you have your outline we are
looking at verse 7 of chapter 11 and I'm going to continue
developing it as we move forward. Your outline is a carryover from
the previous outline where we were dealing with the subject
of the remnant and we have been addressing terminology that the
Apostle Paul uses that if we pay careful attention to it In
the scriptures, we will see a continuity and an understanding of the word.
One of the challenges that I know that is taking place in our generation,
and you probably have felt this in yourself when I'm dealing
with our class. We've got two new classes this
year, and I'm delighted both the men's class and the women's
class dealing with the fundamentals of systematic theology. And so
I get an opportunity to take them to another level of discipline
and structure when it comes to the word of God. Uh, one of the
challenges that I know that you and I are dealing with is that
we, we, um, we may know things about religion and we may know
things about church, but we really don't know the word of God. And
that's just the fact of the matter. I, you know, if you know the
word of God, you're an exception to the rule. But the reality
is, is we know a lot more about the externalities of religion
than we do about the word of God. And it becomes a challenge
for us in this generation. to do what the Bible says do,
and that is to study to show yourself approved under God.
That's 1 Timothy 2, verse 15. Study to show yourself approved
under God, a workman that does not need to be ashamed because
he has learned how to rightly divide the word. And when you
understand that passage, that's not merely dealing with an acumen
to be able to divulge doctrine. What it means is you understand
where you rightly stand before God because you have allowed
the word to tell you the truth. And so when you allow the word
to tell you the truth, you can be clear about where you stand
before God and and where God stands with regards to his salvation
plan. And once you pass that test,
once you gotten to a point where you are serious about God's Word,
and you have been humbled to the point where you acknowledge
that unless God opens your understanding, you can't know the truth, then
God can begin to show you His glory in His Word. Otherwise,
we're kind of like the parable that the preacher said one time
as he was in his study, and as he was studying, a fly started
buzzing about his desk, and it landed on the Scriptures. And
it was scattering around in the scriptures looking for food.
And it stayed there for a good little while. He just sat there
and watched the fly on this page. Now, if it had found a crumb
or something, it would have been happy, but it didn't find anything.
So off it went. That's how a lot of religious
folks are about the Bible. The Bible is not enough for a
religious person when it comes to it actually being effectual
in their life. And so they go off into what
we call existentialism, emotionalism, and experiences, ceremonies,
and all kinds of religious excursions because they have not been able
to enter into the efficacy of the Word of God. To do it, you
have to be humbled. And so when we have our Bible
studies and we are studying the Word of God, I'm increasingly
desirous that we be very serious about this so that we are not
simply going through the bodily exercise of the scriptures and
missing the blessing of the hour where we are missing the blessing.
So look at verse 7 as we make our way throughout. Trust we're
going to get into verses 11 and 12, which is the bulk of our
outline. What then? Israel hath not obtained that
which she seeketh for, But the election have obtained it and
the rest were blinded. That's where we left off last
week. Listen carefully to the phraseology. What then? Let me
make my conclusion. Having spoken to you for two
chapters, chapters nine and chapters 10, we are in chapter 11. So
the apostle says, Israel have not obtained. Israel have not
obtained that which she seeketh for. What was Israel seeking
for? Anyone know? One word. It's the
subject of the whole book of Romans, righteousness. For those of you who are taking
notes, the subject of the apostle's discourse from verse one of Romans
one to the present text is righteousness. His whole object was to help
men and women comprehend the righteousness of God as it is
in Christ. And his conclusion was, Israel,
after having given the panorama or history of their journey,
has not obtained that righteousness. Is that a legitimate conclusion?
That they have not obtained. Then he begins to do the parsing,
which I want you to grasp because this will help you rightly divide
the word. He begins to parse between, that
is to divide, He begins to divide between Israel, and this is so
critical, of the flesh, and Israel, as we said last week, of the
promise. You guys got that? Israel of
the flesh and Israel of the promise. There isn't Israel of the flesh.
They still exist today. And they are still in the same
condition today as they were 2,000 years ago, as they were
1,500 years before Christ. They have not obtained the righteousness
of God. So Paul plainly tells us this
is the characteristic and disposition of the physical descendants of
Abraham. After the flesh, they are not,
watch this, the people of God. They are not. This is another
one of those terms that I would suggest that if you are culturally
captivated and advised by the culture, you need to re-examine
your understanding. To utilize the term the people
of God, truly the people of God, it does not have its origins
or roots or its matrix in genealogy. To be the people of God is to
be connected to God by faith through Jesus Christ. And that's
true whether you were in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. Let me say that again so that
this can be driven home and shape your paradigm of hermeneutic.
To be the people of God, God required from Genesis to Revelation
that in order to be called his people and therefore him to be
called their God, they had to believe him. And so from Genesis
to Revelation, the just shall live by what? That's right. And he, if a man is going to
please God, he must believe that God is. And so when there's a
people group who are obviously demonstrating that they don't
know God and that they don't love God and that they don't
serve God and we'll get into that because he's going to explain
that in the subsequent verses. What we can be sure of is they
are not the people of God. You guys got that? It's very
important to know. And I must remind you, even though
this is a repetitive statement, every week we get more and more
new people, and that's wonderful to have you. My concern is to
make sure that the new folks, when you guys come in, when you
leave, you have heard something you have never heard before.
And not to say that I want you to have taken away or derived
for yourself some new thing, but some clear thing about the
gospel. some clear thing about the Word
of God, so that you might be stirred up and stimulated to
move forward in your obedience to Christ. The Apostle Paul makes
it very clear. The Lord Jesus makes it very
clear that there is an Israel of God. There is a true Jew. There is a true circumcision.
There is a true Jerusalem. They're all called the elect.
They're called the remnant. They're called the people of
God. And when you search the scriptures carefully, they're
made up of Jews and Gentiles from every nation, kindred, tribe,
and tongue. This was the case in the Old
Testament as well as in the New Testament. The distinct difference
between the Old Testament people of God and the New Testament
people of God is that the preponderance of them in the Old Testament
were Jewish because God had a purpose for the Jewish people. But they
were not exclusively Jewish. Am I telling the truth? They
were the preponderantly Jewish people, that is the seed of Abraham,
but not exclusively. In the New Testament, The people
of God are both Jews and Gentiles but the preponderance are now
what? Gentiles. Gentiles. I want you to grasp the analogy
then. A stalk of corn coming up out
of the ground with its stem and its blade and then the corn inside
the the husk and the blade. That stock of corn was national
Israel. The blade was the law system,
its ceremonies and its types, the old covenant system. The
corn are the elect, both Jews and Gentiles. When Jesus comes,
we shed the blade, we shed the stock, and we walk in the fullness
of the corn of the gospel. You guys got that? So that while
we have made progression in terms of the scheme of redemption,
It was a natural outflow of that fundamental premise, which was
rooted in the old covenant system. I say that because of such a
prevailing and perversive ideology, that when you go to talking about
Jesus is everything, and God is no respecter of persons, and
Israel is on the same level with the Gentiles, when it comes to
God's eternal redemption in Christ, you hear all of these cries and
woes and gasps. Let me make it plain. that what
we are dealing with according to the Old Testament and the
New Testament is simply one coming to maturity and termination and
the other one being brought into force and fullness. They are
not at odds. One had its purpose. The Old
Testament had its purpose. It brought us to Jesus. And when Jesus came, he shed
that old system. And then he took off bringing
in Abraham's seed, even as Abraham was promised that he would be
the father of a multitude of nations. Are you guys hearing
me good? Then I can move forward. So as
we were developing last week's argument, what the apostle Paul
did after he denoted and delineated and distinguished between The
Israel that did not obtain God's righteousness or that for which
she sought. And he called them the elect.
