11-15-2020

Park Meadows Church

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All right, we're in Romans chapter 8 verses 28 and 30, and just to review a little bit, make sure this is working.

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Technology is interesting. We talked about this last time, so we took a little trip away from Romans 8 last week and talked a little bit about some of the things going on in the elections, but I found it interesting that in the book of Revelation, a couple of different chapters, it mentions an army of 200 million foot soldiers armed to cross the

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Euphrates River and march into Jerusalem or toward Jerusalem.

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They would have destroyed Jerusalem if it weren't for the fact that the Lord returns at that very moment, and he destroys them.

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We will be with him in the air, and we will see that from a vantage point somewhere above the earth.

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Isn't that interesting? We'll see that, and when he does it, the blood will flow as high as the bridles on the horses in the

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Valley of Megiddo, and so that's the Battle of Armageddon. There's only one nation in the world who can populate an army of 200 million, and it's not the

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United States. The entire population of the United States is only 328 million, but China has 1 .39

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billion people, and they do not currently have, as far as we know, of course, we don't know what army they have because they're not going to publish that for the world to know, but the figures that we can get are not as high as 200 million.

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However, it's interesting because there was an article, I was teaching high school,

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Sunday school class back in those days, and there was an article that I clipped, and at that point in the early 1980s,

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China had 200 million automatic weapons available to man such an army by 1980 something, so they're the only country in the world that could do this, and it's really interesting because the population of the world at the time when

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John pinned this was very, very much smaller than 200 million, so there weren't enough people in the world, let alone an army, when

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God inspired him to write that, so now we have it, and that's who it is, and that's

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Mr. Biden toasting the leader of China, and it's going to be interesting if the

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Lord wills for him to actually be elected, which he has not been elected yet, but if he is elected, this could be.

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Why? It's just one thought because if you really think about it, I don't think that President Trump is in a mode to want to strengthen

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China, and yet the Bible says China will be the power at the end of time, not

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America. America is vaguely mentioned as the isles or the islands perhaps, but certainly here's the interesting thing.

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If you took America as she is right now, that is why no one has attacked

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Israel yet because of our nuclear power. No one has dared to attack

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Jerusalem because Israel is our ally right now under the current presidency and the current government in America.

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That could change very quickly in January. There are some people in our senate already and many others around our government that hate

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Israel, and they're not great friends with Netanyahu like President Trump is, so that could change.

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If it does change where America is no longer backing Israel, then America's reason to exist no longer is there from a prophetic viewpoint, so who knows what happens.

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Maybe we divide and become two nations, and so we're no longer powerful enough to protect

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Israel. Who knows, but we know we don't see us protecting. At this point in scripture, the kings of the east, that's

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China, are able to rise up, cross the Euphrates River, and walk right into Israel with no one stopping them, so America's nuclear arsenal is not pointed at China at this point in the future for some reason, so we don't know the reason.

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Anyway, so what we talked about last time, pretty interesting. So now, where we are as far as our doctrinal study, which

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I'm going to return to right now, that's enough speaking of where we may be in the prophetic calendar for this moment, but let's go on into our verse -by -verse study of Romans.

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In Romans 8 29, it says, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.

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Moreover, whom he did predestinate, he also called, and who he called, he also justified.

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That is the same group of people that is spoken of before time began, before the world was even created, which is when the foreknowledge and the predestination happens, so there is no time when that happens, therefore, there's no sequence.

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They both just exist. They're both true. One did not cause the other. There are preachers that teach that predestination is caused by the foreknowledge.

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That's a lie. It's not true. I won't call it a lie. Sometimes, it's just lack of study, but it's incorrect, because if you think about it, just logically,

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God is now. He's not past, present, future. He's just now, so he didn't foreknow something and then predestinate it.

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It just is the way it is, and by the way, foreknowledge has to do with his called people that he knew.

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It does not have to do with events that he foreknew. That would be covered under the topic of omniscience.

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God does know everything. He knows the end from the beginning. That's omniscience. Foreknowledge, biblically, is always talking about a personal relationship with his own children.

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Check it out. You'll never find an exception to that in the Bible. Foreknowledge is about who he knows, and it's those who he adopted as his own children, so the same group that are foreknown and loved by him are predestinated to be adopted into his family.

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All that happened before time began. Then we come into time, and even in our lifetime here, we come into our lifetime, and two things happen during time, and one is the calling and the second is the justification, and right now we're talking about justification, so we already talked about the stuff before that, so we're on the justification part.

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What does justified mean? Well, it means to be made or to be rendered righteous. It's in the passive in the

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Greek, which means someone bigger than us has to do it to us, so it is something God does to us.

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It's not something we do for God, so God justifies us. He makes us as if we've never sinned in God's own eyes.

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Jesus Christ did that for us, and the Holy Spirit did the work to cause it to where, from the

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Father's viewpoint, we've never sinned and never will sin. Now, that's an amazing accomplishment, and it was all accomplished by the work of God, nothing to do with the work of man, and that's something so many people get messed up on, and so when we get to this part about justified, let me also justify it.

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As we study justification, we find that we... I wish I had that popping in right.

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It's not going to do it, but we find that there are seven things that we need to understand biblically before we can even understand justification, what it means.

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Okay, so there's the first one. You have to understand the depravity of man. Let's see if they're all going to ever pop.

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They're not ever going to all pop up there, I don't think. I don't know how that got messed up. It was working last week. Anyway, the second one is we need to understand the meaning of grace, and these we've already covered.

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Third one, we need to understand what propitiation means. Third, imputation, and now we're on number five.

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What is positional righteousness? Now, what about grace? Grace means that salvation is free.

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Clearly, if it's free, you can't pay for it. You can't earn it, so that we need to understand. Justification cannot be earned by man.

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It is a free gift, so that's what grace means. We went into that in detail.

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Propitiation, that is something that Jesus Christ did for God the Father when he died, not for us.

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We got the benefit of it, but it was for God the Father, because what it means is it satisfied his justice that the sin debt had been paid for his people, not for every human being, but for God's people, the ones he foreknew and predestinated.

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Those sins had been covered and paid, not covered, but taken away, paid for by Jesus Christ, because when

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Jesus was on the cross, the sins of God's people were placed upon him, and when he died, the sin debt was paid in full for God's people.

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When he was buried, it was done away, and when he rose again, that picture is a new life, new life in Christ, and when the

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Bible says when he rose from the grave, we rose in him and with him. All that is spiritual, and it's done by God who's not bound by time, so the

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Father was able to reach forward in time, and then it brings us down to the next one called imputation. He reached forward in time and took all of our sins, the sins of his people, not of all humanity, otherwise all humans would be saved, but the sins of the elect were taken and imputed to Jesus.

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That's an accounting term. He placed their sins in Jesus's account as if he had done them, and that's why

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Jesus died, and that's why our sin debt is paid, and then when he rose from the grave, he turned around and he took

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Jesus's perfection and his righteousness and his goodness and his purity, and he imputed that to our accounts as if we had done that, and that's what the

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Father sees. That's why we're justified, is because the doctrine of imputation. That's number four up there, so now we're on number five.

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Positional righteousness is another thing we have to understand if we're going to understand justification, because if you don't understand these five things, and then also number six, number seven, you're going to miss it on justification.

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You're going to think that you played some little part in your own justification, and all religions of the world teach that you did, and most

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Christian denominations teach that you did. Today in the times, 95 percent of people that would call themselves born again believe they played some role in it.

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The scripture teaches they played zero role in it other than receiving it as a gift and gaining all the benefit of it, but they played zero role.

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They did no work toward their own salvation. God did 100 percent of the work. Man did zero percent of the work for his own salvation.

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If you understand these five things, you'll see that, but if you don't, you'll miss it, so let's go to the one we're talking about today, positional righteousness in the

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New Testament. Before we talk about that, let me discuss the other type of righteousness that's taught in the

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Bible. There were two types taught throughout scripture, Old Testament and New. One is called positional righteousness.

