Amen. We are in Acts chapter
13. I'm going to be dealing with
verses 26 and following. As we left off last time, we
saw in Acts chapter 13 where the apostle dealt with John's
ministry in verse 25. And as John fulfilled his course
to Texas, he said, Whom think ye that I am? And Luke says,
I am not he, but behold, there comes one after me. who shoes
his feet, I am not worthy to lose. And verse 25 launched us
into point number eight in our PowerPoint from John to Christ,
where we dealt with these four basic tenets of what it means
to actually be a minister of the gospel. John's a perfect
model for us. And we saw, first of all, that
to be a minister of the gospel, you must be sent from God. You
would agree with that, right? Everyone that's preaching is
not sent. And because they are not sent,
the evidences of the absence of God's presence in their work
is very clear. John was sent of God. We read
that in John's gospel, chapter one, verse five, not John the
Baptist, but the apostle John. And he says in John chapter one,
verse five, and there was a man sent from God whose name was
John. And so we first understand that
to be a minister of the gospel or someone proclaiming the word
of God, you have to be sent of God necessarily because of the
nature of proclamation and because of the impact and response that
proclamation affects in the life of the people who are hearing
that word. And so we saw not only that John
was sent from God, but that his ministry constituted pointing
men to Christ and not to himself. You guys remember that? One of
the reasons for which Christ said of John the Baptist in the
book of Matthew chapter 11, that John was the greatest among women,
born among women, was no greater person than John the Baptist. And it was because he had the
privilege of pointing physically to the Lamb of God, which was
Jesus Christ. Jesus himself made that assessment
about John. He wasn't saying John was the
greatest of all the prophets because of some intrinsic uniqueness,
but because God had positioned John to be the forerunner of
Jesus. You guys remember that? Isaiah
chapter 40, where John is being quoted by Isaiah, a voice crying
in the wilderness, prepare ye, prepare ye the way of the Lord
make straight his paths, prepare your heart for the coming of
the Messiah. And if we were to develop that at length, what
we would be contemplating is a whole lineage of prophetic
truth and historical experiences that starts all the way back
with Adam and Eve, particularly with the proto evangel of Genesis
chapter 315, Your seed will crush his head. His seed will bruise
your heel. A battle will be waged from the
time of the fall of mankind until the coming of Jesus. But more
particularly, as you and I have learned, what Paul did was in
his biblical theology, he called attention to those three aspects
of the historicity of Israel, beginning with whom? Abraham. Remember that? We dealt with
Abraham in the opening of his discourse. He said, men and brethren,
and those of you who fear God, our father, whom Abraham, and
then he moved from Abraham to whom David remember. And the patriarch, David, whose
tomb is with us. Now, God made promise to David
that of his seed would one sit on his throne. And his name is
what Jesus. I'm literally, literally quoting
what the text says in the book of Acts. So we see this leap
from Abraham to Jesus being unfolded in the biblical theology of the
apostle Paul, Abraham being the covenant promise given to him
of the whole of his loins. He would be the father of multitude
of nations. The Davidic kingdom would be
that aspect of the covenant purposes of God, where Jesus would become
Messiah and King over all the nations of the world. And that
will be affirmed for us here in a few minutes, which is clearly
laid out to us in the Psalms. Is it not that the son of David
would be the one who would sit on the throne in Zion and rule
over the nations? And the book of Acts will assert
this truth too, as we look at it in verse 33 here in a moment.
And so from Abraham to David to Jesus, we have this triad
that constitutes according to Matthew 1, 42 generations. And now we are at Jesus, but
Jesus is not gonna be talked about until Paul addresses his
forerunner, who was his cousin, John, as you and I know, And
as John fulfilled his course, that's 25A. Looking at our PowerPoint
again then, a man sent from God, and when he is sent from God,
his message is gonna always be about whom? Christ, and he will
never get in Christ's way. Remember we closed out last week
on that in verses 29 through 31 of John's gospel, chapter
three. Look at John three with me for
a moment. Again, I wanna refresh your thoughts on that before
we move forward. The proposition is, is that when
we are called to preach the gospel, we are called as Paul said in
second Corinthians chapter four, not to preach ourselves, but
Christ and him crucified. That's what we're called to do.
And in John's gospel chapter three, John was dealing with
what you and I saw was a temptation to pit John over against Jesus. Because in God's economy, what
he had done was he allowed John's ministry to reach its apex in
about two and a half years. Remember how long John's ministry
was to last? Ladies and gentlemen, how many
years? Three and a half years. And so John's ministry would
last three and a half years. And about in that last half year,
the ministry of our Savior Jesus would take place. And how many
years would his be? And the totality of the two would
be how many years, right? And that's a number of perfection.
And that really is a key concept that ties into the prophecy of
Daniel 9, 27, of which we don't have time to deal, the 70 weeks
of Daniel. And so John and Jesus serve as
we can demonstrate in the book of Revelation chapter 11 as the
two what? Witnesses. They will be for us
a model of the two witnesses. What does God's word say? Out
of the mouth of what? Two or three witnesses, let every
word be established. So John comes on the scene and
he's preaching for two and a half, almost three years before his
cousin, right? His cousin, Jesus Christ is manifested. Christ is already alive. He's
only six months younger than John, right? John knows his cousin,
his cousin knows him, but John does not know that his cousin,
is the Messiah. He does not even know until the
day that God reveals to him that this is the one whom I have sent. So John was obedient to God in
preaching the gospel and doing ministry and doing work outside
of the established system of the church. Didn't we talk about
that last week? John was unique in that John
was completely prophetic in his ministry. His prophetic ministry
constituted a rebuke to the nation of Israel because they were out
of the will of God as the prophecy of Isaiah had set forth that
the people sat in great darkness and that they were in high levels
of idolatry and rebellion against God so that effectively when
Jesus came to his own they did not recognize him Now, ladies
and gentlemen, the reason why they didn't recognize him was
not because the Old Testament had given a physical description
of Jesus, because that was not the point, was it? They did not
recognize him because they did not have a biblical knowledge
of the attributes and characteristics of Messiah. They did not recognize
him because they did not have a biblical concept of what Messiah
and his work really circumscribed. Israel had their own view of
Messiah. And we've talked about this for
years, haven't we? The view of Messiah that Israel had then
and now is of a political leader whose objective was to deliver
Israel from political oppression to the Roman empire. They read
into the Old Testament passages concerning Messiah, a military
leader whose job was to destroy his foes politically. And when Jesus went about doing
the ministry that he did for three and a half years, nothing
that Jesus did corresponded to their assumptions. It was for
this reason, even though Christ had performed the kind of miracles
that only Messiah could perform, they still did not accept his
claims as being the son of God because they had an agenda that
they were hell-bent on fulfilling and even God couldn't change
their mind. Now there's a application that
we have to be able to extrapolate from that as we work through
the forerunner and that's this. When we're reading the Bible
or listening to preaching and teaching, we have to actually
be objective in two categories of thought. We have to be objective
in terms of what that man or person is saying who's talking
to you. What is he really saying? Not
assuming what he says, not reading into what he's saying, not distorting
what he's saying, not modifying it because you know, you can
actually do editing while the preacher's talking. Now, if you do that, You are
being objective about the preacher, but you're being subjective about
your own in a sort of gymnastics that you are exercising as you
are rearranging his words, their words, in order to make them
fit your paradigm or in order to justify your paradigm. In other words, here's what I'm
saying. What made the ministry of Christ so offensive to the
Jews was that they had assumed that they were right. And therefore,
if it doesn't correspond with their assumed position of being
right, they couldn't possibly be wrong. Jesus had to be wrong. And that's true for us today,