We dealt with that. We'll deal with that later on
down the line, too. He said the elect have obtained
it. Now, if Israel didn't obtain it and we have already identified
the it as what? But the elect have. What did
the elect obtain? How? There you go. Two words in Christ. You want to get the answer right
every time it's raised up in theology class? Just go in Jesus,
in Christ. Christ is the answer. You can
just throw that one up, guessing, and 99% of the time you'll get
it right. He is the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end, and the Amen. You guys got that? And God loves to have it that
way. And when God's people grasp it that way, you'll understand
what we call the symmetry and the continuity of the scripture.
And so Paul says this, and here's the part where I want to dig
into now and set up a paradigm for you. And I want you to see
this because when you get true, when you got the truth of the
word, when the truth of the word is at your access, you have what
we call continuity because truth doesn't contradict itself. Haven't
you learned that while you were studying theology and you didn't
necessarily have a proper premise upon which to build your theology,
that you were running into contradictions and antinomies and paradoxes
and conflicts and you didn't know how to resolve them. That's
because you actually were operating on a premise of truth. Facts
and truth are two different things. Propositional issues and assertions
are one thing, but when you have the truth, now you have a foundation
upon which you can build that truth and that house is going
to be edified. The word edified means grow.
And it's so very important for you to know that. You'll know
you're on the right track when things start to come together
the right way. Now I understand this. I didn't
know how that related to this or this related to that, but
now it's making sense. That's called the work of the
spirit of true. You guys got it. So now listen
to what he says, because we're getting ready to break into part
of theologically what we call theodicy. And it's called the
doctrine of reprobation. And it's God's judicial act upon
men when they have been given a testimony of his grace and
they reject it. And the rest were blinded. Do you guys see that? and the
rest were blinded. This is where we took off last
week and the rest were blinded. Israel as a whole missed Christ because they were
blind. And when he came, they crucified
him and God blinded them more. I'm going to explain that. This
is what we were talking about a little bit last week when I
was dealing with the two terms concerning blindness and hardness.
And we were dealing with, because the word can be translated hardness
too. And we were dealing with the parallelism between Pharaoh
and Israel. You guys remember that? And I
want you to see this. These are parallelisms. Parallelisms
are two things that have similar traits. And when we begin to
examine the scriptures in respect to this judicial act of God in
blinding men, one of the first examples of blindness took place
on a large scale and a macro scale with Pharaoh in the book
of Exodus, right? This is on a macro scale. I'm
gonna talk about another blindness too. And the blindness that took
place in Pharaoh's life, it was called hardness, but it's the
same, concept. Hardness and blindness are two
sides of the same coin. The word hardness, both in the
Hebrew and in the Greek, means to weigh down the heart. It means
to burden the heart. It means to make one stiff, make
one rigid, to make a person opposing. He's in an opposing position.
The hard heart is the heart that's resisting the facts. The reason
why the translators will translate the word hardness sometimes in
the gospel translated blindness is because the net effect of
a hard heart is blindness. The net effect of a hard heart
is blindness. And this is where we were moving
last week. I'm going to go back to Acts 13 here in a moment,
but I want to say this on a practical application so that you guys
can feel this so that you can feel this. The net effect of
our hearts being hardened is blindness. Let's make some very
practical application. When you are walking with God
in an obedient state and you are sensitive to his will and
you are sensitive to his providence and working in your life, the
Bible calls that a soft heart. A soft heart is really called
a humble heart. A humble heart can feel and discern
and is concerned about God's will. You know that to be true. When you are concerned about
God's will, you're sensitive to what you're doing, and what
you're not doing, and how you're thinking, and how you're acting,
right? Now, when the heart hardens,
I want this to be driven home, because this will help you in
your practical relationships. particularly husbands and wives,
and parents to children, and children to parents. I'm gonna
make some real application here. I want you to get this. When
your heart is hardened, while you may have heard what
someone said, and rationally understand what they were saying,
you are actually blinded to the importance of what they have
said. Are you hearing me? Because this
is what God is talking about with regards to national Israel.
So that I don't want you to think that you have embraced another
paradox when the Bible says they knew that they had crucified
the Son of God. They knew that they had crucified
the Son of God. How do we know? In the parable
of the vineyard. This is Matthew 21. You don't
have to go there. He lent out his vineyard to certain
husbandmen and they bore fruit and he sent his servants. He
said, I want my fruit. They beat his servants down.
They killed some. He said, at the last, that's
the eschaton. At the last, the eschaton. That
means Jesus coming is the last thing that God is doing. At the
last, I will send my son. Now watch this. Surely they will
revere him. And the text goes on to say,
but when they saw him, they said, this is the air. You know what that means? They
saw him, they understood, they comprehended his calling. That's
why Jesus said, you know what? You guys are guilty because you
saw my works. And you understood what the law
said concerning the qualifications of a legitimate and authentic
prophet. And I've done everything where
none of you can convince me of sin. And yet you still deny the
truth because my word has no place in you. And because you
are of your father, the what? That's John chapter eight, nine
and 10. And then Jesus says, you know what? For this purpose,
have I come into the world. This is John chapter nine, the
latter part, that those who are blind and say they are blind
and acknowledge their blindness might see. those who say they
see might remain blind for this purpose did I come I'm getting
ready to get into that do you know Jesus intentionally blinds
people the father intentionally blinds people and when the father
blinded the rulers of Israel Jesus rejoiced Matthew chapter
11 father I thank you that you have hid these things from the
wise and the prudent And you have revealed them unto who?
See, if the heart's not humble, you won't have access to the
truth. You guys know that this is the case. How many times have
you had to be beat down by the work of the spirit of God because
of your obstinacy? And when you got brought down
low, you came to realize, you know, I didn't see it as I should
have saw it because I was in rebellion. Okay, so let's get
back to the practical thing because I want to drive this home because
the Word of God is designed to apprehend the whole of our life.