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That's what we're going to study, and that's what we have to understand to understand what it means to be justified, but the second one is called experiential, or some theologians call it experimental righteousness, and that's something that we're not going to get time to get to today, but at the end of this study on positional righteousness,

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I'm going to talk about experiential righteousness right at the end, which will be next Sunday most likely, but let me just cover what it is.

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Experiential or experimental righteousness has to do with the effect of salvation.

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Positional righteousness is part of the cause of salvation, and there's your big difference, and as the great

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Charles Spurgeon said, an effect can never be the cause of the cause, so the cause of salvation is the

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Holy Spirit regenerating us, and that's part of the effectual calling that we already studied. One of those five things we looked at that popped in at the wrong time was talking about the calling in the scripture that we're studying.

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One of the two things that happens in time is the same group that are foreknown and predestinated are called.

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That's the effectual calling, and that group, the same exact group that are called are justified, and the justification happens at the calling.

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The effectual calling is the point in your life when the Holy Spirit awakened you from the dead.

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While we were yet in our sins, hath he quickened us? It's the quickening. Quickening means be brought from death to life.

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At that moment, it happens at the calling. That's when over 33 things are done to you by the

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Holy Spirit, one of which is you are justified, and so that happens at the calling, and it's all a work of the

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Holy Spirit based on the work of Jesus Christ, based on the work of the Father, so it's by the blood of Jesus, and when

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Jesus went, when he was about to take the Jews to heaven, the ones that were in paradise, before he took them there, he had to go apply his blood at the mercy seat in heaven, and he did that, and he came back, and he got the

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Jews, and he took them to heaven for the first time. Prior to that, they were not able to be in the direct presence of God because the blood had not been applied to the mercy seat yet.

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Once it was applied, once Jesus had died, and while his body was in the grave, he went, and he visited those

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Jews that were saved, and anybody that was saved actually could be some Gentiles that were proselyte

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Jews that were down in paradise, and he preached to them, and he told them, look,

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I just died, you're saved, but I'm going to take this blood, and I'm going to apply it to the mercy seat, then

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I'm going to come bring you up there, and he did that. All that happened during the three days when he was in the grave, all right, so after his resurrection, those of us who die saved, we go straight to heaven now because the blood has been applied to the mercy seat by Jesus, but something else had to happen.

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At the calling, the Holy Spirit had to apply that same blood to the individual who was being saved, and he did that to you at the moment he called you.

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One of the 33 things he did was he applied, he sprinkled the blood of Jesus on you and saved your soul.

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You didn't have anything to do with any of that. God did that to you and for you, and that's why you were justified.

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So, but experiential righteousness, what is that talking about? Well, it's part of the effect.

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In other words, if we say that experiential righteousness is found in a place like 1

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Peter 1, 15 through 17, it says, but as he which called you, see, that's the calling, as he which called you is holy, so be ye holy.

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That is experiential righteousness. It means you try to live right in your experience.

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That's why we call it experiential. You try to live right, but that is not what saves you. That is a result of the salvation.

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It's an effect. It's not the cause of it. If it were the cause of it, you would lose it about every day also and then try to gain it back and then lose it because you don't live right all the time, do we?

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I don't say you. I'm not pointing the finger. I got three of them pointing back at me when I do that, right? So, we're not saved by experiential righteousness.

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Experiential living right is a result of the salvation. It's an effect. It's not the cause. You got to understand that.

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So, that's why both types are taught. So, that is, you know, that's talking about living right, be holy because Jesus said, be holy for I am holy and that sort of thing.

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Now, what is positional righteousness? That is part of the cause of salvation, and there is a big difference between positional righteousness and experiential righteousness in the

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Bible. And you say, well, is it like two different Greek words? No, it's the same Greek word and maybe some synonyms that are similar, but you can only tell by the context.

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So, you have to read the whole chapter, maybe the whole book where you're seeing the word righteousness. You got to read everything around it or you won't understand whether it's talking about positional or experiential, but it'll be clear if you read the context.

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And the doctrinal difference is very clear. In fact, you find it through the grammar and the word definitions and the context of the passages these are found in.

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It'll be very clear when you see it. Like when you see one like 1 Peter 1 15, be holy.

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Verse 16 says, for it is written, be holy for I am holy. That's obviously telling you to do something.

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Would you agree? I mean, is that clear for the context? It's telling you to do something, to live right.

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It's what you do. When you see positional righteousness passages, it's going to be talking about what you are on the inside, and it's going to be very clear that it's

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God who did that to you, not something you do. It's something you receive. So, it's very different. Positional righteousness is something you receive as a free gift, and experiential is something you do because you have been equipped to do it.

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You've already been saved. So, there's a huge difference. One is part of the cause, one's part of the effect, and today we're talking about the cause part.

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So, we're going to talk about positional righteousness. Here's one example. If you would turn to Romans chapter 3 verse 26, and if you read the whole context of that, it would make it even more clear.

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And we've already studied verse by verse. We've already through almost done with Romans 8. So, we already covered chapter 3.

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If you want to go back in the archives at parkmeadowschurch .com, you can find where I preach verse by verse through all of chapter 3 of Romans, and you'll see all of that context.

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But this verse says, to declare I say at this time his righteousness. Now, there's a big key on positional righteousness.

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We have to ask what is it? Well, we know if we're talking about experiential, we know what it is.

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It's stuff we do to try to live right, to live for the Lord, right, to be in fellowship with him, to help other

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Christians, to be a good person, to try to avoid the sins of the flesh the best we can.

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We're not perfect at that, but to try, and then when we mess up, we confess it, and he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness every single time.

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We're going to, that's going to be one of the last ones we talk about is he's just and the justifier of those who have

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Jesus. We'll talk about that later. But you see, all of this is going on, but when you talk about positional righteousness, it's not really ours in the truest sense.

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It's his. You see the word in red? I hope it's red. I'm colorblind. I tried to make it red. Is it red?

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Okay, his righteousness. So, this is a whole different thing than you trying to live right.

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This is Jesus's actual righteousness, which is perfect. That is what

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God gives you as a gift, and that is why you were justified at the moment of your salvation, because he gave you

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Jesus's righteousness, and that's part of what we studied earlier on imputation. He imputed, or he took

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Jesus's righteousness and put it in your account as if you had done it. Therefore, you stand justified.

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That is your standing. That is your position, and that's why we call it positional. You can't change that by what you do or don't do tomorrow.

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Has no bearing on your positional righteousness, because you didn't do anything to get it other than receive it as a free gift.

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Jesus did all the work to provide it, and it's his righteousness anyway. You can't mess up Jesus's righteousness.

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We can mess up a lot of things, but that's not one of them, and so we have it as a gift, and when

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God the Father looks at us, he sees us all dressed up in the robes of Jesus's righteousness, and he sees us as perfect, and that's what justified means.

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He sees you just as if I've never sinned. The Father sees you that way all the time, even when you're in the midst of sinning right now in time.

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The Father does not see your sin. It's gone. Not only is it covered, it is removed.

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Why? Because God the Father already sees you glorified, because if you look at the little passage we're talking about up there in Romans, which

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I've already taken off the screen, but it says that same group of people that he foreknew, which means he loved them and had a relationship with them, he predestinated, and the same group of people he predestinated in time, they were called on their spiritual birthday, and the same people that were called were justified, and that's what we're talking about now, but the next one says, and the same group that was justified are glorified, and it's in the past tense in the

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Greek, which means the Father sees you already perfect. He sees you as glorified like you will be at the rapture.

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He sees you that way now, so all of this is why you're justified. This is why you're saved, and all of it's the work of Christ, not anything you did, and that's where the world gets it messed up.

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All world religions are based on man's work. All false Christian groups and cult groups and from the

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Mormons all the way up to the Baptists nowadays that teach the gospel in many Baptist churches, many

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Baptist churches. I grew up in Southern Baptist. They were teaching a gospel where you made the decision to determine your eternal destiny, so that's something you did.

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They said you ought to repent. Well, that's something you do. You got to believe that's something you do or don't do, isn't it?

