elect is not John Calvin or his believers or disciples or followers or Presbyterians or Reformed theologians. The elect is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is good for us to understand the doctrinal meaning of a term. So we won't be ignorant or confused like other people. And no one can put a hook in our nose and drag us in the wrong direction, or the wind of doctrine can't blow our rudder the wrong way. The elect is Jesus Christ. Said who? God. Just said it in the book. In his book. Unfortunately, what I just read is not in an NIV. It's not in a New American Standard. It's not there. The word elect is removed. Okay, that's the primary doctrinal meaning of the word elect. Now let me show you the secondary meaning because words do have more than one meaning. This is why I talk to the Lord a lot. Remember my talk about Flatland? I said, Lord, you could have written this better. Why do you do this? Because what he does is within the same circle of a word, spiritually he'll blow through it and give it a few different meanings. Like the word save doesn't always mean justification of your soul. The word earth means three things. Sometimes it means the crust of the earth. Sometimes it means the mantle, those are the pillars of the earth. Sometimes it means the core, the foundations of the earth. I said, don't do this. The world, there's the world present and the world to come. I tell him, you could write this book better. And the reason I tell him that is if he would just fix those words, that would stop all the arguments. And I go, why do you do this? He says, because I'm trying their heart and their spirit. How do they read the book? Are they going to put their faith in men? Are they going to get on their knees and ask me? And if they don't have the answer, are they going to be humble enough to say, I don't have the answer right now, but I know the one who does and someday he'll show us. That's a good teacher, okay? I don't know. He knows. I know it's in there, I just don't understand it yet. Okay, by the way, you'll learn that on Sunday, you're not going to understand it to the millennium. That's another teaching for Sunday. And we'll go on. Now you can't understand what you can now. But but you'll see in the millennium, Lord's going to explain this stuff to you. But right now we understand we can let's not fight about what we don't back to where we are on the elect. The first reference is doctrinally it's Jesus Christ. Let me give you the second reference. Continue in Isaiah, go to chapter 45. Now here he's showing the prophet Isaiah that although judgment is going to come, I am going to eventually restore that which I have judged. The judgment will come upon Israel. They are being disobedient. They've rebelled against me. But because I'm the Lord and I made a covenant with them, I'm going to pull them out of the mess they're in. Again, I say amen, and then I also go, why? Why don't you just get rid of him? But he seems to have a lot of love in his heart. Anyways, so he goes in this chapter and he talks about how he's gonna restore them, about calling this man Cyrus. A great prophecy in the Bible, I'm sure your pastor's taught it to you. This man Cyrus the Persian, he's writing about him by name 150 years before he's born. Okay, so here he is talking about a Persian king who isn't gonna be born till the 500s, and this is 712 BC, and he's calling them by name. He's saying, when that guy is born, this is what he's gonna do. And what he's gonna do is he's gonna let my people go out of captivity and go back and rebuild. And so he says, Cyrus, whose right hand I've holden to subdue the nations before him, I will loose the loins of kings to open before him the two leave gates and the gates shall not be shut. They're gonna go back and open the gates of Jerusalem. And he says, verse four, watch it. Here we go, second reference. For Jacob, my servant's sake and Israel, mine elect. Primary doctrinal reference of the word elect, Jesus Christ. Secondary, historical, literal indication and reference of the word, the nation Israel. Now go back to where you were in Romans. That also is removed in the NIV and also removed in the New American Standard and in the modern books. So here I'm reading something in Romans 9. I want to get understanding on it. I go back and I have no Old Testament to help me. So guess what I can do? I can make it say anything I want. And unfortunately, that's what happens. But if we have this, now we go back to Romans 9 and things begin to make sense. And what we begin to see is what God was doing, verse six, it's not as though the word of God hath taken none effect, for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. Now in that verse, he said, mine elect, he used the word Jacob and the word Israel. And you go back to that verse in the 45th chapter, I think it was verse 6, it was Jacob and the word Israel. And what he's showing you is God, here's what God had to do. In the determinant counsel and foreknowledge and purposing of God, God elected which seed through whom his elect would come one day. Election had to do with the purposing that God said, I've made all nations of one blood, but of one particular tribe, of one particular one is the one through whom my son is going to be born, and I've already chosen that. He's not going to be Irish, so he won't have long red hair and blue eyes. He's not going to be African, so he's not going to walk like an Egyptian. He's going to be a Jewish, and he's going to be of a particular part of Judaism. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then I'm going to call him through the line of Judah. And so that's what it has to do. It's got nothing to do with salvation. Election has nothing to do with salvation. As a matter of fact, I think there's another version here if I can find it quickly. Go to the 11th chapter. And here he is looking at, again, the nation Israel, and he's looking at the future of the nation. But he backs off and he says in verse 26, And so all Israel shall be saved from the future. What I'm going to save is all those Israelites who are not only are circumcised in the flesh, but circumcised in the heart. And that's what God's going to do. And when the millennial kingdom begins and the nation Israel's boundaries are set up according to the book of Ezekiel, and he lays those boundaries out. And I think it's about, I think it's about 30,000 square miles today. It's about 5,000 square miles at the Zenith under David. It was 10,000 square miles, but the Lord will set that thing up at about 30,000 square miles. And every Israelite that enters into that place is going to be saved. gonna be circumcised in flesh and in spirit, they'll all be safe. And then he says this, verse 27, for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins, as he promised back in Jeremiah 31, 31. Then he says this, verse 28, as concerning the gospel, they're enemies for your sakes. Right now you talk to a Jew and you try and give him a gospel trick, that's okay, I'm a Jew. I can't talk about that, he's not the Messiah. You call us Christ killers, we got nothing to do with that Jesus Christ. They're enemies for the gospel, but notice, but as touching the election, they're beloved for the Father's sakes. because God had determined, God had elected through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, this is the group of people that I'm gonna be using to give my scriptures and through whom my son will come. But it's got nothing to do with salvation, they're enemies of the gospel of salvation right now, unless they get saved. So I don't know if that helps. Okay, brother, is it fair to say then, because we've seen basically two dimensions, Christ is the elect, Israel, On a third level, then, is it safe to say as believers, when we get in Christ, after that point, we become the elect? I would say, yeah, if there is a third reference, because you've got the doctrinal for Christ, you've got the historical literal for the nation from a spiritual devotional, we're grafted in. So now we're a part of the elect because we're grafted in. It's tricky, though. And this this is stuff that I have trouble grasping, too, because of the salvation of an Old Testament Jew and the salvation of us there. An Old Testament Jew is born again, which is why the Lord was upset with Nicodemus for not seeing the new birth, which is in the book of Isaiah. I mean, they were born again that this is this is Lord. He'll teach us in the millennium. And here's the here's the problem that God has to deal with. Here's unfortunately the problem God has to deal with is the God that inhabiteth eternity. And these are hard concepts to get. So before creation, there's God inhabiting eternity. And eternity is omnipresence, it's limitless, it's unbounded, it's unbounded space, it's unbounded time. And then for some particular reason, he says, I think I'll run an experiment. Let's start a little bubble and put some creatures in it. And he makes this bubble called the universe. And so he bounds this thing around, and he makes a heaven, and then he makes a earth, and then he makes creatures, and he puts them in this thing, and he starts running this thing, and he says, you know what? We can't run it in eternity because they won't understand the concept of eternity. Let's give them a dimension of time, past, present, and future, and they can mark it off in seconds, and minutes, and hours, and days, because they're not gonna understand. And here comes this creation he made working through eternity, And what he has to do, unfortunately, he has to do both. He has to work in and out of time, in and out of time. And so because we're stuck in time, it's like they couldn't be born again in the Old Testament. And he says, yeah, they were. I mean, that's what he called the things that were not as though they were. But the difference is he He was stuck in the time frame reference that he couldn't apply the blood to their soul literally. He could only apply it on faith because they were looking forward to the Messiah. It works like this. There are two books of life in the Bible. There's the physical book of life and there's the Lamb's book of life. Just like there are the Old and New Testament. The physical book of life, everyone that is ever born, God makes an entry and puts the name that their parents wrote in it. So 1954, Michael Caesar. There it is in the book of life, physical book of life. Next to that is the Lamb's book of life with a blank space for Michael Caesar's name to be put there in a new name that I don't know what he chose for me. One day I'll find out what name he drew. Now, What he had to do, what he's done through the ages, and he's going to show everyone at the white throne judgment, here's your name in the physical book of life. Here was the blank space for you in the Lamb's book of life. You would not receive my salvation. Bodies die because of the sin of Adam. Souls die because they refuse the atonement for the sins in Adam. And so God says, you know, I wanted to transfer you into the Lamb's book, but you wouldn't let me do it. And so now the books are open, blank space here, you're not in it. And I'm blotting this out, and you're gone. And there they go at the White Throne. And they'll have seen, oh my goodness, there was a blank space for me. I didn't get in because I didn't believe, you know, it's their fault. A lot of this will be going on at the White Throne, a lot of slanty foreheads. But here's the thing, I believe what happened was when I got written into the Book of Life in 1993, because it was after the cross and the blood had been shed, the three that bear record in heaven and on earth, one is the spirit, the water, and the blood, he was able to write my name in blood. And so now it's in, I'm in the Lamb's Book of Life, can't be blotted out. Your name can be blotted out of this book. It can't be blotted out of that one. In the Old Testament, God had to work in time, unfortunately. So what I think he did was he took a name like Abraham, and he couldn't write it in blood, he put it in a pencil, he penciled him in, Abraham. And that thing was penciled in, and Abraham had to wait in Abraham's bosom until the blood was shed, in which case the name could be written in blood, and Abraham is born again. But he was born again back then. God's a father. I don't want to confuse you. Forget it. These are just thoughts that I have. All right. So can I take it? Can I get a little bit more help here in Romans nine, because we've discussed this quite a bit among ourselves. And so if I'm probably right on, hopefully with what you guys are thinking here, too. All right. That kind of that helps with the election piece. Everybody pretty much understand that part. I mean, it's pretty good for me. Then when you go on in Romans 9, and you start getting into, and this is where the debate comes, and 100% of circular reasoning, like you already said, is absolutely right. I always put it back on. If you're circular reasoning, you are too. So I agree with that 100%. When you get in there in verse 12, elders should serve the younger. Verse 13, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Verse 14, what shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. He sayeth to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Now this is where the Calvinists' heyday and their strong fort is. This is their trenches. 