that if we're not careful to be able to trust God, when we're
listening to someone speak, hear what they say and go, now that,
sounds true, rings true, watch this, whether I like it or not. If I'm not objective enough to
go, that rings true, whether I like it or not. My opinion
reigns over truth. Did you hear that? There was
a, I was working through some material today because we're
headed into Psalms 2. And Psalms 2 blew my mind today. I'm like, I'm thinking, okay,
Lord, now we can get to running. I already told our Wednesday
class, we're gonna be running now. I can do Psalms 2 in one
class, maybe two, get on down to Psalm 5, going down to Psalm
11. I got to Psalm 2 yesterday, and
that thing opened up so wide. I said, Lord, I'm gonna be here
for two months. It just broke wide open. I'm like, I can't
not share some of this. because it's so germane to the
revelation of God. But as I was working through
Psalm 2, I was listening to a commentary about a relationship between
D.A. Carson and a young man that was in his church. And D.A. Carson is a pastor, a very notable
pastor in Arthur II. He writes books, scholar, engages
in a lot of theological works. And D.A. Carson was developing
a friendship with this member in his church. And this member
in his church was an egalitarian. Now you guys know what an egalitarian
is, right? Raise your hand if you do, if you do. Okay. Most
of y'all don't. Okay. Getting late. You heard
me say it a thousand times, but I'll go back over it again. What
it means to be an egalitarian is to hold the view that men
and women are equal without distinction or without roles. that they are
interchangeable at every level and every capacity of their life
and their existence. That to be egalitarian means
that the woman can take the lead in the home and the man can be
passive. Or the woman can like wear the
pants and the man can wear the dress. That's where we are politically
and socially, aren't we? That's where we are. So egalitarianism
has now framed itself as part of the basic premise of acceptance
in our culture. And most Gen Xers and most millennialist
and most baby boomers who have not been renewed in the spirit
of their mind operate out of an egalitarian mindset. Had a
beautiful sister come to me last Friday after Bible study. I don't
know if she's here tonight. She might be, but I think she
she's not here, but she was here last week. So she came up to
me after the study and she said, pastor, What's this business
about if a woman gets married, she got to get rid of her last
name and take on the last name of her husband. And I said, what
that business is, is the biblical concept of headship. And what
that means is when you marry a husband, you then find yourself
positioning under his identity so that as you become one, the
offspring that you have bear his name according to God's will
and God's word. And she says, well, why can't
they bear her name? Well, you can, it's okay to laugh,
but don't act like that's such a horrible thinking. And I'm
glad she said it because she was being honest. You still have
to answer that question. Biblical students, you still
have to talk to the egalitarian in a sense of giving them some
answers to those questions. And the first one is, well, that's
how God set it up. He set it up that way. And she
says, but I don't understand that. Then I had to go into the
origin of man. So as a Biblicist and a presuppositionalist,
I believe the Bible is the word of God. And I believe the Bible
has given us an explicit testimony of creation, of the creation
of man, the creation of woman, the order, structure, purpose,
and design for which the two are to co-exist in the context
of holy matrimony. In fact, I'll be marrying four
couples tomorrow. A couple in the morning, a couple
in the evening. So I'm gonna be tired. I don't even talk about
marriage on Sunday. But if you believe your Bible,
here's what you believe, that God created Adam first, then
he created Eve. Now that already started trouble
when I told her that. but that's because she doesn't have a biblical
worldview. She's coming to learn things
about God, but this is one of the reasons we are very careful
about wanting people to get rooted and grounded in God's word before
they make sort of a bold statement that they believe in Jesus. Because
you may say you believe in Jesus until you start reading Jesus's
word. And then once you start reading Jesus's word, you're
going to go, wait a minute, I don't like this. that you might discover
you don't believe in Jesus. Your assumptions cause your opinions
to rain. And when your opinions crashed,
clashed with the word of God, you discovered you didn't like
what the word of God said. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? So fundamentally what we are dealing with when I say
that egalitarianism is the model that our present world system
is operating out of is basically rejecting a biblical worldview,
a biblical worldview. And I don't even know why I'm
on that point right now. I'll go, I'll go on back to where
I was. As we were dealing with the Lord
Jesus Christ being the, um, somebody, you know, somebody know why I
was on that point. Oh, about egalitarianism. Oh,
you still want to know, huh? Okay, did we get egalitarianism?
Now, egalitarianism over against a biblical worldview establishes
what we call, again, in theology, a hierarchical structure of relationship
where the Bible says that man is the head of the woman. Now
watch this. And that the man and the woman
within the framework of matrimony are operating as a representation
of the divine trinity economically. Economically. And so the man
and the woman's relationship is one where the head is responsible
to take care of the body while the body serves cooperatively
with the head to help get the job done. So I'll say that one
more time just to close out that loop since we're talking on marriage
before we get back is very important. Um, I guess two people could,
uh, maintain an egalitarian relationship until you come to the crossroads
of a major argument. Because when once you come to
the crossroads of a major argument, if someone does not give way,
we're going to have a problem. Is that true? Right. And if a
person gives way, not acknowledging that they're giving way is actually
obedience to God, then they're going to feel defrauded when
they give way because they're not going to see the benefit
of submission because they don't see the connection between submission
to their spouse in the context of the gospel and Christ's submission
to his father. In other words, submission is
the only way that a relationship can exist where there's a structure
given for someone to be responsible. And I've said this before, I'll
just kind of press this on through just in case you think that the
egalitarian model is the best model. I tell women particularly
who want to operate out of that mode, you are egalitarian only
in your home. You are not egalitarian on your
job. As soon as you get to your job, your boss has authority
over you. As soon as you get to your job, your superiors have
authority over you. And if that rank goes up 10 levels,
you are willingly submitting to a hierarchical structure on
your job. where that next level of authority
can tell you what to do, even if you don't like it. And watch
this. You are willing to submit to that hierarchical authority
for a paycheck rather than to submit to God to demonstrate
Christian virtues in the home for eternal verities. Does that
make some sense? This is not a Q&A. Don't want to hear it. The point
is, is that we will talk like an egalitarian system is the
best system in the world. And egalitarianism is really
only a theory. Can I take it another level since
we're in class tonight? Egalitarianism will not work
between mama and her children. You know that's right. Don't
you know that's right? Did you hear that? I know that's
right. Now, all of a sudden, the hierarchical
principle kicks right back in. I'm your mama. You're not my
mama. You gonna do what I say. because
you know best and you are responsible for her or them with your life. So it is with the husband. And
when a godly woman understands that that man is responsible
for the welfare and being and happiness and serenity and peace
and tranquility of the home, she will be smart enough to submit
to God and therefore submit to her husband, knowing that her
husband has a heck of a job to do. to make sure that he operates
as a Christian man. Am I making some sense? This
is so absolutely critical. And again, even though I set
that forth and I hope it's edifying, I'm not real sure how I extracted
that particular proposition out of our point. Oh, DA Carson. Here we go. All
right, here we go. Oh, I like this. Here we go.
Here we go. Here we go. Getting back to DA. So, so, so, so, and
when I, when I, when I say what I'm about to say, it's still
not going to help me find the bridge back to where I started,
but maybe you can help me. So DA was saying to, um, this
young, uh, mentor re that the Bible teaches a hierarchical
structure of government, because this is in God's view, the wisest
way to set it up. And he argued, no, I believe
egalitarian way works. And over time, he came to understand
that egalitarianism is an anti-biblical model, that it doesn't work.
