There is a joke that James told me that I could tell and, you know, I've been sitting here debating on whether to tell it or not tell it since it is his wedding anniversary. But I think it only proper that I go ahead and tell this joke. So this man. and his wife are celebrating. How many years is it, James? 37? Did I hear that correctly? So they're celebrating their anniversary. I think theirs was about 30 years. And so they go out to this nice place for dinner. And this is one of those kind of places where after dinner, you can dance. So, you know, they're kind of watching the dance floor. And there's this guy up there who just I mean, he's like John Travolta doing every kind of dance you can imagine, disco and break dancing and doing all this stuff. And the wife speaks up and she says, you know, before I met you, that guy, I used to go out with that guy and he actually proposed to me. And the husband kind of looked at her and looked at him and he said, you know what? It looks to me like he's still celebrating. So, That's a rhetorical joke, by the way. So tonight we're going to talk some about the Great Commission, how it came to be, where it's going, what it means, who's it to, all that kind of thing. So as you guys know, we have concentrated for the last few weeks on the study of the covenants. And in doing that, we spent quite a bit of time concentrating on the prominent role or I should almost say the exclusive role that the Jews played in putting together this in the writing of this book that we call the Bible. Once God established through Abraham that his descendants would be his, that is God's chosen people, the rest of the Bible is written by Jews. It's about Jews. The main characters that appear throughout the rest of the Bible are Jews. And you just, I mean, that's a fact that is indisputable. All the heroes of the Bible, so to speak, Moses, Elijah, David, Jesus, Jesus' disciples, all were Jews, and Paul, who wrote half the New Testament, and through whom the gospel that we know was made available was also a Jew. So the Bible, most of the Bible, the Jews play an extremely prominent role in everything that happens. And so remembering that the Bible is a progressive revelation, We're gonna go all the way back to the Abrahamic covenant for a minute, Genesis 12. And in verse two, we have the promise of Israel becoming a nation. And we talked about how that happened when Joseph's family migrated to Egypt. They began to grow. They eventually were enslaved. They were there 400 years before God saw fit to have Moses lead them out of captivity. So God also promises something else for the rest of the world, and that is that all the nations on earth would be blessed. And he reaffirms that promise to Abraham in Genesis 22, verse 18, when he tells Abraham, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice. So we see more than once, he makes this promise to Abraham that through him, all the nations on the earth are gonna be blessed. So remember that anybody who's not a Jew is a Gentile. So one way or the other, God's gonna reach out to the whole non-Jewish world someday. He doesn't reveal how or when, just that through Abraham, all the families on the earth are gonna be blessed. So throughout the rest of the Old Testament, there are occasional references to that fact, but you don't see it very often. So we also know when Israel was fresh out of Egypt and Moses went up to God on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 verse six. It's Exodus 19 verse six. God basically gives through Moses the nation of Israel a calling. And that calling is that someday the Jews would become priests, not just the tribe of Levi, but all the tribes. If you recall, only the members of the tribe of Levi were priests in the Old Testament, but all the tribes, and in that verse I mentioned, that's Exodus 19, verse six, he says, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Now, and that prospect throughout the Bible is not forgotten, but it only shows up occasionally in the Old Testament, because if you recall, God instructs them almost to do the opposite. He instructs them to not have anything to do with the pagans or the heathen, which is another word for Gentiles. They're told not to evangelize them, and they're told not to intermarry with him. I should say they are not told to evangelize him and they are told not to intermarry with him. And I think the logic behind that was God knew that if they started intermarrying with all these pagans that, you know, the pagans had idols and false gods and all that kind of thing and the Jews would kind of be caught up in all that. So, During that period of time in history, pretty much the rest of the world was populated by pagans, and they worship, as I said earlier, all kinds of idols and false gods. So God told them to basically stay away, don't intermingle, don't intermarry, stay away from the pagan nations. Of course, they did not, as we know. They intermarried, they mingled with them, they began to worship their gods, and it always, always got them into trouble. But in the Old Testament, there is only an occasional reference to anything that would suggest that Israel is going to eventually become a nation of priests to the nations. Isaiah makes mention of it about two or three times when he writes in Isaiah 42.6, that's Isaiah 42.6, where he says, I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people. And here's the reference, for a light of the Gentiles. So there's a reference there that Israel somehow is going to be a light. And then again, in chapter 60, verse three, Isaiah tells Israel that the Gentiles shall come to thy light And then again, in Isaiah 