Alright brethren, Luke chapter
1. We're going to pick up pretty
much where we left off last week. Last week we looked at verses
67 and 68. Verses 67 through 69. He said, Zacharias was filled
with the Holy Ghost and he prophesied. He began to preach saying, Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel, For he hath visited and redeemed
his people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in
the house of his servant David. Now we're gonna pick up right
here. As he spake by the mouth of his
holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we
should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that
hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and
to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our
father Abraham that he would grant unto us that we, being
delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him
without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all
the days of our life. God has declared the gospel of
Christ. He has declared the promise,
the salvation, the gospel of Christ since the beginning of
the world. Our Lord has. He said there,
this word concerning Christ, God visiting us and redeeming
His people. He said, He spoke by the mouth
of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began. That's
what He's been declaring. God has never been without a
witness in this earth, and He will never be without a witness
in this earth. Long as He has a people yet to be saved, He
will send forth preachers preaching His word, and it's the word of
God. He separated his prophets, he
made them holy, he called them, gave them faith and made them
holy, and he gave them the message. But it was God speaking through
the mouth of his prophets, this whole book, this whole book. Go with me to 2 Peter chapter
one. I'm gonna show you an astounding
statement. How important is it to be under
the preaching of the gospel to be hearing the word of God declared. How important is it? The apostle
Peter was in the mount of transfiguration. He saw Christ transfigured in
all his glory, and he heard God speak from heaven concerning
his son. Look here, verse 16. 2 Peter
1 16, we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known
unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but
were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the
Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from
the excellent glory, this is my beloved son in whom I am well
pleased. And this voice which came from
heaven we heard, and when we were with him in the Holy Mount.
Now, I want you to hear this astounding statement. We have
something even better and even more needful than seeing Christ
transfigured in glory and hearing God speak from heaven. You mean
we have something better than that and more needful than that?
Yes, we do, verse 19. We have also a more sure word
of prophecy. Where unto you do well that you
take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until
the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts, knowing
this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private
interpretation, For the prophecy came not in old time by the will
of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost. Peter said, this book right here
is the word of God. And he said, this is a more sure
word of prophecy, more needful for you than anything else there
is in this world, right here. That's how important it is. He
said, you do well to take heed, We do well to be where God has
established the gospel. It's a rare thing. We do well
to hear the word of God preached, to read this book, study this
book, and ask God to give us an understanding of his word.
This is how he saves his people. You remember, we're at Luke 16. You remember the rich man in
hell? He saw Abraham, and he prayed for Abraham, to send somebody
from the grave to his family so that they might be saved from
going to hell. Luke 16, 29. Abraham said to
him, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, nay, Father Abraham,
but if one went unto them from the dead, they'll repent. And
he said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither
will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. Somebody
asked the preacher, are you gonna go talk to that person one-on-one? If they don't hear the preaching
of the gospel preached from this word, it won't do any good for
the preacher to go talk to them. This is how God's gonna speak
to his people. What's the message of the law
and the prophets? When he said Moses, he's talking
about the first five books of the Bible, the law, and then
all the rest is the prophets. What's the message? What's the
message of the book? Zacharias declared it right there
in Luke 1, 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
for he hath visited and redeemed his people. He said God's been
declaring this was gonna take place from the beginning of the
world. He declared Christ is the power of God raised up through
the house and lineage of David. He said in verse 69, God hath
raised up a horn of salvation, power of salvation for us in
the house of his servant David. God promised that through all
the prophets Law and the Prophets. Now today we're going to hear
the Spirit of God declare through Zachariah what Christ accomplished
by his life, his death, and his resurrection from the grave.
What he accomplished for his people. Verse 71, that we should
be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate
us. That's what Christ came to do
and what he did do, what he accomplished. I titled this Saved From Our
Enemies. We have four enemies. All men
have four enemies. Number one is the devil. That's
the first enemy, the devil, along with his evil angels and along
with Satan's seed. Number two, our enemy is unrighteousness. That is, we're all guilty. We've broken the law. We're legally
unrighteous. We're guilty before God's law. Number three, unholiness. We all come forth with a sinful,
dead nature, spiritually dead nature, dead in sin. And number
four, our greatest enemy is death, the grave. Now I think we can
all agree that none of us can save ourselves from death. None
of us can save ourselves from the grave. Just as true, none
of us can save ourselves from any of these other three enemies.