Because him and his wife found themselves in arguments that
he knew he was right about. But because it was an egalitarian
structure, he lost a position of authority. He didn't have
that final say with responsibility over that. So he saw how impragmatic
it was. So he came back to D.A. Carson
and he said, Pastor, you know, I've been working through this
whole issue of egalitarianism, and I think the Bible is right.
I think the Bible is right. There is no such thing as an
egalitarian system, but I don't like it. And here's what D.A. Carson said. Good. You're halfway
home. You're halfway home. What D.A.
Carson was saying is this. God doesn't enter into a relationship
with you to tell you what's right. with the hopes that you like
it. God doesn't care if you like it or not, because he's God. Now, if you agree with God, you
halfway home. You got that? And when you start
liking it, you're all the way in. But God's not moving. God fully accepts the remaining
vestiges of sin in us. to push against biblical truth.
He's not going to throw you out of the kingdom because you don't
like it. And husbands have to do what's right, whether their
spouses and children like it or not, when you are under God's
authority. If you want your family saved,
you still have to do what's right. You can't shape whether or not
you're going to do God's will as to whether or not your wife
or children like that. When once you do that, you are
in bondage to emotionalism, not objective truth. And when once
we let emotionalism rule, we are going to be in the fickle
world of a topsy turvy emotionalism that has no stability and no
peace whatsoever. Sometimes right. hurts and sometimes
right is the worst thing we want to hear, but it's right anyway. You guys follow that logic? Good.
So somebody want to help me understand the premise upon which I gave
that little analogy. So he points to Christ. He never
gets in the way. And in John chapter three, here's
what John the Baptist does as he works through the attempt
on the part of the rulers To get john in trouble with jesus
because jesus's ministry was growing In verse 26 they came
to john and said unto him rabbi he that was with you beyond jordan
to whom you bear witness Behold the same is baptizing and all
men come to him Now again, you can you can take that last little
clause all men came to him our line rather and and extrapolate
on that beyond A reason obviously not all men came to him, but
there were a lot coming And here's how John responded. Verse 27,
John answered and said, a man can receive nothing except to
be given to him from heaven. Remember what we learned about
that last week? This is great. This will liberate you. This
is called the sovereignty of God. You and another person are
coworkers on a job and another position opens up for which you
both are objectively qualified to get that position. but you
actually think you are a little bit more qualified than that
other person. And God gives it to that other person. Are you
going to get jealous, envious, start disliking them, have problems
with them, think that they pull some strings. You're going to
mess with HR and holla at everybody. You're going to start sabotaging
the job because you thought you should have gotten a promotion.
Well, if you do what John did, recognize that promotion comes
from God, you're going to thank God that your coworker got the
job and you're going to wait for your turn. That's called
acknowledging the sovereignty of God. It's easier said than
done. The next one, here's what John
does. So that quailed for John, this notion that Jesus and John
should be pitting each other's ministries. Nothing is worse
than two godly men whose ministries are thriving to be budding heads
as if somehow they both are worthy of the ministry when in fact
they are nothing but objects of God's mercy and should be
thankful for the lot that God has given them, right? Verse
28, you yourselves bear witness that I said, I'm not the Christ.
I told you I'm not him, but that I'm set before him. Remember
what we said about verse 29? He that hath the bride is the
what? but the friend of the bridegroom which stands and hears him rejoices
greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore
is fulfilled. John says in verse 29, not only
am I not jealous that the Lord Jesus Christ is getting more
disciples than me, I'm very happy because this is not about me,
this is about him. And so here is how you and I would actually
gather our thoughts around what is so essential about the centrality
of the gospel ministry. This is how we are to gather
our thoughts. Quickly apprehend any thought that would cause
you to be distracted from this one reality. This is all about
Christ. Apprehend any thought that would
cause you to be distracted from the fact that we want Christ
exalted no matter who loses out. If I lose out, Christ is exalted. If we lose out, Christ is exalted.
As Paul said in Philippians chapter one, all that I care about is
the exaltation of Jesus Christ. That will show you whether or
not your priorities are right. And it will show you whether
or not you love Christ because this is all about him. And so
we are taught this in verse 30 this way. Look at verse 30. He
must what? But I must what? Right. So there
is a, there's a natural correlation between the two principles to
the degree that Christ increases in our life. Guess what's going
to happen to us. Right. And this is an interesting
concept. I'm, I'm, I'm really wanting to segue from here to
a real blessing that I'm going to actually talk about on Sunday,
but I'll touch on it a little bit here. If we can adopt the
ethic of decreasing that Christ might increase if we really could,
If that can actually become the modus operandi of our life, if
it can drive our everyday life, Lord, you get the glory. Even
if it means I diminish, which necessarily it will. If you and
I could walk in that ethic, can I share something with you? The
more you and I find ourselves willingly and joyfully committed
to diminishing so that Christ can increase, the more your reward
is in heaven. So I'm gonna say it one more
time and maybe one day I'll get to unveil this glorious truth
that I've been drinking on for a long time. To the degree that
you and I can embrace, adopt, wear, as it were, this concept,
this principle, that for Christ to really be magnified in my
life, I have to be willing to decrease in all unnecessary areas
wherein my increase will impede his increase. to the degree that
I am willing to decrease so that he increases, it increases my
wealth and work and glory. Crazy truth that I'm setting
forth now. You have no idea how important
that concept is. But if what I'm saying is true,
watch this. If what I am saying is true,
then the principle of him increasing and me what? Should come to his
ultimate Apex or manifestation in death for Christ Which is
what we call martyrdom if if I have an ethic where I love
Christ so much That he increases to the point of me being not
only willing to die but rejoicing to die for Christ My reward in
heaven is Massive Are you guys hearing me? The reward for the
martyr who has understood that his wealth Increases proportionate
to the glory of christ Out of his life now In eternity is the
man or the woman That is in for a glorious entrance into the
kingdom of god on the last day The secret to believers' ability
to suffer for Christ, to endure hardship for Christ, to be maligned
and ridiculed and rejected and ostracized and set aside and
afflicted and persecuted and killed, happily, is their ability
to know that the increase of Christ is the increase of them
Christ but to think this way means that your faith has taken
on a level of maturity and development that I cannot even begin to talk
about in terms of its importance because most of us operate out
of such an infantile faith an immature faith, an unripe faith,
like fruit that's there, but not ready to eat, not sweet,
not soft. Its fragrance is not emanating
because our understanding of our union with Christ and the
necessary benefits of living in him and for him and suffering
for Christ. We don't, it's so deficient.
We cannot see the rate of exchange. between faith now and glory then. We cannot see it. And so what
you and I often are doing, are you ready? We're fighting to
protect unwiped fruit. Who didn't get what I was saying?
I just want to just raise your hand if you didn't get it. Okay, George,
you know, you and me slow, you know, we slow, right? Everybody
else in the room got it, but me and you, and George is a teacher
too. All right, two of us are slow. So I'm just going to say it again.
I'm not going to even rearrange it. I just want this thought
to come out and resonate in your hearing because I've been praying
about this for us at grace and for anyone that listens to me
preach. Our faith is fruit itself. The consequence of grace working
and Christ working and the father pruning and teaching us how to
wait on God and trust God and look to Christ and and return
to Christ when we mess up and have confidence in Christ and
not run out before him and not say too much that we shouldn't
be saying, you know how we'd be messing up, right? All that
kind of stuff, all that's unripe fruit. I want to stay in my place
until my fruit is ripe enough that when a person touch it,
it drops off the tree. You understand what I'm talking
about? Right, right, right. But see, God's gonna have to
work in my character. to bring me to the point where
my fruit is ripe enough for men and women so that they don't
have to struggle eating the apple or the oranges or the peaches
because it's so hard. And then they got to go get some
sugar and put some sugar on it just to make it sweeter. Chop
it up now and then, you know, glaze it in order to enjoy it. And what I'm getting at is this. We own too much of our faith. We own too much of our faith
so that we are looking for rewards as a consequence of our good
works almost immediately. You hear what I'm saying? Almost
immediately. Almost immediately, we want people
to say, I see the fruit, I got the fruit, I'm eating the fruit,
I like the fruit. Jesse, you got good fruit. I
mean like immediately. When you and I know that's not
the truth. And so for John to be able to say about his cousin,
who technically John could say is younger than him, sibling
rivalry, both doing great ministry, but Jesus is now blowing up and
John is diminishing. For John to be able to say, this
is all about him. I want him to increase and therefore
I must what? but I'm so happy about it, I'm
so jazzed about it, I'm nothing but the friend of the bridegroom.
