23 from our hardback teminal
number 23. And let's all stand. Come we that love the Lord, and
let our joys be known. Join in a song with sweet accord,
and thus surround the throne. Let those refuse to sing, who
never knew our God, ? But children of the Heavenly King ? ? May
speak their joys abroad ? ? The hill of Zion yields ? ? A thousand
sacred sweets ? ? Before we reach the heavenly fields ? ? Or walk
the golden streets ? Then let our songs abound and every tear
be dry. We're marching through Emmanuel's
ground to fairer worlds on high. Please be seated. RG? Father, we come before you tonight,
Father, asking that you'll give me the grace, Father, to bring
a gospel message that if there's one here, Father, that's discouraged
or downhearted, that you'll give me a word in due season, Father,
that they might be lifted up. Be with Greg father and Trish
is their way. Give him rest farther, strengthen
him and send him back to us. Refresh father and ready to preach. We ask in Jesus name, Amen. I think probably. If I had the ability and had
the grace. That I could give people comfort
because I went so many years. in total assurance with no comfort. That's the problem with Calvinism. You know these things are true. You know the gospel, but you
don't know what to do about sin. And until God opens our eyes
with how to handle the sin in our lives, we're not ever going
to have comfort. We never are. So I hope, by the
grace of God, that somehow that something I say tonight will
give us comfort. In Hebrews chapter 2, it says, for as much as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself partook of the
same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power
over death, which is the devil. The Lord Jesus Christ came for
a specific purpose, to redeem us from our sin, and that's part
of it. The next verse says that he might
deliver them, who through fear of death, were all their lives
in bondage. Now, I think most people are
like I am, that before God called me, I wasn't afraid to die. That's
just plain stupidity. It's ignorance. After God called
me, then I realized that except for the grace of God, I would
have died. Scripture says that the unsaved
have no bands in their death. They just slip away, just like
my brother did. They don't seem to care. that they're not right with God,
they don't even consider God. The thing about the fear of death
is this, we're not under bondage to it any longer. That's one
of the gifts that the Lord Jesus Christ has given us. There's
three main reasons that we're not under the bondage of fear
and death. The first one is that we worship
a sovereign God. We worship a God that has taken
care of everything. Whatever a sovereign God demands,
a sovereign God provides. That's one of the first thing
that you learn on the way to know and how to handle your sin.
Is that whatever God expects from us, God gives us? That's
the first thing to remember about not being in fear of the bondage
of death now. A couple of weeks ago or months
ago or whatever, Greg preached a message out of Psalms 48. And Psalm 48 and verse 14 has
been one of the greatest comforts to me that I've had in a long,
long time. Without being blasphemous, I'll
say this. 48, 14 is an oatmeal cookie verse. Oatmeal cookies are a comfort
food. You can eat an oatmeal cookie
and the world looks better. Your wife smiles at you. The
birds sing louder. It's a comfort food and this
verse is a comfort verse. If you can just take this and
apply it to ourselves. We will get a better, a better
concept of who God is and what he's done for us and what we
mean to each other and how important these things are. Psalm 48 verse
14 is this. This God is our God forever and
ever. He will guide us even unto death. And I'm going to show you the
comfort that it'll bring to you about the sovereign God we're
talking about. Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verse
39. See now that I am he, even he, and there is no God with me. I kill and I make alive, I wound
and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
This God, this sovereign God that wounds and heals that brings
us to a knowledge of our sin and shows us the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ, this sovereign God that heals us of our sin
and our hatred and gives us a love for one another. No one can take
that away from us because no one can take anything away from
this God. This God is our God forever and
ever. And he will be our guide even
unto death. It's not only a comfort, it's
an affirmation of what we believe. It's one of the, excuse me, one
of the verses that you can apply to anything. Now, the reason
we no longer have a fear of death because we worship a sovereign
God is because he's taken care of everything. And I mean everything. Free will people make a terrible
job out of what they call being saved. Work, work, work, pray,
pray, pray. Everything, everything is a struggle,
never knowing if you did enough, never knowing if you said the
right thing, never knowing if you broke one of the commandments,
never knowing for sure that you're gonna go to heaven. Free will
makes religion a full-time job. But us, on the other hand, we
know that salvation is easy. One reason it's so important
to bring your children to church is this, because then the word
is in their mind. A person can wake up at two o'clock
in the morning for whatever reason. And they can thank a verse, whosoever
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart
that God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. That's how easy it is. A sovereign
God does everything for us. That's why it's easy. Somebody
else did all the work. All we have to do is learn to
sit still and wait on God. That's all we have to do. A sovereign
God brought forth a child. And October the 7th, 1936, a
child of God, and he didn't even know it. He watched over him
until he went through high school until he went to work. He sent
him to Ohio where he found a woman and he married it. She been the
light of his life and the love of his heart ever since. He watched
over this child of God in a very dangerous job. And all of a sudden
he borned him again. And opened his eyes to the fact
that I have loved you from before the foundation of the world.