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So they were basing it on stuff you do. That's false. It's not based on stuff you do because the regeneration is something that happens at the calling by the

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Holy Spirit to you because he applies the blood of Jesus, and he awakens you, and now once you're awakened, there are many effects, one of which is you believe, but the reason you believe is because he's given you the faith of Jesus Christ.

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Very clear in scripture. He gave you the gift, Ephesians 2 8 and 9. He gave you the gift of Jesus's faith and put it in you.

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Now, of course, you believe. He also gave you the desire to repent, but that's an effect.

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That's not the cause. You were already alive by the time you did these things, and yet every denomination fights with each other because they take certain groups of these effects and say, oh, no, that's the cause.

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None of them are the cause. None of these churches did anything to save anybody, not the

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Baptists, not the Catholics, none of them. They just want the credit. They want the glory. They want their little plan of salvation to be the way, and they'll differ with you and fight with you all day long if yours has one jot or tittle different than their plan, and yet all of it's based on effects, and they missed the cause.

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You go back 150 years ago, 95 % of Baptists were called, what's the word, particular.

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Particular Baptists. That means 95 % of all Baptists, 150 years, all through the 1600s and 1700s for certain, 95, approximately 95 % of them believed

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Jesus died only for a particular group of people known as the elect, not for every human, but now you go to churches all around Corsicana with Baptist on the sign, and they'll tell you

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Jesus died for everybody. Well, if that's true, they're all going to heaven. Listen, if he ransomed everybody, which is what the blood is for, it's the ransom price.

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If you ransomed everybody, everyone's going to heaven, but Jesus said there's a very tiny, tiny amount of the human race going to heaven, and that's why in Isaiah it says he died for many.

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It doesn't say he died for all in the book of Isaiah, and all through the New Testament, many times Paul says he died for many.

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Jesus said I died for many. All of that has been covered, and it all demonstrates so clearly that salvation is not something that man can cause in and of himself.

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You are made righteous, and it is Jesus's righteousness that you are given as a gift, and that's positional, which means what you do or don't do cannot change it.

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All right, now let's look at another. Romans 4 or 5, but to him that worketh not.

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Now that shows right there that whatever we're talking about here has nothing to do with your good works or mine.

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Okay, it's not to do with our good works of righteousness, which would be known as effectual, or I should say experimental stuff we do.

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So this type of righteousness we're talking about now doesn't have anything to do with the stuff we do. It's different than experimental or experiential righteousness.

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It's different. It says, but to him that works not, but believes on him that did the justifying, believes on him that justifies the ungodly.

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Why does it call us ungodly? Because we don't do enough good works, do we? Who in here's done enough good works to walk right into heaven?

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Only Jesus, right? So to those who don't do enough good works, but they believe in the one who did do enough, which is

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Jesus, that person's faith, look at this, is counted to him as righteous.

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And so does that sound to you like you are righteous or like God just counts you as if you're righteous? What does it sound like?

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Did you do enough experiential righteousness and walk into heaven or is the father just acting like you did?

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You tell me. It's counted to him for righteousness.

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So the righteousness that takes us to heaven is something that was imputed to us that was not ours.

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And it's only ours because it's a gift and now it's ours because we received the gift. But it's actually

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Jesus's and he gave it to us. So in that sense, it's ours because we received the gift.

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He gave us the gift. The gift was his own righteousness. And so now we own his righteousness.

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So yes, it's ours, but it's really his. Do we see that? That's why up in verse 326, it says it's his righteousness, but he gave it to us.

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So now it's ours, but it counts as if we had done those righteous acts that Jesus did, but we didn't, did we?

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In fact, we put him on the cross, didn't we? And the fact is, if we hadn't sinned, he wouldn't have had to die, but he did die, which proves

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God had to have him die so that we could have his righteousness or God would have lost all humans and none of his children would have been saved.

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Not one. For there is none righteous. No, not one. There's none that seeketh after God. So we had to be given this gift and it's the very righteousness of Jesus.

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And that's what we mean when we talk about positional righteousness. It's part of the cause of our salvation.

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We are given the gift of faith, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, at the very moment the Holy Spirit quickens us, he awakens us, he opens our eyes, he opens our ears, he gives us life, he gives us

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Jesus's faith, Jesus's righteousness, and then all of a sudden we want to be different and we start living better.

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Not perfect, but then you see some of the experience happening where we actually live better, but that's not the cause, that's the effect.

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Do you see the difference? Very few people today see this difference. So count yourself fortunate if you see it because most of your friends don't see this.

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Now part of my job is to equip you to teach them this. It's not my job to teach them, it's yours.

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So you have to get this. You're responsible to teach this to your friends that go to these churches that have guided them the wrong way.

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They have false prophets that are their teachers. Do they look like a false prophet? Well, yeah, they do, which means they look like a good person because that's how all false prophets look.

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They don't look mean and scary, foaming at the mouth. They have a nice tie on, a good haircut, a suit, they're handsome or pretty and they're good to look at.

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They have marvelous speaking voices. Paul said, I can't speak like that, but they can speak like that. Paul said,

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I just preach with the power of the Holy Ghost. I'm not eloquent. They're eloquent and they're teaching your friends the false gospel.

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Think how dangerous that is. And you say, well, I don't want to interfere. You have to interfere. You're the salt and the light. They don't have anyone else that's going to interfere.

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It's your job to interfere. Do it nicely though, not like I am. From the pulpit, you can get a little salty. You know what

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I mean? You can get a little like in your face, but when I'm not in the pulpit, when

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I'm at Denny's talking to somebody, I don't talk like that. At least I try not to. I have to work at being meek, but I mean,

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I try to be meek and listen to their viewpoint and all that. So you'll have to, it's harder for what you have to do.

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Your job's way harder than mine. I can just flat stuff it down your throat. I can say, here it is. This is it.

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You have to have a more diplomatic approach, obviously. Let me give you a clue that'll help you.

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And Bill taught it last Sunday, I believe it was in Sunday school. Jesus Christ, the way that he won arguments is he answered the questions with a question.

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If you will do that, it will help. Because if the person says, well, why do you believe that it's by grace and that I don't have to do this stuff?

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Instead of trying to line this out and preach it to them like this, you need to know this though. But instead of giving it to them like that, you need to ask them a question and say, well, why do you believe it's not that way?

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How do you believe it works? Get them talking. Does that make sense? They say to you, why do you believe that it's just grace, which means you basically live like you want to, you can live like the devil and still be saved.

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Why do you believe that? And I would not try to answer that because they're not ready for that. I would just say, look, well, let me ask you this.

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Tell me why you believe it's not that way and tell me how you think it does work. And then just shut up and listen, let them talk.

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Because what the Bible says they will do is they will argue themselves in a circle and become illogical or their argument will become illogical.

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And you can point that out and say, well, you said this a minute ago and now you're saying this, which is it? And then they turn red in the face.

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Now it's time to give them the facts because they're humble enough to listen. And it's even better if you can get them to read it and tell it to themselves, because if they hear themselves say it, they'll believe it.

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If they hear you say it, they may not. You see, this is how you have your jobs way harder than mine. Mine is really pretty clear.

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It's a matter of grammar. It's a matter of word definitions and a matter of context. And the whole of the

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Bible, what the whole Bible teaches, that's not that hard. Philippians 3 .9,

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and be found in Christ. Now look at this, positional righteousness, very clear.

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Not having what? Whose? If you can't see it, I got to make the fonts bigger.

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I know that. But you do have a Bible or a phone in your lap, right? Not having whose righteousness? My own.

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Now, if you're talking about my own, now you're talking about this. But the salvation, the righteousness you have that saved you is not your own.

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Your own is a result of being saved. It's not what causes it. What causes it is this,

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I'm found in Christ. That's what causes the salvation. I'm in Christ, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law by trying to keep the rules.

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So that's not what it is, but it's that which is through faith, through faith.

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Now, faith was a gift that God gave you. You can't make yourself believe this stuff, and your friend can't either, by the way.

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You can't convince them. It's your job to tell them the truth, period. The Holy Spirit has to light on them and call them or they won't ever see it.