The level of maturity inherent in that faith is to be coveted. Do you understand how silly we
are and foolish and carnal we are most of the time over little
petty things? Do I have anybody in the house
with me? Y'all act like I'm the only one struggling with this.
You know, we'll come to church and act great, but get home and
get into these petty, silly arguments that have nothing to do with
eternity and call ourselves believers and striving and arguing and
fighting with folks in our family. And we demand that they see us
as believers. We demand that they see us as
mature children of God, men and women of God. And here we are
fighting over rights and claims and this and that. Petty things. that we ought to be able to easily
let go and john has preached for three years
and now he's going downhill and his cousin is going uphill and
he's able to say with a with a pure heart as pure as humans
can be i love my cousin so much that i wouldn't dare assault
the body of christ to steal one member that's not designated
by the father to be under my ministry in order to demonstrate
having more than I do. Because that's what goes on in
church today. We talked about that last week.
If y'all remember, I said, when people lose a God-centered, Christ-centered
perspective, then it's all about them. And when once it's all
about them, even in the body of Christ, two things happen,
abuse, and neglect, abuse and neglect. If John the Baptist
were of the common stock of preachers that exist in my generation and
he saw his church dwindling, he'd be putting out hits on Jesus,
saying little dirty things behind Jesus back, getting the news
out on Facebook and internet. You better watch out for Jesus.
You know, a brother can't blow up that quick unless he's doing
something poisoning the whale, if you will, out of carnality.
And I've said this before. Am I boring you? All right. I've
said this before. We'll get to our text tonight.
I've said this before, and this is critical about having a concept
of faith that's biblical because you will say you have faith.
and really can be operated out of a whole system of carnal principles
that have nothing to do with biblical faith. It's all about
you. And every time one of your principles
are violated, you are threatened. And then you move into action
or you're sad, depressed, want to quit. You don't want to burn
the church down. Cause no one's paying attention
to you. Am I telling the truth? I'm being a little bit, you know,
uh, cynical, but I'm telling the truth. You are absorbed in
yourself. Your maturity, your faith is
not mature enough to understand that your objectivity is critical
to your being able to respond to the sovereignty of God, to
bless others around you in spite of you being apparently blessed.
For John, he was happy to be the friend of the bridegroom.
And when you are the friend of the bridegroom, you're not going
to mess with the bride groom's bride. You're not going to sleep
with her. You're not going to touch her.
That's how y'all do it. Young people. You're not going to touch
her. You're not going to abuse her. You're not going to neglect
her. You understand what I'm saying? You're not gonna control
her. You're not gonna dominate her. You're not gonna put legalism
in and restrain her so that she's actually paying dues to you when
she should be paying dues to the one who loved her and gave
himself for her. All you are, preacher, is a friend
of the bridegroom. Now, when you get leadership
that's friends of the bridegroom, the members of the body won't
be threatened by abuse or neglect. You hear what I'm saying? Good.
All right, we can go on here. Take me back to my point so we
can keep rolling. So we're under point number eight. So I can
close out and move to our next one from John to Christ in a man
sent from God. He points to Christ and never
gets in his way. Now we move to the real struggle that Paul
wants to get to in Acts chapter 13, going back to Acts 13. Now,
as we work through this in his presentation of biblical theology,
starting with Abraham all the way to Jesus, we have now moved
from John quickly. To Jesus in verses 26, through
33 and here's what the next three or four verses say and we'll
pick up in our ninth point men and brethren children of the
stock of Abraham and whomever among you feared God who is he
talking about here the Gentiles to you is the word of this salvation
sent for they that dwell at Jerusalem and their rulers because they
knew him not nor yet the voices of the prophets, which are read
every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in what? Condemning
him. And though they found no cause
of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be
what? And when they have fulfilled all that was written of him,
they took him down from the tree and laid him in a suffocator,
but God raised him from the dead. Verse 30. So point number nine
in your outline, This gospel is preached, I believe that's
what we are. Point number nine, this gospel is preached to you
with scriptural affirmation. Christ, okay, so I divided that
up. Christ died according to the
scriptures, verses 26 through 39. But you'll notice that in
verses 26 through 27, it says in the latter part of verse 27,
they have fulfilled them, that is the scripture, the voices
of the prophets. You notice it says in verse 27,
yet they knew not Him nor the voices of the prophets which
are read every sabbath day. What is he talking about scripture?
So here's what paul said our leaders destroyed jesus Because
they did not know the scriptures You got that With the church
every week Every sabbath the scriptures were read all day
long From from early in the morning to the afternoon scriptures read
all day long Sabbath worship for the Jews, synagogue worship
was a long arduous worship. Nothing like what we do today.
We do today, 25, 30 minute sermon, little singing, giving some money
out of here. Jewish worship, several hours. The scriptures were read without
commentary at length. And then it might've been two
or three brothers stand up and expound the scriptures. That
was a long day. Long work of exposition and yet
here's what Paul says who himself was a Pharisee They still didn't
understand what they were talking about This is an amazing concept
by implication Because what it means is that the Jews were so
blinded to the truth of God though. They were engaged in They were
engaged at length extensively with the reading of scripture
and the formality of worship, but they never comprehended the
author of the scriptures. Saints, is that possible? Can
we go to church? Can we quote the scriptures and
not actually know the truth of those scriptures? Can we actually
have the Bible in us and still hate those that are of God? This
is a remarkable, this is a remarkable dichotomy. What this means is,
It is not an assumption that because you can quote the scriptures,
you actually have the word of God abiding in you. Are you following
the logic? And I say this to people who
get really aside by that. I say this, listen, most of the
heresies that are well established and entrenched in our churches
are written and developed by scholars. Most of the heresies
that are well entrenched in our churches are first developed
by scholars and then practiced by the preachers and then adopted
by the congregations. The scholars immerse themselves
in the totality of all the instruments necessary to, as it were, dissect
the word of God. So they break the Word of God
down, they analyze the Word of God, they deconstruct the scriptures,
they study the languages, they study history, comparative religions,
and everything else, come up with wrong conclusions and fortify
them under doctrinal headings, pass it on down to the pastoral
category, and they start preaching it to the people, and then the
people are believing wrong doctrine. What am I saying? right or wrong
doctrine is not a consequence of intellectual acumen or how,
um, acquainted you are with the Bible per se. It's very clear
that in this case, the spirit of God was not operating in the
life of that first century church, right? Because only the spirit
of God can give you a proper interpretation and understanding
of scripture. It's fundamentally what Jesus
was saying as he says in Matthew chapter 22 You neither know the
Word of God our scripture or the power of God Because the
error in which you guys are operating is so massive But the only conclusion
we can draw is you've not submitted to the Spirit of God So here's
a truth thing as we get ready to work through the rest of this
when you're reading your Bible and this is actually what I said
in the opening of our study tonight when you read your Bible and
Do not read your Bible with the assumption that everything you
read you're going to like. First of all, there's a lot that
when you read your Bible, you don't understand and won't understand.