We can't save ourselves from our unholiness. We can't save
ourselves from our unrighteousness. We can't save ourselves from
the devil. Christ came to deliver us from our enemies and save
us all our days. Now that'll be our divisions.
First of all, and we're gonna spend a little more time on this
first point, but the others will go pretty quickly after we see
this first point. Christ saved his people from
the devil and his seed. Go with me to Genesis chapter
three. He said the Lord's been declaring this from the beginning
of the world. So let's go back to the garden.
This is where our problem started, in the garden. Now, Satan was
a created angel. God created him. So, he's one
of God's creation. He can do nothing but what God
permits him to do. It's not a competition between
God and the devil. You know that. Satan had to get
permission to do anything to Job, and he's only doing what
God permits, and God's only permitting him to do what God uses to glorify
his holy name. Now that's great comfort right
there, right off the bat. But Satan was a created angel,
and scripture says God declared the end from the beginning. And
it's obvious from scripture that what God declared is that he
would give his son all preeminence. Now he had all preeminence as
God, he's the son of God, but he would become a man, be the
God-man. And God would give him all preeminence
as the God-man. And this preeminence would come
by God entrusting a people to Christ in eternity before he
made anything. He entrusted a people to Christ,
but this people would fall in sin. And so the Son of God would
take flesh and come forth and represent them and make them
holy and righteous, and God would give him all preeminence. And
so that all the holy angels and all his people, and then even
those that would be cast into hell for their rejection, they,
everybody would bow the knee and give his son the God-man
mediator all preeminence, confess him to be Lord of Lords and King
of Kings. And Satan heard this as an angel,
and he said, I'm not going to bow to a man. I'm an angel. I'm not bowing to a man. Isaiah
14 tells us, he said, I will ascend above the stars of God. I will be like the Most High.
His sin was pride. And God cast him out of heaven
with a third of the angels, and they became sinful, wicked, the
devil and his wicked angels. But you see, all of that was
part of God's purpose. None of this is out of God's
purpose. So Satan enters the garden. God's
created Adam and Eve. Satan enters the garden and tricked
Eve. He used Eve to get to Adam. And
Adam took that fruit that God forbid sinned against God, and
he failed. And he plunged everybody that
would be born of Adam into sin and death. We all became guilty
before the law, and because we're born of Adam, from our father
back to Adam, we're born with a corrupt nature. So God appeared
to, and he called Adam and Eve out, he saved them, but then
he declares something right here in Genesis 3.15. Genesis 3.15. He's speaking to the devil, the
old serpent, the devil, and he said, now catch this, this is
very important. He said, God said, I will put
enmity, hatred, between thee and the woman, between the devil
and the woman, and between thy seed, that's children, between
thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. Christ is the woman's seed. There's only one woman in history
that ever had a child without a man, and that's Mary. And that one is the Lord Jesus.
