evening if you will let's uh
turn our bibles to john 14 john 14 this is a pretty well-known
passage of scripture and i hope you'll see it with fresh eyes
with me this is real important Um, if I bought you a house and
I said, sit down, I'm going to tell you about the house. Would
you listen to me? Would you want to know something
about that house? What if you'd done something bad? And I went
to the courthouse and I said, I took care of it. You said,
well, what'd you do? I said, I took care of it. Yeah, well, I want to know why
you took care of it, how you took care of it. Is that important
to you? That's important to us, isn't it? John 14, well, let's
look back in chapter 13, verse 36, John 13, 36. Lord just gave the command to
love one another as I've loved you. And Peter said to him there
in John 13, 36, Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whether thou
goest, Jesus answered him, whether I go, thou canst not follow me
now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him,
Lord, why can I not follow thee? I'll lay down my life for thy
sake. Jesus answered, wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow till
thou hast denied me thrice. Let not your heart be troubled.
That's you. He's still talking to me. You
believe in God, believe also in me. and my father's house
are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. Oh, this is important. I mean,
this is really, you ever heard this? Have you ever read this? All people on the streets could
quote this, can't they? This is, this means something, Bob.
This is good. And if I go to prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that
where I am, there ye may be also. Whether I go, ye know, and the
way ye know." Thomas said unto him, Lord, we know not whether
thou goest. What are you talking about? And
how can we know the way? If we don't know where you're
going, how can I know the way to get there? That's a good question. Would you ask that question?
I would. Hold on now, where are you going?
I need a map. Jesus saith unto him, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. He just asked him the way, didn't
he? He said, I'm the way, I'm the truth, and I'm the life.
He said, no man cometh unto the father but by me. Now if I was
Thomas, I didn't even bring up the father. What are you talking
about? He didn't understand, didn't
have grasp on it. If you had known me, you should have known
my father also. And from henceforth, you know
him and have seen him. These here, it begins in verse
one, let not your heart be troubled. They were troubled. These disciples
were troubled in heart. Why were they? They thought what
was going to take place is that the Lord was going to come. They
knew he was the Christ. They knew he was God in human
flesh. They knew he was the Lord, but they thought he was going
to go set up an earthly kingdom. And they was going to get rid
of them Romans and get back to living the good life. And I'm
going to be a little higher on the pecking order. And then he
said, I got to die. I'm going to go to the father.
And you, you can't come, you can't do go where I got to go.
I'm going to have to go to that cross. You can't do that. I'm going
to have to bear your punishment. You can't do that. I can't. And
then I'm going to sin. And I got to go. He said, another
place of scripture. He said, if I don't go, the Holy
ghost, that will come. I have to. Well, if he didn't
leave, why wouldn't the Holy ghost come? Ain't no good news
to tell. Right. You can't tell what's been finished.
Well, if we get ahold of that, you, what I just said, that's
deep. That's what he comes to tell us of a finished work. Mankind,
natural man, don't know nothing about that's what to do. He said,
if I gotta leave, I'll send a comforter and he's gonna comfort you by
saying it's done. Your sin, yeah, he's righteousness. It's done,
that work's done. They believed on the Lord, but
they didn't grasp on what's going on. They didn't know why he was
leaving. He said, y'all, every one of
y'all is gonna deny me and the sheep's gonna be scattered. Don't
you worry. If I go prepare a place for you,
I'll come back and get you. And I'm going to do it. You believe
me. You just keep believing me. But they had heart trouble, heart
trouble. They believed the Lord and their heart was still troubled.