In relationships, your spouse is saying something to you, but
you're not listening because your heart is hard. You think
you hear, but you really don't. This is particularly the case
between men and women and men towards women. when you have
a misapprehension and an unbiblical understanding of the call of
your wife in your life. On the other hand, this is very
much the case also with the wife who is arrogant and walking in
a self-autonomous way. When her husband speaks to her,
she operates out of a feeling orientation and she didn't like
the way he said it. And over time, the heart gets
calloused. I'm trying to help you. Because
one of the reasons why our relationships are falling apart is because
of hardness of heart. This is what Jesus said in Matthew
5, Matthew 19, Mark chapter 9. Because of the hardness of your
heart, Moses gave you the writing of divorcement. Will you hear me? The master
said the reason why Moses gave you that narrow window out was
because your hearts were too hard to get along. Got it? I know it hurts, it's just true.
The reason why I'm talking to you like this is because as children
of God, we need to get it right, not only on the vertical level,
but on the horizontal level. A whole lot of people are going
to perish under the wrath of God with a head knowledge, but
a heart that has been calloused over. with a willful, fallen
nature that's sitting on the throne of it. And we wonder why
it is that as I read the Bible, and study the Bible, and go to
church, and scream hallelujah, and do all the other stuff that
you do in church, that I'm still not getting it right in my relationship.
Because there's a cognitive disconnect. Should I stop going on to the
other Bible stuff? You know what a cognitive disconnect
is? No, y'all don't. No, y'all. Who knows what a cognitive
disconnect is? Raise your hand. I'm going to get you now. Don't
be talking. I told you about that on Saturday, ladies. As
I tell our men, don't say you know if you don't know. You don't
know. A cognitive disconnect is when
you act opposite of what you know to be true. You act opposite
of what you know to be true. That's what a cognitive disconnect
is. You are behaving one way, but
you're saying something else. You guys got that? And this is
why God allowed for the satire in scripture. Israel seek it
for righteousness. Well, not really. They only pretend
to seek for righteousness. We know this because when righteousness
showed up in person, you hear what I'm saying? So the Bible
will use what we call satirical language that would give, as
it were, credit to the lip service of the nation. Isaiah 55 is full
of it. You are the people who say you
delight in the Lord, but the reality is my laws and my precepts
are a burden to you. See, that's a cognitive disconnect.
So be very careful that you and I, see what you and I have to
do is when we open the Bible, it has to be first a mirror to
us. If you're going to ever understand
theology is what I'm talking to our ladies about last night.
Theology is both objective and subjective. True theology is
both objective and subjective. You cannot come to know the truth
of God until you are subjectively brought under the influence and
power of the word. You just can't know. Truth is
not meant to be simply bartered from the standpoint of an intellectual
and a rational perspective, and this is what we're seeing with
Israel. God brought Israel into a very dynamic relationship,
and they still missed him because they really only wanted to deal
with him from a distance. But relationship, as you know,
don't work like that. Relationship don't work from
a distance, does it? It just don't. But relationship is hard
because in relationship, you got to admit some things. And
you got to compromise, isn't that right? In relationship,
you got to admit there has to be some give and take. When it
comes to God, God's the one that's always right, and we're the one
that's what? Always wrong. Now you're on your way to glory.
Now you're on your way to glory. In relationship to us and God,
God is always right, and we are always wrong. That's how Paul's
theology was to be radically turned upside down and straightened
out. And he had no problem admitting
what he was by nature. See, that's the first principle
of the work of the spirit of God. He will convince the world
of what? That's right. That's right. And so as Paul
is opening up the subject matter of them being blinded, we use
Pharaoh as an example. Look over in chapter nine again.
I want you to see this. And I'll move forward, I want
you to see this because there's a parallel here that's really
interesting. In Romans chapter nine, verse 17 and 18. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised you up, that I
might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Stop right there. Do you see
the parallelism? between Pharaoh and Israel for
this purpose did God raise Israel up that he might show his power
in them and that his name might be spread through all the earth
do you guys see the parallel so now watch what happens therefore
it goes on to say he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and
whom he will he what that's exactly right And we saw what happened
to Israel to Pharaoh as he hardened his heart continually against
God. Isn't that true? Okay. And so now what I want
you to do is go with me to Ephesians four, and then I'm going to go
back to Acts 13 for a moment and deal with blindness. And
I want to look at a couple of other accounts so that we can move
on into some more positive stuff. But I don't want you to forget
my exhortation to you for the last 25 minutes. When you go home, be Christian.
In Ephesians chapter I want you to hear what the Apostle Paul
says. This is going to be quite interesting because actually
this is going to build upon my argument as to the true Israel
of God versus the false Israel of God or the superficial Israel,
the fleshly Israel. You've heard this before, but
I want you to hear it again. I'm over in Ephesians 4, 17 through
verse 20. Are we there? this I say therefore and testify
in the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk
in the vanity of their mind now Paul is speaking to Gentiles
the Ephesian church was primarily Gentile but not exclusively Gentile
and so he's speaking to the church of God and guess what he's saying
church Don't behave like Gentiles. And what he means by that is
don't behave like a people who are not in covenant with God,
who don't know the gospel and don't have the light of Christ
in their life. So on the one hand, Gentiles
are an ethnos, that is people groups outside of the Jewish
lineage with Abraham. On the other hand, Gentiles are
people who don't know God. You guys got that? And so what
he's saying is, Don't act like you used to act before you were
saying And then he begins to describe
it I want you to see it having the understanding what Is that
what God did to Israel? Absolutely having the understanding
dark and watch this being alienated from the life of God. Is that
what happened to Israel? You better know it Now watch
this through the ignorance that is in them, because of the what? Blindness of the heart. See it? Now watch the next phrase. Who
being passed what? That's what I meant. Now the
Greek word, sclerosion, is the word that's used, no, it's psoresis. We talked about that last week.
It has the same connotation as psoriasis, but it's actually
a callusing that takes place. And it's a callusing that takes
place in the bone where the bone builds up more deposit, bone
deposit, and it grows up over and over, and it gets harder
and harder and harder. This is a medical term for the
continual hardening of the bone. What do we call that, those deposits
that grow on the bone? What is that? Calcium deposits,
exactly. That's the term. The metaphor,
however, signifies a continual hardening. In other words, a
calcium deposit continues to grow. It overlays that which
was already hard with more hardness. And this is the language or the
terminology that Paul is using to describe what happened to
Israel. Let me explain. Israel was blinded all the way
back in the book of Deuteronomy. Isn't that what we've been saying?
Deuteronomy 29, that's 1500 years before Christ. Israel was blinded
in the days of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter six, that's 700
years before Christ. They were blinded in Isaiah chapter
28. They were blinded in Isaiah chapter 29. Israel was blinded
when Jesus came. But when Jesus came, the blindness
increased. And when they crucified him,
the blindness increased even more because they not only sought
to put Jesus to death, but to kill his servants. So the psoriasis,
the calcium deposit is becoming harder and harder and harder.
