1 Thessalonians, or 2 Thessalonians, that is, 1 and 5. And the subject here is suffering on behalf of the kingdom of God. Suffering on behalf of the kingdom of God. Now, why would you want to suffer on behalf of the kingdom of God? Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to curtail your habits and your old ways for the kingdom of God? Why would you want to do that? For the love of God. For the love of God. Alright, I'm going to give you a little something that I heard an illustration of this last week. You know that states, almost every state, the state of California where we live today, has laws. Now, we have a couple of children in here tonight. We have one right back there, a big children, and another children right over here. Alright? Two children in here tonight. Now, they have parents. Now, the state of California says that you have to feed your children. They cannot be malnourished or wrong nourished. That you have to keep a clean house to a certain extent. You have to keep your house clean. And it says that you're supposed to send them to school. If you don't send them to school, then they'll take them away from you. Now these are all walls in the state of California. These things, if the state of California finds out that you're being an unfit parent, They can take your children away from you, and they can put them in another home, little brother. They can take them out of your home and put them in another home, or they will give them foster parents. Now, God doesn't want us to serve Him because it's the law. I mean, God's word says, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not steal, and all these things. It does say that. But, early grave, don't run off without me giving you your CDs and stuff. God doesn't want us to serve Him because we have to. My daughter, not one time in my life has anybody ever made me clean house for her, or cook her a meal, or send her to school. Nobody ever made me do that. I did that. What do you think I did that? Because I love her. Now, did the state of California ever have to come out to your house, young lady, and make you feed him, put clothes on his back, shoes on his feet, Send him to school or teach him as you do. I mean, you're doing even beyond sending him to school. You teach him at home. And I can guarantee you're doing a good job because I can tell him. The boy is right up there. Now, we do those things because we love our children. If we don't do those things, then there's a pretty good idea that we don't love our children. Something's wrong. Now God, when He saves our souls, we become His children. He's never going to do us wrong. Did you know that? And the rules that He sets down in our life are not wrong rules. They do not have... He will never confuse you. He will never tell you one thing this week and another thing next week. The rules are always the same. and they're going to be reasonable, and they're going to be for our sake. God does not want you to do anything for Him that's bad for you. I can guarantee you. You should never do anything for your children that is bad for them. Nobody should make you raise your children. Nobody will ever make God raise His children because He loves you. And nobody can ever make you serve the Lord. Now, let's look and see what it says here. Enigma. That's the easy one, wasn't it? Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace. Pace You're ahead of me. Te, defy-os, gracios, tu, deus, eis, to, caradocs-a-dene, dimas, te, mausoleos, tuthiu, heper, heis, fie, fosgenic. Now let's look and see what it says. Let's translate it. I'll write it down. It was in Greek. I went in Greek. I was out at the lake the other day and I spoke to Dakota in Greek. And this guy walked up to me and he says, what language are you speaking? And I said, well, I'm speaking current Greek. Oh yeah, he said, I was over in the Middle East. And the Asia Minor and everything, I heard him speaking some of those languages over there. And I said, well, you probably wouldn't hear him speaking this one, because this is an old Greek. It's biblical Greek. Old. OK. Well, we just spoke this in biblical Greek. Now let's put it in English, all right? Enigma. The word indictment comes from this. Did you know that? What is an indictment? You indict somebody. You make a statement about what they did. When you indict somebody. Dan, what is an indictment? What is an indictment? It's bring charges against somebody. Bring charges against somebody. You make a statement about something that somebody did. I'm having all kinds of problems here tonight with these machines. Now it's working. Machines. I need sound men and video men and everything else. An indictment. An indictment means to bring a charge against somebody that is, it's reasonable, It is a statement of fact. It's obvious. Obvious. Something