I've made all of the, all of the things that have to be done.
I've taken care of them. You belong to me. This God is my God forever and
ever. And he will guide me, and he
has guided me, even unto death. That's why I don't have a fear
of death. He's going to take care of me.
He watches over us all. He bounced us around from church
to church, state to state, until he brought us to this church,
Apopka Church. And here, he opened both of our
eyes to the fact that we're sinners, and God took care of that. And
the load, the idea that what's going to happen? What if I don't
have time to discuss these things with the Lord? What if I don't
pray enough? All that's gone. All that's gone. And you'll know
beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever God demands of me, he
has provided. Now, a second reason that we're
not and fear of bondage and bondage and fear of death is this. Because
we know that to be absent from the body is to be present with
the Lord. We know that. So it takes away
the sting of death. There was a certain rich man
clothed in purple and fine linen that fared sumptuously every
day. And a certain beggar named Lazarus
was laid at his gate full of sores. Desiring to be fed with
the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the
dogs came and licked his sores. It came to pass that the beggar
died. And this sovereign God that created
the world. that maintained the world up
until this day and until the Lord comes again. A sovereign
God sent angels down there to get that beggar and bring him
to the bosom of Abraham. Oh, the rich man died and he
was buried. But God does this for us. He will send someone to call
you. He sent Philip to call the Ethiopian
unit. He sent a preacher to call me
and Deanna. He will send someone to call
you because He has foreordained our salvation before the foundation
of the world. Not only that, He'll make us
willing in the day of His power. He'll give us an ear to hear
and an eye to see and a heart to believe the gospel. That's
the second reason we're not under the fear of death bondage. Because we know that to be absent
from the body is to be present with the Lord. Scripture tells
us that the angels look over the walls of heaven, they don't
know what's going on, they watch everything God does. And I'm
sure that they would say this God is our God too. and he watches over us. God takes
care of everything and he will send angels to bring his children
home. It's difficult for us to understand
these things, but they're true. They are definitely true. Now,
I'm always nervous when I start to preach. I'll settle down.
How all the Lord will give me grace in a minute. But it's so
important. That. We are not under the fear
of death. People have looked forward. To
the third reason, we're not afraid. The third reason we're not afraid.
We know we're going to live again. We've already died once. The
children of God were crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, they
live yet not them, yet not I, but Christ live within me and
the life that we now live in the flesh. We live by the faith
of the son of God that loved us and gave herself for us. Not
only that, we've been resurrected with Christ. you have he quickened
who were dead and trespasses and sin. And verse six says that
he's raised us up together with Christ and caused us to sit together
in heavenly places. That's another thing that he
took care of for us. But ever since time started,
people have looked forward to a coming redeemer. And a Redeemer
is a word that encompasses so many things you can't believe
it. A Redeemer not only purges you from the slave block of sin,
a Redeemer not only covers you with his blood, a Redeemer is
not only our city of refuge, a Redeemer is the Jubilee. He puts us back like we were
or like we should be. That is the resurrection of the
dead. And everyone, every child of
God has always looked forward to that Genesis 3 16. The Lord
speaking to the serpent said this, I will put enmity between
thee and the woman between thy seed and her seed and it shall
bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. There's nobody
there but Adam and Eve. So they're looking forward. They're
looking forward to a coming redeemer, the seed of the woman. They're
standing there and creation is a train wreck around them. They've
ruined everything. And yet a merciful God tells
them it's going to be all right. It's going to be good. It's going
to be okay. Because the Lord is coming. The seed of the woman
is going to make all of this right. They've always known it
4,000 years ago. 4,000 years ago, a man named Job in
chapter 19 of Job said this. He said, oh, that my words were
now written, and they were. Oh, that they were printed in
a book, and they are. Oh, that they were graven with
an iron pen and lead in the rock forever. For I know that my Redeemer
liveth and that He'll stand in the latter days upon the earth.