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He has to open their eyes and their ears and quicken them and give them life. But it's our job to tell them the gospel, and the

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Holy Spirit will work together with the word of God. And Jesus said this, nobody's ever saved without two ingredients.

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One is the water, that's the Bible, that's your part, giving them the word of God, the water of the word. And the second is the spirit, that's the calling.

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Takes both. Our job is to give them the word, that's the water. Now, look at this, and be found in him not having my own righteousness, which is of the law or by keeping rules, but that which is through the faith of Christ.

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I want you to notice, does that say faith in Christ or faith of Christ? Well, is that an important difference?

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Why? What would faith in Christ mean? That could mean that you just tried to make yourself believe something that you heard at a gospel meeting, and you got all emotional into it, and you said,

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I want to believe, I want to believe, I want to believe. Okay, I believe. And you just convinced yourself you believe. But even if you did convince yourself to believe, that is a work because your brain did it, and your brain requires food that you eat, and it creates the ability to work.

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It creates energy, and that's a work. And Jesus said, you're not saved by works. So human belief can't save you, and yet the modern gospel, what you and I heard growing up in these

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Southern Baptist churches, and certainly in all the others, is you believe, and then God will save you.

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So see, you got saved by something you did. You never thought of it this way, did you? It's kind of freaky when you first see it.

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You say, well, wait a minute. That is how it works, isn't it? No, it's not, because you're not saved by something you do.

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Do you see? But that's why this word is important. It says through the faith of Christ, not faith in Christ.

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Now, there are scriptures that talk about us having faith in Christ, but those are effects, not the cause.

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So we are saved, in Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and I keep mentioning that because it's so clear there, that that faith that saves us is a gift.

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What does that mean? It means it's something you didn't have, something you didn't cause, something you didn't think up.

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It's something you received as a gift, and it's Jesus' faith. It's not your faith.

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It's yours now because he gave it to you, just like it's not your righteousness. It's his, but he gave it to you, so it's yours now.

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So now, yeah, you believe. You believe because you have the faith of Christ. It was given to you at the moment he saved you and quickened you and made you come alive.

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He gave that to you. Pardon me. I've got some allergies going on here.

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So, yeah, I point this out. If you don't have a King James Bible, you will never see that, or if you don't understand

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Greek, because in the Greek, it says faith of Christ right there. In all modern

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English Bibles, so -called Bibles, it will say in.

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It won't say of, so you'll miss that, and that's one reason the modern churches preach a false gospel, because the preachers went to seminaries that don't use the

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King James anymore, and you think you're just making this up. No, I'm not. I'm not making it up. They use the

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New American Standard and the NIV in all the seminaries, because all of them bought into a, it's almost like, it's almost like, let me take these hay fever pills.

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Hold on. Turn it off. Okay, guys, don't watch this. I promise it's hay fever pills.

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It's not something to get me going. Be you filled with the

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Spirit, not with other stuff. So, okay, so there is a very intellectual theory called the

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Westcott -Hort theory of manuscript evidence, but if you look into it, the brightest minds that were alive on the face of the earth when

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Westcott and Hort created their theory shot them down with a double barrel shotgun and buried it, the theory, but since the little g god of the world is in control of all institutions, including the seminaries, they bought into the

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Westcott -Hort theory and did the same thing political liberals do. They act like you're not intellectual if you don't buy into that theory, or it's same with evolution.

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In fact, the two theories came out kind of in a similar fashion. They're just lies from Satan, but men buy into it and put the tag intellectual, so if you don't believe the

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Westcott -Hort theory, you're not intellectual, so all of the seminaries teach it, which means nobody uses

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King James Bible anymore, and they don't know the Greek well enough. Seminarians don't really learn the

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Greek that well, and they miss it, but there it is, and it's the faith of Christ.

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Now, let's read the whole thing and be, so I'll say, look, let me say this. I'm not picking on your

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Bible if you're using NIV or New American Standard. That's fine. I'd rather you read that than not read anything, but you need to understand it has probably around 2 ,000 errors in it.

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It comes from only two of the some 5 ,000 plus manuscripts we have of the New Testament.

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It comes from only two of those, rather than looking at all of them. It comes from two, and those two disagree with each other in hundreds and hundreds of places, so they can't both be the

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Word of God because they're not perfect. You get it? So, I spent two years studying this in my life when

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I was younger, and I guarantee you, if you study it, you'll see the problem.

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So, Satan has put out there all these modern English Bibles. They're not, they don't have all of the

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Word of God in them. They have a lot of it, but they've also removed a lot of it. The last three or four verses of the

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Book of Mark are totally gone from those versions. Check it out. Totally gone. It's not there. The one verse in 1

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John that names the Trinity has been removed from those Bibles. Check it out.

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I'm not making this stuff up. Anyway, back to the point. That's a rabbit trail. "...be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, through Jesus's faith, which was given to me, the righteousness which is of God by that faith,"

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Jesus's faith that was given to me. Now, you won't get that if that little word of is changed to the word in, and it is in all the

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English versions except the King James. Well, maybe the Geneva Bible may have it right.

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I need to check that out. That's another good version, but it's a really old version. Now, look here,

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Galatians 2 .20. This is such a popular verse. Everyone knows, a lot of people have this memorized, but they don't understand this formula is found in this verse too.

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See if you don't see it. "...I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not

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I, but Christ lives in me." So, any righteousness that I do accomplish experientially is because Jesus did it in me and helped me do it because I was too lazy to do it myself, too evil to do it myself.

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He did it in me and encouraged me to do it, didn't he? Therefore, who gets the credit for that good work? Why do you think it is the book of Revelation says as soon as we get to heaven, the first thing we do is we're given some crowns, and you know what the second thing we do is?

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We cast them all at Jesus' feet. Why? Because we recognize at that point we wouldn't have done any of it without him, right?

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He gets the glory. Even for the experiential, even if we be holy, he gets credit for that too because we're not holy.

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We're only made holy. We're given the righteousness of Christ, and we try to live right, but when we do, it's because he worked in our hearts to do it in our lives.

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We all know that. We know ourselves pretty well, don't we? But here's how

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Paul, the greatest Christian who ever lived, here's how he lived. I live as if when

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Christ died, I died, so my old man is dead. My old man is crucified.

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The one that wants to do all the sin is dead, so I count him dead. So, I'm crucified with Christ, yet I'm here.

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I'm physical on the earth. I'm living, but it's not really me. It's Christ that lives in me, and the life which

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I now live in this body, that doesn't mean in the flesh in the bad sense of that versus spiritual.

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That's not what he means here. He just means in this body, the life that I now live in this body. Now, look carefully.

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I live by the faith in Jesus Christ. Is that what it says? It says

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I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

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It's so clear when the Holy Spirit shows it to you, when you have the true word of God, and I'm not saying

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King James, but it's the best English translation, and we do know

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God said he'd preserve his word until the last generation, so it's on the earth somewhere in his perfect state, right? Not the original, but it's been copied and copied and copied, and it's preserved in this world somewhere, and the closest

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English version is the King James, and even there, when you say, well, I see something not quite right, it's usually the archaic

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English part, not the Greek or the Hebrew. It's the archaic English part, which can easily be rendered by looking at an old

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English dictionary, finding out what the word currently means, and just switching it to a better word. That's easily done.

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By the way, if you need an easily read English version that does that for you, but still has the correct underlying

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Greek and Hebrew, get a New American Standard, sorry, got that wrong, take that out, and delete that,

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Ben, fix it. All right, get what's called a New Schofield Study Bible, King James version.

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New, it has to have the word new, or it won't fix it. New Schofield Study Bible, King James version.

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Now, you got to watch it, because there's a lot of New Schofield Study Bibles that are New American Standard. You don't want that one. So, New Schofield Study Bible, King James version.

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What they will do is they'll take these archaic English words, and put a current English word in its place, and put bars around it where you know they changed it, and then they put the original

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King James over in the margin, so they're honest. They'll tell you when they change it, but what's interesting, they don't change the underlying

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Greek or Hebrew. The New King James version is not right. It's a lie. It is not a

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King James version, and it's full of Westcott and Hort. So, it won't work, but you see the deceit there.