that is obvious. When you bring an indictment against somebody, it's something that's obviously wrong, okay, that they did. It says, the obvious of the just judgment of the government. And how this would be translated into English, it is obviously just exactly what you should do. It is obvious that you should do this. All right? On to the, to be counted word geeks. Ace, remember what ace means? Ace, that's a little old Greek word. It's kind of a, it corresponds to the Hebrew F. It's something that comes before a direct object. Okay? It's a kind of a pointer. It's a pointer out. It means extensive limitation of thought or verbal action. Now, it is obvious that we should serve God righteously. Because, extensive limitation of thought or verbal action, because it is reasonable to be counted worthy. All right? Because it is reasonable. Does God give you all these rules for your life when you're saved, when you're born again? He takes you right out of the jaws, right out of the clutches, right out of the grip of hell, and He puts you into the kingdom of God. He saves you out of that, but He saves you to do something. And it's reasonable that when God saves you out of the clutches of sin and unrighteousness in the world, that you should walk in righteousness. It's obvious that you should do that. The indictment against your former life was hell itself. Did you know that? How many believe in hell? Right. It's real place. God created hell for sinners. And for those that reject Him, because Heaven wouldn't be a worthy place for you, because you're living in rebellion against God, and God is not going to make anything serve Him, or bow down to Him that doesn't want to do it willingly. The conviction of the Holy Spirit convicts your heart of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It's a common thing. And God calls us unto the kingdom of His dear Son. And His Son already showed us how to walk, didn't He? Christ lived the righteous life, and then died for our sins. If He counted us worthy of the kingdom belonging to God, He lost faith, basileos, to view. He counted us worthy of the kingdom of God, the basileos. Every age, from Adam to now, even before Adam, even the interlaces passed, there was a kingdom of God, a kingdom to-the-ew. To-the-ew means genitive singular masculine, a kingdom belonging to God, possessed by God. And in that kingdom, at every age of mankind and even of angels, There were administrators in God's kingdom. There were people that God chose, that he said, you are worthy to be my administrator in my kingdom. When you have a job position, your employer says that you are worthy to do that job, whether you're a salesman, or whether you're a teacher, or a lawyer, or even a judge. The people vote. A real judge is voted in. Did you know that? Yeah, people vote for them, and they put them in, and they have judged them worthy to be administrators in the local kingdom. Local civil matters. Okay? Well, God counts some people worthy. to the administrators of his kingdom. And then it says, on behalf of which he heard. That means on behalf of, and then ace, of which, let's get it in singular, feminine. By the way, apostolia, the kingdom, that's kind of a feminine idea. The church is feminine also, isn't it? The church is also called, in another place, what? The bride of Christ. Now, the book of Revelation, 1 and 2 Peter, the book of Jude, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians are what we call eschatological books, aren't they? They talk about the last things. They talk about the second coming and the last things. Now, these books talk about God's judgment upon the earth, but in every period of time God has administrators in His kingdom. Now, as we see the kingdom that we live in today, the administrator of God's kingdom today is whom? His churches. His churches. The churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in the book of Revelation, we have contrasts. Contrasts. We have the bride which has made herself ready with white linen in the book of Revelation. We also have another woman in the book of Revelation. She's called the harlot. And of course, her husband is the red dragon. That's Babylon, false religion. So we have the bride of Christ and we have the great harlot. We see those, and we see the dragon, and we see the lamb of God in contrast, okay? These are in the kingdom of God, on behalf of which also ye suffer. Ye actively, this is second-person plural, present indicative active, this paschete, the paschal lamb. You ever heard of that? The paschal lamb. What was the paschal lamb? It comes right straight from this Greek word, Paschal. What did the Lamb do? It suffered. The Paschal Lamb suffered. The Paschal Lamb suffered for our sins, didn't it? The Paschal Lamb, during the period of time that Israel was the administrators