I've had people tell me, Kevin, that can't happen. Uh, well,
you better throw away a lot of the scriptures. Happened to these
fellas. That's happened to me. It happened
to you. Happened to Job. Job didn't have a good handle
on everything, did he? He believed God, but he didn't
comprehend what the Lord was doing. Everything was going great. He was a successful man, had
well-behaved children that had their own houses, and they were
celebrating birthday parties together. He went and made sacrifices
for them. Whirlwind come, tornado came,
kids gone. Land taken, cattle killed, stolen. Servants, you think how long
he was with them servants? part of their whole life is born
in his house. He's not, I watched you grow up. You're 32 years
old now. You got kids. I like your children. Dead. Imagine 90% of the people
you know on this earth getting wiped out of it. You think he
understood that? He was troubled, wasn't he? Said
Job arose and he rent his mantle and shaved his head and he fell
upon the ground. That's troubled. Tear your clothes
off, just ha! Shave your head, cover yourself
with a sackcloth, hit the ground, get down low, and he worshiped
God. He believed God, he knew God to worship him. If somebody
don't know God, can't worship him. He knew God, he worshiped
him. He said, naked came out of my
mother's womb, naked child returned to this, that's true. I know,
Lord, I know. The Lord gave and the Lord hath
taken away, bless me the name of the Lord. That's rough. I mean, you want
to tear your clothes off and shave your head and just put
your face down in the dirt. And you said, Lord, I know this
is for my good. I know it's for your glory. Blessed be the name
of the Lord. A child of God will say that.
And let me tell you something. There's some snot involved. There's
some torn clothes involved. There's trouble. There's heart
trouble. Their hearts were troubled. They
didn't have a graph of what was taking place. They didn't understand
that. You know, we have to walk by faith, don't we? I can see, if I take these glasses
off, I can see from here to the door. I can't see 2000 years
down the road. I know what the Lord's going
to do, but I don't know how he's going to do it. I can't see 2000
years ago when he hung on there. I can't see 4000 years ago. I
can't see eternity past and the councils of God. Can you see? I can't see those things. I don't
have a good grasp. I see through a glass darkly.
I know him. No, I believe him. They believed
him, but they had heart trouble. They had heart trouble. Later
on, Job says, though he slay me yet will I trust him. That
ain't good little Christian Job. That's God speaking. That's a
new creation in him. These disciples were troubled.
He speaks to them. He says, let not your heart be troubled. It
was, that's why I said it. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me. He says, in my father's
house are many mansions. If it were not so, I'd have told
you. He's going to the father. And in his father's house, there's
many mansions, many mansions. People get so worried right there. People are so bound up, they
can't get beyond that. There's mansions. And they're
working so hard for mansions, ain't they? They're working so
hard for mansions on this earth. You want a nice house? Old Joe down the street's got
a nice house, and I want me a nice house. What time does he wake
up? He wakes up at five. I wake up at 4.45. I'm gonna get up
a little bit early. I'm gonna start working a little
bit longer. Get me a nice place too, get air conditioning. We're
working for those things carnally in this world. People want nice
things. natural man is working spiritually
for a mansion. They're trying their best to
build a house in a place they don't even know where it is.
They hear those things. Paul said this, he said, no other
foundation can a man lay than which is laid, and that's Christ
Jesus. He said, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver,
precious stones, can you make gold, silver, precious stones?
You can't, you'd find them. They can be revealed to you.
You can't make those things, can you? And he said, wood, hay,
and stubble. Can you have a hand in growing
wood, hay, and stubble? You sure can. Cane grew vegetables,
didn't he? You got a hand in it? Every man's
work shall be made manifest. What do all these people do?
This is yours, Lord. Anything sweet and precious and long lasting
we have on top of Christ, built on Him as the foundation, that's
His doing too. That's his too. Those mansions,
the literal translation is a dwelling place, a residence, a boat, it's
a place to live. Not something fancy that says
in the father's house, there's a lot of rooms. What's he's telling
them? There's enough places to house
the sands of the sea. My people that's greater than
the sands of the sea, than the stars of heaven, them children
of Abraham, we got room for them, don't you worry. You ain't going
to get left out is what he's saying. Don't be in a rush to
get there. Your place is secure. There's
many mansions, but the master goes on. He says, I go to prepare
a place for you. I go to prepare a place. That's
important. That's important. We have a place
in our natural state. We have a place playing religion.
We have a place living like every other heathen in this world.
Born of Adam, we have a natural place. Born of that first Adam. You know what that place is?
Where Judas went. They prayed and said, Lord, thou
which knowest the hearts of all, show us these two which thou
hast chosen. That's trying to find somebody
to replace Judas. They're in Acts 1. That they may take part
of this ministry and this apostleship from which Judas had by transgression
failed that he might go into his own place. He went to his
own place. We have a place already hatched
out for us. Born of Adam, born of Adam. Remember
Laban? So envious and so jealous, so
conniving and just covetous. Well, no, I'm just in the sheep
raising business. You're covetous. You're trying
to get everything you could. Give me the speckled ones. I
want the spotted ones. I want the ring striped. Then he chased, he pursued him.