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They try to act like it's a King James, call it New King James. No, the emphasis is on the word new, not

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King James, because it's Westcott Hort. So, you can't use that one if you want to miss the errors, but I like the

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New Schofield Study Bible, King James version, because it will get rid of the archaic English, and keep the underlying

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Greek and Hebrew. So, there's a hint for you, if you want to look for one of those. They don't print them anymore, so you have to find a used one, but you can still find them.

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You can find them online. I have people all over the tradeway, thousands of people have gone out and found those.

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So, there may not be too many left, because they hear about it, but you can still find them, and get you one.

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Even if it's marked up, get one, because they're worth a lot of money now. If you get a leather one, that'd probably be about a thousand bucks, so don't get a leather one, but it's because everybody knows it's great, and it's no longer in print.

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Be cool if some entrepreneur would grab the rights to that, and reprint them, wouldn't it? All right, look at 2

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Corinthians 5 21. For he has made him to be sin for us.

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That's imputation. That's what we covered a couple of Sundays ago, right? He is made, the

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Father is made Jesus, who knew no sin of his own, to be sin for us.

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So, God the Father imputed our sins to Jesus, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

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So, now he imputes Jesus's, or in this case, it calls it God's righteousness. Well, Jesus is

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God, right? So, we see one verse up here, where it calls it Jesus's righteousness.

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This place calls it God's righteousness, and he gives that to us. Can you see how that's positional?

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That's not something you did. That's something you received. God's really, so you, like these denominations,

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Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Methodist, Catholic, they all believe that you have to do stuff either to get saved or stay saved, which the

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Apostle Paul rebukes the Galatians, says you foolish Galatians, why do you believe that? He rebukes them for it, but still these modern denominations, and the ancient one, the

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Roman Catholics, they believe you got to do stuff to stay saved, get saved, and stay saved, and the problem is, they think that effectual righteousness is what saves you, works, but the

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Scripture says, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, and so we see the difference in how they miss this.

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They have to be blinded to miss this, and that's sad they are. Scripture says they are.

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For he has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God by being in Christ.

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So when we're saved, we're attached to Christ, we're baptized into Christ, which means we're immersed into Christ, not by the water baptism, that's a picture of it, the

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Spirit baptism. The Spirit connects us to Christ, makes us one with Him, we now have

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His righteousness, which is the righteousness of God, therefore we stand justified as if we've never sinned in God's eyes.

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It's a standing, it's a position, it's not something you can change by how you live today or tomorrow. Satan wants you to think it is, that way when we mess up, he says, see, you're not really saved, and you just need to remind

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Satan when he puts that thought in your mind, say, well, you know what, I didn't get saved by being good, I still have the righteousness of Jesus, and speaking of which,

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I'm covered by His blood, you might want to leave me alone, because he hates that, he'll leave. The thought will go away instantly if you pray those little spiritual warfare prayers like that.

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All right, so positional righteousness, here's another one, 1 Peter 2, 21 through 25, for even here unto were you called, now let me ask you this, do you think, because when we spoke about the calling, there's two kinds of callings too, there is one called the universal call, which basically means the gospel goes out to everybody in the world, and there's one called the effectual call, which is where he saves you, and that's only to the elect, how can you tell, only by the context, so let me ask you the context here, do you think that's talking about the general calling or the effectual calling, for even here unto were you, well, you have to look and see who's the book 1

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Peter written to, well, if you go to the very first verse, first three or four verses, it says it's written to the elect, to the saints, it's only written to Christians, born -again people, so that's who you is, so for even here unto were you, the born -again elect

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Christians, were you called, so that's effectual calling, that didn't happen to every human, it only happens to the elect, because Christ also suffered for us, who's the us there, it's not every human, it's all the people that God foreknew and predestinated, who he later called and justified, that group of people, that's who

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Jesus suffered for, now there's a sense in which he suffered for everyone, only in this sense that the non -elect will be judged because he suffered and they didn't receive him, that's why they'll go to hell, the father will only have to ask one question at the great white throne judgment, he may ask more, but I know there's only one that really happens to be the key one, and that is, what did you do with my son

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Jesus? And I said, well, I rejected him, depart from me then,

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I never knew you, because if I'd have known you, you wouldn't have rejected him, right? It all ties together the whole

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Bible, for here, even here unto were you called because Christ also suffered for us, who his own self bear our sins in his body, while he was on the tree, that's imputation, so you can see clearly, he didn't bear, he did not bear the sins of the whole world, or else they'd all be saved, because if he took their sins away and put it on his own body and died for him, then they're saved, they have no sin of their own, it's been imputed, that is nonsense, it's very modern, how many people, friends you have, say, well,

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I'm a four -point Calvinist, and they say that with intellectualism, I'm a four -point Calvinist, what's the one point you think they leave off?

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They never want to say Jesus only died for the elect, that's the fifth point that they don't want to believe, so they're not really, they don't really believe the

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Bible anyway, because that's what the Bible teaches, it's not Calvinism either, and you've heard me say it a million times,

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Augustine believed it 1400 years before Calvin was born, Augustine got it from the apostle

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Paul, who got it from Jesus, it's Christianity, ladies and gentlemen, but it's just that we live in the end times, many false preachers and so forth, very few people see this clearly in this day and time, there's pockets of them all over the world, though, that see this,

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I've got friends all over the U .S. anyway, and in some country, foreign countries, that see this very clearly, even who have pastors who preach this very clearly still today, it's just a small minority, though, of all

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Christians, or people who claim to be Christians, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, now look at this, for you were as sheep going astray, now this is where I would take a stand -up break for about a minute, let you stand up and wake up, because you've about had it,

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I can tell, that's how I know when the sermon's over, okay, even I'm getting tired today, so sermon's almost over, that seldom happens, but I want you to see this, because I got pretty excited about this,

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I said, hmm, that's amazing, I'm going to talk about that too a little bit today, too, having to do with positional righteousness, so when

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I give you this thought, we'll stop, even though I got like 15 more slides, but think about this, for you were as sheep going astray, so there was a time when you were a lost sheep, would you agree, that's what that's saying, you were never a goat, what is a goat?

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A goat typifies a person who will never get saved, he's not of the elect, he just won't like, he won't get saved, he's going to live his own life, do what he wants to do, never receive

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Christ, because he never will want to, a lost sheep is a person who looks just like a goat and runs with him, that's what all of us were for a while, we were lost sheep, and we were just no better than a goat, and we're still no better as far as what we do in this flesh, we're just part of the fallen human race, the difference is something happens to the lost sheep that doesn't happen to a goat, and that is they get found, in fact, a hundred percent of them get found, because Jesus said, no man will come to me unless the father draw him, and of them

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I will lose nothing, but will raise it up at the end, so you were, now look, here we're talking about people who have been called, effectual calling, the

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Holy Spirit woke you up, you say, well, how do I know if that's me, do you desire Christ, do you desire to call upon the name of the

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Lord, well, the Bible says, whosoever desires to call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, in Romans 10 13, now you won't see the word desired in English, but in the

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Greek it implies that, in Greek it reads, whosoever desires to call upon the name of the

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Lord shall be saved, so if you have that desire, because it's a gift that was given to you by the Holy Spirit, you did not naturally have it, you didn't even want it, and you weren't seeking it, so if you have that desire, you've been awakened, now it's speaking to people that have been called, and Jesus suffered for those people, and Jesus bore the sins of those people on his own body on the tree, that's who it's talking to, but it's going back and talking to that group of people at a point before their spiritual birthday, before they were actually born again, yet they were alive on this earth, but they were lost sheep, so look what it says, for you were like sheep going astray, but are now, this is on once you are born again, you are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your soul, now

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I gotta ask you a logical question at this point, it's both biblical and logical, can you return to something that you weren't already there at one time previously?

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If you weren't there before, can you return to it? Now you could go to it, but you can't return to it unless you've already been there, right?

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Would you agree with that logically? Well, the word here in English says you were a lost sheep, now you have returned to Jesus, the shepherd, the bishop, does that not by right of the pure definition of the word returned teach you that you were with him previously and you fell away and now you're with him again?