As soon as you go, you know what, Lord, I don't understand what
this means. You are exercising a level of humility that will
keep you from being cut off by the spirit of God. I'm helping
somebody right now. I'm helping somebody because
People will get frustrated out of all kinds of insecurities
with when they read a passage of scripture, it doesn't make
any sense to them. They'll get frustrated. Now they'll
try to force an interpretation or get someone to give them one.
When what they should simply say is, Lord, I don't understand
this. And in an acknowledged relationship
between them and God, knowing that God is your paraclete, God
is your teacher, God is your father. He's the one that has
to open up the word of God to you. Even if it means he's gonna
send you to someone else to help you, your heart has to be prepared
to walk humbly with God and wait for someone to teach you. Remember
the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter eight, whom God used
to bring the gospel to all Ethiopia, which is the oldest Christian
church to date. That man is riding in his Cadillac
all the way back to Ethiopia and Philip is commissioned to
go help him understand what the scriptures and The door was open
for him to hear the truth of the scripture when he said what
how can I know? Except someone teach me Are you
guys following that? How can I know so God has softened
that Ethiopians heart didn't he? made him ready for someone
to explain the scriptures to him, rather than him forcing
an interpretation on the scripture and pretending he knew something
that he did not know. And it's very important for you
and me too, lest we find ourselves so wrestling. Example, how many
of you guys listened to last Monday's program? Okay, good
50%. You remember that brother that
called him away from Chicago? He almost had me go ghetto. I
had to take a break for a second. I had to back on up. I knew I
had thousands of people listening and back on up. Just put on your
put on your professional jacket. Because it caught me off guard
that he would he was on the line for a good 30 minutes. What I
meant was waiting because we had so many calls that he jumps
on and he goes to attacking a basic position that all Christians
hold around what we call conventional nomenclature. You probably don't
know what that means. is what this means. We call Jesus
Lord and we call him Jesus. But there are folks in the church
who say, no, no, no. God's name is not Jesus. His
name is Yahweh. So we, we got these brothers
who think they're getting closer to God cause they, they got a
little Hebrew going on. So I want to help some of y'all
get past this. This actually, this is idiocy.
Please listen to me. So when they come to you talking
about, no, his name is Yahweh. And you ask him, can we call
him Jehovah? No, you can't call him Jehovah.
You gotta call him Yahweh. Okay. How come I gotta call him
Yahweh? Well, that's his real name. That's
how you pronounce his real name, Yahweh. Okay. Who told you that? I'm being
patient right here, but I'm showing you how era and some of the basic
elements of linguistic can prevail when you don't think it through
who told you it's Yahweh and Why is it Yahweh and if that
person doesn't know basic syntax in the Hebrew language He has
no basis for his argument Those of you who have learned a little
bit of Greek in our class, we understand that Greek and English
and Hebrew are cognate languages. And there's something about the
Hebrew language that most people don't know. That it's all what
in terms of its letters? Consonantal. There's no vowels
in the original Hebrew. So the man who was saying, we
call him Yahweh, has actually adopted a man-made construction
by which we express, are you hearing me? A dead language. A dead language. What do you
mean by dead language? Meaning in the exile in 587 BC,
by the time Israel got back to the land, the original Hebrew
language had so been watered down and as it were modified
by the Aramaic, that we do not have a legitimate Hebrew tongue. And that what the scholars had
to do with the alphabets as they work through the scriptures was
to put what we call vowel points in between the consonants in
order to be able to express the words because vowels allow you
to express, consonants don't, right? So like the word Jesse,
J-E-S-S-E, which is a derivative of Jesus or Jesus, which is in
our English cognate to the Greek term, Iesus, which is a cousin
to the Hebrew term, Yeshua. Yeshua and Iesus is the way we
translate it from the old to the new in our English Bibles.
Is that true? So I asked the brother, I said, now your name
is Charles, right? Yeah, Charles. If we actually say your name
in Spanish, Have we changed his name even though the expression
is going to sound differently? No. If we say his name in French,
if we say his name in German, that's how it's going to sound
in those languages. We are still St. Charles, are we not? So I
want to say this to you so that you guys don't fall prey to these
silly distinctives that have no differences at all. Our differences
that have no distinction at all. You guys understand that? So
we say Yesus because the New Testament is written in what?
Jesus is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew Yeshua. Yeshua
is the way we express Joshua or Jesus in the Hebrew. Yahweh
has vowel points in the Tetragrammaton by which we go Yehovah or Yahweh. If we took the vowel points out,
we wouldn't be able to express it. Are you guys following me?
So there's no real issue there. You'll hear them say there was
no term Jesus A thousand years ago. You know, you want to go,
you want to go like that. You're not getting it, fella.
We are working with translation from an original language to
a target language. Those of you who are linguists
understand that there is no equivalency. You are always modifying in order
to develop a relationship between the root and the target. But
with the word Jesus, we are fairly close. English Jesus, Greek Iesus,
Hebrew Yeshua, isn't that fairly close? Fairly close. So don't
let anyone argue with you over that. It's important for you
to know. So what we're talking about is
understanding the scriptures requires a patient diligence
and submission to the spirit of God to properly teach us how
to interpret the word of God so as not to find ourselves in
a position where we fight against God. John chapter one said it
like this. He came unto his own and his
own. What? The world was made by him, but the world what knew
him not. And he gave us the answer in
John chapter 14 and 15. He says, it does not know you
because it did not know me, nor him that sent me. And it does
not know God because it does not take scripture seriously.
Here's what you're going to discover. Child of God, if you haven't
already discovered it, God, mightily works through men and women who
are serious about God's word. Will you hear me? You want to
find yourself being blessed by truth. Sit under people who are
serious about God's word, who are not playing with God's word.
If you sit under people who are playing with God's word, you
will never come to the truth of the gospel. because the word
of God is God's expression and will for our lives. Where we
play fast and loose with God's word, we are cutting ourselves
off from God. Are you guys hearing me? So much
so that the rulers ended up killing Jesus. And obviously it had to
be out of the fact that their assumptions, as I had said in
the opening of my study, did not comport with what Jesus was
doing. What Jesus was doing was fulfilling
the scriptures. And what they were doing was
fulfilling the scriptures. As God had warned several times
in the Old Testament, particularly the prophet Isaiah, I will do
a work in their day that they will not believe though a man
tell it to him. I will close their eyes so that
they do not see. And I will shut their ears so
that they do not hear. And from the days of John, through
Jesus, and even into the book of Acts, that prophecy has been
fulfilled four or five times. I have given them a deep sleep
so that they cannot see the truth. So obviously something is going
on in the spirit, is it not? Where a person is rebelling against
God, and therefore God is not giving them access to his truth.
Because is it not true? And you can, we'll get ready
to close out here on point number C. Is it not true? that you and
I find comfort that when we read the word of God, God opens up
the scripture to us is actually a supernatural thing for us to
read the word of God. And it began to make sense because
there was a time when it didn't, or you may have understood it
on one level. And then because of trials and
difficulties and maturity and patience, you go back and a whole
nother level opens up consistent with that first level, but deeper.