of the kingdom, When they took that lamb up there, when they took that lamb, the Paschal Lamb was to have his throat slit. And it suffered. It suffered for somebody. It suffered for the guilty. The innocent suffered for the guilty. Now who was the real Paschal Lamb of God? Jesus. Alright, Jesus. That name of suffering, Jehovah's Savior, that's what Jesus is called, Jehovah's Savior. The suffering one. Jehovah's Savior. How did he say it? By poscheo. Poscheo, by suffering. Now, Christ is our forerunner, isn't He? The word in Greek is prokopto. Prokopto, and it means to chalk forward. They used to have, in the cowboy and Indian days, I would like to say this one thing, though. The white people didn't discover anything in this country. It's already been here. The Indians already knew about all of it. But if you go up here by Lake Isabella and you go over a pass over there, they will name that pass on the other side of Onyx and Cane Break. Right up there on top of that pass is called what? Walker Pass. Named after Joseph Walker. That he discovered the pass. He was meeting John T. Fremont. He'd been up there in the high Sierras and up around Mount Whitney and climbing around up through there, and they were looking for a pass to get over here this way. They were going to come out here to California and incite the people in California to rebel against Mexico, just like Texas was doing back in the other end of the country. How many of you have ever heard of Peter Levesque? Levesque, California? Peter Levesque was killed by Grizzly Bear, okay? Well, the same time Joseph Walker was up there, Peter Levesque come up here and they named Levesque, California, right up here on the ridge ground after Peter Levesque. You know why Peter Levesque was here? Apparently because he's satisfied Peter Levesque's here. By Texas. Because... Rebellion's Mexico. And they wanted to annex California into the Union. That's what you call a covert activity. It's been going on for a long time, people. Texas, the same thing. They sent a whole bunch of criminals down in Texas. And they had the Battle of the Alamo. Well, all these people were called trailblazers. They were going into Levac. Joseph Walker, all the people at the Alamo, of course, Samuel Boone, he was a trailblazer in his day too. And then Davy Crockett, he died at the Alamo. Trailblazers. Now God blazed a trail in this world. He showed us how to live for God. God showed us himself. He is our trailblazer. He showed us the pathway. He showed us how to suffer. I'm going to tell you something. Jesus was innocent. Five times Pontius Pilate declared Jesus innocent, didn't he? But what happened to him? Israel, national Israel, clamored for and demanded the death of an innocent man. They said, let his blood be upon us and our children. And when he was on the cross, coward, He said, God forgive them for they know not what they do. And the most explicit example in my life, I was talking to one of my relatives last night. He had asked me a lot of questions about our family. And I think of the thief on the cross. He was more than a thief, people. There were at least two of them, one on each side of him. There may have been four. There may have been two on each side of him. But these people were murderers. These are people that probably ever heard of the Good Samaritan that saved that guy that had been beaten up and just left for dead and all that? And he was left out there in the middle of nowhere and nobody wanted to help him. You know who made him that way? Probably this guy on the cross. These guys. These were probably the ones. These were highwaymen. They were robbers. They were murderers and thieves. rapists and liars and comedy. Well, one of my thesis in the last moments of his life, he said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And what did Jesus say to him? He did not even remember him. This day you will be with me in paradise. Not too long before my wonderful uncle Bill died, maybe a year or something like that. I can't remember. He was up in the hospital. And this man was the most horrible man I ever met. He beat up on me ever since I was born almost. He hit me one time with an axe handle and almost killed me for nothing. I mean, I was just sitting out in the yard looking through a little book. He walked by and WHAM! Just laid me down. Boy, I mean, I couldn't even breathe. I'll never forget that. I don't think I was over 23 years old. Every time he got around me, he'd pull on my ear so hard it would pop. I thought he was going to pull it off. He'd get a hold of my hair and pull it out. He'd beat his brothers and sisters with a black snake whip. He shot one of his brother's dogs one time just to watch him cry. He'd beat another dog to death in a barn with an axe handle or something. He cut one man's head off down on the canal