In Acts chapter 13, we left off
last time at verse 21. And in verse 21, we mark that
it says, afterwards they desired a king. And we've been building
on the basic premise of a scriptural assertion. And that is, every
time man chooses without the assistance of God, without the
grace and guidance of God, his choice is going to always be
what? Wrong. Every time man chooses outside
of the counsel of God, the grace of God, the guidance of God,
his decisions will be wrong. So King Saul became a major paradigm
for us, a major model of what goes wrong when we choose to
do something out of our own agenda, with our own goals and view,
and not really submitting to the will of God. If you don't
know, actually, as the Bible will do from time to time, It
will exercise a play on words. So do you know what the word
Saul means? Asked for, asked for. So God does have a sort of divine
sense of humor because they asked for a king, didn't they? And
they got one. And we looked extensively at
Saul as he not only was the request of the children of Israel, but
we had to play out biblical principles which says as the priest so are
the people whatever leadership you desire whatever leadership
you are inclined to that leadership is going to ultimately reflect
the desires of your own heart as well so as the leadership
goes bad so the people go bad they are two sides often of the
same coin. One is the root, the other is
the fruit. And so the first 40 years of
Israel's monarchy was tumultuous and problematic because the leadership
was that of a king who really operated out of his own strength
and according to his own wisdom. And he did not please God. And
where we were last week was working through extensively point number
five, the witch of Endor, a demonic delusion of which I treated that
subject at length for last week's class, which we won't go over
again. But we made sure that we understood that historical
epic of how Saul died after having his delusion affirmed by a familiar
spirit at the hands of this witch. He left, and if you guys would
have read the subsequent chapters, he would have been hunted down
and engaged in a battle with the Philistines, and they would
have wounded him to death. He would not have died right
then and there, but he was dying. And an Egyptian happened to be
in the mist, and Saul requested that the Egyptian thrust him
through. So Saul technically died at the hands of the Philistines
and at the hands of the Egyptians. And if we would have taken those
two concepts, we would have understood that the Egyptians were where
Israel had come out of, and the Philistines were the major problem
that Israel could never overcome. So Saul is a picture then of
a religious institution that succumbed to its original native
unregenerate state in the Egyptian, and then also succumb to its
fallen nature in terms of its inclination to the flesh, which
was represented by the Philistines, a very ominous, ominous warning
to Israel. And I want you to mark with me
Hosea chapter 14, verse 11, so that we can seal to our thoughts
this reality. When God tells us if we're going
to make decisions that we want to make sure that those decisions
are based upon God's will and God's word, he means that. So when we read Proverbs chapter
3, 5, which many of us have memorized at length, trust in the Lord
with all thine heart. Lean not unto your own understanding,
but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your
steps. He will bring it to pass. Without
that sort of axiom of life, our decisions can either be helter-skelter. And what that would mean is that
It will be a hodgepodge of blessings and cursings as a consequence
of not being consistent in our walk with God, or we can just
find ourselves in a trail of difficulty that amounts to a
real bad witness in our life. Because according to John 15,
verse five, six, seven, and eight, without him, we can what? Right,
and so one of the things the Christian will learn if it kills
him, is that you cannot do the Christian life without Christ.
We can pretend to, but it can't be done. What God calls for in
terms of our living for his glory requires our continual and unending
dependence upon him, which model leadership in the church is supposed
to exemplify. If the people of God are going
to be comfortable with obeying Christ in a sincere and a consistent
and a persistent level, they're going to see it modeled in the
leaders. The leaders are not going to be people who are willful
and self-driven and committed to sort of newfangled ideas and
driven by their own carnal passions. The leadership is going to be
patient, diligent, committed to biblical principles. They're
going to demonstrate very clearly that they wait on the Lord to
actually bring to pass plans that they have prayed for and
patiently worked through a biblical affirmation. And that sustains
the presence of the kingdom of God in the church, which is righteousness,
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. So where the people of God are
not operating out of the principles of the kingdom of God, righteousness,
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, the absence of that will be filled,
that vacuum will be filled with trouble. We can be sure that
trouble is a tool that God uses to help us understand that we
are off course true We can be sure of that with the exception
of trouble coming Existentially from the outside because of our
obedience to Christ but when we talk about that kind of existential
trouble that external trouble coming towards us it comes towards
us as but we have a buffer, we have a shield, we have a refuge,
and that refuge is the presence of God, and righteousness, and
peace, and joy, and the Holy Ghost. In the midst of trouble,
at that point, we are just enduring suffering for righteousness'
sake, and there's a lot of grace that is given to the child of
God when he or she or they are suffering for righteousness'
sake. And you know it. One of the things the Spirit
of God does is gives you assurance that he is with you, when you
are suffering for righteousness sake. When you are not suffering
for righteousness sake, he does not give you assurance, which
is one of the evidences necessary for you to quickly run to Christ,
because assurance is something that the believer has a right
to when they actually deal with their Heavenly Father honestly. Here's what Hosea chapter 14
says. Hosea is like the counterpart
to Jeremiah. Jeremiah is dealing with the
two Southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin, Judah and Jerusalem,
Benjamin and Judah, which is the Jerusalem area all the way
down South. And Hosea is dealing with the 10 Northern tribes from
Israel all the way up to the Galilean area. And Hosea says
in Hosea chapter 14 verse, Well, let me see, where am I
at here? Hosea chapter 13, it has to be 13 verse 11. You don't
have a 14 verse 11, do you? Oh, you do? You got a Hosea 14,
11? Yeah, I don't either. Okay, sorry, it's Hosea chapter
13 verse 11, but I'm going to start at Hosea 11 verse 10, 13
verse 10, I'm sorry. And we've come here before, but
it's important for you to see this because what Hosea does
as he's admonishing Israel in about the 8th century BC is taking
them all the way back to their original problem. And that is
they wanted to be a monarchy with a political presence in
the world, much like all the other kingdoms. And God was jealous
for that, was he not? Didn't God originally call Israel
out of Egypt? to be their king. And so for
Israel to want a human earthly king was for them to reject God. So now Hosea is bringing that
back up. And so what this will indicate is that sometimes when
we don't get the fact that we have made a marked error somewhere
back there, we make a mistake, a misstep, a sin or transgression
a year ago or five years ago. It can even be 10 years ago.
And we really aren't reproved behind that or corrected. It
will carry with it consequences that go years in front or ahead. And then somewhere down the line,
we are interrupted in our life because of horrible consequences
that have occurred. And then when we try to solve
those problems, we realize we are to trail that thing all the
way back to a beginning problem. That's right. The conscious is
not clear. It's simply deal with the immediate symptoms at hand.
We got to find the root cause. And that root cause can go back
many, many years. This is what Hosea is doing.
Notice what he says. I'm in verse nine. And it's remarkable because
actually, if you were to start back at verse four, this is why
I said what I said. Yet I am the Lord your God from
the land of Egypt. See it? Taking them all the way
back. And you shall know no other God but me, for there is no Savior
beside me. I knew thee in the wilderness.