That's the earthly ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the coming Redeemer. God has blessed Job with enough
faith to know that there's going to come a Redeemer whose blood
is going to cover your sin, Job. He's going to see to it that
you're taken care of. He's going to see everything
it takes, Job, to bring you home. But God has given Job enough
faith to see beyond that. Because the next verse says this,
though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God. These eyes shall behold him and
not the eyes of another, though my reign be consumed within me. My understanding, Job is not
only saying the earthly ministry of the Lord, he's saying the
fact that the very body he's in right then. is going to see
God. The very eyes that are in his
head right then are going to see God. Job not only sees the
Lord Jesus Christ ministry, he sees the second coming of the
Lord. He knows that death is not the end of all things. That's why we're not under bondage
for the fear of death. First Thessalonians chapter four
and verse 15 says this. Now there was a contention in
Thessalonica at that time. They believed that when the Lord
came, only the people that were alive would go up with him. If
you're dead, you're just out of luck. And the Holy Spirit
takes care of that because Paul says, this we say unto you by
the word of the Lord, verse 15. that when the Lord comes, that
we which are alive and remain shall not prevent them their
sleep. For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and
a trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. That's
Job and Adam and Eve and Joseph and all the children of God from
day one until the Lord comes back, they're going to rise first.
Then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall
we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort ye one another
with these words. I had a job in Piketon, Ohio,
years and years and years ago. Too far to come home at night.
I had to stay there during the week. And I had not been going
to church too long at that time. And I didn't have enough sense
to know that if it's not a grace church, you're better off with
no church. So I'm out looking for a church
to go to and I went to this one one Wednesday night. Boy, could
those people saying they'd make you envious, Tom. Those people
could sing. A song about three songs and
between that and that fourth one. An old man stood up and
he said, pretty sure I got a question for you. And the preacher said,
what is it? And he said, can you fall from
grace? And the preacher said, I'm going
to let the congregation answer that question. And some said,
you know, once saved, always saved. Others said, oh, that's
what I believe. Some said, oh, I don't know. If you don't lead
the right kind of life, you're not going to be saved. The only
Calvinist in the room, me, I stood up and I said, well, you can
fall from your own steadfastness, but you can never fall from grace.
And that's true. And that preacher said, I believe. that when the Lord comes, when
Jesus Christ appears in the sky, if I'm smoking a cigarette, I'll
go to hell. And I got up and left. I got
up and left. What kind of a man would call
himself a preacher and stand before a bunch of Christians
or people that call themselves Christian and tell them, Jesus
loves you people. God loves you. Jesus died for
your sin. He wants you to be saved. He's
got a plan for your life. He'll watch over you and care
for you, but don't be caught smoking a cigarette. He'll put
you in hell. That's exactly what that man
did. But I'm gonna tell you how we
feel and why we have no fear of death or the Lord coming again.
Micah chapter seven and verse 18. Who is a God like unto thee
that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgressions of the
remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever
for he is quick to show mercy. He will turn again. He will have
compassion on us. He will restrain our iniquities. He will cast all of our sins
into the depths of the sea. Remember the comfort verse? This
God, this God that forgave my iniquities, and after he called
me, he looked past my transgressions. And he did not stay angry at
me. I'm one of his children because
he's quick to show mercy. He did turn again. And he did
have compassion on me. This God restrains our iniquity. We never do the things that are
really, really bad. God stops us one way or another. He restrained my iniquity. He
has cast my sins into the bottom of the sea. This God that has
done these things, this God is my God forever. And He will guide
me even unto death. This God is not that man's God. He has not forgiven his iniquity. He has not passed by his transgression. He is not quick to show him mercy
and he will not restrain his iniquity and his sins are his
own. They're not in the bottom of
the sea. Free will is the curse of this
earth. Free will is the lie that Satan
caused Eve to believe in Adam. He will stand before God. on his own because he doesn't
need Christ. He can stop smoking anytime he
wants to. I don't have the time of day
for a God that would tell me all of these things and then
the first time I light a cigarette throw me into hell. That's your
free will God right there. We don't have to worry about
that. Same job. I had two or three preachers
working for me. One was a holiness preacher. And they called my office one
day and said, Robert is you gotta go ahead and get ahead. Get ahold
of Carl, his sons in the hospital. I don't remember why. So I went
and got him. I said Carl, you have to go to
the hospital. Your boys in the hospital. And I told you I am
so green and grace that I didn't know anything. Here's this holiness
preacher, I said, you want to pray about it before you leave?