62 verse two, he writes that the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness. So there is a vague reference to the fact that somehow the Gentiles are gonna be exposed to the Lord, have an opportunity to quote, come to the light. But as you can also see, it's always someday, someway, and there's no particular reference to when it's gonna happen or how it's gonna happen. So sitting here tonight, we have the benefit of 2,000, roughly 2,700 years of history since Isaiah, and we know that this business of the nation of Israel becoming a nation of priests still hasn't happened. They're still out there wandering in the wilderness as far as spirituality is concerned, but as part of the process of getting Israel to the point where they could fulfill this role, God gave them these covenants that we've been studying. You know, they're covenants of promise. He promises these various things. So after Abraham, they received the law, and we talked about that, That's in Exodus 19 and 20. They received what we call the Palestinian covenant in Deuteronomy 30, which says the land is gonna be theirs. They don't have all that back yet, although they do have some of it. The Davidic covenant, which is in 2 Samuel chapter seven, which promises that the line of David would rule And then there is the new covenant, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. And that's for the Jews. That is going to be fulfilled sometime in the future. We're not there yet. So as you can see, other than that past promise to Abraham that somehow all the nations on earth would be blessed, Gentiles are pretty much left out of the picture. other than these vague references in Isaiah, and there may be some references in a couple of other books back there, but for the most part, there's very little information that suggests that the Gentiles have much of a role to play in history. So there are no prophecies that I'm aware of that foresee this 2,000 year period in history, and we're at 2,000 years and counting, where the eyes of the nation of Israel will be blinded and which we live in and what we're now enjoying is this period of time that some have labeled the church age, the age of grace. It's like God, when the calling of Paul, when his role as a Messiah was totally rejected by Israel, he decided to change the game. And he did that through Paul. So I say all that to lead us up to what was commonly known throughout the Christian world as the Great Commission. Now, we all know that the Great Commission has been the motivation behind missionary journeys and planning churches, men and women traveling to all far reaches of the earth. So you're going to find the Great Commission. And I just think that it's worth our time to really take a close look at the Great Commission, see what it is, what it says, what it means. And because I think maybe one of those things that's somewhat misunderstood. So you're gonna find the Great Commission in three places in the Bible, in the four Gospels. In Matthew 28, verses 19 and 20, and this is the one that probably most people are most familiar with. So it's Matthew 28, verse 19 and 20. It says, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. So that's the version that's in Matthew. Then in Mark, you have a slightly different version. That's Mark 16, verses 15 and 16. You have a slightly different version. And it says, and he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And then again in Luke, that's Luke 24 verse 47, Jesus says, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. So you have it appearing in three of the four gospels. Now there are two views or lines of thought concerning the Great Commission. The first and by far the most popular view, which is held today by most Christians is that this is what Jesus has commanded us to do and that believers everywhere are called to go teach or preach the gospel. Whether you're going to the far reaches of the world, going down the street, going next door, you are to go and you are to preach or teach. And these two verses are the core principle that's caused, as I said earlier, literally thousands of missionaries to be sent in thousands of places all over the world. And it's hard to find fault with the concept. And that's certainly not my purpose here. But I do want to put them under the microscope and take a little closer look at. So Two of the three versions have in common the use of the word go. Matthew and Luke's version both use the word nations, and Mark's version uses the term all the world. But the message is pretty much the same, and that is go and teach it or preach it everywhere. And I think we can all agree that that's probably what that means. Nations is often used to mean Gentiles, so the meaning is clear, no one is to be excluded. And so the next question is, teach or preach what? Matthew says, teaching them to, and I quote, to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. It doesn't use the word gospel in Matthew's version, while the version in Mark simply instructs them to go preach the gospel. Luke's version tells them to preach repentance and remission of sins. So it's hard to find fault with any of those three, but what we want to do is kind of break those verses down and, as I say, put them under the microscope. So the next logical question is, what was the gospel? What was it then? What is it now? And remember, this is the risen Jesus talking to the disciples after the crucifixion and right before his ascension into heaven. So the only gospel, and I think this is important to understand, the only gospel that had been revealed at that point in time is what we've called the kingdom gospel. It began with John