He said, you know who I am? It's in my power to kill you,
Jacob. That's what we just looked at,
wasn't it? That was sorted. That was taken
care of, wasn't it? And it said early in the morning,
Laban rose up and kissed his sons and his daughters and blessed
them. And Laban departed and returned to his own place. Balaam
rose up in Numbers 24 and went and returned to his place. Job's
friends, those three miserable comforters, they heard all that
evil come on him, all the things that's happened. And they came,
everyone from their own place. You could tell it too, couldn't
you? What'd you do? What'd you do to yourself, Job?
That's from a place of man. It's from an evil place. The average person thinks that
this earthly carpenter, Jesus, is going to go to heaven and
going to build a subdivision and that he's going to pave the
streets of gold and he's going to fashion all the chandeliers
out of diamonds and he's going to hang gates and fences out
of precious stones. No. No. The preparation of this place.
He already spoke about mansions. Why did he delineate between
the two things, mansions and a place? You want the mansion
or you want the front yard? This is important. The preparation
of this place. This is the place of acceptance
in the sight of the almighty God of heaven and earth. I'm
preparing you a place. I'm preparing you a place of
acceptance with the God you offended. Now that's a place. That ain't
a parking spot. That's a place, isn't it? To
prepare this place, this acceptance, it took the Lord's obedience. The Lord Jesus Christ's obedience.
By one man's disobedience, I was made sin. I fell on Adam. And by the obedience of another,
I was made righteous. We'll take his obedience. He's
made a place of acceptance, a place of righteousness, a place of
holiness. a place of glory, a place of
eternal rest in the presence of God. By his obedience, by his death,
by his resurrection, by his intercession, he prepared a place for those
sinners he came to die for. He prepared a place for those
sheep he came and willingly laid down his life for. By nature, we have no place but
hell. This place prepared by the Holy
One of Israel. It's the place in God's favor.
He said, I'm going to prepare a place for you. This place for
you, God's favorable to you there. When we fail, we fail out of
favor with God. All mankind just walks around
with bumper stickers and it's just, God loves everybody. Well,
he's just a happy old grandpa with a big white beard and just
sweet. And he'll just say, you're sorry. He'll be all right. We
fell out of favor with God. We're in a mess. Outside of Christ, he's angry
with the wicked every day. We're not born in God's favor.
We're born in trespasses and in sins. That's how we were conceived. That's how we come out of the
womb. We were shaped in iniquity. Wasn't it? It says in verse three,
if I go to prepare a place for you, I'll come again and receive
you unto myself that where I am there, you may be also. Verse four, whether I go, you
know, and the way, you know, you know where he's going. I
don't know what it looks like. I can't tell you what it's like
to what ain't like ain't no sin there. He's there. I won't be made like him. I'm
gonna see him as he is face to face. I know that. How are we
gonna get there? Do you know the way? I heard
a man today, somebody was bragging on him, said, oh, he's just such
a warrior for God. He'll just sit down and tell
people the way to go to heaven. He'll explain it to them, how
they can get there. It's a person. He said, you know, you know.
Thomas said unto him, Lord, we know not whether thou goest,
and how can we know the way? He only brought up the need of
the way. He knew that, didn't he? I know I need you to tell
me, talk to me about these things, explain this. I always loved
that Lord gave parables, and he said, if you got ears to hear,
hear. And then the disciples come through and said, Lord,
what'd that mean? He said, sit down, I'll tell you about it. That's the difference
between somebody that's outside of Christ and sonship, isn't
it? Thomas said, what are you talking
about? And he saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and
the life, and no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. So this is the same road, man.
He's the way, he's the truth, he's the life, and no man come
to the Father. That's where we're gonna end up, with the Father,
but by me. I wanna look at these three things. when the Lord went to prepare
a place for us, and you know the way, and you know what it
is, and he said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Boy,
what he's telling them. I mean, he's away, and well,
I ain't gonna die now. Woo! Dodged hell on that one. Oh no, this is an eternal covenant
being fulfilled right in front of their eyes. Turn over to Genesis
chapter two. I wanna look at these three things,
the way, the truth, the lie, but I wanna look at them backwards,
okay? That's how we get to a lot of
things, isn't it? We always come to things backwards. I learn
things backwards sometimes. I wanna look at these backwards.