bank by me and told me about it. I found another man over there that he had killed, and he laughed about that. He got by and was over with that. He took another one of our friends and stabbed him through the hole in his whole body with a butcher knife and meant to kill him over a bottle of wine. Every toy that I ever had I got for Christmas or something, but in a week he'd steal it and he'll sell it for wine. I didn't like him. He set up at the hospital and told me how my grandmother was dying when she was dying. And the meat wagon was coming here and she's breathing her last all the time, telling me all this stuff. I was dying, boy, I was just terrified. And he was being my witness. And the Holy Spirit of God put it upon my heart to go talk to this reprobate. When he was in the hospital. I don't understand. I don't know why that God did that for many years later. He had a godly father, my great-great-grandfather. He was my great-great-grandfather. He was a saved man, and he prayed for that boy that he wanted to be a preacher. And I have two Bibles that he'd given to his son. And one of them tells him, Bill, these are my good sermons. He wanted him to be a preacher. He prayed for his salvation. Gave him one Bible, I think, in 1903, and another one in 1927. Well, I went up there to the hospital, and I looked at Bill with a relish, and I said, Bill, you are going to hell. You are the most worthless man that I have ever known in my life. And if anybody ever deserves to go to hell, you deserve to go to hell. What do you think about that? I don't want to go to hell, he started bawling. I said, I know you. I said, I know the people you've killed in your life, I know the ungodly deeds, I know how you beat up all the kids in the neighborhood, including me, and everything else. I said, I don't know of any worse person in this world, but I said, I want to tell you one thing, Jesus died for you. I shouldn't have told you that. He didn't deserve it, but neither do we. Posto, postio, to suffer. Jesus told us, showed us how to suffer. Wrong doings. That old buzzard was saved that night. I let him pray. And I went away mad. I was mad. I don't think my mother will ever believe that that man was saved. But you know what? He went to church after that. He went with his sister. I could see him and he would try to give me money. Maybe he was trying to pay me for all them toys he stole. Say the watch off one time, somebody gave me a Timex watch. Those Timex watches, Willie, were guaranteed forever. And I sent it back to the Timex factory, and it came in the mail, and he stole it and took it and sold it. Never got it. Mad guy. But you know what? Jesus died for him. God told us not to suffer unjustly. Sometimes we do, don't we? Apear. One in six. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. Apear. It is a strengthening of a, and peri, is a compound word, and it means sense. Sense. This is an absolute fact, is what it says there. That little word aper, that means this is an absolute fact. Just. Righteousness. Beside the God, or around the God, to repay to the ones afflicting you to put under pressure. God is going to take care of your enemies. That's what's said. God will break their rotten necks. Does anyone have an Old Testament? Anybody have an Old Testament? David prays some unusual prayers. Turn to the book of Psalms. Look what Psalm 2 says. Why are the nations in an uproar? and the people's devising a vain thing. You know what that next word, devising, there means? That means conjuring up evil. This means laying a plot against. The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointing. Now, who was the Lord's anointing that David's talking about? Who's he talking about? Who's the Lord's anointed in David's time? Huh? Well, he saw him every time he looked in the mirror. It was him, David. He said the nations are devising plots and plans against the Lord and against me. Who was anointed by God to be King in Israel? David. He was the anointed one. Let us tear their fetters apart. Let us break their legs, and cast their cords from us." Ripped their guts out. He's talking some pretty strong language here. "'He who sits in the heaven-last of the Lord scoffs at them, and he will speak to them in his anger, and terrify them in his fury. But as for me, I don't tell the laws of God anyway. He said to me, You are my son, for they have begotten thee. Now that was what? That was the prophecy of the Christ to come, but it was also a prophecy of the Lord over Israel, which was David. He was the king over Israel. He said, The very ends of the earth is your I want you to break them with a rod of iron. I want you to shatter them like they were pottery. David is calling here for judgment, and God's law doesn't change. God's law doesn't change. God is going to repay the rascals in your