16, so then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture sayeth unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. No problem there, but in verse 18, Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth verse 19 gets even rougher thou thou will say then unto me Why did he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will in other words that guy's out of control It's God's fault. Basically. This is the election This is their trenches here, and I don't obviously, you know, I'm not a Calvinist nay But oh man, who art thou that replyest against God shall the thing form say to him that form it while thou made me thus hath not the potter power over the clay the same lump make one vessel an honor another dishonor and then verse 22 what if God willing to show his wrath and make his power known and do it with much long-suffering the Brussels of wrath fitted for destruction alright so this is where we you know we make sense of it sometimes and then other times I run into a Calvinist specifically some these guys had issues with preachers who have really taken the task and one particular was really put down by the preacher you don't know anything And this is where they come and try to jam up the spokes real bad. So can you help us at all? Yes, well, yes. Now, first off, again, the Bible is spiritually discerned. So what it requires is you must go home and you must meditate on what it's said. And one of the most difficult things I've encountered in my life is, Lord, help. I mean people are sheep and most sheep aren't like very good thinkers and and so what they tend to do is they tend to follow a shepherd. Now it'd be great if you find a real good shepherd that loves God and loves his book and spends his time on his knees But a lot of shepherds also are sheepish, and they follow other shepherds, and they follow the writings of other men. So you just got a bunch of people following a bunch of people. Just a quick story. There was a shepherd in the Middle East, and he was telling a story of how sheep behave, and they're kind of dumb, you know. And he said, I used to have this one crazy sheep, and what he would do is he would just start walking in a circle. For no reason, he'd just start walking in a circle. I have to stop him. Put him at some nice grass graze here for a while, and I'd go back an hour later And he's walking in a circle now. I said I don't know what's wrong with that sheep now sheep follow sheep He said one day went over an hour later And there were he was walking in a circle and 20 sheep were following him and they were all walking in a circle and that's kind of the way it is and what God wants to do is break that pattern in you and Teach you to meditate on his word. You know all these verses. I wore it up I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee I The way a verse is hidden in the heart is not memorization. Memorization is a work of the flesh and the work of the mind. You can get people to memorize NIV verses, which aren't even God's Word. You can get people to memorize Shakespeare sonnets and stuff like that. The work of meditation is a work in the heart, and work in the heart requires time with God. It's a heart work. And so these people that are arguing with you, I implore them, I beseech them, you know, go home and spend some time with the words of God and letting the word of God work. Now, I'm going to endeavor to say, and my experience shows me that usually the people who are caught up in Calvinism and other goofy doctrines don't even believe the word of God. And remember, all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God, profitable for doctrine. Now, you know that phrase, all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God. It's not talking about writing it down. Let me see if I can find the other verse, because I want to show you, because when you're dealing with these people, you're going to have trouble, because they just won't spiritually settle down and let God teach them. But the way the Bible is written, and I'll see if I can find the verse real quickly for you, it's the book of the other word on inspiration. Is it 32 verse 8? Yes, go to Job 32 verse 8. And I want to show you the only way you're going to get out of this trap, an heretic is one who has an heresy, and the heresy that's in Titus chapter 3, and in particular, The context of the chapter has to do with the salvation, not by works of our righteousness, but you know, God's washing and is talking about salvation and heresy. It has to do with not understanding salvation and Calvinism doesn't understand salvation. And here's the reason Job 32 verse 8. There is a spirit in man. And the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them the men and their spirits understanding. Your knowledge comes spiritually to you. God's words are one portion of the knowledge. Like we saw last night, that's the water of the word. The spirit of God is the second portion, and what he wants to do is help you to properly interpret it spiritually in your spirit. Now, there is a spirit in man. And one of the things I've observed, and you may observe this too, the churches that grow the biggest are not the ones that are led of the Spirit of God. They're the ones led by the Spirit of man. God's a tough thing to perceive. Truly thou art a God that hideth thyself, O God of Israel. He really is very good at the hide-and-seek game. And initially in salvation, He seeks you. And once he gets you, then it's your job to seek him the rest of your life. He's not coming after you anymore. You better be seeking him. Seek the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You gotta seek him now. And unfortunately, what