He came Holy Spirit created a body for him in her womb and the Son
of God took that body that he might be holy from the womb Holy from the womb now read this
a carefully again God said I will put enmity between thee and the
woman That's the devil and the woman but I get this be sure
to get this The woman is not only Mary The woman is the whole
elect church of God. The woman is the bride of Christ,
the elect church of God, because Christ came into the world through
the woman, through the church, as a man. If you look in Matthew
1.1, it's called the book of the generation of Jesus Christ,
the son of David, the son of Abraham. Way back, God promised
Abraham that Christ would come through him. The promise was
made to Abraham that this seed would come through Abraham, through
his lineage. Luke traces Joseph's lineage
all the way back to Adam in Luke 3.23-28. But in both genealogies, the
only ones that are listed, the only names listed, are God's
elect people who God saved. That's the only ones that are
listed. That's the elect Church of God. The woman is the elect of God,
the Church. Now, according to the flesh,
Christ came as the Son of Man through the Church. That's what
Zacharias declared to us in Luke 169. He said, God promised he
would raise up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant,
David. You get what I'm saying? The
woman is the church. Now in the garden, God declared,
he put enmity between the devil and the woman, and between the
devil's seed and the woman's seed. Between the devil and Christ,
the seed, and between the devil's seed and Christ, the seed. The devil's seed are men and
women. They're men and women. Fallen in Adam, who God, man
wants to have his will, my will's free, leave me to my will, God
leaves them to their will. And the will of natural man is
the carnal mind is enmity against God. Cannot be subject to any
word of God, won't be and can't be. Christ's people are those
God chose and gave to Christ. But the devil has a seed, he
has children. Now, God told the devil that
Christ was coming to crush his head. He said, you're gonna wound
his heel, but he's gonna wound your head. That's gonna be the
death blow. And God told the devil Christ
was coming through the church. He said he will be the woman's
seed. And so many times in history,
many times throughout history, the devil tried to kill the children,
the male children of the church many times. In Exodus 1.16, the
wicked Pharaoh ordered the midwives and said, if it be a son, you
shall kill him. But if it be a daughter, then
she shall live. That's how Moses ended up in
the river, remember? In all of these, God was overruling
every bit of the show that the devil can never defeat him. He
saved Moses, put him in Pharaoh's house, because his daughter wanted
to raise him, and then his daughter called Pharaoh's mother to be
the wet nurse. I mean, called Moses' mother
to be the wet nurse. So his own mother got to raise
her child. And he grew up, and that's who God used to deliver
the children of Israel. Another time, Haman sought to
destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom
of Asherus, even the people of Mordecai. was king, and he heard that Christ,
the king of the Jews, was born at Bethlehem. Matthew 2.16 said,
he slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all
the coast there, from two years old and under, according to the
time which he had diddling, inquired of the wise men. And so the prophet
Jeremiah was fulfilled. There will be great weeping in
Judah. But in every attempt, go with
me to Revelation 12, 4. There's a scripture, I didn't
write this down, but you remember there's a scripture where Paul
talked about a woman having travail and childbirth, but she shall
be saved if she continues in faith and holiness. Isn't that a strange thing to
say, that a woman's gonna have travail and childbirth, but she'll
be saved if she continues in faith? He's talking about more
than just the travail that women have when they're delivering
their child. That is due to sin and due to the fall, that it's
so painful. But what he's saying is about all those times that
when the devil tried to kill the male children, the only way
the church was saved is by God keeping them, trusting the Lord,
and looking to Him, and He saved them. That's exactly what he's
talking about. Now look here, we're going to
see it, Revelation 12, 4. This is the revelation of Jesus
Christ. This is not the revelation of
crazy hopeless pilgrims that men try to talk about. It's the
revelation of Christ. That's what this book is. So
look here, Revelation 12, 4. He talks there about Satan falling
from heaven. He calls him the red dragon.
But look at verse 4. His tail drew the third part
of the stars of heaven. That's the other angels that
fell with him and they fell to the earth. And the dragon stood
before the woman which was ready to be delivered for to devour
her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man-child.
Christ was born. That's what Zacharias is declaring.
He's here. He's coming. and who was to rule
all nations with a rod of iron. That's the gospel. And her child
was caught up under God and to his throne. The devil bruised
Christ's heel, but Christ crushed his head. And Christ arose. He arose. And that time that's
given there, it says the woman fled into the wilderness where
she had a place prepared of God that he should feed her, they
should feed her, and he gives a time Christ has entered into
glory and he's feeding his church, you and me, with this gospel
and he's going to keep us for a set time that God set until
he's called every one of his redeemed sheep out of this world.
That's what he's doing. This is the rod of iron that
he rules this world with, the gospel. So there it is all fulfilled. Look down at verse 10. I heard
a loud voice saying in heaven, now has come salvation and strength
in the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For
the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them
before our God day and night. That's the devil. And they overcame
him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony,
and they loved not their lives unto the death. By God's grace,
remember Christ said if you love your life, you're gonna lose
it. That's a man trying to save himself by his works. He don't
wanna give up what he thinks is his life. But by God's grace,
he made you repent from yourself, and trust Christ. And the word
of our testimony is we're saved only by Christ. He's everything
to us. So we overcome by the blood of
the lamb, by Christ Jesus, the Lord. Gargotha, the devil was
the accuser of the brethren. He accused us to God day and
night. This is the devil's way he works.