We talked about that, right? In a very covenant way. In the
land of great drought. According to their pastor, so
they were filled, they were filled, and their hearts were exalted,
therefore they have forgotten me. Verse 6 warns us about When
God blesses you as he's taking care of you, as he's bringing
you out of bondage into a place of blessing, that there is a
strong propensity on the part of the people of God to forget
God in times of blessing. Is that true? That is a pathology
that we all have. We have a real strong tendency
to forget God when things are going well. So, you know, we may not like
this. But trouble is the best thing for us. So when we cry out, Jesus, keep
me near the cross. Here it comes. Here it comes. It's the pathology of human nature.
Now watch this. Therefore, I will be unto them
as a lion, as a leopard. By the way, I will what? Observe
them. I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps,
and I will rend the call of their heart, and there will I devour
them like a what? Lion. The wild beast shall tear
them. Verses 7 and 8 gives us a composite of the four kingdoms
to which Israel has succumbed to, the Babylonian, Medo-Persian,
the Grecian kingdom, and finally the Roman Empire. Guess what
God says? He worked through all of them
to discipline Israel. You see how he owns that zoomorphism
to himself? I will be like a bear, I'll be
like a lion, I'll be like a leopard. So what God was saying is I brought
those heathen nations to discipline you Because you didn't want me
to be your God. So he says over in verse 9 Oh
Israel you have destroyed yourself, but in me is your help Now here
where is where God? Gives his strongest admonition
to Israel. I will be your what I All right. So when God talks like that,
he's talking in the emphatic of his own prophetic future fulfillment. He ultimately is going to be
the king of his people. Israel, as we have talked about
before, is more than some ethnic group that's excised from the
rest of the world. Israel is an idea. It's God's
ultimate idea. He who rules with God. So that
Israel is not to be viewed merely as one ethnic group among all
ethnic groups in the world, but all of the people of God are
ultimately Israel, are they not? We are the Israel of God according
to Galatians chapter 6. And the child of God that's in
a right relationship with Christ does rule with God. Does rule
with God and we can say then that we are confident that God
will be our king Where is any other that may save you in all
your cities? And notice then the tie-in between
a king and a savior right that our Savior is also our Lord And
he goes on to say your judges whom you said give me a king
and a prince. Can they save you? That's the
rhetorical statement then look at verse 11 I Gave you a king
in my what? and I took him away in my what?
That's exactly right. Who was that king? King Saul,
exactly. Our third point under our fifth,
our third sub point, sub point C under our fifth point is David
raised up the servant son paradigm. So when you are reading the Old
Testament, you really do have to have a real sense of what
I taught our ladies this year, this year, and our guys learned
last year, we call it biblical theology, right? So if you don't
have a solid biblical theology, you really can't understand what's
taking place in terms of the Old Testament activity. Here
we have this narrative of history from the beginning of time and
these major epics taking place, such as the patriarchal period.
And then we have the period of the judges. And then we have
the period of the monarchs or the kings. And we're wondering
what all that is about. Well, we've understood that God
is fulfilling his purpose redemptively through history, are we not?
And we've learned that biblical theology is history according
to whom? Jesus Jesus is biblical theology. The Bible is about our Savior
So when it comes to the monarch, here's what you and I are gonna
learn. Is that when we talk about the monarch? The Choice that
the children of Israel made God had already saw it before time
and God had in his mind what we call a Theo monarchy Atheo
monarchy and he already had one person whom he meant to set up
on that throne. His king would be whom? Jesus. But Jesus would have to come
through two people, Abraham and who? David. I want you to see
this. This is very important for you
to see. So when Israel is rebelling against God and acting up and
acting crazy, God's not moved. We've learned this too. This
is good for you to learn. If you actually believe the God of the
Bible, you know that the God of the Bible never reacts. We
all react because we're not sovereign and we're not omniscient. We
don't see the end from the beginning. You and I act because we're bound
by the limitations of time and circumstances in front of us.
So an event occurs, then we react. But if you were like God, you
could see these events from eternity past. therefore be ready to respond
to them according to your sovereign power and so orchestrate the
actions of men so that they work out according to the will of
God is that true so every action of man does work out it works
out to the glory of God so that God never sweats we sweat God
doesn't sweat We play chess with God, we move a pawn, he moves
a rook, he takes five of our pawns, we move a rook, he runs
a bishop, he takes all of our bishops, he goes checkmate before
we even know the game started. Because God is sovereign like
that, right? And this is the beauty of scripture, it helps
us understand that all things are working together for the
good of those that are the called of God. So even when we read
about God taking away, taking away, that's called a takeaway
principle, right? taking away. It's a horrible thing when God
takes away, especially if God doesn't have something to replace
it. It's a horrible thing when God takes away, for instance,
we are in a takeaway period here in America. I told you about
this principle before, to whom much is given, much is what?
Right. And when we don't act right with
our God, he begins to take the blessings away. Does he not?
And you and I have learned in Isaiah chapter 3 very clear God
says he will take away the wise man. He will take away the prophet.
He will take away the counselor. He will take away the senator.
He will take away the governors. He will take away those leaders.
that are essential to the stability and prosperity of a nation. And
we will only have to replace them, silly men and women, foolish
individuals who are not qualified to lead a bunch of ducks, let
alone eternity bound souls. Am I making some sense? Right,
and so when a nation is governed by unprincipled persons, it's
God disciplining us because we didn't take advantage of the
times of blessing. And I believe that that's where
we are in our nation right now. We are in a takeaway period.
This next election, I hate to be so political, but I love to
make connections between what the Bible says and where we are
in our world, because the Bible's never meant for you and I to
produce what we call sort of a parallel world ism. In other
words, you don't live in the Bible in one way that's so disconnected
from the real world that there is no application. And there
are folks who do that live in these parallel worlds as if there
is no relevance to scripture in our present cultural context.
And, you know, the word of God speaks to every situation that
goes on. Is that true? Very much so. And and as such,
it's important for us to know that God is acting right now
in the midst of our mess here in America. The only question
you and I have to ask is, as God is taking away from us wise
and godly and respectful, at least respectful men, men who
understand what's important with regards to how to lead humanity,
is God going to replace that with good men? Will we see over
the next seven or eight or 10 years or the next 20 years godly,
are good men in places of authority so that we can see a restoration
of those things that are approved of God. Those are the questions
we have to ask. Otherwise, we can expect to continue
to go downhill, don't you think? One bad leader after another
bad leader after another bad leader is only a period of continual
devastation until you can't even recognize what your nation used
to look like. One of the secrets, dirty little
secrets if you don't know it, because if you live sort of in
a confined area where you don't traverse the nation much, don't
really journey from one state to another, is that if you were
to start going through the 51 states, okay, if you were to
travel just through the United States, forget Hawaii, you can
travel to Hawaii if you want to, but if you were just to travel
through the United States, one thing that you would begin to
discover with all of your coastal states, particularly your very
metropolitan areas. And then go through the South,
go through your flyover states. You would see that we are actually
diminishing in our beauty and in our splendor and in our resources. It's a dirty little secret, but
we are already starting to look like a second world and a third
world country in many areas. Our government is pouring money
into certain strategic cities. because they actually serve and
aid and abet their goals and agendas. And when they're doing
international business, they take people to those cities,
but they're not traversing America across the board. We are starting
to look bad. Am I making some sense to you?