we do is we seek some guy after we get saved. And so the problem with the Calvinist is if you will not receive the word of God, the spirit of God that gave the scripture, You won't receive that major thing, you're going to have doctrinal error. I don't care how intelligent, John MacArthur must be one of the most gifted men from a teaching standpoint I've ever heard. His gift, his teaching gift is way, no offense, I don't know where this goes, way beyond the docks in Pensacola. There's no comparison in the teaching gift. I mean, the problem is John MacArthur doesn't believe the word of God. I mean, when I listen to him teach, it reminds me of going on a medical missions trip to a third world country and watching a gifted surgeon work with bad instruments in a bad OR. He just can't get the job done. Because he won't, he just will not settle his spirit to receive God's word. And because of that, he has major doctrinal error, one of which is Calvinism. The guy's a Calvinist. with a gift that God gave him, oh my goodness. I feel sorry for the guy, but thank goodness he's safe, praise the Lord. But it's spiritual. So here's the thing, back to the titles, Titus chapter three, admonition with these guys. You know, Titus chapter 3, how do you deal with someone that has heresy? Well, Titus tells you what you do with them. I mean, Titus chapter 3, you avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and striving about the law. They're unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, you reject it. We don't need to talk about this anymore. Honest to goodness, I'm not going to be able to convince you. And here's the other thing, and why you, sometimes I don't even like convincing people. Look, if the spirit of Mike can convince you one way, when Mike is gone, the spirit of some other guy can convince you the other way. What I want is the spirit of God to convict you and convince you, then it's settled. you'll never have a question on it again because god showed you that my wife uh... my wife asked god which bible was god's god showed her the king james she only knew it for about three or four weeks when some pastor from a church decided to take her to lunch and try and work her over with all the seminary stuff to convince her off of it and although she couldn't answer any of the Topics he brought up. She didn't know any Greek. She didn't know anything about manuscripts She could just sit there comfortably because God showed her that's that's my book back to the flatland Okay, so my wife is his little teeny bitsy bitsy circle and the scholars this big giant circle But his is flat and she's entered the three dimensions and she's got something above and beneath the table that he doesn't have and she's comfortable It's spiritual That's what God's trying to do as a spiritual work on little people in Flatland. That's us, folks. It's not the size of the circle, it's the depth. And that's God. That's where God gets in. Anything else? So in answering that Romans 9 then, my best explanation has been, number one, never interpret it the passage alone. We already studied election, we can study predestination, we can study all that stuff, and God defines that clearly. Go ahead, you look like you're already ready. Yes, one other thing in that passage, if you notice the word very carefully, there's one word that's being used and one word that's not being used. The word that's being used is mercy. The word that's not being used is grace. There is a difference between mercy and grace. Mercy, okay, predominantly Old Testament word. grace, predominantly New Testament word. Why? Because the Jews were a physical people with a physical promise in a physical place. We're a spiritual people with spiritual promises in a spiritual place on the inside that comes not with observation. Ephesians 1 is at verse 3 says, we have all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. What we don't have is what they have. We don't have physical blessings in physical places. I can't pray to God for wealth or health, because that's not, look, it's a better thing. You want to know something? It's actually better when God doesn't heal somebody. That's a greater testimony. Johnny Erickson Tata, that little girl, she's a lady now, had that diving accident, broke her neck, became a quadriplegic. I'll bet they poured oil over her, called the elders from James, probably the original ones, exhumed the bodies, and they tried everything to get her healed. But God says, I got a greater work, giving her joy and grace and ministry and happiness as a quadriplegic. Spiritual blessings, beyond physical stuff. Look, I don't like it either. My flesh isn't crazy about the way God works either, so I understand too. I'd rather get healed and get out of the chair. But the Lord says, I got a better work. My grace is gonna be made sufficient in your weakness right there. So we have spiritual blessings. They had physical blessings. Now, when the Lord comes back, it all gets put back together, you get both. So we get the spiritual and the physical, they get the physical and the spiritual, what a deal. Everybody's winning. I don't know what they call that in gambling terms, but everybody wins that one. But here, mercy is physical. Grace is spiritual. Mercy is when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, you know when they were supposed to die? That day. They didn't. What was that? That wasn't grace, that was mercy. Mercy allows sinners to live after they've sinned. Welcome to South Lyons in Detroit. God looks down here and he sees a bunch of sinners running around in their sin. They all, judicially, if he wanted, could be dead. God would be judicially correct to kill every sinner the first day they sinned. And nobody could say a word about it. In the day thou sinnest, thou shalt die." But he didn't, and what he did with Adam and Eve is, again, he's trying to teach his difference between spiritual and physical in this sense. Adam did not die, he died spiritually in a physical day, he died physically in a spiritual day. How long is a spiritual day? A thousand years. He died at 930 years old. But he died spiritually in a physical day. So God put the cross even in that judgment there. But here's the key. The key is that mercy is what allowed him to live physically. What God does with sinners is he gives them mercy so they can live a little longer, so they can get to grace and get saved. Now, I'm not saying grace was not operational in the Old Testament. It was. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God has graciously been adopting children all through the Bible. But mercy let them live long enough to find the grace. The point of mercy is to let someone live long enough to find grace. Some vessels of mercy, he lets them live a long time to find grace. Others are vessels of the mercy runs out and they're fitted to destruction and they die at 30 years old. And they didn't get a long time to find grace. So that's the other confusion going on there. Grace is not in that chapter. Mercy is. Well, it's in the beginning of the chapter, but it's not in that portion. The key to unlock it then is looking at it through the eyes of mercy and Old Testament sense And that once again, you got the three dimension. I mean Pharaoh ended up washed up on the shore and Moses kept on living He was fitted to destruction. And yeah, there's always a three-dimensional piece to like God does choose some individuals for a certain work Yes, God choosing people for a position. I mean, that's part of his as the Lord began constructing through the time of Dispensations, I mean he first started the garden in innocence and then messed up there. So he says, okay, let me do the next work conscience. We'll try an inner work. Okay inner work doesn't restrain them. They're still killing everybody. Okay, let's have a flood now when we get on the other side. I got to restrain them or they'll do the same thing again. I'm going to do an outer work to restrain them. That's government. The conscience is not enough to stop those people, but the government is. And a lot of you folks, and a lot of me too, although my conscience said, don't commit that crime, it was ready to do it, and then the thought of getting punished by the government, I said, I don't think I'll do it. And a few times I thought I could get away, I did do it. My conscience didn't stop me. And as long as the government didn't, I was a winner. But you get it. But here's the point. As God is rolling down through the corridors of history, when he added government, that was his work and therefore he keeps an eye on it and every so often he chooses someone for a governmental position oh and they're accountable to whom much is given much is required and so pharaoh was accountable for that position and god what we understand looking at the bigger picture the more than one dimension to the situation god had already dealt with pharaoh pharaoh god already knew in his foreknowledge harold's heart at least at least 10 warnings had been given yes yes and god had him in a position like you mentioned The doc down down in Florida earlier. Well, God chooses men. There's no doubt God chose him for an issue. He's more than a teacher. He's an evangelist. He's a preacher. He's a, you know, so God knows how to put an army forth. What's that? Yeah, absolutely. That's his strength. Absolutely. Amen. Um, so God chose him for a specific job. And then God also then on the negative side of that will sometimes choose somebody as his pawn. And God in His justice has already, like you mentioned last night, given the guy two chances. God knew he wasn't going to. So when the shallow, you know, unidimensional people are looking at it from the flatland, they're going, see, God chooses. God did it to him. And they're not looking at the whole well-rounded picture of the Word of God. Not to mention, like you already said, what is election? And they don't want to. That's the other thing. They don't want to. That's the scariest thing of all. You know I've often Before I got involved in ministry I was getting involved in government and when I was involved in government I would I would get involved with liberals, and there's only three types of liberals dumb dumber and dumbest you know and Isaiah 32 verse 5 Isaiah 32 verse 5 and God himself calls the liberal man vile v-i-l-e in Isaiah 32 verse 5 and And and and they're vile they're vile now now God is using it from a spiritual perspective standpoint I mean a spiritual liberal is vile in God's eyes because he will not receive God's spiritual teaching he wants a new-age spirit he wants another prophet he wants a necromancer he wants a witch he wants something else he won't so there are spiritual liberals In government, there are social liberals. They're also vile. When I did research in science, there are scientific liberals. They're vile. Let's say environmentalists with the goofy stuff they teach. And I know the numbers behind that stuff. I can tell you about carbon dioxide. I can give you the numbers if you want some teaching. But they're wrong. But they're wrong. And the thing that used to trouble me is I would come to the liberal. For example, the liberal 1960s, the great society of Lyndon Johnson. The problem with America is we have children being born out of wedlock. There's 17% of children being born out of wedlock in the inner cities. We've got to fix this. Let us start a welfare program. We can take care of those young girls that have babies out of wedlock. So they started the welfare program. Well, how's it working? Now there's 73%. illegitimate birth rate in the inner cities. So it didn't work. So the problem is, so I as a conservative before I was saved would go and say, well, but these numbers don't add up. And they would say, well, it's a gut issue with me. It's a heart issue. I just don't want to receive it. They don't want to receive truth. And I used to come home to my wife sometimes and say, I don't understand what the problem is. Because every time I encounter a liberal, I thought if I bring the facts, he'll listen. Is it they don't know or they don't care to know? And they don't care to know. They don't care to know. And so it's the same thing in the spiritual realm, Isaiah 32, five, a spiritual liberal, no better than a social liberal, no better than a scientific liberal. You're not going to get very far with them. That's why one time, second time that's done. It's the heart. It's the heart. And, and taking that point, even a step farther to go back and study what happened in Pharaoh's life with Moses and the witness and Moses and Aaron and the miracles of Pharaoh knew over and over again, it was God. Yes. And Pharaoh, like you said about the liberal, just