Isn't that God? And he's blessing the soul for
having been patient and learning and patient and studying and
patient and hearing. As James puts it in James 1,
19, brethren, we are to be quick to hear slow to speak and slow
to wrap. And so that final point, they
killed the Christ, but he rose again, verse 30 and 31. And there
are witnesses. Listen to this and we'll shut
it down here. I'll open the floor for a few questions. Verse 30
and 31, but God raised him from the dead, and he was seen many
days of them, which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem,
who are his witnesses unto the people. Finally, verse 32, and
we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was
made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their
children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also
written in the second Psalm. Here it is. Thou art my son,
this day have I what? So what is the topic that Paul
has now, as it were, crystallized into? What topic is Paul dealing
with right now? What would we call this? The
resurrection, right? The topic that Paul is dealing
with is the resurrection. So he started large with what we
call biblical theology, the history of Abraham, narrowed it down
to David, the Davidic kingdom. Israel was concerned about that
because they need a military leader. The Messiah does bear
those marks. We'll deal with that next time.
But now he has honed it on in to this Jesus that everyone has
known about because Israel has recently killed him. And now
his name is spreading all through Jerusalem by his disciples. Paul
is in a synagogue of the Jews with Gentiles, and he has just
stated now the nexus of both the problem and the promise.
He has boldly said to his Jewish brethren, two things, you killed
him and God has raised him from the dead. Now, ladies and gentlemen,
we are at what we call the heart of the gospel here. Let me see
if I can make this good for you. When we tell many women that
God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, what we are telling
many women is God has fulfilled his promise that he has set forth
from the beginning of time, that all of the purposes of God, insofar
as the salvation of men are concerned, is now confirmed by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. Let me see if I can drive this
home. Don't, for this next minute, for just this one minute, entertain
me, okay? Don't ever take light or academic
the resurrection of Christ. So just for a moment right now,
don't think that you can passively hear the proclamation that God
raised Jesus from the dead and view this as a small thing that
you can take or leave. The whole of our eternity hangs
on that truth. Stay right here. The totality
of gospel theology has its merits on that claim. If God did not
raise Jesus from the dead, we are massively deceived. We are
massively deceived and we are wasting our time right now. This
idea of coming to church and sitting under the word of God
nine or 10 o'clock at night as if we're wanting to hear from
God, but we have an academic sort of nonchalant view of the
resurrection. Every Redeemed child of God anytime
you hear about the resurrection of Christ your ears should perk
up Let me hear that again. Let me hear that again. Let me
hear it again because I need to know That I believe in the
resurrection. I need to know that I need to
know that I believe that God Raised his son from the dead
as a basis of justifying me from all my sins. I cannot Be ready
to die for this gospel. If I don't believe that, do you
hear me? I cannot be ready to die for
this gospel. If I do not believe that God
raised him from the dead and bless God, I understand the implications
that fall out from that. I could talk for hours about
the implications. I'm just talking about the historic fact. Now,
why are you saying that pastor? Because it's right there that
the apostles die right there. They don't get killed until after
they say God raised him from the dead. That's where the leaders
now turn on the apostles because they understand the implications
of the resurrection of the men they killed. What that means
is they are murderers and liars. and that the only logical reaction
to those claims is that they bow the knee, bow the knee, bow
the knee, but they're not willing to bow the knee. They would rather
exercise all of the powers and furies of hell to kill every
Christian they can find rather than submit to the claim that
God raised Jesus from the dead and made him Lord of all. Are
you hearing me? That God raised him from the
dead, And made him lord of all It's just it's amazing to me
what paul is doing and I know why he's doing it See you you
can't preach the gospel in the midst of wild animals like these
jews were And like you and I are in our unsafe state Unless you
actually believe this thing And you also believe That the only
way that these people can be saved Is for me to offend them
with this truth that God raised him from the dead, sat him at
his own right hand and gave him to be Lord over all things to
the church. So stay with me again, stay with me again, stay with
me again. See, what I just stated has great value and worth to
me. When a man is preaching this to Muslims, when a man is preaching
this and the echelons of the intellectual halls Scholasticism
when he's preaching to scientists and he's when he's preaching
to politicians when he's preaching to people of power when he's
preaching to the intellectual who has Intellectually argued
himself out of any such notions. Are you hearing me? when that
man stands up or that woman stands up and says the Bible says that
That god raised jesus christ from the dead sat him at his
own right hand and made him lord over everyone including you and
me For a person to say that if it's for a person to be operating
under the power of the spirit of god Are you hearing the power
of the spirit of god over against the face of every impenitent?
heart of humankind That by nature would kill both them and christ
all over again if god left them to it See, this is the nexus
of the gospel ministry right here. If you preach everything
but the cross work of Christ, you are not preaching the truth.
You're not preaching the offensive message of the gospel. See, because
when you preach the resurrection of Christ, you are affirming
that we are all hell bound sinners. You're affirming that we're hell
bound sinners. And here's what else you are affirming. You're
affirming that we cannot fix this problem without bowing the
knee. to the man who was raised from
the dead and is seated at God's right hand. See what you have
done? You've shut everybody up to one way out. And that's faith
in Christ. Watch this now. Basically, when
you declare that truth, you have cast a verdict on that whole
audience. For them to walk away from that
proclamation is for them to say, I do not believe you. And then
to make God a liar. Are you hearing me? There's a
lot going on in the spirit when that opportunity is given. There's
a lot going on. This is why ministers do not
preach the gospel when they preach. This is why people who have an
opportunity to speak to the well-to-do do not actually get to the matter
of sin, death, judgment, atonement, resurrection, justification,
and a returning judgment by the one whom God raised from the
dead because they understand that to teach that is to call
everybody in the room a culpable sinner that has to face God for
having rejected that message right there. See, that message
does not allow you to walk away and say, I'll think about it.
No, no, no. This is not a think about it
moment. The issue is, did the Holy Ghost Work through that
statement, those statements to speak to your heart, grab your
heart, cause your heart to tremble until you harden your heart over
against that revelation. Or did you bow the knee in your
soul and say, you know, that makes all the sense in the world.
You know, that makes all the, the spirit is bearing record
with my spirit, that that is the very truth of God. And if
that's the way that I'm saved, God saved me right now, right
now saved me for Christ's sake. By the way, that's how God saves
just that simple. That's how people get saved right
there. That's how people get saved.
This is why you and I have to preach the cross of Jesus Christ,
because it's right there that they get saved. They don't get
saved by you setting forth some weird, bizarre or unique set
of doctrines. They only get saved when they're
confronted with the person of Christ, the cross of Christ,
the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the exaltation of
Christ, because that's what the Holy Spirit works through. Now,
I'll take a few questions before we close and we'll pick up next
week. Adam, Alex, yeah, yeah, you can run. You can talk up
while he's coming because he got to warm up his leg. He's
a young man, but he got to warm up his leg. Cut the mic on, cut
the mic on. I didn't hear you. In speaking about the resurrection,
I think one of the things that we should glory about is how
efficacious it was that Christ, who's seen that. Can you explain
to me, Mr. Lawyer, what efficacious means?
I went to government school, so I only work with two syllables. Meaning that Christ came into
the world in the form of humans, yet still divine for a specific
purpose. And that purpose was culminated
in the resurrection. And that resurrection was very
effective and successful. And as I stated, efficacious
in dealing with our sin problem. And the point I was trying to
suggest is that the resurrection is glorious. It is the focal
point of our salvation. But more so, it's because of
its efficaciousness. It was effective. You know, this
one work in Christ dying and being raised, it lets us know
that, as you like to say, we're good to go. It was successful. I got you. Okay. I got you. Anybody else? Now, here we go. Run way up here. Anybody else got a question?
I'm going to go with questions for a few minutes. Let me say something
about what Alex said. I wasn't going to expand on it,
but let me help straight. Let me help. Can I expand on
that a little bit, Alex? So what Alex was saying, if I'm
not mistaken, is that he recognizes, having been taught over the years
The consequence and the benefits that fall out of the doctrine
of the resurrection is what we call the implications And so
when he uses the term efficacious what he is doing is saying the
resurrection of Christ was glorious Because it put away my sins Now
I agree with that Right, right Alec, but I agree with that.