He tempts you to sin, you sin, and then he accuses you to God.
That's what he did. But Christ came, And when he
went to that cross, he bore all the sin of his people and put
our sin away. And so Christ the seed justified
all God's people. That place, Lord said, he's gonna
bruise your head, old devil. And that place that he was crucified,
it's called the place of the skull. They called it that because
of all those other convicts that skulls were laid around on the
mountain. But it's there that Christ crushed the skull of the
devil. And the way he took his power from him is he put away
all the sin of his people so the devil has nothing with which
to accuse us to God. Sometime we'll look at that scripture
where you remember the devil was accusing the high priest
and bringing up the law of Moses and accusing him. And the Lord
said, the Lord rebuke thee. He saved him from the devil's
accusation. That's what Christ does for all
his people. He ever lives to intercede for
us, brethren. Shall the prey be taken from
the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? That's Isaiah 49,
24. Thus saith the Lord, even the
captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of
the terrible shall be delivered, for I will contend with him that
contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children. Now brethren,
What about the devil's seed who hate his people? Remember how
Ishmael persecuted Isaac? Galatians 4.29 says, as then,
he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born
after the spirit. Ishmael was a child of the flesh.
He's a picture of a man who thinks he's saved by his works or just
an unregenerate lost man. He's a picture of the devil's
seed, the devil's children. He persecuted Isaac, who was
born of the Spirit of God, who is a child of God, and so it
is now, the Scripture said. But, here is God's promise. He said that He will save us
from all, He has saved us from all our enemies, and He is saving
us from all our enemies. But nobody, nothing and no one,
shall ever be able to separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus. This work of redemption is accomplished. Now, you know, we've seen throughout
the ages, we've seen men get, believers get hurt by other men
for the gospel's sake. Martyred because of the gospel's
sake. Listen, that's, when the scripture says they shall not
harm you, it's not talking about us getting harmed in the flesh.
The Lord will give you grace to get through that if he permits
that to happen. But what he's talking about is
something vastly more important. Nobody's going to separate you
from the love of God in Christ. You'll never be separated from
eternal salvation that we have in Christ Jesus. That's more
important than this flesh and whatever we have to suffer in
this life. We just sang the song. So important to read the words
of those songs we sang. It said and all that how from
a foundation every word in that song is from the scriptures And
he said when I call you to go through deep waters Lord's gonna
bring you through some deep waters, but he said I'll be with you
I said 43 you read that when you go through the waters I'll
be with you so you may suffer some in this world, but Christ
has crushed the devil's head and And he's delivered us out
of his hand and he's not gonna let the devil's children harm
us whatsoever. Not none whatsoever. That's his
promise. He delivered us from all our
enemies and the hand of them that hate us. Now secondly, our
second enemy is this. Unrighteousness. Unrighteousness. Sin. We're legally guilty because
we fell in Adam. and then we come forth and we
commit sin, we break the law constantly. If the Lord, Zechariah
said in Luke 168, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he
hath visited and redeemed his people. The spotless Lamb of
God, as we saw this morning, willingly presented himself to
the Father, who took all the sin of all his people and laid
it on him. And our Lord Jesus Christ went
to that cross, and he stood there as the one guilty man. In himself, he's innocent and
just, but with all the sin of his people on him, he was really
guilty before God. And he stood there justly, because
this is the, somebody will hear that and say, well, you're saying
that against Christ. No, this is Christ's glory. This
was his obedience to the Father. He agreed. to be made sin and
be made a curse for us because God's declaring his righteousness. God would not pour out justice
on his son till he made him sin for us so that he's worthy of
that justice. That's showing us how righteous
and holy God is. God will do nothing unjust. He
made him sin that he might justly make him a curse for us that
he might justly give you mercy and save you. That's why I did
it. And Christ Jesus, scripture said, when he had by himself
purged our sins, he entered into glory. Listen, you may have all
your life, I say this because people that'll hear this down
the road, the world is teaching, Christ came and he somehow vaguely