didn't want to know. So when we come to Romans 9 and it says God hardens who he will, it's because God had already dealt with that heart, God knew who he was, and God said, alright, you're the pawn I'm going to use to make my power known. it's not that god was overriding this man's free will from birth, it's that God already had some things in line and the Calvinist is not looking past Romans 9, he's not looking past the word of God to balance that thing out properly. If the Lord overrode free will, no one would perish, everyone would get saved. Because that's his will, and Pharaoh would have gotten saved. No, the Lord, that's the sanctuary. the tabernacle 2nd Corinthians 5 2nd Peter 1 Exodus 25 through 40 that tabernacle is a picture of many things it's a picture of Christ it's a picture of us If I've put off the tabernacle, Peter says. Paul says one day, if we put off our tabernacle, we have a temple in heaven. Yeah, the tabernacle is a picture of us, and the tabernacle, remember, had three parts to it. There was the outer courtyard that represents your body, that has the gates that can look at the world. And then there was the inner part. There's the holy place that represents your spirit. And then there's the most holy place. That's the sanctuary of your heart and your soul and the reins of your heart is in there. And then what has to be done there is you must invite God in. And he will not cross the veil without your invitation. And you want to keep that to yourself and keep that veil shut, like Pink Floyd, just another brick in the wall and build that thing up so nobody gets in, you can do that. And many people have, and God will not violate that. He will not violate your tabernacle if you don't invite him in. But if you invite the high priest in, then that thing is lit forever because he ain't leaving once he comes in. But that's what's going on there with those folks. They're not going to hear it. And the hardening of the heart, I'll give it a picture like this. Somebody described, let's say, the heart has a shape to it. And like water, like here, our present commander in chief, the executive that now is in the Oval Office. When that guy speaks, it's like pouring words out to us. And what he's able to do is he's able to pour them out and you get to think what you want in those words. But those words came out of a heart in a particular shape. But you don't know the shape of that heart. When God hardens it, it would be like as if God froze it and then removed the heart and you could actually see the shape of what's actually in there. Sometimes I wish he would harden the shape so we could see what's in there. Because as long as he's allowed to be fluid, he can pour it out any way he wants. You wanna hear this? You wanna hear this? He can pour it out as you want, but as soon as God hardened it, he can't pour it anymore. This is what's in there. That's the shape of it. And that's what God does, reveals what's actually in the heart, the shape of the heart by hardening it. He's only revealing what's in there. And the guy fashioned it himself. with his own anvil and his own hammer. God did not will Pharaoh to be damned. God hardened his heart. God hardened it after Pharaoh's response already to God had been, I don't I can't have any more mercy and that's clear by reading the story mercy and grace are I can't say Mercy is unconditional to a point But then one day the door shuts, just like with the ark. And grace, we know, is not unconditional. It's conditional on repentance. You don't repent, you don't get grace. And that doesn't mean repent from your sin. That means repentance toward God. If you think of a compass with 360 degrees, Everything's wrong, but one pointing north So you can be mother Teresa, you know, I'm trying to live a righteous life. I'm trying to give myself to charity I'm trying to give my money away and you're one degree off bang. It's not repentance from sin the guy going in this direction It's repentance toward God. Once you repent toward God, you got it straight That's that's the key and that's what repentance is turning to God and faith in Jesus Christ. Yeah guys You had touched on this just a little bit, I think, but rewinding to chapter 4 here in Romans, God uses both Abraham and David and uses similarities in their life and compares it to our salvation. However, I'm not exactly sure of the the differences in their salvation compared to ours. Could you kind of go over those? There is no difference. There's no difference between David's salvation, Abraham's salvation, or my salvation. That's confused by a lot of people, and here's the confusion. It's always the same in terms of this. There has to be a point in someone's life when they turn to God. That's what God's looking for. What are they turning to? 1 Peter 1, verse 23, which is, I misread it for 15 years, but look at what the words actually say. And this is where our confusion comes in. Because 1 Peter 1, verse 23, I misread this for 15 years until the Lord said, slow down, son, and look at that. Look at what's on the page. 1 Peter 1, verse 23, being born again, right? That's what you must be born again, correct? Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. What are you talking about? By the word of God. You know how I read that verse? By the gospel of Christ. Didn't say that. It said, by the word of God. So go back to Genesis 15. Now, I'm just taking the Bible at what it says. I'm not taking what anybody teaches. Then I'll try and show you what I think. And it could be wrong. Who knows? I don't think so, I think it's in the book. Genesis 15, one of the greatest chapters. Now you just talked about Abraham in the fourth chapter. Going back to here, look at the great sixth verse, the one we all know. And he believed in the Lord, and he, that would be the Lord, that he is Abraham, he believed in the Lord, and he, the Lord, counted it to him, Abraham, for righteousness. So there's Father Abraham, the father of faith, getting the righteousness of God, which cometh not by works, but by God. Okay. But how did he get that? Look at verse 1. It's the first time in your Bible that ever appears. After these things, here's the phrase, the word of the Lord. I want to verily, verily, verse 4, and behold the word of the Lord. Being born again, how? by the word of God? Like I was saying, see, God in eternity, you