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Pastor David Mitchell
All right, guys, here's where we are. Let's see what time it is. Okay, good. I need a little bit of time today to talk about what's on my heart, but let's pray and we'll get started. Lord, we just ask you to bless the Bible study time today.
Jesus, you said your words are spirit and they are life. And so bring them alive for us and speak to us today in Jesus name. Amen. We're in Romans chapter nine. You notice I put not in your Sunday school quarterly.
That's a little bit tongue in cheek. But as I grew up in Southern Baptist, every time we had to go through these little quarterlies for Sunday school, it was awful. Always dry material. None of the teachers studied it ahead of time.
But, you know, as we went through there, every time we would get to Romans chapter nine, it'd be missing. They never put that in there. But that's where we are now. And basically what we're talking about is that Romans chapter nine sort of takes all these amazing doctrines that are taught in Romans chapter eight, and it illustrates those.
It drives them home and it makes it totally impossible to dispute them if you're honest. All right. So that's what chapter nine does. So we're pretty excited about getting into that, of course. We did get into it last time a little bit, and we'll move on with that maybe today, but may not get to it because I want to talk a little bit about some prophecy before we jump back into Romans chapter nine, just because of what's going on.
So here I've got a list before you. Recently, I asked a person close to me in my life. I said, can you name 10 great things that President Trump has done for this country? And this was a very bright person, but they couldn't name one.
And I said, well, do you know why? Can you think of why? Hold on. I'm going to take care of a noise issue. Hold on one second. All right. So I said, do you know why? And they didn't know why they couldn't name one.
And so being a smart person, they did what smart people do. They answered it with a question. I said, well, can you? And I said, yeah. So I started naming them. And these are some of the things I named just off the top of my head.
He lowered taxes so that more people can have jobs because as companies pay less tax, they can hire more people and the economy grows. And of course, we know if you look, if you know how to read a chart, of course, everybody listening to me today knows how to read a chart, the S &P 500.
And from the day he was elected, it's just gone like this, just straight up. Except for the coronavirus. And then that created a V and quickly corrected itself under President Trump. But we've had higher employment for Blacks and every race for that matter.
But everybody wants to talk about a racial divide that we have in this country, which I think we wouldn't have if they quit talking about it. But that's just my opinion. I mean, I know among Christians, we're part of a different race.
It doesn't matter the skin color. We're part of the race of heavenly people. But the world has a problem with it. In America, each political party seems to want to flare it up or particularly one political party where they mention it all the time.
They're even saying that this whole event that happened on Wednesday, they're trying to make it racial. And it has nothing to do with race. One of my friends, as you know, if you got a letter I sent out earlier this week, Nelson and Betty were there and they're eyewitnesses and they have video and everything.
And they were right in the middle of the whole thing. They did not go into the building, which I don't think that was wise for anyone to do that. But, you know, even though the guards were letting people in, I don't think that was wise.
But they do have an eyewitness account, which will be in the letter that I'm going to send out later tonight or in the morning. And, you know, what's interesting about it, there were Blacks, there were Latinos, there were whites, there were all kinds of races that are Trump supporters that were in this crowd.
And as we know, more Blacks and Latinos voted Republican this time than it set a record than in all of history, because they love President Trump as well. It's not a racial issue, obviously. He made Jerusalem the capital of Israel.
He was pro-Israel in every area. He believed in strong borders, made them stronger. He stopped spending billions of dollars on nations in the world that we were giving money to under Republicans and Democrats who don't support freedom and don't have the interest of America at heart.
He stopped shelling out those billions, maybe trillions of dollars for that. He supported law enforcement. He created a strong military, which had been decimated under President Obama. He placed conservative judges, hundreds of them across the country and in the Supreme Court.
He was most of all against baby killing. And all of these things are things that Biden would not do. And they're things that he either has a weaker stance or wouldn't even do these things, couldn't do these things.
So as the media and now even the Republicans are joining in and asking and talking about who's evil and who's good, I want you to think about who different people support. What issues do they support?
And it becomes pretty clear. And then ask yourself this. If you hold Biden up in front of the world and you hold President Trump up, who does the world hate and who do they love? That should tell you something, all right?
Because the Bible tells us that you can't be the friend of the world and the friend of God. You'll either love the one and hate the other. So that tells you a lot if you just look at that. All right. So I am amazed at what's being said out there, the lies that are being told and so forth.
Now, there's a word that's in the dictionary called newspeak. And that word, a lot of you have heard if you're older like me, because when I was in high school, there was a book that was required reading called 1984 by George Orwell.
And he invented this phrase in the book. And what the book is about is it's a book that's against. It's a very good book. If you've never read it, it'll keep you on the edge of your seat reading the book.