Are you guys with me? But here's what I want you to
glory in. I want you to glory in the implications. I want you
to glory in the outcome because the implications and the outcome
are for you if you believe the gospel. But what I want you to
really glory in is the one who died. Because if we don't glory
in him and we're simply glad that he put away our sin, We're still fundamentally operating
out of what I consider a level of unripe fruit that amounts
to being a child that's glad that daddy didn't whoop him.
Daddy whooped big brother so I could get away. Hallelujah. But what the Holy Ghost would
want me to do is marvel at my big brother, at the kind of love
he would demonstrate to take the hit for me the way he took
it in order to let me live. See, that's where the gospel
takes us. Isn't that where the gospel takes us? The gospel takes
us to the love of God revealed in Christ who died for our sins. He liberated us so that we can
marvel at him and towards him. And that's, That's what the father
would want us to do. Take our delight in the son,
just like he took the delight in the son. Now you and I are
going to grow up when we start loving the son like the father
loves him. Are y'all with me? Because of
what he did. All right, next question. Put
it to your mouth. Pastor, could you conflate Ephesians
2.28 and Philippians 1.27? Could I compare? You can do that. Can I compare Ephesians 2.28
with Philippians 1.27? Yes. All right, what does Ephesians
chapter 2.28 look like? Our tech guy will get it up in
a second. All right, you want to fix that,
brother? I certainly can't conflate Ephesians 2.28. How about Ephesians
1.28? Okay. And then Philippians 1,
27. Okay. So in Philippians two, Ephesians two, eight, you guys
know Ephesians two, eight, right? For by grace are you saved through
faith that not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works.
Less than he mentioned both y'all. Y'all know that y'all memorize
that, right? Okay. Raise your hand so I can make
sure y'all telling the truth. Cause y'all lying. Y'all lying. I'm
up as a big brother. I'm gonna pray for you. Cause
y'all know y'all lying. Y'all didn't even know where we was going
until I quoted. All right. Okay. Okay. We all right. We all go into
heaven as long as we repent for by grace. Are you saved through
faith that not of yourselves is a gift of God. That's a declarative
statement that actually finishes out the testimony of the fact
that God had raised him from the dead. And because God raised
him from the dead, he also raised us from the dead because God
raised Christ from the dead. He raised us from the dead. And
the state that we now find ourselves in is a state of grace. And that's
a gift from God. There ain't no way that you and
I had nothing to do with being where we are in Christ. God did
it all. So we happy, we rejoicing right
there. We worshiping right there. That's worship ground right there,
right? So now the other one is Philippians what? 927? 127. I
know it's late. I know it's late. Philippians
127. All right, so Philippians 127
says this, only let your conduct, behavior, lifestyle be as it
becomes the gospel of Christ. There's a lot there that whether
I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs
that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together
for the faith of the gospel. So verse Philippians 127 is what
we call the net effect of understanding our position according to Ephesians
1.8. Ephesians 1.8 declares our position. We've been saved by
grace. We've been saved by faith through
grace. It's a gift of God so that we're not boasting. We are
seated with Christ in heavenly places. Therefore, live out your
life in relationship to your position in Christ because you
are there as a dignitary, as a ruler, as a royal child of
God to let the world know what the gospel looks like in our
life. You guys follow that? As a child
of God living every day by grace, we are seated in heavenly places
with Christ as royal dignitaries. We're going to see this in Psalm
2 so clearly. We are in a position of absolute
authority so that the world might look upon us and understand the
impact of the gospel in our life. And this is what Jesus prayed
for in John 17, 22, that they might be one with us, Father,
even as I am one with you, that they might be one in me and therefore
one in us, that they might behold my glory and that the world might
know that you sent me. So Christ's desire is that you
and I not only understand our position in Christ, but that
that position motivates us to live like children of God. And
here it speaks to a oneness of theme that basically demonstrates
that we're all on the same page. One spirit, one mind striving
together for the faith of the gospel. And this actually, ladies
and gentlemen, is quite ominous because you don't go into every
local church and see the unity and harmony and oneness of this
centrality of the gospel being preached. You see an emphasis
on this and an emphasis on that and a different behavior here
and a different doctrine there and so much difference that Philippians
1 27 is faintly observed if observed at all, right? Which means we
have failed to rightly assess the blessing of being who we
are in Christ and making that our message instead of some unique
pet peeve we may have in the church. And I'll say it like
this, and I'll take our other question. We won't be long. You
and I will never have unity outside of Christ. Listen carefully to
me. We will not be one until we're
one in Christ. We will not walk in unity until
we walk in the unity of the faith of the gospel of the son of God
who loved us and died for us. That's the only place we can
have unity. A kind of unity that allows the levels of diversity
and distinction to not obscure the unity. but where we fail
to understand the gospel and walk in the centrality of Christ,
we cannot be seen as the brothers and sisters that we have been
called to be in Christ. Am I making some sense? And I
think therefore that it's the role of the church today to give
back to the gospel, because to the degree that they stay away
from the gospel, they are not bringing to pass Philippians
chapter 127. Next question, over here. Hi pastor. Hi sweetheart.
I've been wondering, I've been trying to figure it out and I
haven't came up with it. Why is Israel referred to as
she or her? Okay. Yeah. So, um, there are,
um, what we call gender qualities in grammar, um, in all language,
we have gender qualities and generally the gender quality.
And believe me, this is why the insanity of gender bending that's
taking place. which is leading to an androgynous
culture. Androgyny meaning no gender expression. Androgynous, no gender expression. If it were to follow itself out
to its logical or illogical conclusion, we have to throw away every textbook
in the world. Every textbook in the world has
to be thrown away. Every textbook. Because there
is no textbook in the world that does not operate out of these
three paradigms. Are you ready? male gender, female gender, or
neuter gender. All language works on this construct. Are you guys
hearing me? So when once we start throwing
away the gender specificity of our personhood, we can't no longer
read in the Bible, and he made them male and female. It is utterly irrational to even
begin to tamper with that whole concept of destroying the distinction. See, what the enemy wants to
do is get rid of all clarity, all order, all right, all distinctives,
which God set up for us to have a sense of right and wrong, good
and bad. good and evil, boundaries and
parameters, which are essential to a civil lifestyle. I got to
know what's good and bad, don't you? I got to know what's right
and wrong. I got to know what's up and down. I got to know what's
in and out. I got to know what's black and white. You and I do
too. But once we start destroying that gender specificity, which
God set up in Genesis 1, 26 and 27, the whole world is going
to collapse. Do you hear me? Because now we have no way of
communicating truth at all. But to answer my sister's question,
generally in culture period, right along with biblical theology,
linguistically, cities were identified nominatively, nominally in terms
of their gender as female, because cities represent populaces of
people like children. Are you following? So a city
can start off with one man and one woman, like Adam and Eve,
and then have children. And those children proliferate
until you have a large enough tribe. And then that tribe can
then be its own civilization, right? Prior to the fall, we
could inbreed, right? And so the point is, is that
when we have cities, we're talking about a populace of citizenry
that are called her children. And so this is why Rachel weeping
with her what? Children are weeping for her
what? Children. The idea of the population, that
society being the children of that society, therefore the city
being a woman type, and God is the one who has now produced
that citizenry. The idea of the feminine gender
in the scripture always denotes the grounds for fertile proliferation. the grounds for fertile proliferation. I told you the male species deposits
the what? Seed. But the ground takes in
the seed and produces the offspring. You guys follow that logic and
God carries that analogy over when it comes to the woman in
the scripture. Remember what Deuteronomy 24 said? If the man
who marries his wife goes into her and finds out that she is
unclean, the land is unclean or she's unclean, he can divorce
her, put her away. If she go marry another man and
then try to come back to him, he does not, he cannot receive
her again because the land is what soil spoiled, contaminated
with another seed. Because the way God views it
is, is that the woman's womb is the soil in which life is
nurtured, developed and produced. The cooperative relationship
between the sperm and the ovum. Life is produced out of that
womb many times over to produce the citizenry. So Jerusalem is
in what we call the feminine gender. Jerusalem is in the feminine
gender denoting the city. And in fact, the seven churches
are also in the feminine gender. and the church itself is recognized
as a female, is she not? So these cities, these terms
are often that way. Now you'll have in your linguistics
what we call neuter terms. And neuter terms will be words
like the rock or the mountains, okay? Or the pebbles. Something that does not by way
of analogy has the ability within itself for what? procreation. So you have neuter form. And
in fact, it's interesting. Um, in the Greek, the word Pneuma
or Pneuma, which is the Greek term for what the spirit is in
what we call the neuter form. It's in a neuter form because
the spirit itself doesn't carry in its functional mode, a gender
specificity, a specificity, even though he is called a he itself
in the Functional mode is in the neuter form. That means he
is free The spirit is free to operate in the life of both males
and females to actually procure their work But it's always in
the neuter form. So you have a neuter form a male
form and then a female form of And that's called, that's called,
uh, gender and grammar. It does not actually mean that
Jerusalem is actually a female or that something is actually
masculine, but that's how that, how, how that grammar works.