know, his word is settled up there, the whole thing. I think of three pulpits in eternity, one with a King James Bible, one with a Masoretic text, and one with a Texas Receptus, you know, half a Bible here, half a Bible here, the whole thing united in the middle, been settled up there forever. But down here, he had to like pour it out as rain, little by little by little by little, couldn't give you too much at once, you couldn't bear it. So here's the key. Do you believe what I gave you? See, faith with God is not believing in God. It's believing what God said, believing what God wrote. It's believing God's record. It's believing God's testimony. Abraham didn't have much. He only got about 14 chapters worth of testimony, but he believed it. And God says, you're all right with me, kid. And Abraham says, but I haven't even read the book of Romans. And God says, I haven't written it yet for you. But I've given you the first 14 chapters of Genesis, and you believe that? And you're OK in my sight. You believe what I tell you up to the time I tell you? You're OK with me. Same with David. By the time David came along, more had been poured out, and David believed what was there, and God said, you're all right with me, kid, you're safe. And that's why he could say, to whom the Lord imputeth, I forget the verses, 4.8 is the one I'm looking for in Romans. Now I'm gonna show you the confusion that enters in, that's okay, it's fun, whatever, Romans 4. Romans 4. Even as David, verse 6, described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works. That's what happened to Abraham. God called him righteous. He didn't do anything. He just believed. He believed the testimony he had. It wasn't much, but he believed it. Verse 8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Verse 7. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, their sins are covered. Hey, God's always been doing that. That's his gig. He's the Savior, the Savior of Israel. He's the Savior of all mankind, not the Jews only. Here's the mistake that people make when they read the Old Testament. Shame on us. When you get, we call the word saved, what you really get is justified. Okay, same with David, same with Abraham. So here's the gig. Here's the judge, the great judge of all the earth and all heaven and earth. And what's marshaled before him is, guess what, a sinner. That's all that God's ever seen are sinners. Now let's take a look at a judge today. What's brought before him is a criminal. So criminal can make one or two pleas, guilty or not guilty. If he's guilty, what do I do? I have to charge him with the guilt and then execute the sentence. Now, there are a few times in a court, whether it be a criminal court or a civil court, where someone is brought before a judge who actually is innocent. Let's say right now, what time is it? It's close to noon. Let's say right now, noon, three miles away from here, a murder is committed, and the guy looks like Brother Dave in the back, and was even dressed like Brother Dave. Now- Probably was him. Pardon me? It was probably, yeah, well, here's the point. Let's say let's say accidentally they brought him before the judge. OK, somebody I think a guy looked like that, you know, by eyewitness. So he's going by eyewitness, but now the other. There are three things that are used in a court. There's eyewitness testimony, there's evidential testimony, and there's documentary testimony. OK, so now the circumstantial and the documentary evidence comes forth and you find out he's innocent. And so the judge can't call him guilty, calls him innocent. But God's never had that opportunity to have someone come before him that he can call innocent. In other words, he can't acquit anybody. It says in the book of Nahum 1, verse 3, God will not, cannot acquit sinners. So God is stuck with this thing. What do I do? All I can do is condemn and kill everybody that comes before me. So we have to come up with a third way. It's called justification. He had to invent something called justification. And justification was a way he could bring a guilty sinner before him, and instead of throwing the book at him and condemning him, can't acquit him because he's guilty, he said, I found a new way where I can justify him even though he's guilty. Not just as if he never sinned. He still sinned. He knows he sinned. Go ask him up there. Go ask Paul. Hey, Paul, you deserve heaven? Did you ever do anything wrong? Okay, so they know up there that they sin, but they've been justified. Now, justification happened because of the work of Christ, which was promised Old Testament, delivered New Testament. Now it's evident for all of us in that he raised that man from the dead. And justification is that now you get his righteousness because he took your penalty and you've been justified. And the gavel is struck and it's done instantly in the blink of an eye. What's that word about the resurrection? In the twinkling of an eye. In the twinkling of an eye. All of a sudden you went from guilty and condemned to guilty and justified. Praise the Lord. And now you're justified. And it's good forever. Now look it, that process has been going on forever and it was always based on do you believe my testimony? Abraham believed, justified. David believed, justified. Now, from that point forward, me, 1993, you, you know your date, I don't know when it is. From that point forward, you've got the faith that justifies, and now God wants some works with your faith. And the difference in the Old Testament was those works were very well prescribed, and those works gave them a practical working righteousness, but not their salvational or justification righteousness. So if you were saved, you're saved even if you messed up. Look at Solomon. I mean, here's a guy that died at 59 years old. They were promised long life. He obviously wasn't obeying. But Solomon's saved. How do I know? Is it Psalm 79? It tells you right in the verse, he's saved there. Solomon's saved. So I know from the Bible Solomon's saved, but Lot, we looked at him last night. There's a guy that's saved. You wouldn't have thought so. By the way, Old Testament. Old Testament. I think that's why he's named Lot. Something's only in English, L-O-T, O-T, Old Testament, L, Laodicean. He's a Laodicean in the Old Testament. It's a perfect picture of a Laodicean Christian in the Old Testament, Lot, and