But it's a book that was against totalitarianism. It defined how totalitarian dictators or parties like the Communist Party of the old USSR, how they misuse language to brainwash the people and bring them under subjection simply by redefining words.
They take words that have had the same definition for ages and they change the meaning of the words. And he talked about this in the book. It's funny that he called the book 1984. And for him, that was futuristic.
And really, those things are just now coming into play this week. And that's amazing. So he should have called it 2021. 2021 should have been the name of his book. He didn't miss it by a whole lot because he was right in the way in the past.
I don't remember the exactly year he wrote the book. But these things are coming into play right now. And it's really quite amazing. I'm going to speak in detail on these issues in the letter I'm about to send out later tonight or tomorrow.
But Webster's Dictionary defines the word newspeak as propagandistic language marked by euphemisms, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings. All right. So those are the things that it involves.
Now, let's see what those things are. We know what propaganda is. It's using phrases and ideas that are of questionable accuracy and keep saying those things enough time that people believe them. Propaganda.
That's our news, what President Trump calls fake news. That's just his phrase for propaganda. It's just false information that is said enough time. And you're not given access to true information so that you begin to believe the false.
That's propaganda. What is a euphemism? Well, it is the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for a word that might offend or suggest something unpleasant. Tell me that's not going on.
That's called political correctness. That's a euphemism. And newspeak in his book are the things that communists or the dictators would use to bring people under their control. They would say put a nice spin on words that actually mean pretty bad things.
And then circumlocution is when you just hit people with so much data, large amounts of data that their brain can't process at all. So it's like too much information and just deep minutiae and detail trying to prove something.
And they get tired of reading. So they just don't read it. And I'm going to tell you what, that's what's happening right now. When they say things like, oh, well, we need to fact check President Trump's speech.
And every item that he says they'll say is wrong, right? Now, you know that can't be true. He's the president. He has more information than anybody. He has secret information nobody knows about. But him, he has more good information and intel than anybody.
He knows more about that election than anybody. And yet it's all been fact checked and proven to be debunked is the word they like to use. And then they'll go in and in the article where they're debunking it, they'll just make it so full of this and that and the other that's meaningless that you forget to notice that there's no proof in their letter.
And they talk about how the Republicans didn't have any actual evidence is the reason the courts threw out all these cases about the election. Actually, they did have actual evidence. But when you look at the debunkers or those who have proved or tried to prove that the things that President Trump say are wrong, they're the ones that have no evidence.
And this is what I've brought out in my letter. You'll see it's very fascinating. I couldn't do it for every different item that they said it was a lie because I don't have time and you don't either. But I took one or two of them.
I took enough of them to prove that enough votes were stolen, that he lost the election. I proved enough numerically to show that that's the case. And I think you'll find it interesting. And then the inversion of customary meanings.
This is taking a word that has a clear historic meaning and changing the meaning of it and make it nearly the opposite of its historic definition. So all of these things are used by dictator type people, people that are trying to take away freedom from the people.
But the one that's used the most is the inversion of customary meanings. And that's the one the Democratic Party right now is using like crazy. For example, if you take the word, let's just take the word coup.
All right. So these Christians, the 200 ,000 Christian people just perpetrated a coup on our government trying to take it over. I took a little time this week and I looked at world history and American history and every coup that ever happened in history.
And I looked at each one as they are listed. I didn't find any that didn't include either guns and bayonets or knives or swords or army tanks. Coups, when people are trying to take over governments, they don't just carry signs.
OK, they don't just wear red, white and blue and walk up to the Capitol building and they don't just walk inside the Capitol building unarmed. Now, I know there were one or two they say had some things on them that remains to be proven.
That's the media saying that we don't even know if that's true. It might be true. But we know that the only person killed by a firearm was a young girl who had served in the Air Force and been on four tours.
And I've watched it from every different angle they have. And they murdered her. It actually was an ambush and they murdered her. They murdered her for simply being young and maybe foolish, doing something that young people sometimes do.
They don't think they think they're invincible. They don't think before they do things and they're doing it because it's fun. They're doing it because it's a rush and because they could do it. And they killed her for that.
So and yet they said if these had been blacks, you know, they would have killed people. And the truth, the truth is not a black white issue. You know what it is like you want to you want to talk about Black Lives Matter.
That's not a black white issue. The leaders of that organization have proclaimed on their websites where they speak about themselves that they are Marxists. So it's a Marxist versus freedom issue. You had blacks and Latinos and whites all mixed into the crowd on Wednesday.
It's not black white issue. And yet they're trying to make it one, including Biden himself. I heard him say that if they had been if it had been Black Lives Matter, they'd have laid them out. They would have just shot them all.