Here's what the Lord's gonna do for us and what he is to us.
Genesis 2. The Lord goes to prepare a place
for us and we have our own place, just like Judas. It's like all
those outside of Christ, we have hell for our place. And he goes
to prepare a place for us. And he's the way, he's the truth
and the lie. And he's got to do something
for us, for his people, because we lost a lot in the garden.
In Adam, and if you're wrong on a fall, you're wrong on it
all. In Adam, we lost a lot of things, but three things stand
out to me. What's the first thing we lost?
We lost spiritual life. We're breathing, but we lost
spiritual life in Adam. Look here in Genesis 2 verse
15. And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden
of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded
the man saying of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not
eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
surely die. As soon as you eat of that, you're
gonna die, Adam. You're gonna die. But Adam took a bite of
that fruit and he didn't die for another 700 years, did he? We lost a lot. It was spiritual
death whenever he bit that. Paul tells us in Colossians 2,
he said, you being dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision
of your flesh, hast he quickened together with him, having forgiven
all your trespasses. Adam was dead right then, he
didn't recover, he was naked. We died right then. We fell from
favor of God. We earned a different place.
We married in another place, not the place of acceptance,
place of punishment, condemnation right then. And you hath he quickened,
who were dead in trespasses and sins. We've been made alive.
Christ said, I'm the life. He's made us alive. He's quickened
us. We were dead. We lost our life, our spiritual
life. He said, the thief cometh, but
for to steal and to kill and destroy, I'm come that they might
have life. And they might have life more
abundantly. You think about it and color
all the coloring books you want of that Garden of Eden. Glory
is going to be better than that. Adam and Eve were morally innocent. We're made holy. The ability
to sin is not there. That's unbelievable. And with
the one that redeemed us, all the love performed from eternity,
and get to see him. Oh, it's going to be something.
He's the life. We didn't have no life. That
place he's going to prepare, we're going to have to have life,
ain't we? What about truth? He said, I'm the truth. Look
down in chapter three, verse one, Genesis three, verse one. We lost our truth in that garden
too. Genesis 3-1, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast
of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the
woman, Yea, hath God said he should not eat of every tree
of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may
eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said
he shall not eat of it. Neither shall you touch it, lest
ye die. He didn't say that. He said,
don't eat it. When you eat it, you die. And
she said, don't touch it. She's adding to the Lord's word,
isn't she? She wasn't around when that covenant was made.
She hadn't come out of his side yet. And the serpent said unto
woman, ye shall not surely die. He told a part truth. Physically,
you ain't gonna die. You gonna keep on breathing and
sleeping and eating and giving in marriage and taking in marriage
and building buildings. Ain't nothing gonna change. For
God doth know that in the day ye eat hereof, your eyes shall
be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, now that
I looked again at it, and it was pleasant to the eyes and
the tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit
thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her,
and he did eat. You know, it was impressed on
me. Before this, a lie had never been told. He lied to me. What's that? I
never heard no thing called a lie. There's no such thing. A lie
had never been told. It wasn't that Eve believed a
lie, though she did in action, didn't she? She believed the
serpent over the word of the Lord. Verse 17 says Adam was
getting this because he hearkened to the voice of his wife. You
believe your wife more than me. Verse seven. And the eyes of
them both were opened and they knew that they were naked. And
they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves apron. They'd
never been guilt on this earth. Now he's guilty. There had never
been shame on this earth. Now he's covering his nakedness.
There was never any such thing as nakedness. There was nothing
to be ashamed of. God made me. I'm perfect. If
he wanted something on me, he'd put it on me. They heard the voice of the Lord
God walking in the garden in the cool of day and Adam and
his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God
among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto
Adam and said, where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice
in the garden. I was afraid. There'd never been fear. Because I was naked and I hid
myself. You know, all these things, the
guilt, shame, the fear, where'd that come from? From lies. The truth is I'm made exactly
the way the Lord wants me. The truth is I have nothing to
fear. He's holy and right and good. Something's happened. You
see that? There was truth. Now there's no truth. Adam's
lost truth. And he said there in verse 11,
who told you he was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree?