Paul understands this. How do we know? Because Paul
formally was hard just like Israel. Remember? He consented to their
death. He got papers to take him back
to Jerusalem and killed them. God knocked him down. God blinded
him, Acts 9, to show him that he was what? Blind. Israel was
a type of the, Paul was a type of the nation. God wouldn't let
him into the kingdom of God until he understood that his Judaism
was nothing but blindness. You guys got that? It's very
important for you to understand what's happening. So Paul could
speak to blindness and he could speak to revelation because he
experienced both of them. So when he talks to the Gentiles,
he says, you were past filling because you gave yourselves over
unto lasciviousness. You know what lasciviousness
is? Lust. Yeah, lust. Vileness. Now watch this. You gave yourselves
over to it to work uncleanness with greediness. What he's describing
is an insatiable lust for an unclean lifestyle which separates
you from God. That's how we were in our Gentile
state. I'm here to tell you now. You
might think you were a pretty good person, but I'm here to
tell you you weren't. You are vile in the sight of God. Vile. Now watch what he says in verse
20. But you have not so learned Christ. You didn't learn Christ
in order to continue doing the vileness that you did in an unsafe
state. Are you hearing me? Good. That's
important for you to know that. This is very important for you
to know it. Either you were translated out of darkness into the kingdom
of his dear son, either you were born again and received the incorruptible
seed of the gospel, the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba,
Father, and you became a new creature in Christ and you entered
into the struggle like the rest of us, or you're still dead in
trespasses and sin with the word of God on your lips. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? Very important. Very important. If you're struggling, I'll tell
you, welcome to the struggle. And I tell saints this thing,
now hear this now, I'm just gonna let you off the hook a little
bit. I don't want you to go to hell, but I'm gonna let you off the
hook a little bit. Hear me? Struggle with your sin. Do you hear me? Struggle with it. Don't play
games with that serpent, but don't struggle with Jesus. Got
it? Don't struggle with Jesus. Don't
twist his word to accommodate your sin. It's very important. All right, now go with me back
to Acts chapter 13. Acts 13, because that's where
we were last time where the apostle Paul was confronted by a Jew
whose name was Bar-Jesus. And this here Jew was still in
his native state. We call it his Adamic state.
He was still under the wrath of God. And therefore, he was
opposing the truth of the gospel. And we left off last time at
verse 10, where Paul just being full of the Holy Ghost just says,
you know, I got enough of this guy. We're at verse 10, Acts
13. Are we there? And he said, oh,
full of all subtlety. That's a, a nomenclature for
the devil. Subtlety, subtlety. And the serpent was more subtle
than any creature of the field that God had made. And all mischief, you child of
the devil. How clear can you get? you enemy
of all what will you not cease to pervert the right ways of
the Lord now behold the hand of the Lord is upon you that's
where we left off last week wasn't it where we were dealing with
this false notion of an alleged apostolic call on the part of
people today in the 21st century didn't know what we left off
yeah we did because What we were dealing with was the fact that
God had given 12 men an unusual gift that fell within the category
of what we call the apostolic calling. These are apostolic
sign gifts, apostolic sign gifts. gifts that are exclusive to the
apostles, not gifts that are given to people in the norm,
gifts that are exclusive to the apostolic calling. To become
an apostle is to be unusually endowed with gifts in order to
do the breakthrough ministry and foundation building ministry
of the gospel. Only an apostle could establish
the gospel. Other pastors and teachers and
ministers could come in and build upon it, but only the apostles
were called the foundation layers. Let me make this plain for you.
No pastor, no so-called bishop, no so-called prophet, no so-called
apostle is laying any new foundations. Are you hearing me? The Greek
word bishop, episcopate, is a legitimate term and it has to do with the
call of a pastor who leads a flock and oversees the people of God.
We have turned it into a CEO business model position today. And that's another one of the
dark tactics of the devil. this is what john warned about
in the third epistle of john third john i believe with diatrophies
who love to have preeminence over the people of god diatrophies
was the beginning of the papacy the beginning of the potpourri
system of the escalation of one man above the whole of the church
in calling him papa pope papacy they're all the same diatrophies
was a prophetic warning that the church was moving into a
very politically oriented disposition contrary to the gospel. Are you
guys hearing me? We already have seen all the
New Testament warnings concerning what would come down shortly
after the apostolic period. Paul said, as soon as I depart,
grievous wolves are coming in. The spirit speaks expressly that
in the latter day some shall depart from the gospel and take
heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devil. And here
we go again with the legalism of you don't eat this and you
don't eat that. You have to abstain from being married. All of these
things were what we call the rudiments of Catholicism. Very
clearly laid out in the word of God. And they have their roots
back in the Antiochian Epiphanies foundation of the Antichrist
in the book of Daniel. which we will expand as we continue
through Daniel. Because the man of sin, 2 Thessalonians
2, he has only one thing to do, eclipse Christ and get everybody
to worship him. Are you hearing me? That's the
battle. So your Bible speaks clear about this stuff if you
wanna hear it. If you wanna hear it, your Bible speaks clear.
So here's what Paul does. Because he has the authority
to bind and to lose, to declare one's sins having been forgiven
or to declare one's sin having not been forgiven, he had the
authority to execute divine judgment on men who were seeking to hinder
his work. He pre-qualified what he's about
to do by laying out all of these adjectives describing how controlled
this man was by the devil. This man was controlled by the
devil. You guys got that? See, I have
to say this because you know what I've noticed in Christianity
over the last 20-30 years is we love false prophets. We do. You can look crazy how
you want to. Most of the time Christians suck
in and imbibe the subtle flattery of false doctrine and false teaching.
And then when they get taught that these men and these women
are contrary to the gospel, it takes all hell to break them
free from these folks. I'm just telling you the truth.
I'm just telling you the truth. We love false prophets. We're
ready to go to hell right along with the false prophets. You
know why? Because they make you feel good. They make you feel good. That's
a scary place to be in. That's a scary place to be in.
The Bible says when the love of God is shed abroad in your
heart in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, love does not rejoice in
iniquity. You know what that means? People
who know what this business is about, they don't take lightly
false doctrine and false teaching and crooks that rip you off and
manipulate you and coerce you and beat you down and bring you
into legalism and drag you into all kind of demonic, mystical
experiences. They don't play games with that.
You won't find any servant of God lightly esteeming false prophets. Are you hearing me? That's why
I don't do it. I don't I don't mention them
when I'm preaching. Hardly if I do is because I'm
dealing with a text. I despise him. And you should
too. Jesus did. Jesus did. And if you read the
New Testament carefully, Paul used to say things like I would
that they were just straight cut off. Just cut off. That's a strong term, which means
to be cast into hell. that do trouble you. When I come,
he say, I'll deal with them. I'll see whether or not they
have the power of God because the kingdom of God is, isn't
in a bunch of sophistry, slick terminology, quick sayings, cycle
babble. The kingdom of God is in power.
We're going to find out if they know God or not. Read it for
yourself. First Corinthians chapter four. He tells him I'm coming.
We're going to find out if these crooks really know the truth
or not. Paul was bad. Paul wasn't no joke. They used
to talk about how little he was, and you know, he wasn't eloquent.