the Baptist and was continued by Jesus and the apostles. And we're told in Matthew 3, verses one through two, and this is talking about John the Baptist and what he preached. So Matthew 3, one through two says, in those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, and this of course is the core of his message, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is in hand. In Mark 1, four, Mark writes, John did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. So we got both of those saying that John preached repentance is a common element among that and in Mark it says remission of sins. So when John was put in prison Jesus came along behind him and he preached a similar message. Matthew 4 verse 17 after spending 40 days in the wilderness and being tempted by the devil it says from that time That is when he finishes his 40 days in the wilderness. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then in Mark 1, verses 14 and 15, it also reads, now after that, John was put in prison. So John's put in prison. He's no longer free to run around and preach. And then Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel. So, That gets us through John the Baptist and Jesus, and you can see that they're preaching a very similar message. So then after the ascension of Jesus, when the disciples have permission to start preaching at Pentecost, Peter and his message, as it appears in Acts 2, 38, and it says, then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. So the only difference between what Peter preached, excuse me, and what Jesus and John the Baptist was preaching is that Peter promised the gift of the Holy Ghost and of course We know that people who were saved at Pentecost did receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. That was not part of Jesus' ministry. That was not part of John the Baptist. So that's an add-on, so to speak. So there are some common words or phrases in all these scriptures. One of them is repent. You see the word believe. You see baptize. You see remission of sins. And you see the word kingdom. So if you put all that together, you have what has been called, and I think accurately so, the kingdom gospel. So there are four basic components. One was believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. Two was repent. Three was be baptized. And four was if you did those things, you receive forgiveness of sins. Before the cross and after the cross, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, one of the key facts, I think, that's lost on modern Christians and in many, many churches today is that in all three of these situations, that is John the Baptist, Jesus, and Peter, you have Jews preaching to Jews. John the Baptist was a Jew and preached primarily to Jews. Jesus was a Jew, and in his earthly ministry, in order to give the people of Israel the opportunity to believe he was a Messiah. And of course, maybe his ultimate purpose was to become a human sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. But he preached to Jews. And then Peter's audience was primarily Jews. In Acts 2.22, he starts his sermon by saying, ye men of Israel, hear these words. So he's preaching to Jews, primarily to Jews. I'm not saying there wasn't a single Gentile in the mix, or there wasn't a single Gentile anywhere along the way, because we know there was. But primarily, it was a message to Jews. And it's also important to understand that all the disciples at this point in history still believe that this kingdom gospel is for Jews only, and for the most part, they had nothing to do with the Gentiles. They also believe they're still under the law. So I think those are important points to remember that Peter, in his ministry while he was here on this earth after the ascension of Jesus, never got to the point where he believed that the law was no longer applicable to Jews. And they also believe you shouldn't have anything to do with the Gentiles. And you'll notice that there's nothing in Peter's preaching about the death, the burial and resurrection. He speaks of the death of Jesus only in the sense that he accuses the Jews of killing them. But as far as the Redemption by Jesus through his death, burial, and resurrection. Sacrificial nature of his death. He doesn't talk about that. So the message is believe, repent, be baptized, and receive forgiveness of sins. And it's pretty much the same message or the same elements of the Great Commission is what they're teaching. We know from history and from actual, the way history is played out, that the nation of Israel is not yet ready. They have not ever, and they're not yet ready to become a nation of priests. As a matter of fact, just like they rejected Jesus as a Messiah, as a nation, they've also rejected the teaching of the kingdom gospel. Most Jews still don't believe that Jesus was a Messiah. And so, and we've talked about this several times, God pushed the Paul's button. And we believe that happened after the stoning of Stephen, but he pushes the Paul's button and turns to the Gentiles. And we also need to be familiar with how that's played out. So shortly after the stoning of Stephen, which I believe was somewhere around the year 34 AD, but don't hold me to that, Paul is converted. and almost immediately begins to preach. Now, immediately after his conversion, he doesn't yet have this gospel of grace that God's gonna give him, but he's gonna soon get it. So, you know, there for a little bit, he preached the kingdom gospel just like everybody else, but that's all I knew about. But we see that same theme that we first saw in Isaiah about the Jews being a light unto the Gentiles. And in Acts 13, verse 47, Paul