Where have I commanded thee that I should not eat? And the man said, the
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree
and I didn't eat. It's her fault. She did it. But
you gave her to me. It's your fault. Is that true? Truth's gone. Truth's gone. No truth in him. What's in him
now? Blame, deceit, self-promotion, casting blame on others. Now
he's charging God foolishly. This is your fault. This is your
fault. Remember the Lord gave and the
Lord took away from Job. And he said, bless me in the
name of the Lord. And it said in all this, Job sinned not nor
charged God foolishly. Adam's somebody else, isn't he?
You ever charged God foolishly? Why me? No! No! You know what
just happened? No! The Lord did it, didn't he? Why would
we charge him foolishly? David said, the wicked are estranged
from the womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born speaking lies. From a lack of truth, every offspring
of Adam, they lie. Babies cry when they don't need
change. They cry when they ain't hungry. They just cry to lie
to you until you come pick them up. I was talking to a dear, sweet
friend of mine this week. She was telling me years ago,
Miss Davis there in Louisa, Kentucky, if she hears this, she might
get embarrassed. She'll be all right. Sweet lady.
I'd known her a long time. And she said, you know, it was
about 20 some years ago. I was over at her house for Christmas.
And she said, little did I know, she said, I was entertaining
a gospel preacher. And I said, no, you was entertaining the
heathens, but you was entertaining. And she said, that's what my
parents, my mom used to call me. I said, mine too. Mom said,
you heathens get in here. Used to have biblical language
in this nation, didn't we? It's what we are, it's true. There's a way which seems right
under man. There's a way that we think, our truth, that's so
prevalent in this day, isn't it? What's your truth? It don't
matter what your truth is. What's his? He says it's true. The way it seems right on a man,
but the end thereof, those ways are death, but God. We're clean,
we lost our life, our spiritual life, when we think we're alive
because we walk around breathing air. We're conscious. We lost
the truth. We think everything we say is
true. If y'all just get on board with me, this place will be fine.
Abandon everything God says. Throw it in the garbage. We're in a sorry state, ain't
we? We got a place reserved for us. But God, James said of his
own will, just cause he wanted to, cause it made him happy. He wanted to do it and he's going
to do it. Of his own will begat he us in the word of truth. If
you have life in you, it's true. It's his will and it's a word
of truth. Lord prayed to the father in a high priestly prayer
and he said, there are not of this world, Even as I'm not of
this world, he said, sanctify them. We've been begotten of
the Father in truth. Sanctify them through thy truth.
Make them holy. Why? Because thy word's true.
Because thy word's true. The Lord God's, his words are
true. Everything we read, everything
he's ever said, it's true because he says it. That's why. He doesn't just say what is true.
If he says it, that makes it true. That's what it does. But
we're given life by that word of truth. You are sanctified
by the word of truth. What's the word of truth? Who's
the word of truth? Who's his word that is true? He said, I'm the way, I'm the
truth, didn't he? He's the word, he's the word
of truth. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God,
the word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God, and all things were made by him. Without him was
not anything made that was made. In him was life. He's the light. And the life was the light of
men. And the light, the light's truth, isn't it? You can close
your eyes. How many chairs in this room?
I don't know. You open your eyes. There's light now. How many chairs
in the room? I can truthfully tell you how many chairs in this
room. I can count them. The light, truth, Christ, it shineth in
darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. Truth walked this earth. I didn't pay a lick of attention
to him. They killed him. Get this fella
out of here, we can get back to business as usual. Man, you're
ruining my evening. Hurry up, Sabbath's coming up.
I got a timer set on the TV, I'm watching the football game.
Christ the truth. He is the life. Christ is the
truth. And Christ is the way. Did you
catch those definite articles? You notice that on every one
of these, he's not a life. He's the law. He's not a truth. He's the truth. And he's not
a way or a better way, or he's going to show you a way. He is
the way the way. Verse 17, Genesis 3, 17. And
unto Adam, he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice
of thy wife, thou hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded
thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground
for thy sake, and sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of
thy life. Thorns and thistles shall come be bring forth to
thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat
of thy face shalt thou eat thou bread. And now, till thou return
unto the ground, For out of it was thou taken, for dust thou
art, and to dust thou shalt return. The Lord made them coats of skin
after this. He exposed the sin, now in verse 23. Therefore the
Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the
ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man. Well,
he knows which way it is, it's right there. I just come from
there, I know where it is. And he placed to the east of
the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned
every way to keep the way of the tree of life. Go back to
that tree of life, get a hold of it, and take you by it. You
can't. You're spiritually dead. You don't understand anything.