You know, we got a preacher that can make the hair stand up on
the back of our head. And for black folk, that's hard. But the devil will make the hair
stand up on the back of your head. Paul didn't come with eloquence
of words and sophistry. He came with straight gospel.
And the only people that could hear him were eternity bound
souls, souls that were serious about heaven. You guys hear what
I'm saying? Now watch what he did. And now
behold the Lord, the hand of the Lord is upon you and you
shall be what? There it is. That's amazing. Not seeing the sun for a season
and immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness and
he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. Only the
apostles could do this, folks. You know, you got a lot of these
guys in these highfalutin theological positions, these megalomaniacs,
these narcissistic, uh, Jim Jones types. You guys know him cause
you know, they think there's something cause they got 10 people
sitting under him or 20 people sitting under him or a hundred
people. And they, they, they, they, they deal with them as
if somehow they have a power over them. If you oppose the
men of God, I'll put a curse on you. You guys have heard all
that junk before. All that is is legalism. It's
paganism. It's paganism. If you're a child
of the true and the living God, can't no one, no devil, nothing
put a hex on you. Are you hearing me? First of all, you shouldn't be
there, but if you are there and they do it, Listen, you should
laugh. Man, you crazy. You got to, you,
you gonna curse me? You gonna curse me? You gonna
put a hex on me? I'm a child of God. I know I
am. I don't know if you are, but you're gonna put a hex on
me? Now I know you're contrary to the word of the Lord. You
can't curse those whom God has blessed. Isn't that true? Numbers chapter
23 verse 19 through 23. Balaam tried to curse God's people
and even Balaam had to say out of his own lips You can't curse
whom God had blessed when God has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ and clothed us with
his righteousness and sealed us with his Holy Ghost and secured
us for glory the only one that can chastise us is God but curse
God took the curse away through his son on Calvary Street and This is why you need to know
the gospel so you can walk in authority. Let a peon man tell
you he's going to curse you. You need to laugh at him and
walk away and never go back again. Never go back again. Go with
me now in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 19 verses 8 through 11.
I want to show you another parallelism while we have time. The only person that the child
of God should ever be afraid of is God himself. Genesis 19, you respect your
leaders when your leaders have earned respect. when they walk
with God. You don't respect them if they
don't obey God. You have no, you have no biblical
precedent for respecting false prophets. The Bible says in Deuteronomy
13, you are not to fear them. That's reverence them, respect
them. You don't respect people who don't respect God in that
sense. Are you guys hearing me? If you do, it means you are under
their authority, under their influence. You have to ask the
question, whose authority am I walking in? This is what Paul
warned about in 2 Corinthians 11 before the Corinthian church
went to hell. He warned in 2 Corinthians 11
concerning the false prophets. He said in 2 Corinthians 11,
as we'll get ready to get with this, he said, you know what?
I have espoused you as a chaste virgin unto Christ. I laid the
gospel with the hope that you Corinthians were married to Jesus. But I've come to find out you've
opened the doors wide open like a harlot and have let every crook
in Corinth come into our church and turn the church into a harlot's
house. And I'm afraid that you have
departed from the simplicity of the gospel. The devil has
deceived you, he said. And now you are tolerating another
gospel, another spirit, and another Jesus. Isn't that what the Bible
says? You believe that? 2 Corinthians
11. Paul says, I'm worried about you because you've opened the
door up to pluralism. What he was really saying is,
I'm questioning whether or not you even know the truth of the
gospel. When you allow these things to happen, it's a good
indicator that you don't. And then he went on to describe
the false teachers. He says, you guys are willing
to let them bring you into bondage. That's 2 Corinthians 11. You
guys are willing to let them smite you on the face. That's
2 Corinthians 11. You guys are willing to let them
take of you. You know what that means? You
are now their willing slave. You're in bondage. They beat
you down with doctrines that depress you and demoralize you
and don't show you anything of the glory of God. And then they
take from you every time you come to church. You got to come
out your pockets. Isn't the Bible contemporary?
Hold on. Let me say something before we
go on. Have you read what I just said? Most of y'all haven't read
it. See, that's because you don't
read your Bibles. Paul plainly addressed it. They bring you
into bondage. They beat you down with doctrines
that leave you tossed to and fro. And now you're vulnerable
to them because every week they got a new doctrine. See, this
is the switching bait, smoking mirrors methodology, where they
stay one step ahead of you, constantly saying they got a new word from
the Lord. Man, I'm going deep into that stuff right now, am
I? And you buy into it. And now you're wondering why
you got to take aspirins and pills to go to sleep at night,
and you're doing other things to try to cope. Because that's
a dark realm that you're in. It's so very important to know
the difference between a realm of grace and freedom in Christ
and a realm of legalism and works and demonic bondage. And what
shocks me is people love to have it that way. Genesis chapter 19 gives us a
case scenario. I've got about 20 minutes, a
case scenario of culture which experimented with homosexuality
and lesbianism and what I mean by a culture that experimented
with it is that they intentionally isolated themselves from the
heterosexual community in order to reproduce after their own
kind that's where we are today the Genesis 19 account is prophetic
of in time scenarios Romans 1 and Revelation chapter 11, 1 Timothy
chapter 3. You guys got that? Romans 1,
1 Timothy chapter 3, Revelation 11, which we're gonna go to Revelation
11 in a moment. But God warns that in the latter days, the
very things that were transpiring in the Genesis 19 account will
emerge in our time. Now, let me say it again. This
here was an experiment. Which experiment took off again
some 500 years, 600 years later in the book of Judges. Toward
the end of the book of Judges, the narrator, the writer of the
book of Judges allowed this account to be addressed in Judges 19
through 25, where there was a proliferation of homosexuals and lesbians that
ended up having to be almost annihilated by the Jews, with
the exception of 600 men who had fled And Israel realized
that if we, they came out of the tribe of Benjamin, that if
we annihilate them, then we'll wipe out a whole tribe. And so
God was gracious enough to take the 600 men who had hid in the
rock, that rock was Christ. I said that at that time they
were one of God's elect. And so God does save homosexuals
and lesbians, but only when they flee to Christ for deliverance,
because the judgment of God is coming after them. And so God
saved that 600 men and they went and they got wives of the tribes
of Gilead for them so that they could reproduce. Otherwise, they
would have been wiped out. Why? Because an intentional development
of a homosexual lesbian society is a culture of death. It cannot
reproduce itself. Are you guys hearing me? And
so Genesis chapter 19, God decides to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah.
And he does this after he mediates and delivers Lot out of Sodom
and Gomorrah. And Lot is only delivered out
because somebody prayed for him. And that's the only way you and
I get delivered. Somebody prayed for us. And so in Genesis chapter 19,
it's very clear. We read verses 8 through 11.