But as long as that face of America is not seen universally, we're
not sensitive to the diminishing that's taking place. Will Israel
experience that too? If you really wanted a text to
underscore that, read in your own time, the book of Lamentations.
What Jeremiah said in the book of Lamentations is this, how
has the fine gold diminished? How has the splendor and beauty
of the excellence of Israel tarnished? He's giving the picture of the
splendor and glory of Israel in its days of freshness and
vitality and beauty where the whole world would come, i.e.
in the days of David and Solomon. But subsequent to those days,
Israel started to diminish and Israel started to become very
much like a third world country, even to the point that it was
ultimately and completely devastated. You know, nations come and nations
go. Kingdoms come and kingdoms go,
do they not? I say all that to say that it's very possible that
you and I can look up five or 10 years from now or 20 years
from now and we could be in that same devastating situation where
most of our cars are on an average 10 years old that are on the
road, 12 years old. This is what you see in third
world countries, right? And some of the amenities that
we have now and are used to won't be there anymore. The increase
and inflation and the increase in the cost of so many things
right now are not obviously correctable. The scientists and the people
in the different fields of ecology and agriculture and business
are really worried as to whether or not we're going to recover.
Here in California, we are in trouble. You do know that. The
famine has spoken very clearly in our present time in terms
of the drought and what it's costing in terms of people just
being able to Keep make a living and keep a roof over their head
And as I've said before whenever you are paying as much as we're
paying for water, you are already in trouble spiritually No nation
in the world should have to pay for its water That's a gift from
God You and I, you know, are insensitive then to some of those
little markers that indicate the blessings are being taken
away. Now, mark this, in some of our third world countries,
they are struggling just to have water, aren't they? When you
and I think about some of our African countries where they
have to drink out of these little lakes and little ponds, the filthy
water that's there, It causes my stomach to turn over. I almost
throw up when I think about it. You should too. Because why should
God be so gracious to us and not to them? And those little
babies have to drink that mess of which when we just look at,
it just causes us to repulse. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? And yet we're not far away from that. You may think
we are, but we are not. And these are all the consequences
of judgments. We can make an argument for our
African countries that they had years of blessing and plenty
and rain and now drought has hit them for 10 and 20 years
and the water is gone. Am I making some sense? And God
could be speaking to them about idolatry and all sorts of other
immoral sins which have reaped the consequences of what the
Bible says, ecological judgments will come. There will be famines
and there will be pestilences that often are tools of correction
because of our disobedience. Am I making some sense? I'm glad
and privileged to be talking to you like this because I really
want Christians to think through very holistically and comprehensively
about the voice of God in nature so that you aren't so brutish
and ignorant because you are so detached from the God that
is so involved in the affairs of our life that you do not see
his hand in these matters. You must see his hand in these
matters. If for no other reason to examine
yourself as to whether or not you have a sufficient measure
of mercy in your soul for the sufferings of people who don't
have what you have. You see, we can walk around very comfortable
in our myopic notion that everything is all right because we live
with all of these very available amenities in our life. But that's
not Christianity. Now watch this. Christianity
is thinking globally. and acting locally. So I come home in a moment. Christianity
is thinking globally and acting locally. You got that? Christianity is not thinking
locally and acting locally. That's tribalism. That's a level
of sort of narcissism that distorts the reality of what's really
going on in the world. One of the beauties of technology by
which we can actually see the world via internet and television
and all that all at one time. It allows us now to exercise
our senses and even our resources that we have them to respond
to the plight of our fellow man. Is that true? It allows us to
do that. On Sunday, if everything goes
well, we're gonna have one of our missionary couples who have
come in out of town from some other trips, and they're gonna
be in on Sunday, so I'll give them a chance to speak a little bit. They're
from Kenya, and they do work in Kenya. We have missionaries
that we support in several different countries, but when they talk
to you, you're gonna get a sense, once again, of the challenges,
the arduous challenges of ministry in countries that don't even
come close to having what we have. And I say that because
the Bible is clear that the throne does not endure forever. The
crown doesn't endure forever. And so it is here too. God took
Saul away, but according to point number C, he raised up David. I don't know why we have a black
screen. Turn with me and your Bible to
Psalm 89, 19 through 21. Psalm 89, 19 through 21. Here's what
the text says in Psalm 89, 19 through 21. And this also will
help you and I understand what's about to take place in the narrative
of Acts chapter 13, as Paul is teaching his brethren that God
has been working faithfully to bring to pass his objective of
bringing Jesus into the world. Here's what David says in Psalm
89, 19 through 21, and then 26 through 23. He says in verse
19, you spake in vision to your holy one. And you have said,
I have laid help upon one that is mighty. I have exalted one
chosen out of the people. Now mark this verse 19 is describing
God's counsel and his selection of an individual who comes out
of the people of God, out of the children of God. Is that
true? This individual then serves as a mediator, because remember,
a mediator is always one like the people for whom he is mediating,
but he represents them towards God. So God chooses one out of
the people, and according to the next verse, I have found
who? David, my servant. Do you see? Now watch this. With my holy
oil have I anointed him. Again, I love verse 20, because
verse 20 is dealing with first causes. Now God always knew who
David was, But it was Samuel that anointed him, right? So
we talk about God being first causes and God using the instrumentality
of other persons, but God gets the glory. So God is saying to
you and me, watch this. I did not choose Saul. I chose
David. I did not anoint Saul. I anointed
David. This is important because the
trajectory of our account in Acts chapter 8 is going to lead
us all the way to Jesus through David. If that's true, out of
the 40 monarchs in Israel, 20 on the 10 northern tribes, 20
on the 2 southern tribes, the other 19 really don't matter.
Now follow this, it gives us a wonderful narrative through
the book of the Kings and Chronicles about the conflict that goes
on between the liberal church and the conservative gospel church.