You have no truth in you, and you don't know the way. That
way's shut down. That way's turned off. There's
so, we have little understanding in this nation of finality. Sometimes
you break something and you can't unbreak it. Sometimes you do
something, you can't undo it. We died in that garden. We lost
our understanding in that garden and we can't get back to the
garden, that's where God is. That place, we ain't welcome. We've lost favor, you see that?
He said, I'll go prepare a place for you. He's the way, he's the
truth, he's the life, isn't he? But he's the way. In Numbers
22, it says, God's anger was kindled because he went and the
angel of the Lord stood in the way for the adversary against
him. And he was riding upon his ass and the two servants were
with him. And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in
the way and his sword drawn in his hand. So Balaam was riding
his ass. And the ass turned his side out
of the way and went into the field and Balaam smoked the ass. and turn
her into the ways. Get back in there, we're going.
And the angel of the Lord stood in the path of the vineyards
and a wall on each side, and the walls shrunk in. Every time
he tried to get in there, you're just getting in a tighter corridor
with that sword. That way's cut off from us. We don't have a
way, man can't do it. You can't ride enough horses
there. Turn to Zechariah 13. How are
we gonna get there? We're dead, we don't know nothing,
and we can't get home. How are we gonna get there? We
don't know the way. We can't get there ourselves.
And Zechariah, if you go to Matthew, go backwards two books. Zechariah,
Malachi, Matthew. Zechariah 13. Zechariah 13, seven. It says, Awake, O sword, against
my shepherd. And against the man that is my
fellow, saith the Lord of hosts, smite the shepherd." He said,
I'm gonna go prepare a place for you. I'm gonna lay down my
life. I'm the shepherd. A good shepherd
lays down his life for the sheep. And that sword that you can't
deal with, you can't get there. You're dead. I'm life. You don't
know nothing. I am truth. You can't get there. I'm the way. Against my shepherd and against
the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord our host, smite the
shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. Didn't he say?
Y'all gonna deny me and you're gonna be scattered, but I'll
come back and get you. I'll round you back. Smite the shepherd,
and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn my hand upon
the little ones. When he's smitten, I'll go to the little ones. And
it shall come to pass that in all the land, saith the Lord,
two parts there should be cut off and die, and the third shall
be left therein. And I will bring the third part
through the fire. It's gonna burn. We're gonna
have some hot times. And we'll refine them as silver
is refined. I'm gonna consume all your dross.
through the fiery trials, and I will try them as gold is tried,
and they shall call on my name." If you won the lottery and you
just, you got a brand new Porsche and everything's going great,
you just had a grandbaby and, and just everything's wonderful,
man. I just inherited a house. You
call on the Lord, you cry unto the Lord then? No, you don't.