He said, no. And he left. Well, it kind of hurt my feeling. I mean, my light is shining,
no doubt. I am the city on the hill. I
am the salt of the earth. Everybody that knows me should
be able to look at me and say, this boy is a Christian. And
yet he didn't want to pray with me. So a couple of days after
he came back, I asked him, I said, Carl, you don't think I'm saved,
do you? And he said, no. And I said, why? Why would you
say a thing like that? He said, because you tell me
you sin. I said, Carl, everybody sins. If you did manage to keep the
Ten Commandments, Carl, there's still the sin of the mind. He
said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. He said, there are thoughts of
sin And there are sinful thoughts. Job. Job lost 10 children. And he lost everything he owned. He lost his health. His wife
told him to curse God and die. He lost three friends. And what
did he learn? What did Job learn through all
of this? He said, I have heard of thee
with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee,
and I hate myself. Job learned that he was a sinner. David committed adultery with
one of his best friend's wife. Then he had the best friend killed. Then the baby died. What did
David learn through all of this? Behold, I am shapen in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me. When it came time for David
to die, he said, although my house, this house, although my
house be not sold with God, he hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, God did everything. and he brought David to the knowledge
he was a sinner and he brought Job to the knowledge he was a
sinner. Thou shalt call his name Jesus
because he shall save his people from their sin. All this was
done that it might be fulfilled by the prophet which said a virgin
shall conceive and bring forth a son and thou shalt call his
name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God with us. God is with us. This God is our God forever. He's not Carl's God. Carl doesn't
need the Lord Jesus Christ. Carl doesn't need God. Carl needs
this willpower to keep himself from sinning. All of his faith,
all of his assurance, all of his comfort is something he has
done. Something he has to do every
day. The Lord has delivered us from
that. The Lord has definitely brought
us out of that. We know that no matter what comes
or goes, God watches over us. God forgives us of our sins.
God restrains our iniquity. God does as God pleases. I can't quite understand people
like that because I never had to go through that. I was never
involved in free will and that's the Lord's blessing. Because
so many people are. Same job. Had an inspector. He was an elder in the assemblies
of God. Outfit. One day the. Office door boom flew open Ralph
stepped up in there He said hey, I said what he said you believe
in predestination. Don't you I said I most certainly
do He said predestination is the devil's lie. I brought myself
in and I can take myself out He went out the door and got
in his truck and left Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3, who has
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ, according
as he has chosen us before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love. having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto
himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the
praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted
in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sin, according to his grace. Ralph just called
God a liar. This God, the God that chose
me before the foundation of the world, the God that predestinated
me to be a child of His, the God that gave me to the Lord
Jesus Christ, put me in union with Him, which is far more than
just giving me to Christ. We actually went into union with
the Lord Jesus Christ, and when He did it, we did it. Not only that, he gave me the
blood of Christ as a covering for my sin and he passed over
me. This God is our God forever and
ever. And he will guide us even unto
death. He's not Ralph Reese's God, not
by any stretch of the imagination. Whom He did predestinate, them
He also called. Romans chapter 8. Whom He called,
them He also justified. Whom He justified, them He also
glorified. What shall we then say to these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? This is the God that is our God
forever and ever. The God that not only called
us, He justified us, He glorified us, and He did this all an eternity
before we were ever here. And if He's for us, who can be
against us? This same God gives us the assurance. That neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor power, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
can separate us from the love of God which is given us in Christ
Jesus. That's the God that I want to
be my God forever and ever. But there's one other thing that
Ralph Reese doesn't know. The Lord Jesus Christ said, My
sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I
give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. my father who gave them me. I said they shall never perish
and no man can pluck them out of my hand. My father who gave
them me is greater than all and no man can pluck them out of
my father's hand. Man, that's good. That's good. We're in the hands of Christ.