is speaking to Jews and he says this, for so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. So we see a glimmer here of this light that's been a constant theme throughout the old, not a constant, but an occasional theme throughout the Old Testament, all of a sudden showing up by Paul. And you might just get the idea from that, that this light to the Gentiles is gonna be Paul, it's gonna come through Paul. So the question becomes, and this is an extremely important thing, I think, for Christians to understand, Did the gospel change with Paul? Now, we all know that the gospel is, you know, the standard definition of the gospel is the good news. But the question is, is the gospel that Paul preached the same as that was being preached by the disciples up to that time? And in Galatians 1, verses 11 through 12, Paul makes a pretty serious claim when he says, and I'm gonna read this, but I certify you, brother, that the gospel which was preached to me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by revelation of Jesus Christ. And he goes on in verse 16 to say, to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the heathen. Immediately I confer not with flesh and blood. So Paul makes it clear that he wasn't taught by men. He wasn't taught by Peter or James or John or any of those guys. He was taught by divine revelation from the Lord himself. And Paul refers to it many times throughout his letters in the New Testament of it being a mystery. So the question is, okay, why was it a mystery? Well, because nobody had ever heard of it before they revealed to Paul. So, you know, the next logical question is, what was Paul teaching? What was his version of the gospel? So we're pretty familiar with the concept of faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, plus nothing, as established in 1 Corinthians 1, 15, chapter 15, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses one through four. And I'm gonna read that. And it says, moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received and wherein you stand, but which also you're saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. And here is the, you know, verses three and four are basically the the meat of Paul's gospel. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Now that, folks, is the bare bones of Paul's gospel. And we often, there's no mention of Repentance, there's no mention of baptism. It is faith, and we've often referred to that as faith plus nothing. So to summarize the gospel of grace, there's two parts. Believe that Jesus was a Messiah, the Son of God, and he was crucified, buried, and rose on the third day. Believe that you're saved by grace, period. There's no required baptism or good works or any of that kind of thing. and James talked earlier in relation to baptism, that baptism don't get you saved. Is it a good thing to do? Of course it is, but you know it doesn't get you saved and you know the danger of, in my opinion, of preaching or teaching that that you have to be baptized in order to be saved creates a false impression on people that, okay, I've been baptized, I'm good, I'm safe. And we know that that doesn't save you. And one of the members of our congregation, Brother Bill Colbert, I don't think he would mind me relating this incident. I know that Bill and Wayne Smith was the, pastor of Southern Christian Church for many years, and a lot of people around town know Wayne Smith. Wayne was a great guy. So when Wayne announced his retirement, he said to Bill, he said, you know, I'm getting ready to retire. If you want me to baptize you, then we need to do it. So Bill, you know, he said, okay, I'm gonna get baptized. Well, that was all well and good, but He labored under the false assumption for many years after that. He was baptized and therefore he was saved. That's all that was necessary. And we know that's simply not the case. And you need to understand that Paul's gospel, the gospel that he preached, which we just read in 1 Corinthians, he referred to it on several occasions in his letters that it was his gospel. In Romans 2, verse 16, he says, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel. And he refers to it again and again as my gospel. Galatians 2, 2, 2 Timothy 2, verse 8, my gospel. or the gospel that I preach. So he kind of differentiates that between his gospel, that is the gospel that he preached, and what had previously been preached by the disciples. In 2 Timothy 1 verse 11, Paul makes it clear that He feels like he has a divine appointment to teach the Gentiles, and he says clearly, whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles. There is more than one reference in the various letters of the New Testament by Paul to the fact that he's called to be the apostle to the uncircumcised, which of course is a term that's often used to mean Gentiles, and that Peter is the apostle to the circumcised. So Peter is the apostle to the Jews. He continues to teach them the kingdom gospel. Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles, and he teaches the gospel that was divinely revealed to him after his conversion. Now, Anybody who studies the scripture can easily see how the message of salvation changed after Paul's divine revelation. It was a mystery. And again, that term appears repeatedly in the New Testament, but it was a mystery that God had kept secret up until that point. He chose to reveal it through Paul, and it was through Paul that the promises of God that he made that somehow the Jews were going to be a light to the Gentiles began to play out, because guess what? Paul was a Jew. So it's still playing out today, and it's going to continue to play out that way until God sees fit to once again bring the nation of Israel into a state of belief. And we know that that's going to begin to happen during the tribulation. And now when we go into the kingdom, the thousand year reign, that everybody that goes into the thousand year kingdom will be believers. Now, James and I had a discussion about this not too long ago. Everybody that's born during that thousand year reign may not necessarily be believers, but everybody that goes into that will be. And we know that, you know, during the tribulation, there's gonna be 144,000 Jews that will begin preaching throughout the world and will begin fulfilling the great commission described in Matthew, because when that happens, the kingdom gospel once again be preaching and Jesus makes that pretty clear in Matthew 24 verse 14 when he says and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the income so that tells us a couple of things you know the gospel of the kingdom That's pretty clear, and once it's preached, then the end shall come, and that means the second coming of Jesus, and most of the world's gonna be destroyed, the thousand-year reign begins. And so, you know, there's a lot of information in that one verse. We know that from Revelation 7, verse 9, that many from all the nations will be martyred during the tribulation. All the believers, Members of the Church of the Body of Christ will be taken up in the rapture, so there's not going to be any of them left. And so, you know, there will be some converts, some Gentile converts during the tribulation, and many of them are gonna get martyred. So not many of the converts during the tribulation are gonna survive. So an argument could be made that the true purpose of the Great Commission given to the disciples was this business of teaching the kingdom gospel during the period of tribulation by the 144,000. As I said earlier, they didn't know about this 2,000 year period that we're still in. So Isaiah 24 tells us that when the tribulation ends, there's going to be few survivors left because it says, therefore, hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men left. If any unbelievers survive, then they're gonna be judged and tells us what's gonna happen to them in Matthew 25 verses 31 through 41. And I'm gonna read one of those verses. And we're talking about the lost people. appearing before the king, and it says, then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, and the people on the left hand now, if you recall, are the unsaved. Depart from me, ye cursed in the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and angels. So the lost are gonna be sent to their doom, the saved are gonna go into the kingdom. Gonna be approximately five million Jews, which is about a third of Israel. And we know that from Zechariah chapter 13. So Israel will enjoy the privilege of ministering to the Gentiles at that point. So everything kind of fits. So the question is, okay, well then what is our, in this day and age, what is our great connection? And there's a couple of ways to answer that. I think the best summary of our column can be found. of the church age's business of salvation by grace, salvation by faith, plus nothing, can be found in 2 Corinthians 5, verses 18 through 20, when Paul writes, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. So we see there that we have a ministry of reconciliation. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled with God." So we see a couple of things there. Number one, we're God's ambassadors, and we are to be instruments of reconciliation, reconciling people of the world unto God. So You know, we are, as believers, and that's every believer, not just teachers and preachers, but we're all to be ambassadors and reconcilers. An ambassador is typically described as a representative of the home country while serving in a foreign one. An analogy is that our citizenship, our homeland, our citizenship is in heaven. and the earth is foreign. So here we are as ambassadors on the earth. So we have to kind of keep in mind, I think when you teach this, you gotta be careful with it because it's easy for someone to interpret the things that I just said as kind of discounting the value of Jesus and his ministry. That's certainly not the intent at all. You know, it's merely trying to put the teachings of Jesus in the proper context. But some of his teaching, as we all know, while he was teaching and preaching to the Jews, contained universal moral truths. And some were specific to the Jews, but some were kind of thrown out there for everybody. And I think understanding the difference between the two is one of the things that Christianity has missed throughout the years. I think many Christians throughout history and even today believe that every single word that Jesus spoke was meant for us. And we know that some of it was meant for the Jews and did not and could not apply to us. So, You know, it's only after the Jews rejected Jesus as a Messiah that Paul's gospel began to be taught. And, you know, there's no mention in the gospels or in the early part of Acts or any of the books written by the other disciples about believers being one body or being in Christ. You don't find it because it's not in there. You can, anybody who studies the scripture, I think, will be hard pressed to miss the fact that the message of salvation changed after Paul's divine revelation. So does the Great Commission apply to us today? It's kind of the bottom line here, and I'm way past. And I guess I would answer that by saying yes and no. I think from a purely literal interpretation of scriptures, it was a directive to the apostles to go and teach the