life. And if you're one of the rascals, you're going to get it. It's as simple as that. You're not going to get by it, but you're going to get it. He's going to repay the ones to leave Boothston. That's present person, likely, date, plural, masculine. Come somebody. Flehu. It means the cause to someone's mental anguish. Did David lose nights of rest? Did David go sleepless many, many nights? Who were some of these enemies? Who was David's main enemy, by the way, in the first part? Saul! All right? David loved Saul, didn't he? But Saul was a rat! Now, did God repay Saul for all his wickedness that he did? One night, David was up on... Saul was after him, going to go kill him, go out and kill him, going to cut him up into little pieces, throw him through the four winds. And Saul was in a cave. And in this cave, with all his guards around him and everything else, and David slept in there while everybody was asleep, and cut the hem off of his skirt. He had a, you know these things these Irish people, these Scots people, they have these kilts and things, they had a kilt on. And he cut him, the fringe off of it. Took it with him. And the next morning, Saul got up to kill David, because he hated him, because he was righteous and he was unrighteous. David was righteous and Saul was unrighteous and it really bothered him. He had a guilty conscience, so he wanted to hurt him. He wanted to destroy the pure one. That's what Israel did. The pure one, the Christ, the Messiah, they wanted to kill, they wanted to murder, they wanted His blood. They wanted to taste that blood. Like vicious wolves. They were guilty and He was innocent. David hollered out and he said, O King! O Master! O Lord! It is Your servant, David, calling you. Saul said, Yeah. He said, look at your skirt. Look at your kilt, Saul. Where's your knife? Where's your sword? He slung it back at him. He said, your men are no good. I slept in there last night while you were asleep, and I could have cut your head off, but I gave you your life. He said, please give me my life. Saul wept and lamented and felt bad that day. But he didn't change, because he went after it again. But God became the victor. He says, I'll repay, I'll pay back the ones afflicting me. I'm going to strain them just a little bit. But where's the final entrance place? Where is the final jail house? After the last judgment. It's down there. Walk in on a second. 1 and verse 7. 2 Thessalonians 1 and verse 7. Aye. Amen. Oy. The ones being afflicted. You know, all the way down through the church age that we live in, God's people have suffered. And on Sunday morning, we're talking about the second and the third chapter of the book of Revelation. And it's talking about the history of the God's churches. That's the second and third chapter of Revelation, that's what it's talking about. As we study the history of God's churches, we're going to see some of the ways that they have suffered for Christ. They followed in His footsteps. And the different ways. And when it comes down to us, the age of Laodicea, That's part of work, to lay out the seal. That means equal justice. That means people doing what's right in their own eyes, making new laws. They change God's laws, and they make new standards. As he either wants being afflicted, he says, rest on this. Rest. What do you do when you rest? You sleep. When I usually go to bed at night or when I lay down, what happens to me, Marilyn? Real fast. You know what? I don't even make it to bed sometimes. I'll go sit down and I'll fall asleep and wake up 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. Sit there in my chair. Then I'm tired. When I sit down, I just sit down all over. This old woman, a long time, she was an old black woman. She'd been a slave and everything, and she was about 107 years old. And they asked her, what do you attribute your longevity to? And she says this. She said, what I sense, I sense all the time. What I sense, I sense. I rest. What I set down, I rest. Well, you know, when you work, when you sit down, you rest. You know, what is it going to be like one of these days where we can sit in the home protection of God? If you've ever been out in the battlefield or someplace where it's unsafe, they say that some of the boys that were in Vietnam over there during the Vietnam War, that they sat over there and they dodged bullets and bombs and everything for 24 hours a day. And they said they never fell asleep. Not all the way. They never fell asleep. When they take them off for their R&R, recovering and relaxation, like in Hawaii, they go over there. I talked to one guy. He said when he got over there and there wasn't any bombs hitting, he slept for 48 hours. But I'm waking up. He laid down, and his wife was over there with him, and he said, she couldn't even wake me up. I sat down. When he