Whenever you go through them trials, you do. You're like just
gold, just getting heated up, and you know it's good for you,
and you know everything is just around you is crashing and burning,
and you know it's for your good, and you say, bless be the name
of the Lord, because he made you bow. Then you cry on him. They shall
call on my name, and I will hear them. I cried on the Lord, he
heard. That's it. That's all David talked
about, wasn't it? What'd you say? It don't matter. He heard
me. If he hears, that's it. That's all I need. And I will
say, it's my people. And they shall say, the Lord
is my God. I cried. He heard me. And he
said, you're mine. You're mine. And you're my God,
my Lord and my God. What's Thomas going to say at
the end of this? My Lord and my God. Is this just Old Testament
stuff or is this new? That's the scriptures being fulfilled,
isn't it? He said, I'll go prepare a place for you. I'm going to
come back and get you. Look back in our text, John 14. You know, a way, Christ said,
he's the way. If there is a way, this might
seem elementary. It's from someplace to another
place. Is that right? If there's a way, repentance
is the pilgrim of the mind, from the mind of the flesh to the
mind of Christ, right? There's a beginning, a continuance, and
a culmination. If there's a way, you're going
from some place to another place. Well, if Christ is a way, where'd
we come from and to? We went from death to life. We
went from speaking lies to speaking truth, because now we know him,
didn't we? We went from guilt and shame to being glorified. We went from being dark and vile
to being holy and unreprovable before Him in love. He's the
way. He's the way. John 14 verse 1,
let not your heart be troubled. You tried in those fires of the
gold and you tried like silvers were fine. Boy put us in a fire,
didn't he? He said, let not your heart be
troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's
house are many mansions. If it were not so, I'd have told
you. I go to prepare a place for you. Acceptance, the Father
for you. And if I go to prepare that place
for you, it's coming at a pretty penny. If I shed my blood, and
I bear that wrath, and I rise again, I will come again and
receive you unto myself. We're received in the beloved,
aren't we? That where I am, ye may be also. Salvation is a vital, personal
union with the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't say, there's the way,
go do it. He didn't show them a way. He's
the way. And it's not just knowing about
him. It's a vital union with him is life. And that's the truth. Everything else is a lie or pretend
or religion. And he's the way, the only way.
And he said, where I am, that's where you're gonna be also. Where
is he? At the right hand of the father. What's the right hand
of a king? That's the place of acceptance.
You don't just mosey in there. That's the place of love. That's
the place of favor, isn't it? And he said, where's he at now?
Right there. That's where you are right now.
When we're there, we'll realize we've been there all along. because
we're one with him. We're one with him. I have my
representatives in this earth, in this town. Do you know that?
Go read that school board down there at the middle school. Pick
up local paper. I'm down there on the board because
he's down there on the board. And student of the month is going
to do well, isn't it? We are with him. He says, verse
four, and whether I go, you know, you know where I'm going and
you know the way. You know these things. We've
been taught these things. What a precious, what's worth more than that? I want to hear about that,
don't you? And you know what's going to happen? I'm going to
forget. And I'm going to be so down and so low. And I said,
there's no way I'm a child of God. And we just like Thomas. And he says, Thomas said unto
him, Lord, we know not whether thou goest. How can we know the
way? I forgot, or whatever, right? You gotta teach me. Teach me
something, Lord. I'm a little child. I forget
things. Tell me one more time. How many times do you have to
tell your children to shut the door? Teach me. And he says unto him,
I'm the way, the truth, and the life. I'm everything you lost
in that garden. That's me. And I'm gonna prepare
a place for you of acceptance in me. No man cometh unto the
Father. That's why he's talking about
it. But by me, if ye had known me, ye should have known my father
also, and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him."
God's looking you in the eye, Thomas. I'm right here with you. I'll never leave you forsaken.
What was he telling them? You keep looking to me. You keep
looking to me. What are they about going to,
within 24 hours, what are they going to see? High and lifted
up, they're going to see him on Calvary's cross, ain't they?
Look to him. Look to him. After that, where's
he gonna be? On his throne on high, interceding
for us. That's where he is now. Look
to him. Take your burden to the Lord. Will you want to see him
on his throne? Does that make a burden go away? He's sent to
trial. He's sent to fire, didn't he?
To refine us. Look to him. Look to him. Now,
what else do we look to him? God's people look for his coming.
They ain't scared to death of his coming. That's what the heathen
does. Oh, don't come. We don't want
to see him. We want to see him. We want him
to come. We don't hide underneath the
mountains for them to fall on us. We try to get these rocks out
the way. We'll be on mountain Zion. Look for his coming. Look to him, going to that cross,
living for us, dying for us, interceding for us. And boy,
we look for his coming. Dana, it's soon. it soon. It won't be long now. Jared's
gonna graduate high school here in 12 weeks. And I was thinking, it's been
25 years since I graduated high school. I know that's as old
as some of y'all shoes, but to me, that's a long time. That's
over half my life. You know how fast that was? That
fast. Ain't a believer that ever lived
that didn't think the Lord's coming. Eve did. She was wrong. She said,
this is it. Here's the man. I think he's
coming. Why? Because I want him to. You
want him to? And if he don't come to me, that's
fine. I'll go to him. He'll receive me. He'll bring me. Won't he?
I hope that's a blessing to you. Hope you learned something. Brother
Mike.