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It has to, can you use the word return and not mean that? He said, well maybe it's not returned in the

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Greek, well there's the Greek epistrepho means to revert or to turn again, or in modern

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English to return, so the Bible is teaching us that those of us who find ourselves saved because of the calling of the

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Holy Spirit and the awakening of the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves returned to the bishop we were already once with.

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Now can that even be true? Well, look at Romans 8, 28, and 29, which is what we're studying today, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.

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So there was a time before time began, before anything was made, that the Father already knew you and saw you and saw your whole life, remember he's now, right?

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He already sees you as glorified, he knows your name, he knows you're his child, and he knew you intimately with love as his child and as his wife, by the way, two different allegories of our relationship with him, right?

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He kind of like, he knows us as his bride, but he also knows us as his child, there's a lot of different ways God knows, as his sheep and he's the shepherd, right?

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He already knew you by name as one of those, so was anything going to ever change that?

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Listen, if God has seen the end from the beginning, can you change what he saw? No man can, there's many multitudinous scriptures that says no man can change what

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God wills, no man can take what God wills and change it. So you were already with him in his heart and mind before you ever born in this world, and when you did get born, you were born into a natural race which was fallen and you were actually a sheep gone astray for a while until the

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Holy Spirit awakened you and you came to Christ and now you're brought back into the fold and you are returned.

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Now does that, listen, this should give you some goosebumps actually, because there was never a chance that you wouldn't be saved, never.

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Now you know how you say, we've all grown up saying stuff that we've heard people say because it sounds cool, might even been a preacher, well, you know,

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I look back at my life and there were hundreds of times I could have died and if I'd have died at any one of those times prior to my salvation,

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I'd have gone straight to hell. How many of you ever actually said that? Come on, I'm not the only one. All right, you said, you know,

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I'm so thankful the Lord saved, it's how we do our testimony before we know the Bible, really, if you think about it. I'm so happy the

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Lord saved me. I got saved last week and I'm here before you. Jesus saved me and, man, I can think of a hundred times that I could have died.

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I did such stupid stuff and if I'd have died at any one of those times, I'd have split hell wide open. Praise God he saved me.

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That's not true. It's not true. There was never a chance. He said, I've been,

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I will lose nothing. Who is the shepherd? You? Now, if you were the shepherd, yeah, you'd mess up, right?

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But you're not the shepherd, you're the sheep and the shepherd is the one who's held accountable by the

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Father to get you to heaven, not you. It's Jesus that's held accountable by the Father to get you to heaven. Do you think he's going to have to apologize to God because he missed one or two?

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He said he won't have to. I will lose nothing. Return, that's pretty cool.

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We see it there in Romans. It's alluded to, at least, wouldn't you agree? Now, look at this one, Ephesians 1, 4.

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According as he hath chosen us in him, but when did he choose us to be saved? To be in Christ?

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Before the foundation of the world. So, you're already in God's heart and mind as his own child.

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He sees you, sees your face. He made you. He sees every molecule in your body. In fact, he'll bring it all back together at the rapture in case we die before that or whatever.

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If we don't die, just fix it. What we messed up, right, by how we lived. It'll fix that, but he's already seen us and knows us.

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So, we return. We return to the shepherd of our soul. That cannot be something we did and of ourselves because we were lost sheep.

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That's something the shepherd did. He gathered us. You do see it, even though you're tired already, right?

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You see it. Having predestinated us, whoa, wait a minute now. According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, having predestinated.

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That sounds very similar to our verses we're studying today. Whom he foreknew, he also predestinated.

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Who he predestinated, he called. Who he called, he justified. Who he justified, he glorified. Very similar, but this is in Ephesians, not

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Romans 8. According as he has chosen us. Who is us? Go back and check out who Ephesians is written to.

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It's not written to the world at large. It's not written to every man, woman, boy, and girl. It's written to the elect, saved people.

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According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, having predestinated us to be adopted according to the good pleasure of his will.

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So, it's because he wanted to do it. He chose who he wanted to choose. He doesn't choose every human and humans don't like that.

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They didn't like it when Jesus preached this doctrine. There's a place where it says many disciples left

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Jesus and never came back, and he looked at his own apostles and said, will you leave also? If you check out the topic he was talking about, it was this.

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That God does not save everybody. He saves who he wants to save. We don't like the fact that God's that way.

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I've said this in crowds all across America. There's two groups in this room right here. One of you, if you were

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God, and man did what man did and sinned and rebelled against you, you would just snuff them all out and start over.

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That's about half of you in the room. Probably some of the guys, I don't know. You know what the rest of you would do?

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If you were God and that happened, you would just overlook it and just save them all, right?

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But no one likes how God did it. He looked at a totally lost race where the entire race was bound for hell, having sinned against him and the wages of sin is death.

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That was the first law in the garden all through Bible. That's the same law, wages sin is death. He looks at a completely lost, fallen race and says, you know what?

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Because I love Jesus so much, my son, and he loves the earth of all the stars and planets

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I made. He loves the earth in particular. He loves humans. I'm going to save a remnant. I'm going to reach down and I've got a plan to save a small remnant of that race and give it to my son as a love gift.

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Jesus, here it is. They're yours. And Jesus says, unless the father drew them, none would be saved, but of them

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I'll lose nothing. It's all in the Bible. It's exactly how it worked. It's exactly God's plan and there's never been another plan, never will be, because when you're perfect, you don't make sub plans.

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You just make one plan. So here, he knew us as his own before he made anything.

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So yes, we have returned to the one who already knew us, to the praise, the glory of his grace.

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If we'd had a part in it, we'd get a little bit of that glory for salvation. All right. Now, what about this?

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John 10, 14, I'm the good shepherd and I know my sheep and I'm known of my sheep. So Jesus said, look,

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I'm the good shepherd. I know who my sheep are and I know them personally and they know me.

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So when you were a lost sheep and the Holy Spirit opened your eyes and said, look up there and you saw him for the very first time, what did you do?

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You said, I want you. God did not save you against your will. He just opened your eyes and pointed your chin up and said, look at that.

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There's your shepherd. Aren't you hungry? He's got the food. What did you do? You did what you wanted to do. You received him.

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You returned to him. You didn't even realize you belong to him. Now you do. You return to him because the

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Lord opened your eyes. That's what John 10, 14 says. But you know what? John chapter 8 teaches very clearly that there's two groups in the world.

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There's the sheep and there's the goats and the goats do the opposite. They don't return to him because they were never with him.

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Now you say, well, the Bible can't possibly teach that. It's got to be equal for all people to have the same chance. Well, that's how you would do it.

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Yes. And that's why you don't love God. So you invent your own God.

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That's why you don't love Jesus. You invented your own Jesus that loves everybody and saves everybody.

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That's who you worship. It's a false God, of course, who can't take you to heaven, but that's who you've invented. It might as well be a rock or a tree or a dumb

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God, because it's not the living God. That's who people do is they create a

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God that they can worship because they hate God. All right. So look at it. John 8, 43. Why do you not understand my speech?

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Now, who is he talking to here in the context of this? He is talking to the religious leaders of his day, the theologians in the seminaries of his day.

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And he looks at them square in the eye and says, you don't understand my speech. Why? Why don't you understand my speech?

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It's the word of God. Why don't you understand it? I'm God talking to you. You don't understand it. Why is that?

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Even because you cannot hear my word. Now, you do understand people that can't hear

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God's word, they can't get saved even if they wanted to. And the modern gospel, though, offers it to everybody and says, all you got to do is just pray this little prayer.

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You'll be saved. No, they can't get saved if they don't understand the word and they can't understand it unless they're called.

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Because if the calling is when the Holy Spirit opens your ears and your eyes and equips you and quickens you so that you can hear his word, you can't get saved without that happening.

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So no church can save you. No prayer formula can save you. Neither can it unsave you.

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You say, well, that's what I did. I went down there and prayed the prayer. So that mean I'm not saved? No, because you got saved in the pew.