laid down his life for everybody, but he really didn't accomplish
anything unless you believe him and then you make him to have
accomplished something by your faith. That is works salvation. That is making you to be the
end cause to make Christ a success in what he did. That's not how
the scripture declares what took place. The scripture says, go
to Hebrews 1.3 and look at it. Hebrews 1.3. The scripture nowhere
puts the work in our hands, nowhere. The scripture declares Christ
accomplished the work. That means he had to have accomplished
it for somebody in particular. Hebrews 1.3. who being the brightness
of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding
all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself
purged our sin, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on
high. Look at Hebrews 9.12. It says there, Hebrews 9.12. It says, neither by the blood
of goats and calves, by His own blood He entered in once into
the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Let
me ask you this. This thing of Christ died for
everybody, but now if you perish in unbelief, God will pour out
justice on you. If Christ died, what Christ did
when He died is, justice was poured out on Him. Okay? If God turns around and pours
out justice on a person for whom Christ died, is that just? If it was your daughter who was
in a court of law and the judge said, you're innocent of this
crime, that means you can't be declared guilty again. That'd
be double jeopardy. And then a little while later,
the cops grab that You grab your daughter up, take her back to
court for the same offense, and that judge says, guilty, condemning
you. You say, that's not just. How
come we can get it when it comes to our child, but we won't say
that of God's child, his son? God poured out justice for Clay
Curtis on Christ Jesus the Lord, and I died. Law can't say another
thing once you're dead. Once you've been executed by
the death penalty, the law's not going to drag you up again
and try to kill you again. The law is satisfied. Christ
died for his people, and he satisfied justice, and the law is satisfied
toward everybody for whom he died. He delivered us from the
enemy of unrighteousness, from the curse and condemnation of
the law. Third enemy we have is this. unholiness, we're dead in sin
as we come into this world. Look with me now, turn over with
me at Romans chapter 8. And let me make a point before
I read this to you. The dead sin nature that we're
born with the first time is like a prison. It's like a prison. And I say, well, my will's free.
You got up this morning by yourself. You got dressed by yourself.
You ate by yourself. You got a car and drove here
by yourself. Your will's free. Let's say these four walls are
a prison. A prisoner in a prison, if we
were in a prison cell, this was a prison cell, you can do whatever
you want to in here. You can get up, walk around,
stand on your head, turn back flips if you want to. But you
can't get out of these walls. That's what the sin nature is.
Every creature and every being is bound by their nature. God
only does what's right and holy because his nature is holiness. He can't do otherwise. He always
does right. A cow eats green grass because
that's its nature. A buzzard eats roadkill because
that's its nature. And one don't do the other because
it ain't their nature to You only do what your nature is to
do, and you can't do otherwise. Well, what's our nature as we
come into this world? Here it is, Romans 8, verse 7. The carnal mind, that's the mind
we're born with, is enmity against God, hatred against God. For it is not subject to the
law of God, can't submit to the word of God. Until the man's
born again, he'll read this very scripture I'm saying and say,
I don't believe that. He can't do otherwise. That's
what the verse is saying. The carnal mind is not subject
to the word of God, neither indeed can be. I'll give you another
one, 1 Corinthians 2.14. 1 Corinthians 2.14. He says, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, that is the scriptures
and what God says. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto
him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually
discerned. We have to be, he said there,
Verse 12, we've received not the spirit of the world, but
the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that
are freely given to us of God. So our first enemy was the devil.
He's the one that erred in the garden, deceived Eve, Adam sinned
with his eyes wide open, plunged us all into unrighteousness and
unholiness. Christ came, crushed the devil's
head, put away the sin of his people, made us righteous and
holy in him. But then here we are now. Here we are. He's already crushed
the devil's head, he's already made his people righteous, but
we're dead in sin. We can't believe him. We can't
hear his word and bow to him and say amen. That's the greatest
news I ever heard. Because by nature, we don't think
any of this is true. We don't think God is right.