I want you to see it. Are you there? Lot, because of compromise. This is why the Christian church
can't compromise. Now, Lot was a true believer. You believe that? But like I've
said before, culture will get you if you're not serious about
Christ. If you're not willing to swim upstream, you're going
to coast downstream. And culture will get you. Some
of you know what I'm talking about. And so Lot was sucked
into the culture because when he had an opportunity to walk
by faith, he decided to walk by sight. Remember the crossroads
that him and Uncle Abraham had? Uncle Abraham said, you know,
the Lord didn't bless both of us. Our cattle are huge. We have
plenty. But there seems to be strife
among our brethren. So look here, I'm not a man of
strife. I'm a man of peace. You go one way and I'll go the
other. You choose, nephew. It doesn't matter to me. I'm
walking by faith. It doesn't matter if you go to the right
or left. Walking by faith doesn't require going left or right.
Walking by faith requires going his way, whatever way that is.
So he says, Lot, you can go your way. And Lot looked over the
plains of Sodom, and they were green and well-watered. It looked
like Eden to him. How perverse. It looks like Eden,
like the Garden of Eden. But right over the hill is the
devil's den. And so Lot in his naivety and
in his ignorance and in his narcissism and lust went in that direction. Lot and Abraham in that account
represents the difference between the flesh and the spirit. And
so Lot is operating out of a carnal principle and he goes down there
and he gets himself in trouble. He gets stuck. He gets stuck. We've already talked about this
before. Sin will take you where you don't want to go. It'll leave
you there longer than you ever thought you wanted to be. I'm
just going to do this one time. And then it will charge you way
more than you're willing to pay. I didn't know it was going to
cost this. Right? And so Lot ended up trying
to fix his problem by getting into the judiciary and working
in commerce and becoming one of the judges in Israel. He got
into politics. You know, God calls some of his
elected politics, but I can tell you very few. You're not going
to change anything politically where there is not a gospel church
emanating with the truth of the gospel and the spirit of God
resident in that society to restrain evil and change the hearts of
the sons of men. If there is no power of the gospel
present in a culture, politics isn't changing anything. Are you guys hearing me? Politics
has never changed anything. It glosses over stuff with promises
that it can't keep. Only the church has the capacity
when it's under divine authority to change the hearts of men from
the king's own downward. so that men begin to acknowledge
God and worship God and honor God and obey God and then follow
His precepts and make laws and legislations and edicts and judgments
for our society that are relevant and are a semblance of God's
Word. Only then will that happen. It
won't happen any other way. Carnal men won't naturally pursue
God. So when our churches are dead,
you can expect the culture to become what we call profligate
and sinful. You know, dark stuff grows in
the dark. You know that, right? Dark stuff
grows in the dark. And so in Genesis 19, Lot does
something that's almost unconscionable, except for the fact that we know
that man by nature is absolutely, totally depraved. I don't care
what you say. apart from the grace of God,
whether it's the prevenient grace of God, whether it's the grace
of God to restrain you even in unsafe state, or whether it's
the grace of God that saves you as a believer. Without the grace
of God, you will do the most hideous criminal thing on planet
earth. You don't believe that? Yes,
you will. The Bible is full of the testimony
of it. Without the grace of God, we are vile creatures. When God
took his hand off the human race, the human race put his son to
death. That was the most hideous crime the human race ever committed. So what does Lot do when these
men come pressing on the door? Verse four. And before they lay
down, that is the angels that had come to visit Lot, the men
of the city, even the men of Sodom can pass the house round
about both old and young. all the people from every quarter. That's the whole town. So here's
what I mean by your experimentation group. One of the things I was
talking to our folks about in our prayer meeting was making
the distinction between an individual who's struggling with homosexuality
or lesbianism and advocacy groups who have become hardened in their
heart and aggressive and very assertive and militant against
the truth of the living God. These larger advocacy groups
are the people who are given over to vile affections and now
they are on the side of the enemy, openly, publicly opposing God.
You have to oppose them. Are you guys hearing me? But
the individual that's struggling, that's another story. We work
with them. But with these advocacy groups
that are trying to reinforce this lifestyle and eradicate
biblical truth from the culture and to authenticate and endorse
this behavior pattern as legitimate, this is a direct assault against
the revelation of God. Do you guys know that? So I'm saying it again, you make
a difference between the individual that's struggling because God
saves people from all kinds of pits. But he saves them. See, now, once you have a gospel
that doesn't save people out of something, you don't have
the true gospel. Am I telling the truth? Once people are actually
being saved out of the bondage of sin and the tyranny of the
devil and the lust of the flesh, we're not being saved. I know
that hurts, but that's just the truth. That's just the truth. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? We're not being sick. See, if you sort of just placated
and compromise and overlook it and say, you know, it's all right.
The thing will continue to grow even in your midst and you will
after a while have to acknowledge there's no salvation going on
here. We're still doing the same things in the church that we're
doing outside of the church. Hence, no authentic evidence
that the kingdom of God is present at all. Are you hearing me? The kingdom of God is not in
word. First Corinthians chapter four around verse twelve. But in power. Do to us. You know what that is? That's
the power of God to subdue this nature and to bring men out of
bondage into a glorious light and to gradually reproduce them
into the image of Christ. You guys hear me? Now you can
examine yourself whether you're saved or not. Now listen to this. Before they lay down, everybody
came, verse five, and they called unto Lot and said unto him, where
are the men which came in unto thee this night? Bring them out
unto us that we may have sexual relations with them. There's
your word, no. In the Old Testament, it corresponds
to the word no in the New Testament, gnosis. It's called intimate
relationship, covenant relationship. Conjugal relationship and this
is eternal life that they might know thee the only true God and
Jesus whom he has sent This is the same dynamic and Mary and
Joseph knew Mary and she conceived and brought forth a child This
is interesting because the greater theological implication is this
that the homosexual community is seeking to try to engage in
a sexual relationship with God himself and change God's nature
You don't believe that read Romans chapter 1 I know this is tough, it's just
the truth. This is the battle that's going on. These two angels
are a theophany. They represented God. They were
in the three persons in chapter 18. Now they're in the two persons
in chapter 19. The two persons represent the
witness. They are the witness. And they
are now seeking to know God. There is a great psychological
conflict going on in the homosexual in relationship to God. There's
a great psychological, emotional, psycho, Emotional, psycho, it's
another word. It's a psycho-emotional dynamic
going on between the homosexual and God. In his mind, he's struggling
with a disconnect. She's struggling with a disconnect.