All that's important, but the only thing that matters is the
seed that comes through Abraham and David to whom? To Jesus. And God's gonna deal with all
of that crazy apostasy and departure from biblical truth while he
is protecting his seed. That's exactly right. So it says,
I have anointed him. And then look with me over at
verse 21. It says, with whom my hand shall
be established. That is my will. My arm also
shall strengthen him. In other words, God kept David,
didn't he? Now David had his issues and
David had his battles. And those of us who are going
through the Psalms on Wednesday are beginning to learn the joy
of the Lord when he delights in a man and he delights in a
people, how he keeps that man and keeps that person, keeps
that woman, keeps that people, even though they go through all
kinds of troubles in life. You and I want God to lay his
hand on us and keep us like he did David. And when God keeps
you, there are marked evidences When he keeps you with whom my
hand shall be established my arm shall be strengthened now
go to verse 26 Because verse is 22 and following our promises
to his rebellious children, which I love too, but look at verse
26 He shall cry unto me see verse 26. Did david have the spirit
of adoption? Yes, he did. This is the only
way, you know, your god's elect You will not cry If you are not
god's elect Did saul cry out to god? Did Saul cry out to God? No, he ran to the pagans, didn't
he? David cried and said, you are
my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Did David say
that? Of course he did because that was true. Verse seven, verse
27. Also, I will make him my what? Now this is very important
to know. When God says he's gonna make
David his firstborn, he is actually adopting David as his son to
make David the vicar representing Jesus, who is God's real, true,
authentic, only monogamous son. So what you and I are dealing
with now, as our outline is gonna expose it, is the father-son
paradigm, the king-servant paradigm. There's only three covenant paradigms
in the scriptures that God acknowledges, right? So now watch what he says
in verse 27. Also, I will make him my firstborn,
higher than the kings of the earth. So now this description
cannot actually be fulfilled in David, can it? Because even
though David is a great model and what we have in David and
Saul, as I said last week was Saul is the flesh. David is the
spirit. Saul is Adam one. David is the
last Adam. Saul is the seed that is governed
and controlled by the wicked one, the devil. And David is
the seed that is governed and controlled by God. The seed of
the flesh is always seeking to kill the seed of the Spirit and
so Saul pursued David to death Did he not so you see a magnificent
picture of this battle between Satan and our Lord Jesus Christ
as we have it in the proto evangel of Genesis chapter 3 where his
seed is will bruise his heel and his, Hersey will bruise his
heel and Hersey will crush his head. That battle between Satan
and Christ is gonna work itself out through the scriptures all
the way to the point of the cross. And we here see it described
in the terms of what we would call the, The monarchy Oh ascendance
of Christ in verse 27 Represented by David David wasn't the firstborn
in his own family. Let alone the firstborn in the
kingdom of God But this is a great verse if you wanted to use it
in Colossians chapter 1 where Christ is called the firstborn
of every creature and and has preeminence over all the things
of the earth, it becomes an example of how God makes him to be the
preeminent one. So David is the preeminent one,
even though David doesn't come first, because David is pointing
to whom? He's pointing to Christ. Verses
26 through 34 goes like this then. So he says in verse 28,
my mercy will I keep for him forever, and my covenant shall
stand fast with him. So do you see what's going on
in verse 28? God is assuring us that from David, he will exercise
mercy in David's line all the way up to the coming of Jesus.
My mercy will I keep for him forever and my covenant shall
stand fast with him. This is what I meant earlier. Once David was anointed by God,
God was fine. He wasn't really concerned about
all of these other kings acting up the way they were because
he had already established David. And he knew that out of David's
loins were going to be kings that God would preserve and keep
and lead to Jesus. This is an illusion of Psalm
2. We won't go there, but this is an order for you and I to
understand the backdrop to when we go back to our text in a minute
in Acts 13, why Paul will be so terse and so quick in his
speaking. So we read in verse 29, His seed
also will I make to endure forever and his throne as the days of
heaven. That means what? Forever. Now
watch this. This is a very important truth
here for you and me. This will help us understand
how God works in history with his people of old and how he
works at present with his people now. If his children forsake
my law and walk not in my judgment. Now God's people wouldn't do
that, would they? No, not God's people. Yes, God's people just
in case you guys are a little slow tonight Please understand
This provisional in verse 30 Underscores the nature of grace
in the gospel of God in relationship to the simple propensities of
God's people who laps When they don't walk close with God, do
you see the provisional you need to see this? To see like God
is not depending upon David's perfect obedience to get us to
Jesus. I He's putting a provisional
in the covenant that underscores that God expects some of his
children to act a fool. But in that covenant provisional,
what God is going to do is chastise and correct and bring us back
in line to make sure we get to who to Jesus. This is good because
I like a provisional like this and I'm glad God put that in
there for me because from some from time to time, I don't walk
in his law. That's true. You don't either. If his children
forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, he goes on to say
in verse 31, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments,
then will I visit their transgressions with the what? And their iniquities
with what? Ooh, see verse 32? So now verse
32 is important for you to grasp. Those of you who understand that
this book is about whom? Right, so when we talk about
the rod and when we talk about the stripes, where are we headed
now? To Calvary. Do you see it? So you see what God does? He
says the problem with sin is such that it can only be remedied
at Calvary. The problem with sin is such
that it can only be remedied at Calvary. Now this is an important
axiom for you and me in this 21st century where we are battling
against arguments over against the relativity of the gospel
in our present age. where arguments are being raised
as to the severity of sin or even the plausibility of sin.
Are you with me? First, plausibility. The vast
majority of our culture today are like apostate Israel. The
vast majority of the people in America are just like apostate
Israel. Can I explain if you don't know?
They have the heritage of the Bible. They have the heritage
of the gospel. They ostensibly are children
of children who were children of folks who grew up in church.
Where much of what we heard was a crystal century Bible-based
theology that permeated our land from its inception. Is that true?
Where it was presumed upon that the true and the living God was
the God of the Bible and that biblical truth was a set of norms
and maxims that we could follow that were accurate and would
lead us to blessing. The absolute truth was something
that we could count on. That the morals and ethics that
come out of scriptural principles are truths that directly come
from God. And if a man lives out those
things, they will be blessed. We do not believe that today
in our present culture. So the average person that you
meet, as I have told you before, is an existentialist, or a pluralist,
or a relativist, and they don't necessarily come to the table
of discussion and dialogue believing in absolute truth. But their
grandmama used to believe in absolute truth. And their granddaddy
used to. And their great-grandparents
just presumed that the Bible was the Word of God. And here
we are, three generations removed from our grandparents who swore
on the Bible, prayed on the Bible. When they were suffering, they
called on the Lord. When they were in trouble, they
opened their Bible and found consolation in Psalm 23 and other
Psalms. They trusted the God of the Bible,
did they not? And here we are today, our great,
great grandchildren are acting such a fool. Well, we don't know
if that's true. We don't know if that's true.
Since they don't know that's whether or not that's true They
don't even really believe that sin is a reality Do you follow
the logic and since they don't believe that sin is a reality?