We think it's not fair that he saved some and not others. We
don't realize that we're such a vile sinner. We don't deserve
for God to give us anything but hell. That is all we have earned
and all we deserve. For God to save anybody is pure
grace, free favor. not deserved. Mercy, God withholding
from us what we do deserve. And the way God's just to do
it is he sent his own only begotten son, who bore the awful, foul
sin that we are, shameful, and then bore the fierce fury of
God's wrath, visage marred more than any man. suffered the equivalency
of an eternity of hell for every one of his people, and completely,
thoroughly justified us before God, so that God's just to declare,
you are justified. But we're so puffed up in pride,
that devil, I'll ascend to God, I'll be like the most high, that's
the devil's pride by which he fell, and that's what our heart
is by nature. And so he has to come through
this gospel, and the spirit of the Lord enters in, and he said,
you must be born again. You must be born of the water
of the word, this gospel, and of the spirit of God, and he
creates a new holy nature, a new man. Look with me, look with
me over at Luke 4, and look at verse 18. Christ is the only
one that does this. This was one of the first scriptures
he read to them. He picked up out of Isaiah, and
he read this right here, Luke 4, 18. He said, the Spirit of
the Lord's upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives. and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee, freedom.
And Christ comes, Ephesians 4.23 says he comes and through the
preaching of the gospel, when you hear Christ speak in his
gospel, that's what he does. He frees you who were captive
in that prison of your sin nature by creating a new nature in you.
And Ephesians 4.23 says he makes you be renewed in the spirit
of your mind and you put on the new man which after God is created
in righteousness and true holiness. There's a new man in his people
that's righteous and holy, that Christ created, and that righteousness
and that holiness is Christ himself. That's what he sends his people
for. That's what he sends his preacher for. Acts 26, one place. I'm out of time, past time, so
I might as well go a long time. Look here, Acts 26, 18. Acts
26, 18. He said, this is why he was sending
Paul to preach, verse 18. He said, I'm sending you to preach.
And this is what he does through the gospel. He said, I'm sending
you to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light,
from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness
of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by
faith that is in me. And Paul glorified him, look
at verse 22. He said, having therefore obtained help of God,
I continue into this day witnessing both the small and great, saying
none other things than those which the prophets and Moses
did say should come. What God's been saying from before
the beginning of the world, that Christ should suffer, that he
should be the first that should rise from the dead, and that
he would be the one who will show light unto the people and
to the Gentiles. And so we praise him. He spoke
to me and said, I've loved you of old. I loved you with an everlasting
love. Therefore, with loving kindness,
I've drawn you. So lastly, lastly, I got things I want to show you, but
go with me lastly. Go to 1 Corinthians 15. since He delivered us from the
devil and He delivered us from the curse and condemnation of
the law making us righteous. He delivered us from our unholy
sin nature that had us captive and made us holy by His holiness. Well brethren, you that believe
Him, you right now have eternal life. You are already delivered
from death. He said when you die, you're
not going to die. This body's going to go back
to the dust because it's still sin. When you die, you're going
to open your eyes with him. But he's going to do something
to that body. Look at 1 Corinthians 15. Verse 51. Behold, I show
you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible. and we shall be changed. For
this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal
must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. Christ took the stinger out. Death is like a bee that doesn't
have a stinger. You're not afraid of a bee that don't have a stinger.
Sin was the stinger. He removed our sin. And the strength
of sin is the law. He fulfilled that for us. Thanks
be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ. And here's the point. Here's why He did all this for
you right now. He did it so that you praise Him who called you
out of darkness into light. He did it so that you serve Him
by declaring this gospel to others. He's gonna call out all His sheep. Justice demands it, and He's
not gonna lose one. That's why we're here. So He
says there in 1 Corinthians 15, 58, He says, therefore, my beloved
brethren, be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, for as you know, your labor is not in vain in
the Lord. What did Zechariah say in Luke
1.74? Here's why he did all this for
us. That he would grant us, verse 74, that we being delivered out
of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear in holiness
and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. That's
why he did it. And we serve Him by declaring
Him to others. Declaring Him to others. and
pray to Him, and wait on Him, and watch Him work it, and give
Him the glory. All right, Brother Greg.