There's some things that's going on on the inside by which they
haven't been able to land on their feet and establish their
identity, their God-given identity. And as a consequence, they struggle
in looking in all the wrong places for what only God can produce
in them. And until there is a revelation of that, they actually fight
God. They fight God because they know
intuitively they are in a disproportionate place. They know this. If you
were to deal with them honestly, you would know that they are
constantly preoccupied with who God is and where they stand with
Him. Am I telling the truth? I know I am. I'm just saying
this for you because some of you may be, you guys may be deluded
by the propaganda and this world's ideology which will tell you
that homosexuality and lesbianism is a third status of human existence
and is not. He made them male and female,
that's it. And the homosexual lesbian issue
is a sexual identity disorder which is a function of sin, just
like other sinful traits that we have to deal with. And you
have to identify it correctly if you're going to resolve and
solve the problem. This is just the God honest truth. And if you don't deal with the
truth, if you paint it over any other kind of way you want to,
there won't be any salvation there. There won't be any salvation. So here's what happens. They called unto Lot and said,
we wanna know them. Verse six, and Lot went out of the door
unto them and shut the door after him and said, I pray you, brethren,
do not so wickedly. Behold, now I have two daughters
which have not known man. Let me, I pray you, bring them
out unto you and do ye to them as is good in your eyes, only
unto these men do nothing. The liberal theologian tried
to say that in Genesis 19, verse six, verse five that there was
no sexual proposition that was made in terms of the homosexuals
request. Have you ever heard that? The
liberal theologians, which are the preponderance of our apostate
churches today, would argue that the Bible doesn't teach against
homosexuality, but the Bible does. and they would re-interpret
passages like this to suggest or imply that those homosexuals
were not seeking some type of intimate relationship. Then pray
tell me, why would Locke give his two daughters to them? Context is determinative always. And then he says, no man knew
them. See? But now I want you to see what
happens. This here's a real lesson for us, and this will help you
too. The latter part of verse eight.
Do unto them as is good in your eyes, only unto these men do
nothing. For therefore they came under the shadow of my roof.
Verse nine. And they said, stand back. And
they said again, this one fellow came in the soldier that is locked
and he will need to be a judge. Now will we deal worse with you
than with them? and they press or upon the men
even lot in came near to break the door let me make application
here as we go to the next point when you are part of a compromise
church these advocacy groups will have power to come break
your door down is happening already uh... the uh... latest uh... political election president-elect
obama made his way to the White House with a whole lot of very
questionable people who were in power, positions of authority
and influence, and had lots of money. And one of those groups
of people were the homosexual community. And there's a lot
of reasons for that. If a person was diligent, they
would find out. But I'm stepping on your toes
enough tonight, I'm going to leave you alone with your Obama.
So I'm going to just leave you alone. But if you were doing
your diligence, you would learn some things and you would realize
why they were so upset when they were left out by virtue of the
Proposition 8 issue not passing. And they started becoming very
hostile all across the nation. And they started attacking churches.
And they went into the liberal churches, the churches that had
compromised the gospel. They tried to beat down Rick
Warren's church. His church was just too big, but they, they,
they attacked it. They, they protested and boycotted
and stood all out out front. And they went at it because he
also standing between two issues on that matter. In many churches, they went in
and they just totally tore the church up. They interrupted worship
services, put up banners, and they mocked sexual activities
in the midst of the people. The reason I say that is because
whenever the Bible talks about these issues, the Bible gives
you the truth. The Bible doesn't paint a flowery,
kind picture of that behavior pattern. It never does. Because
you see, God sees the end from the beginning. He knows the heart.
And He knows the dark side of culture. See, all of us can put
on a facade. We can talk about how kind we
are and how gifted we are and how skillful we are and how good
we are in terms of our being able to affect society with different
gifts and what have you. But in the dark is who we really
are. And there's a very dark side
to that culture. There's a very dark side to it.
You don't think so? Who said no? Did I hear somebody
say no? Okay. Now I want you to see it, verse
nine. And they said, stand back. And they said again, this one
fellow came to sojourn and he will need to be adjudged. Now
will we do worse than with them? And they pressed sore upon the
door, even locked, and came near to break the door. The men, that
is the angels, put forth their hand and pulled Lot into the
house. You know what that means? Because
he was elect, God saved him by his grace and didn't allow him
to get twisted by the power and influence of that culture. Are
you hearing me? Now watch this. And they smote
the men that were at the door of the house with what? Now watch
this, both small and great, so that they were wearied themselves
to find the door. That door is Christ. John chapter 10. That door is
Christ. That door is Christ. You're not
coming through that door until you bow the knee and acknowledge
that you're a hell-bound sinner. You're not coming through that
door. In fact, you're not going to even find that door. As we're going
to learn in our first series in systematic theology, you can't
find God by searching. God has to reveal himself to
you. You guys got that? God has to reveal himself to
you. He has to reveal himself to you. You can search all you
want to. God is high above out of our sight. He's transcended.
He's holy. He's harmless. He's separate from sinners. The
way you come to God is the way God tells you to come to him.
You're not going to beat God's dough down and come in. Isn't
that crazy? You're going to beat God's dough
down. How'd you get in here? I beat the dough down. What a boast. No, no, what a
boast. Oh, you ain't. How'd you get in, brother? Man,
I beat the dough down. What you think? You know, a brother
getting in. I'm getting in. Not in God's house, you're not.
See, these two angels are standing at the door. just like the two
cherubim were standing at the tree of life with the flaming
sword, guarding the way to the tree of life. It wasn't that
they were keeping Adam and Eve from the tree, they were guarding
the way to get to the tree. The only way you get to the tree
is by faith in Christ. You guys got that? So go with me to Revelation chapter
11, and I want you to see the application and we'll close.
Revelation 11. Are we there? Now I told you
that Pharaoh was a great great great foreshadow of the nation
of Israel and that they were both blinded because of their
obstinacy and rebellion to the revelation of God. Sodom and
Gomorrah served as a great great prophetic warning to Israel and
to all false religion, that when you repeatedly reject the truth
of the gospel, God will give you over to this behavior. That's
Romans 1. For when they knew God, they
glorified him not as God, but became vain in their imagination,
and their foolish hearts were darkened. And they exchanged
the truth of God. They exchanged the glory of God
for a lie. They changed the image of the
incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man. See, this is an exchange that
they did. This is what they were trying
to do in Genesis 19. See, the whole idea is, the dynamic
is this. In order for God to save us,
He has to inseminate us by His Spirit with His own seed. Are
you hearing me? It's called regeneration. Except
the man be born again, he won't enter into God's kingdom. And
what they were doing was the same thing. Trying to change
the nature of God to get an approval for a behavior pattern that God
says won't go in the kingdom. Are you guys hearing me? You
can work that through on your own now. Now listen to what it
says, because I want you to see what the last book of the Bible
says concerning this group. of people who continually rebelled
against the gospel. I'm in Revelation 11. I'm going
to start at verse 4. And these are the two olive trees
and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
The analogy that John is drawing comes out of the Old Testament
concerning the tabernacle. More particularly out of Zechariah's
account, where there are two olive trees on either side of
what was called the menorah. And the oil poured out of the
olive trees into the menorah to give light to the menorah.
The menorah, the candlestick, John already talked about in
Revelation chapter one and two. That was the inaugural vision.