There is no real reason for us to believe that the death of
Jesus Christ Was essential to remedy a problem that we don't
even believe exists Do you follow the argument? that if in fact
human beings are not exactly and precisely what God says they
are in terms of sinful creatures whose remedy for sin can only
be accomplished by what God did in Jesus at the cross, if they
don't believe that, then the Bible means nothing. It's foolishness
to them. And God's remedy is no remedy
at all. And if that's true, ladies and
gentlemen, we are in for real trouble in our nation. We are
in for real trouble in our nation because people do not see a need
for God to act in love, to visit our transgressions with the rod
or our iniquities with stripes. According to Isaiah chapter 53,
by his stripes we are healed. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. According to Isaiah 53, God placed
his rod on the back of his son and whipped him with the judgments
of his holiness in order to be a sacrifice for sin for those
who would put their trust in him. And interestingly enough,
I perceive that even among us, even right now, some of you might
be shrinking back at the very image of the father disciplining
his son to the degree of beating him and scourging him and whipping
him and slashing him in order to remedy sin. But that's because
we are so removed from a biblical concept of sin. Is that true? We are so far removed from a
biblical concept of sin You know how we can know that we are we
don't discipline our children anymore That's how far we are
from it So all whom the lord loves he
was And because we actually don't believe in the biblical concept
of chastening We scoff at the gospel So the gospel has lost
its power in the church because we don't believe in that cosmic
act of God's discipline on his son vicariously in order to remedy
our sins. So now we have a crossless church. Jesus is a loving person, a great
example of patience and kindness to us, but he is not the object
of God's wrath, essential to remedy our sin problem. What
that means then is our sins remain with us. Is that true? If in fact God is right and we
are sinners, but because we don't believe in the plausibility of
sin, and therefore we don't receive the remedy for sin, which is
the cross work of Christ, our sins still remain. Isn't that
what Jesus said in John chapter 8? If you do not believe that
I am he, you will die in your what? Sins. So if our nation
has rejected the truth of the gospel in the area of the atonement
of Jesus Christ Then the sin remains and all we can expect
are the consequences of it. Does that make some sense? And
we are experiencing the consequences of it So this is God's provisional
for everyone who is a Christian I will visit their transgressions
with the rod and their iniquity with stripes verse 33 Hallelujah Nevertheless, my loving kindness
will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness
to what? My covenant will I not break
nor alter the thing that is gone out of my mouth. Once have I
sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed
shall endure forever and his throne as a son before me, it
shall be established forever as the moon as faithful witnesses,
even in heaven. Salah. That's where David pauses
and tell you and me that God will always have a people out
of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue who are the byproduct
of his only begotten son, the true beloved who actually confirmed
the covenant for us by his death on Calvary so that all of the
benefits of the covenant fall out to us where God has drawn
us by his grace. He has filled us with his spirit.
He has given us the spirit of adoption whereby we cry. He leads
us by the hand. And when we act a fool, our father
disciplines us because he loves us and brings us back into line
because he's conforming us to the image of his darling son,
because God cannot lie. God cannot fail. God cannot what
change. And this is the biblical theological
prism through which the scriptures are giving us this history narrative
of David. So let's go to our next point.
Going back to Acts chapter 13, Abraham, David and Jesus. Abraham,
David and Jesus. And so what the apostle Paul
does in Acts chapter 13, as he stands up and speaks to his Jewish
brethren about the history of Israel, he's getting ready to
say some things to them that they're not going to like, although
the truth of it is incontrovertible. As we saw in Acts chapter 13
verse 21, they chose King Saul, verse 22,
and when God had removed him, he raised up unto them what?
David to be their what? Now watch this, to whom also
he gave testimony and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse,
a man after my own what? which shall fulfill all my will. Now, Paul quickly jumps from
verse 22, and he can do that with us because we've just did
a little biblical theology, haven't we? We've gotten a fairly good
synopsis of the historical narrative of the kings. The only person
we were waiting to come on the scene is David, because out of
David's loins are going to be Judahites who are going to make
it all the way to Jesus. So we get verse 23. Of this man's
seed, God according to his what promise raised unto Israel a
Savior now mark this Jesus see it Jesus so that's why in your
outline point number six Abraham David and who Christ Abraham
David and Christ so those are the patriarchal models that encompasses
God's objective for establishing the Theomonarchy God's objective
of establishing the Theomonarchy is that Abraham was called out
of earth, David was chosen, and Christ is now fulfilling what
God had told David in terms of a son sitting on his throne.
And that is Matthew chapter 1. This is interesting. Go to Matthew
1 verse 1. I just want to show you how the genealogy works in
the opening of Matthew's gospel around this. The book of the
generations of whom? All right, this is beautiful. Now watch what he says here.
This is simple. The son of David, right? The
son of what? Abraham. Stop right there for
a moment. Now, if we were dealing with what we call biblical chronology,
people would argue if they took this literally and did not understand
the way the Jewish genealogies worked particularly patriarchal
calendar paradigms they would say how on earth can you make
Jesus the son of David when David didn't exist when Jesus came
after David a thousand years later obviously Jesus is David's
Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson But you can count those
if you want to get the CD and count So that would mean that
he would have jumped some 40 generations to get to Jesus,
right? But in the Hebrew a son is a son whether he's a son by
one generation or by 40 generations So be careful when you read your
Bible and you get people who want to argue that the Bible
has all kind of errors in it Because they'll look and they'll
say, genealogically, there are gaps here, people are missing.
That means that the writers were not inspired by God and they
made some mistakes. That would be a fallacy. That
would be an assumption that you understand the rule of biblical
chronology. When the rule of biblical chronology
is that for the sake of certain theological truths inherent in
the context, God uses an economy of terminology. And in this case,
the economy of terminology is the number three, from which
we get the concept of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the triune
God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, when we have the book of generations
of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham is
the progenitor of the whole of Israel. David is the beginning
of the monarchical kingdom, and it all terminates in Jesus. Is
that right? So you guys understand that, right? And then if you
were to read it all the way down to Joseph in the text, it would
run 42 generations. And those are not literal generations.
They were more than 42. The number 42 is a very symbolic,
rich number two in Hebrew theology. So in our sixth point, all I
want to do is quickly run through points A, B, and C, because we've
actually talked about them, and then we'll move to point number
seven. Under the Abrahamic David-Christ paradigm, the historical narrative,
we have point number one, the father-son paradigm. Is that
true? So David is the son of Abraham
and Christ is the son of David, covenantally speaking. And for
those of you who are new, when you read your Bible, your Bible
assumes that you have an understanding of the true God and that your
understanding of the true God is that he is a God of covenant.