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You had the desire for Jesus or you probably wouldn't have gone down there. You already saved. So the preacher didn't mess you up.

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He just taught you a little false doctrine. He didn't mess you up. He can't unsave you. Because the

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Holy Spirit calls you where you are. It's not at the altar. He calls you in your car. He calls you at home. He calls you at the park.

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He calls you at the pond fishing. He calls you in the pew maybe. When you hear the word, he turns you on and you hear it and you want to get saved.

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You don't realize you're already saved. You want to do the human thing. That's natural, but it's really already been done to you by the

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Holy Spirit. So here we see that here's a group of people that have studied the

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Bible their whole life, have much of it memorized. But he says, but you can't hear my word.

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You don't have ears that hear because you haven't been quickened. The Holy Spirit hasn't called you. In fact, look what it says in verse 44.

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You are of your father, the devil. Now let me ask you something. You've got to look in context, tell who the you is and who the we are.

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Okay. The we is the sheep. The you is the goats. It's just how it is. You just have to study it and look at it.

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You is a different group of people than we. Are you with me? It's kind of creepy when you think about it.

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When you walk down the street, of course, the county you look around, by and far, most people around you are goats. They will never be saved.

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They're in the Bible belt. So they tell you they're a Christian, but they've never been called. They don't know the word of God.

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Neither can they hear it nor see it. And they don't love the Lord. And they'll say they do. Because it's popular.

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You go up north, it's not that way. You go out west, they're not going to tell you they love the Lord. They're going to tell you the truth. They might as well say,

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I'm a goat. That stuff's nonsense. They're more honest than people in the South, in the Bible belt, they're liars.

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They say, I'm a Christian when they're not. That makes it difficult for us here. You are of your father, the devil.

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In the lust of your father, you will do. He didn't say you might do it. He said, you will do it. He that is of God hears

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God's words. You, therefore, hear them not because you are not of God. Now, let me tell you something.

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That group of people are going to return to who they came from. And you return to who you came from, the bishop of your souls,

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Jesus Christ. They returned to their father. Jesus named him. He's called the devil.

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In the parable, they asked the farmer, did you plant bad seeds? And he said, no, I don't plant bad seeds.

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Why are you asking me that? Because tares came up with your wheat. And he said, I didn't plant them. The enemy did. Later, they asked him in private, who is that enemy?

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He said, it's the devil. He named him. He said, the devil planted the tares in the earth. I didn't. So they returned to their father.

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We returned to our father. Jesus made it plain to these people. He that is of God is the one who can hear and understand

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God's words. And that, by the way, in the Greek, the word here, there is, there's different kinds of Greek words for here.

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It doesn't mean just the striking of the ear. It means hearing with understanding. The Greek word makes it clear.

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He that's of God hears God's words with understanding. You therefore hear them not because you are not of God.

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Now you say, well, that's not quite clear enough to prove the point. Well, for your sake,

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I wish it were because it's getting time for lunch, but it speaks of these two groups.

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Now look at this. I wish I had that fixed. I'll fix that for next time. Look at this. Verse 12 says, then spake

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Jesus again to them, the same group of people, saying, I am the light of the world.

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He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Now, isn't that the universal call?

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Didn't he just sort of give the gospel to everyone? But is that the effectual call?

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No, because these very people he's talking to aren't going to receive him. So that wasn't the Holy Spirit calling them in the effectual calling and waking them up.

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That was just the gospel call. He says, look, I'm the light of the world. Receive me and you'll live forever. So he gave them the truth, did he not?

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And they will be judged by that very sentence someday at the great white throne judgment. God the

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Father said, what'd you do with that when Jesus told you that? They're going to say, we rejected him. In fact, we killed him. The Pharisees therefore said unto him, thou bearish record of yourself.

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You're just bragging on yourself. Your record's not true. You're not the light of the world.

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If people follow you, it's not going to save their soul. You're just bragging. And Jesus said, look,

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I'm one that bears witness of myself. But he said, there is another. He said, the father that sent me bears witness of me too.

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And it's all through your Old Testament scriptures. Read Moses and you'll read of me. Read Abraham, you'll read of me.

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And that's the father telling you who I am. So I'm one witness, but the father's the other. You have to have two witnesses to prove something if you're a

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Jew. So he just told him, you got two witnesses, not one. Then said they to him, where is your father?

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Jesus answered, look at this. You neither know me or my father.

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This is so important. Your friends don't know this today. Your friends don't know this information.

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They bought into a phony gospel where God's just going to save everybody because he loves everybody and blah, blah, blah.

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They don't know the fact that there's two groups, one group God hates and one group God loves. One group that follows

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Jesus, another group follows Satan, who hates God and hates everyone that loves God. And there are those two groups.

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Then said they unto him, where is your father? Jesus said, you don't know me or my father. For if you had known me, you would have known the father.

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And vice versa. If you'd known the father, you'd have known me. Here's places where he says that.

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But these words speak Jesus in the treasury as he taught in the temple. So here he's teaching the

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Jews, supposedly the people of God and the theologians of the day, but they don't understand these things.

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And no man laid hands on him because it wasn't time yet for him to be crucified. But what does that imply?

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What did the leaders want to do to him? They wanted to imprison him and kill him. Verse 21 says, then said

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Jesus again unto them, I go my way and you'll seek me but you will die in your sins.

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Now, who is he talking to? He's talking to the religious leaders of the day that had a works -based salvation plan where you just got to be as righteous as me to get there, they thought.

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And he's telling them, you're going to die in your sins. Where do you go when you die in your sins? You go to hell when you die, if you die in your sins.

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That's why you have to have the doctrine of imputation. Your sins have to be taken away from you and put on Christ on the cross and his righteousness has to be given to you or else.

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Look at that group of people who said, you are going to hell. He said,

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Jesus said, where I go, you cannot choose to come. You see, you see that implied in the grammar where I go, you cannot will to come.

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You won't want to come there and you can't decide to come there because you can't come there because you're not from there.

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You can't return, you're going to return where you came from. You get it? That's the big lesson in today's sermon.

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We return to the bishop of our souls, they return to the father of them, which is Satan. Then said the

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Jews, will he kill himself? He's talking about where I go, you can't come. Does that mean he's going to go in the grave and we're still alive?

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We're trying to figure it out, aren't they? Because he says, where I go, you cannot come. See, they didn't want to admit what it really meant, but I think deep down in their heart, they knew what it meant.

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He's telling us we're going to hell. And he said unto them, you are from beneath.

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Wow, that's one group of people. You're from beneath and you're going to return there.

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You never were mine. I don't plant tears in the earth, Satan does.

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You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world and you love the power and you love the money and that's why you steal from widows and you take their money and you live in nice houses and you sit in the best seats in the parties and that's who you

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Pharisees are because you love the world system and you're a big part of it. And he said, that's who you are.

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You're from beneath, I'm from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world, Jesus said.

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The stuff I like, you won't like. The stuff that's important to me and mine are not important to you.

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I said therefore unto you, look at this, looking right in their face, looking right in their eyes and he said, you will die in your sins for if you believe not that I am.

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And I want you to notice that the word he is in italics up there, that means that's only in the English, it's not in the original

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Greek, it's not in the original Bible. So Jesus didn't say I'm not he, what he said was you will die in your sins and he's talking to a bunch of Jews, Pharisees, religious leaders, he said you will die in your sins for if you believe not that I am, you shall die in your sins.

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Who did God tell Moses that his name was in Exodus 3 15? He said tell him

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I am sent you and Jesus says look guys, I know you think you're holy because you got your work system but you didn't even come from where I'm from.

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I don't even know you. You came from the devil, you're going to return to the devil, you've always belonged to the devil, he's a murderer, you're going to murder me.

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If you love the father, you would actually love me but you're going to murder me because you're of your father the devil and that's where you're going to go and he said

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I'm going to tell you what, you're going to die in your sins because unless a person believes that I am

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God, he will die and go to hell. Wow, but did they have the capacity to believe that he's

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God? Can they work that up in their brain? Boy, Nicodemus tried, didn't he? Can they work it up?