The candlestick represents the church. The seven churches in
the midst of the seven churches is who Jesus the great high priest
on the side of the menorah are two olive trees The olive trees
bear olive oil the olive oil represents. What the holy ghost
The two trees represent the witness the witness is the church The
candlestick is the church These two witnesses are going to be
described to that's why Jesus sent them out what two by two
out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be
established. Now I want you to hear the language, listen to
it. These are the two olive trees
who have a job of witnessing for 1,260 days. Some of you will be dealing with
this on Sunday and next week. But it goes on to say in verse
five, and if any man will hurt them, you know what that means?
Persecution. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceeds out
of their mouth and devour their enemies. You know what he's just
done? He used the Old Testament paradigm
of Elisha, the prophet, to teach us the character of these witnesses.
When the Syrian king tried to come after Elisha, he said, if
I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume
them. Isn't that what he said? So what we have here is what
we call a larger prophetic symbol of the Old Testament prophet
Elijah who represents the prophets of God. Elijah was the quintessential
prophet of the Old Testament. He had this authority to bring
down fire because God gave him that authority because he was
reinforcing the law of God amongst the pagan era of his time which
was prominent because of Jezebel and Ahab. God's law is going
to be enforced. Elijah represents the law now
watch the next one and If any man hurt them he must
in this manner be killed These have power to shut heaven that
it rained not in the days of their prophecy. Who is that again?
Elijah Now watch this and they have power over water to turn
them to blood who did that? Moses in the smite the earth
with all plagues as often as they will say it's we're in the
New Testament We're not in the Old Testament, but the Old Testament
is a type and shadow and representative of New Testament reality. What
we are dealing with is not the resurrection or reincarnation
of Elijah and Moses, but their authority as it represented in
the Old Testament, the law and the prophets. In other words,
the whole word of God is still the testimony that we declare
to men. Am I making some sense? So the
witnesses have to bring God's Word. They bring God's Word with
authority. But what John is doing is still
using that Old Testament symbolism because he's speaking in what
we call coded language to the New Testament Church. His language
is coded. We're not dealing with literal
things here. We're dealing with spiritual realities. So, the
law and the prophets represents God's word. That's what we bring
to the people. God's word. So the two witnesses
are using God's word. The whole canon of the Old Testament. After all, we're in the first
century, right? Which means the epistles haven't been finished.
We haven't canonized the New Testament. We're still dealing
with that. So the authority upon which Paul
preached and Peter preached and James preached was, it is written.
It's the same authority that Jesus preached. It is written.
Which was what? The Old Testament. And so we
find in Matthew 17 and Luke 9 and in Mark chapter 8, when Jesus
is on the Mount of Transfiguration, two men appeared in glory before
him. They were who? Elijah and Moses. And when you read Luke's account,
it says that Elijah and Moses pointed to and spoke of Jesus'
death at Calvary Street. Why? Because the law and the
prophets all pointed to who? That's right. And their job was
done when Christ was crucified. Are you guys hearing me? That's
Acts chapter 10 verse 43. By the way, for those of you,
understand the Bible gives us historical accounts with larger
symbolic, prophetic symbolism. And if you get caught up in the
carnal, you'll miss the message. Am I making some sense? All right,
let me go on because I'm almost done. I want you to hear this. And when they shall have finished
their testimony, do you know every believer has a testimony?
And do you know when your testimony is over, you're gone? See, if you know your Bible,
you'd be already thinking about what the scripture says in second
Timothy chapter four. Paul said to Timothy, I've run
my race. I finished my course. I fought
a good fight. Henceforth is laid up for me
a crown of righteousness, which the Lord shall give to everyone
that loves his appearing. My testimony is over. He said,
Nero's about to cut my head off and I'm going straight to glory.
And I'm looking forward to it. He said, why? Because his testimony
was over. I told you when the apostles
took up their office, they had to die. This is how the gospel
is established. It's not established by promising
people prosperity. The gospel is established by
promising people eternal life through the cross work of Jesus
Christ. In order to be one of Christ's
disciples, you gotta take up your cross too. If you don't
understand the cross ministry, you don't understand the gospel.
And no one's gonna be saved under your ministry if you don't bring
him to Christ and him crucified. No one. And if you aren't willing
to lay down your life, you aren't called of God in this matter
of preaching the gospel. And when they shall have finished
their testimony, the beast, we know who the beast is. One of
them is politics. Revelation chapter 13. The other
one is religion. Revelation 13. Especially when
the two come together like they did when they crucified our Lord.
When Pilate and Herod met the same day they killed Jesus, they
became friends. That's called apostate religion. We have one king, they said. His name is Caesar. That was
the religious rulers who put Christ on Calvary's tree. Politics
and the gospel don't mix. You got it? Now listen to what
happens. When they shall have finished
their testimony, the beast which ascends out of the bottomless
pit shall make war against them. and shall overcome them and kill
them. And their dead bodies shall lie
in the street of the great city. Who knows what city that is?
Where? Now, now you're laughing, you're
laughing, but she's close to truth. Because we are dealing
with a it's not Babylon. It's Jerusalem Look at it the
great city Which is spiritually called what Sodom and what Egypt
where also our Lord was what now pocket? We just talked about
Pharaoh Pharaoh ran what Egypt? Now we're talking about Sodom,
right? But John under inspiration of the Holy Ghost says we're
actually talking about Israel. Do you see it? Let me say it
again. John just said, we're talking
about national political Israel. Isn't that what he said? Does anyone doubt the text? Because John understands what
Paul understood, what Isaiah understood, what the psalmist
understood, that Israel in the flesh were sodomites. How many times did the Old Testament
say it? Isaiah opens up! O ye rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah! You guys read your Bible? So
we're dealing with larger paradigms by these historical accounts.
And what you do is you take those paradigms and look into the behavior
patterns of the people in that paradigm and you see the connection.
And what John is saying and what Paul is saying and what Isaiah
is saying is the behavior pattern of the sodomites is inexorably
connected with false religion. I've said it before, I'll close
it here, I'm way over time. The reason why God's talked about
Israel being sodomized so many times, you read about it in Ezekiel
chapter 16 again too, was because once you abandon the true gospel
and you start giving yourself over to sensual religion, sensual
pagan religion, sensual existential pagan religion, where it's all
about feelings and emotionalism and not true. It's like having
sexual pleasure without the capacity to produce life. Did you guys get that? Sex wasn't in the first place. about pleasure, but the devil
twisted it. It was about life and the gospel
is about life and worship is not about pleasure first. It's
about life. Truth is about life. Christ is
about life. The ministry of the word is about
life. It's not about how you feel after the service. I'm warning
you. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for this time. We thank you for your word. We thank you for
the truth as it is in Christ. May it sink deep down into our
hearts. Take root downward. Bear fruit upward. All to your
glory and your praise. Father, as we go our way again,
give us traveling mercies. Take us to our prospective homes.
Give us rest, Lord. Prepare our hearts to worship
you on Sunday. And may it be done by the power of your spirit.
In spirit and in truth. And may Jesus get all the glory.
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you.