So like if you read your Bible under the assertion that the
Bible is supposed to be plain and simple to you, that is an
assertion that has no basis in reality. Like your Bible is not
designed for the ignorant, unlearned, simple person to just open up
and read and get. Have you figured that out by
now? Have you figured out when you start reading your Bible
all kind of stuff is going on that basically are assumptions? And here's the first assumption
you must have. that in order for you to understand
how certain books are framed, you must already be in the covenant
community, having been catechized in the nature and character of
God regarding that particular theological subject. For instance,
in the beginning, LOM created the heavens and the earth. The
earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face
of the deep. And Genesis chapter one runs
all the way through to the end of the chapter with God having
said, God having said, God having said, God having said, and on
the first day he did this, on the second day he did that, on
the third day he did this, on the fourth day. It is an eloquent,
very poetic, but very orderly display of the sovereignty of
God and his purpose of creation. When God speaks like he does
in Genesis chapter 1, he's not speaking to ignorant, unlearned
people about how great he is. He's speaking to covenant people
about the nature and character of his will. Covenant people
understand that God is a God of order. That God is a God of
purpose. that God is a God of beauty,
that God is a God of structure, and that within that order, purpose,
beauty, and structure, we get our instructions as to how we
are to walk with God. By the time you get to Genesis
chapter 2, God is clear on how mankind is to respond to the
God that created everything. So when man looks at Genesis
1, he sees God creating the earth, heavens and the earth in six
days. And on the seventh day, what does God do? He rests. And
he gives that cycle and pattern and that temperament and that
structure to his typical son, Adam. And Adam is to mimic God. Adam is to work for God. His
wife and Adam are to work for God. The people of God who know
God are to enter into a covenant relationship with God on the
basis of those cyclical patterns. by which they glorify God in
communion with God, taking care of the earth, honoring God as
Jehovah Elohim. Am I making some sense? And it's
assumed by the covenant people of God that they are the son
of God. The other paradigm, the father-son
paradigm is clearly seen in Genesis 1, 26, when God says, let us
make man in our own image and in our own likeness. So that
Adam becomes the son of God. Is he not the son of God? The
Matthews account says it. And Adam was the son of God. Sorry, the Luke account says
it. And Adam was the son of God. So what is Adam doing when God
creates him? Adam is mimicking his father. Like father, like what? So as
God worked six days, now Adam's gonna work six days. As God rested
on the seventh day, Adam and his family are gonna rest on
the seventh day, enjoy the blessings of God, get on back up on the
first day of the week, and continue working for God. Which is the
plan that God gave all of us, if we are God's children. Do
you guys follow that logic? Very important. So if you don't
think in terms of covenant when you start reading things like
the book of Genesis Are reading things like the book of Exodus
are reading things like the book of Judges without a covenant
prism You're gonna be wondering why is God assuming certain things? Well, that's not God assuming
it. That's us assuming it So if we understand God's covenant
terminology, then we can understand why God acted a certain way at
that time. So there are three models, just in case you want
to write them down. These three models are critical because at
our present time, in our present culture, these three models are
being devastated by the ungodly secular world. First model is
the father-son paradigm. The godly unsecular world wants
to destroy all patriarchal models. This is why I've been teaching
for 20 years. that every man is an endangered
species. I'm talking about male persons.
Is an endangered species under this secular God-hating system. Every male is an endangered species. Do you guys follow that? Every
male. Every male is an endangered species.
What about the women? Here's the challenge with the
women if you guys don't understand it. The woman becomes the ground
upon which life is given But she can't determine the direction
of it. So any person, any entity can enter into her soil. Remember,
the metaphor is of the seed going into the ground. The woman becomes
the ground upon which the seed flourishes and produces. And
this is why the devil has always sought to kill the man-child,
because the man-child carries what? The seed. And this is why
Egypt sought to kill the male children, because the male children
are the heads of the children of Israel. And so if you can
kill the male children, you can just take the woman and use her
to produce as many ungodly children, ungodly seed that you want. See,
the woman becomes neutral ground unless she's willing to go to
war for the glory of God. This is why the first proto-evangelist
was given in Genesis 3.15 to the woman. Say, now you messed
up, sister. Get on back in line. And if you get back in line,
I'll tell you what you're going to do. I'm going to put enmity
between you and the devil. Isn't that what God said? I'm
going to put enmity between you and the devil. What that means
is only godly women will understand how the devil works. Ignorant and ungodly women won't.
Godly women will understand that the devil's whole objective is
to steal, kill and destroy. Can I keep talking? This is very
dangerous in our present culture where feminism is prevalent everywhere
and we don't understand the roots of feminism. But the godly woman
is supposed to be on God's side upholding God's model of creation
and governance. What that means is a godly woman
is not going to let anybody, anyone come up into her. Because he gets to deposit his
seed and produce his kind after his own image in her. Are you
hearing me? Right. And so godly women will
realize that they've got to have a godly man in order to try to
produce a godly offspring. But where women are ignorant,
then the enemy can come in, and particularly when the enemy creates
a dichotomy between the man and the woman where the two are fighting.
And this is what you and I have been dealing with since the fall
of Adam and Eve. Have we not? And it's created a devastating
outcome, not only in the church, but in the world at large. You
guys already see the statistics, if you're honest. The relationship
between men and women in our present culture is so lopsided
in the area of hostilities and antipathies and conflicts and
the battle of the sexes that we've moved away even from that
consideration. Now we are all together in that
whole other category, are we not? That whole other category. Are we in that other category?
The conflicts between men and women have been so massive because
of the ignorance of what God's will is for both the man and
the woman. And because the men have been ignorant and because
the women have been ignorant, we've been fighting each other
and destroying each other. And as a consequence, not only
is the father-son paradigm threatened, but the king-servant paradigm
is threatened. God is king, we are servants,
are we not? But when you and I are fighting in that mode of
hostility, we're not submitting ourselves to the true and the
living God. So every man, every woman is a little despot to themselves,
right? This is what we call autonomy,
right? We are all free moral agents. Isn't that what we say
in theology? We are all free moral agents. And where we fail
to submit to God as servants, we don't recognize him as sovereign
Lord. And where we don't submit to
God as sovereign Lord, then we don't have God's blessings, do
we? That's going back to Proverbs chapter three, just laying this
out so you can see it. So where the enemy tells you,
you know, you, your own person, you, your own boss, you can do
your own thing. The world revolves around you.
That's nothing but anarchy and rebellion. Do you understand
that? First and foremost, you didn't
bring yourself into this world. You were the by-product of two
other wills. So much for free will. Right? So then follow this. Someone
brought you into the world and now you have to ask the question,
now that you're here, what is my role? You don't get to just
cut yourself off from your parents and be your own autonomous individual,
shaping and forming yourself into your own image. That's rebellion
against the plan. That's rebellion against the
plan. And so we have that going on because my people perish for
lack of what? That's right. And because we've
rejected God, God has now left us to ourselves. And we've got
all of these independent, autonomous beings running around free, defining
themselves. Well, that kind of behavior and
mindset and philosophy multiplied by billions is called anarchy
and rebellion and chaos. Yes, it is. And so this is the
battle that you and I have in our present culture. because
what the gospel is really designed to do is recover us from this
chaos. Are you hearing me? Let's see
if I can make this a little bit good on a more pastoral level.
So we live free in this pseudo freedom that we all are told
we have. We're free moral agents. We don't
have to listen to our mom and daddy because they're too stupid
to actually know anything good. That's where we are today. They'll
tell you all archaic sort of antithetical traditional things
that really are not scientifically verified or even practically
beneficial. So hurry up and cut yourself
off from their worldview because you're free to make up your own
mind. Isn't that true? Now watch this. Why is your mind
automatically better than their mind? That's a good question.
Why is your thinking better than your mama and daddy's thinking?
Who told you that? And why did they tell you? Why
did your high school teacher or your college teacher or your
professor tell you that you need to actually extricate yourself
from those old traditional values that your mother and father taught
you? Because they were ignorant, they just didn't know better.