sat down, he sat down. When I sit, I sit. He was comfortable there. Nobody was going to kill him when he closed his eyes. Won't it be wonderful to rest in God for the first billion years? and not have to worry about anybody messing with you. Then nobody's going to be there, and there's not going to be another place, James. You won't have an enemy in heaven. Rest with us in the Apocalypse. What's that word, Apocalypse? Oh, the horses of the Apocalypse. All right. It talks about those horses in the Apocalypse. The white horse, and the red horse, and the black horse, and the green horse, and the pale horse, and whatever. But we talked Sunday about John's writing. John wrote how many books in the Bible? How many did he write, Dakota? The Gospel of John. Huh? How many, and you gotta count, just a little bit more. Come on, count on all those fingers. Five. How many? Five. Okay, what are they? The Gospel of John. First, second, first John, second John, third John, and the book of Revelation. The Gospel of John tells you how to be saved because God has become man, and He came down to save you. First, second, and third John tells you how to behave in the house of God. How to get saved and then how to behave once you are a child of God. The book of Revelation tells you something else. It's called the Apocalypse of John. The Apocalypse of John. But actually it's the Apocalypse of Asus Christi. The unveiling of Jesus Christ. The unveiling of all of His glory and all of His judgment. You know, the Lord came, first time He came to this world, He came as a lamb, as the Paschal Lamb. Next time He comes, He's going to come, what? As the Prince. The Prince. You know what? That's when He's going to take the reins away from Satan. You won't ever have to worry about that rascal again. You won't ever have to worry about him again. The unveiling of the Lord Jesus Christ from Uranus. Uramah. What's Uramah? It's Hashemayim in Hebrew. Uramah. Genetic, singular, masculine. The heaven that belongs to God. The paradise. Paradiso. The word paradise in the Bible, it comes from, it actually goes all the way back to Persian. It came from Persian. There it is. And it came into Hebrew, paradise. It went into Greek, paradise. And it came into English, paradise. And the word paradise means a place that is protected. It is a protected pleasure park. A guarded and protected pleasure park. When God put Adam in the Garden of Eden, it was a paradiso, a guarded pleasure park. Who planted it, by the way? Who built that garden? Huh? God did. How many of you have ever heard of the Baha'i Gardens? Over there in Tel Aviv, in the land of Israel, I went to the Baha'i Gardens one time. This is one of these sets of models. And this Baha'i garden over there, boy, I mean, talk about a manicured paradise. You walk through there, and I mean, it's the most well-kept thing you've ever seen, or at least saw. Because the doctrines of the hell. But it's a beautiful, well-kept place. But I'm going to tell you something. The paradise of God is prettier than that. Adam can tell you that. How many of you are going to sit down with a person? How would you like to sit down and talk to Adam for about a thousand years, Brother Ray? Would you like to do that, James? Would you? thousand years. Talk to Adam, tell him. Adam can tell you all about the garden. Maybe we'll have replays of that. All right? The unveiling of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven with Nephthongileo, with angels, powerful Because it said, DINAMIOS. We had ANGELOS, now we got DINAMIOS. What's DINAMIOS? What does our word DYNAMITE come from? DYNAMO! What's a DYNAMO? Something that makes power, doesn't it? Something that's powerful. Well, this word DYNAMITE here, DYNAMITELY STRONG ANGELS. His angels that are so powerful and so strong. He's going to be revealed from heaven with those angels. And we just go look at the book of revelations on Sunday morning. We're tying that and this class together. Because we're talking about the same subject here as you see. Last week we didn't get into it much. I appreciate you coming tonight. I appreciate your endurance on those hard seats. Not so hard as they were. Well, you know what? They did give us softer seats. Those blue ones were very hard, weren't they? These seats are much softer. I requested these seats for you, by the way. Thank you. What a man. It's good to see you here, Dan Ridgeway. If you guys haven't met him, he was in our Areopagus class many years ago. He came back Sunday morning. Here he is once a night. Good to have you here, brother. Brother, could you dismiss this prayer tonight with me? Would that be all? No? OK. I'll have this brother Greg do it then. Father, we thank you once again for this day and how you've blessed us, Lord, throughout the week. We pray that you'd continue to be with us.