Does that help a little bit? And you'll see that all through the
Bible where God will talk about the daughters of Jerusalem, the
daughters of Jerusalem. He's talking about the whole
citizenry, both men and women. All right. One more question.
Correct me pastor if my understanding is wrong now, you know, I'm gonna
do that brother, you know, I'm gonna do that The church is the
bride of Christ right from Pentecost to the last person to be saved
before the rapture, right? So that will be that will be
the The bride now John the Baptist is the old the last of the Old
Testament prophets So he is not part of the church and all The
Old Testament saints who are saved, like him, will not be
part of the bride, but be the friend of the bride, like the
best man in a wedding. I don't agree with that. What's your name, my brother?
Joseph. Joseph. I'm so glad I asked you that.
I've been thinking your name is Herb. He's a member of grace too, been
a member of grace for years. I'm sitting there thinking of
her, that's Joseph. So let me help with that a little
bit. So what Joseph did was take a single account of scripture
where John the Baptist is describing his relationship to Jesus in
terms of Jesus's work in preparing the foundation for the New Testament
church. but you heard me say that every
pastor that's faithful to the gospel is a friend of the bridegroom,
didn't you? Is that a legitimate carry over
or no? Well, but how can that be? If
John is an old Testament prophet and I'm a new Testament prophet,
how can I be both a friend of the bridegroom and be the bride
too? Is that possible? Of course it's possible. I see
Ms. Guidry turning her head in circles, almost like Rosemary's
baby, right? I want you to want you to follow
this slide. You got to think this through, huh? Yeah, no,
we've talked about this before. It's typology. It's the principle
of typology. And it all depends on what roles
you're playing. For instance, I'm, I'm both a
father and a husband. I'm also a brother. I'm so a
pastor. So we can have offices. that
are multiple in their facets. And therefore those roles apply
in that different context. Does that follow? But the bigger
issue with what Brother Joseph is talking about is, did the
church start to exist only in the New Testament age or did
it exist in the Old Testament? So what would the answer be?
Yes or no? Did the church exist in the Old
Testament? Yes or no? Let's start a fight. Let's just start a fight right
now. I ain't had a fight in a long time. Let's start a fight. Okay. So what's important about what
he's saying, and we'd have to take it up a little bit later
in terms of a more sort of a comprehensive study, is whether or not when
Jesus says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not
prevail. And that's a future indicative verb for Matthew 16,
18 and 19. And certainly it was conceived and born in Pentecost
in terms of his expression is whether or not the Old Testament
believers are actually part of the New Testament church. And
my answer would be absolutely, they would be part of the New
Testament church. And more than that, exegetically, I could prove
in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter seven, that the children
of Israel in the wilderness were called the Ekklesia or the church
in the wilderness. So Stephen called Israel, the
church in the wilderness, because remember saints, grammatically
the word church is ekklesia, and ekklesia means the what?
Called out ones. So what we have in the New Testament
was modeled and foreshadowed in the Old. The Old Testament
foreshadowed and modeled what in the New Testament is largely
demonstrated more on a spiritual level what was done on a physical
and political level. Was Israel called out of Egypt?
Was Israel established as God's body politic in the wilderness
under the constitution of the law and therefore made his congregation,
which is the same as Ecclesia, his church. And in fact, this
is what Jesus says in the book of Psalms 40 around verse nine,
I will preach righteousness to the great congregation. Same
concept of the church. So understand that Israel was
the Old Testament church. The New Testament church is largely
made up of Gentiles with a spattering of Jews. The Old Testament church
was largely made up of Jews with a spattering of what? So the
roles were reversed in this New Testament age. Both churches
come together in Christ. Is that true? So he has made
of twain one new man, so making peace. In other words, there
are not two bodies. There's one body, Jew and Gentile
in Christ. And in fact, when you get to
the final vision of the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21, 12 gates, 12
foundations, 12 apostles, the 12 tribes of Israel, all one
Jerusalem, all one body of Christ. So listen to Jesus in John chapter
10 now. I'm waxing now. I'm waxing now. He come to verses
rushing in the support pastor So in John's John's gospel chapter
10, here's what Jesus says many sheep have I that are not of
this foe? Them also must I bring in and
there will be how many foes and how many shepherds? one foe one
shepherd Does that make some sense a little bit Joseph? So
it'll be, you gotta be very careful when you're trying to build your
theology to make sure what you do is you can take a conclusion,
set it in the air. Don't nail it down as true until
you allow that conclusion to be filtered through the whole
redemptive scheme. And this is where knowing the
New Testament is very important because New Testament language
will make sure that you don't veer to one end or the other.
Am I making some sense? All right, let's close and pray. Chana just got to have a, go
ahead on Chana. Oh yeah, yeah, hold on, hold
on, saints. This is very important. She gonna kill me if I don't
do this. Well, no, tomorrow we're having a, our revelations ministry
is binding Bibles, preparing Bibles for shipping them out
to our brothers and sisters that are in prison. And we'll start
at 8.30 in the morning. No, no, I ain't gonna be here,
I just need to know when y'all gonna start. Huh? Oh, she's saying eight o'clock
in the morning. Okay, from eight to two, they'll be here. But
anyone who wants to come help, it is a noble cause. You can
come spend an hour, hour and a half. Now, let me say this,
when you come, don't come in the sanctuary, because I'm doing
a wedding here tomorrow. But the wedding starts at one.
But we have to prepare at 11. So they'll be over in the fellowship
hall if you wanna come help them out. And the more, the quicker
they'll get done. Anyhow, let's pray. I think that's
it. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for my brothers and sisters and their patience as
we study your word. We ask, Lord, that the word would
go deep down into our soul. Take root downward, bear fruit
upward. Help us to be able to rightly divide your word so that
we can actually testify to the truth with some authority. Help
us to also do it in love knowing that this is all about you. Give
everyone here traveling mercies, prepare them to worship you on
Sunday, wherever they worship you in a manner that glorifies
and honors you. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you guys.