So why is it now that this generation knows better? After all of the
generations up to this present, why do we know better? The second
question that I might proffer after that is, have we done better
since we say we know better? See, because we've been knowing
better for the last 60 or 70 years. For the last 60 or 70
years since the whole central revolution, we've been knowing
better ostensibly. But the question is, have we
done better? When you really look at the statistics, have we done
better as a culture, breaking ourselves away from modernity?
We are a postmodern culture presently that do not believe in the old
values. Have we done better? What's the answer? The statistics
are clear that we have not. And we are still headed in a
trajectory the other way, are we not? So now here's what God
does. I love God. I love God. And I love talking
to people who are unsaved and in all of these different camps.
I really love discussing these things with them. And you Christians
are gonna have to learn how to do it too. This is what we call
in theology homily. This is the conversation. Gotta
have it. Jesus had it. The apostles had it. You gotta
learn how to have it too. Just ask the question, are you better
off doing it your way or God's way? That's the way you can start
the conversation. Tell me, since you kind of just
been carving out your own path, tell me, how well have you done
respecting your own choices? If they're honest, they'll say,
you know, it's a little challenging. That's right, because you're
carving out your own world. When God is plainly said, there
is a way that seemeth good unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of what? That's right. And so going back
to Proverbs chapter three, if you trust in the Lord with all
your heart and you lean not unto your own understanding, but you
acknowledge him in all your ways, he will direct your steps. The
men and women who have been directed by God will tell you that the
life directed by God is far more blessed, far more peaceful than
the life that's left to man's own machinations and agendas.
So the battle that the true church is going to have in this present
generation is trying to persuade our apostate brethren. And that's
the whole secular system. They'll talk like, you know,
they have nothing to do with Christianity, but their grandmother
was Christian. Their great grandmother was Christian
or Jewish or Christian with a biblical worldview. It wasn't 50 generations
ago. It was just around the corner.
So they are the apostate children of the church like Israel was.
Are you guys following me? And God's remedy is to bring
them back into a covenant relationship so that they can be blessed.
What that means, my brothers and sisters, is you and I, who
are hearing the voice of God and being called back to a biblical
worldview, have to embrace that call as being corrective, as
being reformational, as being something that is bringing us
back, versus the idea of basically buying into a philosophy or a
set of concepts and living in the world and basically, as it
were, kind of hodgepodge-ing a few philosophical concepts
from the scriptures and still holding to a secular world system.
If you and I are going to come back to Christ, if we're coming
back to God, we're going to examine all of the assumptions that we
have been taught in our secular life. We got to reevaluate the
definition of manhood, the definition of womanhood, the definition
of the world, the cosmos. We got to reevaluate all of our
secular philosophical ideas and ask ourselves whether or not
those ideas really truly have merit. And what are their consequences?
In other words, Christians are called at this present time to
actually think. Ooh, I know that gives you the
heebie-jeebies, so stay with me for a second. No, Christians
are really called to think. And one of the things that we
have seen occur with the apostasy in the church is this, that the
Christian church has largely lived on sort of a mythical,
mystical, emotional level. Instead of a vital vibrant Propositional
level to engage our brothers and sisters who are in that secular
system Because we're afraid to actually dialogue with them about
what they believe To help them understand what we believe So
what we've been doing is kind of giving them a pass not talking
to them about it and living on the reservation Am I making some
sense? What's the reservation the church? I? This is what I
meant earlier in our message when I said you got to be careful
that your Christianity is not a kind of Christianity that is
sort of this parallel world where you come to church and live in
this religious world with religious mantra and religious sayings
and quick sayings and phrases. Jesus is good. The Lord is good.
Bless the Lord. Hallelujah. All of that stuff
means nothing if it's not anchored to the realities of life. And then when we are actually
building that kind of pseudo reality, we are actually denying
the relevance of the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all creatures. Christ is relevant to every soul. Our job as Christians is to make
Jesus relevant to every soul. Am I making some sense to you
guys? Our job is to be able to talk to people about science
and medicine and education and philosophy and business. and
theology, of course, and social issues, and economic issues.
Because all of them, in reality, have moral, ethical underpinnings
which are inescapable. Are you hearing me? I was listening
to a debate today with James White and a young man, I forget
his first name, his last name is Lee, representing the homosexual
culture. And his conversation along those
lines is trying to sort of contain within his own theological construct,
the idea of being able to be both a homosexual and a Christian
at the same time. Wonderful young man, don't laugh,
because if you don't actually have an argument for it, your
laughter betrays your ignorance, okay? So don't do that. So wonderful
young man, what he's doing is struggling with his feelings
over against his knowledge. So stay with me, because what
some of our Christians do on the heterosexual side is struggle
with their ignorance over against the propositions of scripture
in relationship to the struggles of people who are in these other
categories. And what you and I are supposed to do is go and
get learned up on who our God is, learned up on who we are,
watch this, and learned up on who they are. That's what you're
supposed to do. And so what we're having taking
place is Brother James White is discussing with this young
man how that it's actually not possible to retain a solid biblical
hermeneutic and at the same time profess to be a homosexual. That
you're going to have to actually give up of sound biblical exegesis
in order to say you are a gay Christian. Now, the conversation
is winsome, it's kind, it's nice, it's generous. It's not hostile.
There's no debates. It's one of the things I'm teaching
you guys as you guys listen to the Monday program, right? How
to have the conversation without turning it into ad hominems and
hostile antagonistic debates. You don't have to, you gotta
have the conversation. Because your job is to actually help
people understand what true Christianity is. So that here's what you want
the outcome to be. You want the outcome to be that
as an individual is striving to be sincere about whoever they
think they are or what they are, that in their striving to be
sincere, that they are confronted with an accurate depiction of
biblical truth so that they can take it or leave it. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? I would much rather live with
people on planet earth who don't accept my proposition as to what
the Bible really teaches because they understand it versus them
accepting it, having been distorted and twisted and modified, because
that's going to be a false relationship. Am I making some sense? And vice
versa. I don't want to misinterpret
what they're going through and then read into it assumptions
as a consequence of my ignorance. So what the Christian church
has to do is be able to build an understanding of the world
holistically. and be able to speak into it
vitally and speak into it in a very poignant and relevant
way so that we can make some advancements. You guys remember,
we don't all have to agree, right? We can, the planet, I love the
Lord. Do you know why? He made this globe real big,
big enough for us to live with enough space where people can
hold their ideas and hold their views too. So, so long as we
follow basic decorum of respect for each other as human beings.
Am I making some sense? You don't have to believe what
I believe. I don't have to believe what
you believe. We all have to just try to be
civil about the fact that we don't agree. You know, like I've
said before, um, let me be me and you be you, but we do not
have to agree. You got that? You can be you
and I can be me. We don't have to agree. And so
that's where the problem comes in a lot of times is people fall
apart if they think that you don't agree with them. We don't
have to agree. But what we want to be able to
do is have the conversation in a healthy enough way to show
we understand your position. Do you understand our position?