kingdom gospel. But it was even more of a directive for something that has yet to play out and that is when the Jews will in fact during the tribulation began once again began to teach the kingdom gospel. It hasn't played out yet, but you can be sure that it's going to. So modern Christianity has kind of taken the kingdom gospel, Paul's gospel, put it in a blender, turned it on, let it run for a long time, and spit out a blended version of, you know, repent, be baptized, believe, and if you do all that, then you're saved by grace. And I think we can all agree that we're not called to preach the kingdom gospel. That's a mission for the Jews. But that part of the Great Commission, which says go and preach the gospel, can certainly be interpreted as a universal command to believers no matter what period of time they're in. a directive to believers at every point in history. So we just have to know what the gospel is. And I'm gonna suggest to you, there are a lot of Christians out there who still don't understand what the real gospel is. That's all I got, folks. Anybody have questions, comments, disagreements, agreements? Anybody? So the question is, do you believe it? So that was that was very, very good. Again, he is given you. More than. Then you're going to get anywhere else that I know of. Kind of as a side note, if you think about the gospel of the kingdom, you have two kingdoms, kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven is what Jesus Christ was going to set up and he was going to be the king. So what they're preaching under John the Baptist was the king is coming. Then the apostles begin to preach, not the king is coming, but the king is here. None of them believe he's gonna die. They believe he's gonna be the king, hence the kingdom gospel. Also, they're under the law. And so they could lose it. They could be baptized and receive the Messiah but then go off into never never land and then they were in trouble. They had to endure to the end. Now you get to Matthew 28, the death, bear on resurrection. Now you have salvation by grace through faith, plus or minus nothing. They don't all don't understand it though. That don't happen to lacks 15. So Acts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, the kingdom is still offered to Israel, and now the message is changed a little. You get past Acts 7, and now it's what Paul is given. And so if you understand the difference, now you get eternal security straightened around, because without it, you don't get it straightened around. And so you say, well, what's the bottom line? If you receive Christ as your Savior, like Brother Adkins, he received Christ as his Savior, he is saved. Now he might go out and live like who knows what, but he is born again. The Spirit of God lives in him and he is in Christ. So the Holy Spirit deals with him. Before he got saved, that wasn't the case. So he is eternally secure. Not because he was picked out before the foundation of the world, none of that baloney. It was that he received Christ as his savior. They did not have that, excuse me, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John until after the resurrection, and then they still didn't know it. So, outstanding. Any other questions? Any other questions? I see Mrs. Lori, hello. Congratulations on baby boy, Christian. Thank you very much. I'm excited. You're gonna have to wait for that granddaughter. I know, right? I guess I'm meant to only have grandsons, but it's okay. He's healthy and everything's going good so far, so I'm thankful. Christian texted me and I texted him, congratulations. And he sent me back, he said, well, I think mom was really counting on a granddaughter. I said, no. I said, she was thrilled out of her mind, so. You get what you get. Yeah, you get what you get. Wasn't a whole lot of choice in that matter. All right. Well, folks, this is kind of conclusion of my stand here. I don't know, seven or eight weeks, but I appreciate you guys listening to me. I appreciate James giving me the opportunity to teach, and we'll do it again sometime down the road, but thank you for listening to me and putting up with me. Oh, no, you did a great job. And that's something, Brother Zach starts on the King James Bible next week, and he'll be at it eight or 10 weeks, whatever it is. And then after that, Brother Jacob is going to do something on the Bible and money. And you say, well, now, no, wait a minute. He's gonna teach you how to handle money, how to save money, how to budget money. And from my knowing him, he is a perfect candidate to go through all of that. Really a great candidate to do it. So I'm looking forward to that. And I appreciate these guys. I mean, this is a big deal, guys. I mean, this is, most churches do not do it. My thinking is, is that the Lord gives all of us, certain talents and abilities, and I appreciate all of their hard work and effort. All right, let's bow our heads in a word of prayer. Thank you all again, and Brother Zachary, if you would, why don't you close us out tonight, please. Father, we come to you tonight. Lord, we thank you for all you've done for us. Lord, we pray again for each one of these ones that's been mentioned earlier. I know we have several dealing with cancer. Lord, just pray that you would help them. Lord, we thank you so much for Brother Vance. Lord, thank you for Brother Rob. Lord, just pray that you bless them, help them, lead them and guide them. Pray that you bless this week. Lord, pray that you keep everyone safe as they're traveling. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All righty. God bless you. Praise the Lord. And we'll see you soon. Sunday. Amen. Good job, brother.