We're in the hands of God, but that's not all. I and my father
are one. And we're going to be there forever
and ever. Why would the Lord come back? Job's been in the ground for
what, 4,000 years? A little over 4,000 years. Adam
and Eve, almost twice that long. Why would the Lord come back?
He's coming back for something that's His. He's coming back
for the rest of us. First Corinthians chapter six. Flee fornication. For every sin
that a man committeth is without the body. Doesn't affect your
body. But he that committeth fornication sinneth against his
own body. And then God said this, what?
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? Which is in you. Which you have
of God. You are not your own. You are
bought with the price. Glorified God, therefore, in
your body and in your spirit, which are gods. The Lord's coming
back for the rest of what he bought. This body. That's why
he's coming back. Strange to say no, we don't know
anything about that. No. If I'm going to have bad
news whenever my glorified body, I don't know. And neither does
anybody else. But when the Lord comes back,
the very body that we're in now. Is the body we're going to meet
him in the air with? That's why we don't fear death. What's going to happen? We're
going to go from one state to another. From a state of being
alive with all the problems that goes with it to a state of being
with the Lord. Or if we're alive, when we come,
we're going to go from a state of being in the middle of a sin-filled
rotten world to a state of being with him in the air. And so shall
we ever be with the Lord. That's why we're not afraid.
That's why there's no fear of death in us. I would give anything that I had to be
able to tell people what's really in my heart. the comfort that
I have because the Lord loves me, because Deanna loves me,
because he brought us here where we all love each other. We really
and truly have no idea how much the Lord has blessed us. We really
don't. But there will come a day when
we will understand I'm glad that Greg asked me to
preach tonight. I don't feel much like a preacher
anymore. When I was a Calvinist, I could
bring about an hour and a half message on everything but Christ.
But whenever the Lord calls you to the knowledge that you're
not all that good, you're not all that smart, you lose your
self-confidence a lot of it, and you lose the ability to tell
people What you would really like. I would really like to
say something. That would comfort someone in
need and I don't know how. I just know this. There's going
to be an end to all of this sooner or later. They will come a time
when nothing that's bothering us today will mean anything. We won't have any problem when
we go on to be with the Lord. I would like to be able to tell
you how amazing that the love of God is. And many things that
I've done that are stupid and wrong and should never have been
done. God continues to love me in spite
of myself. What would we do? If the Lord
Jesus Christ was not gluttonous and a winebibber, if he was not
a friend of publicans and sinners, I wouldn't have a friend. Because
I'm a publican and a sinner, and so are all of us. But the
three men that I told you about, they're all under the same condemnation,
and they're all wrapped up in Romans chapter 10 and verse 2. They had a zeal for God, but
not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish a righteousness
of their own, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness
of God, because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. All three of them, I'm sure,
are dead now. Whatever state they died in,
that was it. It's just astounding that a man
could think he could allow God to do something for him. allow
God to save his soul, that he would have the strength to stand
up and fight sin and be a warrior of God. It's just, it's amazing
because we know who God is and they don't. They don't. Father, we thank you for all
you've done for us, Father. You've done for us what we could
never do for ourselves, Father. We remain in sin, we remain in
ignorance, Father, and you restrain our iniquity, Father, and you
pass by our transgression because you love us, Father. You have
done all these things for us, Father, and we can't do anything
in return except glorify your name and praise your name. Be
with Greg, Father, and Trish, and bring him back with us, Father,
and refresh him, strengthen him, and give him grace, Father. We
ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Oh God our help in ages past
our hope for years to come our shelter from the stormy blast
and our eternal Under the shadow of thy throne,
still may we dwell secure. Sufficient is thine arm alone,
and our defense is sure. ? Before the hills in order stood
? ? Our earth received her frame ? ? From everlasting thou art
God ? ? To endless years the same ? Time, like an ever-rolling
stream, bears all its sons away. They fly forgotten as a dream,
dies at the opening day. O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come. Be thou our guide while life
shall last, and our eternal home. Yeah. Yeah.