there he is, and he's saved. So all these works that you guys read about in the Old Testament, that's not what, if that did anything to them, all that did was allow them to stay physically alive longer. That kept physical life for them, not spiritual life. Their spiritual life was given just like ours when they believed the testimony God gave. That's all I can see. I can't see it any other way. That brings up one question for me, brother, and I don't know how you deal with this. My understanding has always been that, well, James 2, James 2, 21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works, New Testament, not New Testament? Correct. When he had offered up Isaac, his son, upon the altar, seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? Verse 23, Scripture was fulfilled as saith Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. and he was called the friend of God. A couple things about that before my question maybe makes sense. First of all, he believed God first. Seven chapters later in Genesis, he was justified by his works. Now, his belief in God was imputed to him for righteousness. His justification was by his works seven chapters later, but my understanding was this. No coincidence, in the Old Testament, they went to Abraham's bosom. Yes, until Christ was crucified. Yes, where their final salvation was completed not by my works But by the death of Jesus Christ, that's why we get to heaven. Everybody's glorifying him. It's not well I'm an Old Testament saint. My works were so wonderful. Now those works are gave you a pass to go to Abraham's bosom until the death, bail and resurrection of Christ, where those sins were all washed away. That's been my, my personal understanding. And I don't have a trouble with that, but then the question that maybe I would just ponder is then who makes it to Abraham's bosom? Who made it? Absolutely. Good question. and that that would very of course like you said earlier earlier it's between god the individual genesis one of fourteen was all abraham had got a good job david he's on a different different situation and i think i think what happened in my thought would be this that as they were going along and they believed the word of god and god knows when that occurred and thank goodness God is good. He's better than we are. I'm so glad that Rick gave the testimony yesterday about being saved as a little boy. And you'll understand this more when I teach on Sunday, because God really has to do a threefold work with us, folks. I agree. And that's one thing I'd like to say, I buy what you said about the Word of God. And when the Lord Word Lord came to, that's phenomenal. I'd never really clicked for me before. I've never seen that. Yes, born by the Word of God. Yes. So I never thought of it in a sense of being born again, in a way not the same exact way we are. Well, only because God was stuck in working in time stuck in time. From his standpoint, it was the same. I get it. From his standpoint, it was the same instantly. But for us, it's difficult for us. I mean, we got to juggle a couple of balls because we got to juggle the eternal and the time one. And this stuff is deep. And that's why I don't. And we're just about winding it up, but I want you to listen. Don't frustrate yourself about intellectual understanding, even of the word of God. uh... what god wants is your trust in your faith you're not born again by understanding you're born again by just faith and believing yes it's simple yes you're trusting you're a child you're reaching your hand up to god except you enter as a child you won't enter that's why it's so difficult for intellectual northeastern liberals like i might have been at least intellectually in the sense that you know university educated although I was a fiscal conservative. But the point is, you had to humble yourself as a child to come into God's kingdom. And the reality is, believe it or not, this life, and you're gonna have three lives. You're gonna have this mortal life, you're gonna have your millennial life, and then you're gonna have your New Jerusalem life. This is the shortest and weakest work that God does. It's really his salvational entry work. What you basically got when you got justified or saved is you became accepted in the beloved. It's like when I wanted to go to medical school. I applied and applied and applied and applied and I waited for that one letter of acceptance. I remember when it came that one spring. I ran in and told my folks I got it. I'm accepted. I wasn't in medical school. The education didn't begin for a while. The millennial education is your medical school when you're really going to start learning. All men shall be taught of God for a number of reasons, one of which is our brains are too small. It takes about an IQ of a thousand to really understand that book. So we're like children playing in that book. We're just like five and six-year-olds. So don't get frustrated over the understanding. Continue to stay close to the Lord. Follow the Lord and do the one great thing He wants you to do. Help others. Put their trust in Him so He can get His hands on them and He can teach them in the millennium and get ready to take them to the New Jerusalem. Don't get frustrated over this intellectual stuff. We talk about it. It's nice. Whoop-dee-doo. Let's play a song and go our way. The real thing The real thing is a relationship of closeness, trust, and then just saying, hey, you want to meet a great God? I want you to meet this great God. He's right here in the Scriptures. He's in my heart. He'll come in your heart, too, if you'll meet Him in the Scriptures. And that's what you do. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity at this time. This is all fun and games. This is all stuff. This is where the spirit of man runs amok, and people find themselves in different camps, following guys got 140 IQ until someone with 150 IQ comes along, until they find someone with 160 IQ, and then they find Bullinger with 180 IQ, and it's a bunch of nuttiness, and that's not what this is about. Amen. Amen. Amen. I think that's a great conclusion. Thank you. You hit a home run right there. Are you good? Everybody else okay? We got tomorrow still and it should be some food for thought. Let's not leave though. I would really like to pray first and then we'll go ahead and go. Let's pray.