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No, they don't have the ability, they're not really seeking it, they're just, they can't believe that. It's a miraculous thing if any human believes it.

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It has to be given of them by the Holy Spirit. The gift of Christ is given to them as a gift. These people aren't going to get that gift.

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Jesus knows it, so he's telling them their future. You're going back to return to where you came from. Then said

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Jesus to those Jews which did believe on him, if you continue in my word, because now see their ears have been opened, they've been called out of the same group of Jews that were listening.

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Some of them got saved that day, they were called, they were quickened, their ears were open, their eyes were open, now they understand all this stuff he's saying to them.

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They get it, they're probably trembling and they get it, and he said, if you continue in my word, then you're my disciples indeed.

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Why? Because a true believer, a sheep, that's what the sheep eats, that's his food, is the word of God.

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He will continue in it, but a goat will not. A goat will rise up and go to church with you for a season, but when persecution arises or trouble comes because of the word, they quickly go back away from it and they leave.

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You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. John 8 36, if the son therefore shall make you free, you'll be free indeed.

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He's still talking to these same people. That's the general gospel of the general calling.

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He called them again, he said, come to me, you'll have life, you'll have freedom, but he said, you're not going to. So they will stand and answer for rejecting the gospel that was given to them, but they can't receive it because they don't have the equipment.

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I know that you speak to kill me because I speak that which

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I've seen of my father, and you do that which you've seen of your father. Two groups, do you see them?

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Two groups. One group returns to their father, which is Jesus, the bishop of their soul.

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The other group returns to theirs, which is Satan. They answered and said unto him,

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Abraham is our father. And Jesus said unto them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham because Abraham saw me and loved me.

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But now you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I have heard from God.

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This did not Abraham do. So you're not anything like Abraham. You do the deeds of your father.

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Then said they to him, we be not born of fornication. We have one father, even God. And Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me.

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Now look at this, for I proceeded forth and came out from God. That's who

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Jesus is. He is God with us. Neither came out of myself, but God sent me.

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Why do you not understand my speech? Because you don't choose to? No, because you can't.

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You see the difference? You can't. You cannot hear my word. You're of your father, the devil and the lust of your father.

01:17:43

You will do. He was a murderer from the beginning. He abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him.

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When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own and you hear it and you understand it because you're his and you like it for he is a liar and he's the father of it.

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You can't believe what I'm saying because you believe in lies.

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Which of you convicts me of any sin? Have you ever seen me sin? They couldn't answer that one, could they? And if I tell you the truth, why don't you believe me?

01:18:15

And he answers his own question. It's rhetorical. He says, he that's of God hears

01:18:20

God's words. You therefore hear them not because you're not of God.

01:18:27

See, it's not about man's will. It's not about man's choice. It's not about man at all.

01:18:33

It's about God. It's about the work that God does to open the eyes of those who he knows will return to the bishop of their souls because he knew them from before the foundation of the world.

01:18:47

John 8 48 says, then answered the Jews and said unto him, say we not well that you're a

01:18:53

Samaritan and you've got demons. They thought they claimed Jesus was demonized. And by the way, there are theories that some theologians believe that the only unpardonable sin is when you attribute to Satan things that the

01:19:05

Holy Spirit's done. I don't know if that's true or not, but I've read it in theology books. But they certainly did that here. They saw the

01:19:10

Holy Spirit speaking through Jesus and said, you have demons. So they were calling

01:19:15

God's word demonic words. And it was God talking and they thought it was demons.

01:19:22

You see, that's what that crowd does. They twist everything. They call good evil and evil good. You can almost divide it into two parties in America right now.

01:19:29

I won't name them. I don't have to, you know, who they are. There's one party believes in killing babies. Another one doesn't believe in it.

01:19:36

One party believes they can totally affect the environment and the weather.

01:19:43

Therefore, they're God and the other party doesn't think they're God. They don't think they can affect that and change that. There's one group that thinks they can fix the economy and rule the economy.

01:19:51

The other group knows only God can do that. Jesus answered,

01:19:59

I have not a devil. That means in Greek, it's demons. I don't have demons, but I honor my father and you dishonor me.

01:20:09

Truly, truly, I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he will never see death. There's the general call.

01:20:15

He tells these people who are of Satan, the gospel, does he not? Why? Because they will be judged by those words.

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The father will come in and say, look, you stood in Jesus presence and he's God with us.

01:20:28

That was me. I was there in your presence. And I told you, if you just come to me, I'll save you. What'd you do with that information? And they're going to say nothing.

01:20:34

He's going to say, depart from me. I never knew you. That's why you couldn't hear the words. I added that second part.

01:20:42

He may not say the second part, but he will say, depart from me. I never knew you. Then said the Jews unto him, now we know you have demons because you don't think we're saved.

01:20:51

See, that's what they're saying. Like you don't agree with us. Now, let me tell you what politically in America today, what do the enemies of certain political persons do if they don't like his message?

01:21:03

Like they don't like that he says killing babies is wrong, that he wants a good economy. He wants to fight poverty.

01:21:09

He wants to have blacks and Mexicans and whites and Asians all have better jobs.

01:21:14

What do they do if they don't like him as a person? They lie about him. They just make up lies and they say, well, he's got demons.

01:21:25

And now what they do, he's got demons. You can't vote for this man. He's demonic. Look at stuff he does.

01:21:31

He's demonic. They did the same thing to Jesus and they would today if Jesus were here in person.

01:21:37

In fact, they're doing it to Jesus now anyway, in spirit. Then said the

01:21:42

Jews unto him, now we know that you have a devil. And Jesus said, if I honor myself, my honor is nothing.

01:21:49

It is the father that honors me of whom you say that he is your God. Yet you know him not, but I know him.

01:21:59

And look at this. I love this. If I would say that I don't know him, I would be a liar like unto you.

01:22:06

Now you'll never see Jesus speaking to just average people like that, but false prophets, he will nail them.

01:22:14

He will nail them every time. He's not easy with them. He just tells them exactly what they are right to their face.

01:22:21

If I said, I don't know God, I'd be a liar like unto you, but I know him and I keep his saying, which implies you don't.

01:22:28

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and he was glad and he loved me. So don't tell me your father is

01:22:34

Abraham in reality. This is in the old

01:22:53

Testament. He asked to see God and God showed him the backside of God.

01:23:01

God showed him Jesus. See, and they forgot, the Pharisees have forgotten this doctrine.

01:23:07

Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say unto you, now look at this. Before Abraham was,

01:23:15

I am. That word is Yahweh. They knew what the word meant because you know what they do here in a minute?

01:23:25

They pick up stones and want to stone him right there because he claimed to be God. Then they took up stones to cast at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out the temple going through the midst of them and so passed by.

01:23:41

Have you ever tried to escape someone by walking right through the middle of them? Only Jesus could do that, but they were blind, weren't they?

01:23:50

So what we learn today is we're not saved by any of the things that the world system says we're saved by and that false religions and false preachers say that we're saved by.

01:24:09

He has counted us as if we have his own righteousness because he gave us the faith of Christ, and that's what saved us, not the works that we have done.

01:24:21

In fact, all we did was we have been returned to the bishop of our soul by the

01:24:27

Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit returned us to the bishop of our soul. That's what happened when we got saved.

01:24:34

It's like Brother Otis used to say, God notified us that we belonged to him and always have.

01:24:40

Pretty good way to say it. That's what happened on the day of our spiritual birth.

01:24:45

Let's stand and have prayer together. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We know you will bless it in our hearts, give us opportunity to use these very scriptures with our friends and family that may not see these things, and Lord, you know that your word will fall on the ears of some people and will be like good soil, and it will spring up and blossom and bear fruit, and it'll fall on the ears of some people, and it will be like stone, and they'll never bear root.

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But it's still our job as the farmers to send out the seed, so help us to do that.

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Help us to do it clearly, and may your Holy Spirit lead us and guide us and give us open doors of opportunity to talk to our friends and family about the

01:25:27

Lord and about the truth of scripture. Lord, thank you for the fellowship time we're about to have.