And then kind of let the chips fall where they may. You know
what I'm describing right now? Freedom. What I'm describing
is freedom. So, so freedom is the ability
for me to process and discover and affirm what I am pursuing
while you're doing the same thing without me being able to actually
force you to hold to my views or vice versa. That's the cost
of freedom. I'd rather have that world than
a world where somebody dominates us and tells us what's right,
even if it's wrong. And that's kind of the problem
we're battling with now when it comes to some of these Supreme
Court decisions. It's just not so weird. We're
battling now with how do we negotiate the power that's coming behind
this trajectory of an agenda at present where these different
assignments of identity are popping up and a bunch of us don't accept
that basic premise of existence. How do we coexist in a free country
under all of these different categories. Is that true? That's
the battle that we're going to have to fight for Christians.
So this is a great time for Christians to actually understand God's
covenant promise to keep us, to keep us as we engage the culture,
because this is great opportunity for what I consider evangelism.
Would you agree? the great opportunity for evangelism.
So, under points A, B, and C, and then I'll open the floor
for a few questions before we go. The father-son paradigm is
asserted. Point B, king-servant covenant
model is established. God is king, David is his servant.
God the father is king, Christ is the quintessential servant,
is he not? And then finally, what model follows that that's
gonna close out humanity? Who knows it? The husband-wife. Right? So this is important for
you if you don't know it already. From a biblical standpoint, this
is why the Bible is ultimately the threat in view in our culture
and in our world. Did you guys hear that? The ultimate
threat in our world is the Bible, not Christians, the Bible. Christians happen to be just
the kind of flesh and blood medium between the secular world system
and the Bible. But really it's the Bible. Because
what those black words say on those white pages is the issue. It's the real issue. So some solutions are, let's
be Christians without the Bible. Is that true? Bunch of Christians
without the Bible. But that's not going to work,
because our DNA is rooted in the Bible. But at least it's
a much more path to peace because as long as you're a Christian
without convictions and without biblical views and without absolutes
and without boundaries and without convictions, then you can get
along with anybody, right? So as you bring the Bible, the
Bible says, oh, there's a problem right there. The Bible says,
right? And so that's the battle that
we're fighting. And it's the last covenant model.
This is why many of us are really worried about the end of Western
civilization and particularly Western culture as we know it.
When we say the end of Western culture, we're not talking about
the end of the world. Some people can't wait till the world end.
Not me, I ain't ready for the world to end. I wanna see a bunch
of other people saved. But some people, you know, we
have an escapist mentality, like I'm ready to go to glory, you
know. But I got relatives that are still lost. And I want them
to come to know Christ. See, cause I actually believe
in the preciousness of salvation. So I'm not so selfish that I
just want to go to glory and leave my unsaved relatives lost.
And I think if you're a real Christian, your heart should
have that same ethic that we should be willing to lay down
our lives for those we love and care about. Is that true? That's
why we stay. What the apostle Paul plainly
said was it would be better for me to be with the Lord, but for
me to stay is more profitable for you. And that's what love
does. So the last model is the model
of the husband-wife, right? That's the marriage model, isn't
it? Well, just think with me for a moment. The marriage model
that we follow comes out of the Bible, doesn't it? You get rid
of the Bible, then you can get rid of biblical what? Marriage. Is that true? Right. Is that
what's under threat right now? Right. Right. The definition
of marriage, according to God, is one man, one woman. Is that
true? So I'm going to settle it down
so we can begin to wrap it up here. That covenant model, according
to the scriptures, closes out the revelation of the Bible.
The first one is the patriarchal model of the father and the son.
The second one is the monarchical model of the king's servant.
I am the Lord, your God, which brought you out of Egypt. You
shall have no other gods before me. We believe in that covenant
model, don't we? The final model is the model of husband and wife.
Who is the husband? Christ. Who is the wife? The
church. So now think about this for a
moment. This is where the battle comes in. If we give up the biblical
definition of marriage and give it over to what's taking place
in terms of our present culture, redefining it and reshaping it
the way that they're doing, we give up Christ in the church.
It's done. The logic is clear. Is the logic
clear? The logic is clear. In fact,
the logic is flawless. You actually have to give it
up. This is why when the Bible talks about creating idols, whatever
idol you create, that you become. Whatever idol you create, that
you become. Whatever image you bow down to
and worship, that you become. And so for us, the icon, the
idol that God creates, the icon is Jesus Christ. So those of
us who see Jesus Christ in all of His splendor and glory, we
become like Him because we're bowing down to Him. He is the
mediator between us and God. And so we are shaped into His
image, conformed into His image. Put another icon up there and
you're going to be shaped into that image. Is that true? Right,
so we know that for our nation to be tampering with the redefining
of marriage the way that it's doing to morphing it in to all
of these different character and manifestations is a gospel
issue. This is not a non-gospel issue. In fact, this is at the height
of the gospel issue. If it prevails in the church
that we have more categories of gender than male and female,
then the gospel is done with. And I'll let that resonate. Any
questions? I got one, two, three. I need
a runner. I need a runner. You can run. You're going to
speak and run too? OK. You know how to cut the mic on?
Mike, you can take this one and run to the back right quick.
So go ahead on. Let's talk up. You got to put it to your mouth.
Some evidences that God is keeping you. Well, you wake up the next
day. That's one. That's one. That's
one. Isn't that legitimate, Saints?
I mean, you know, we're still here, right? And in that sense,
God's keeping everybody, right? That's one. Because now watch
this. Now, my brother just checked out of here today. OK? Not my brother, our brother.
Although my brother is struggling too with the same thing. Our
brother, Daniel Donneville checked out today. So he's gone to glory. 52 years old, died of all sorts
of complications from diabetes. He checked out. God didn't keep
him in that sense. God let him go. But all the rest
of us have been kept. Another evidence that we have
been kept is that we haven't gone crazy. That's number two.
Because you know how some of us on the brink of going crazy?
But god kept us from going crazy today. Is that true? Now you're
laughing but some of us know hallelujah. Thank you lord because
lord I was on the brink of acting an absolute fool And and and
and one of the other other evidences god has kept us is in his providence
He didn't let us do certain things. We wanted to do He's good. He's good. He's good. Is he good?
And then the other thing is he kept our mind stayed on him.
That's the keeping He gave us grace not to go after our covetous
tonight, but rather come to hear the word of God. Aren't you glad
to be here tonight? Yes, you are. He kept you because
you are under biblical teaching. One more time. Do you understand
when the spirit of God is in the teaching, you are as close
to heaven as you are ever going to get nothing in life. is more
sanctified than being in the presence of God under the teaching
of God's Word. Nothing in human experience is
better than the Word of God being opened, being soundly taught,
and us being brought into the revelations of God. Nothing.
According to John 17, 17, that's sanctification. Father, sanctify
them in thy truth, thy word is true. And so we are kept by the
word of God, by the power of God, by the spirit of God. So
those are evidences. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Does that help? What's your question back there? Who else has a question? He'll run. All right, going on,
going on.