Well, that's a lie. That's not true. They'd be the least likely to get shot because they don't want to get fired. So, you know, my point. So they're lying. They're changing the meaning of things and giving it opposite meanings.
So they take the word coup, which has always meant an armed revolution to overthrow government. And they say, no, that's what these Christian people were doing when they marched to express their freedom of speech.
Now we call that a coup or they called them homegrown terrorists. Now, to me, a terrorist is someone that goes in and and has weapons and bombs and threatens the lives of innocent people just to make their point.
And I know there was one policeman killed, and I hope they find who killed him and, you know, execute the person. But, you know, maybe he should have had a helmet on. Maybe they should have been more prepared.
Maybe they should have had some planning for this. You know, there's a lot of fault there on the Capitol Police and the mayor of D .C. and her police force and the FBI. They weren't ready for this. And I hate it that that policeman was killed.
But, you know, the President Trump is the strongest supporter of the police in the world. And we weren't there to kill policemen. That was an accident that happened. And the perpetrator, probably not a Trump follower, might be.
Who knows? Because there are some far right wing people that support him as well. But that was not the intent of 199 ,950 of the people. Maybe 100 people, probably about a handful, maybe 10 or 20 people were bad actors.
And some of them we don't even know. I know that Brother Nelson has on video that one of the first people to break in was Antifa, and they proved it on their video because they have a video of a riot in one of the cities earlier this year.
And the same man is there that broke in. And we heard last night on a conservative news item that a Black Lives Matter man was one of the ones that were there. So it's not all Trump people and they're trying to make it look like it is.
So now they're calling them terrorists. OK, they weren't armed as a group. They were not armed. Listen, if you want to say that was an insurgency, then tell me how those poorly prepared few police that were there, less than 300 probably, could have possibly stopped 250 ,000 people if they wanted to get in and take over the government, because they could have done it without arms.
But they didn't do it because that's not what they wanted to do. But yet now we're calling it an insurgency. And so they're simply changing and inverting the customary meanings of these words and giving them new definitions and then calling Trump supporters of these things.
Listen, this was predicted when the book 1984 was written. All right. So this is one of their biggest tools. Now, what's interesting is, you know, I don't normally preach from poems and books. I preach from the Bible.
But this book 1984, he didn't just invent these ideas. These ideas are ancient and they go all the way back to 2 ,600 or more years ago. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 5, verse 20, where it says, Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.
That is exactly what Newspeak is talking about. He just created a new word to call it this. Woe to people that put darkness and call that light, and then they take light and they call that darkness. And woe to people that justify the wicked for money.
In other words, they'll make the wicked look like they're the good people because someone paid them to make them look that way. And woe to them that take away the righteousness from the truly good people and make them look bad.
Now, that was written 2 ,000 over 600 years ago, and it was inspired by the Holy Spirit. He wrote that. In verse 20, what's interesting about this, if you look at the context that that verse is written in, we quote it all the time.
There's going to be a day when they call good evil and evil good. And many of us, as you know, have said that we're in that day, right? Many of us have said we're in that day now. And yet, not very often do we go in and look at the context that this particular verse is found in.
It's kind of frightening. So here is the verse, Isaiah 5, verse 20. So let's continue a little bit. Woe to those that put darkness for light, light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and they call something sweet bitter.
They just change the meaning of words in order to put people under their control. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. Woe unto them that are mighty to drink and men of strength to mingle strong drink, which justify the wicked for money.
So they make the wicked look good because someone paid them off and take away their righteousness from the righteous to make truly good people look wicked. Therefore, as the fire devoured, here's the context, okay?
Therefore, because people are doing this, and I believe you could interpret this to mean because the leadership of a particular nation gets the place where this is what the leadership practice. This is what they're doing.
And you can know full well that the new leadership of this nation in at least two out of the three parts of our nation, the Congress and the presidency, are people who practice this. They practice it every day.
Then it says, when they become in power, it says, therefore, and this is a little bit frightening, therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness.
In other words, there's no core of just truth in their hearts when they speak, right? The root is rotten and the words come out and then people choose to believe them or not. And we have a country, unfortunately, where more than half the people believe those words and their blossom shall go up like dust.
In other words, nothing fruitful is really going to come of it because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts. So they've cast away the word of God. They despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
So nothing that they do is going to bear fruit or goodness into the world. Therefore, is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people. Now, this is what I want you to hear today. I don't know if you're like me, but I haven't been able to sleep since Wednesday.
I have been in prayer a lot and in the word a lot and doing research a lot to see where the truth really lies. But I have also felt that I'm being chastened a bit. Have you felt that way? That the church itself is being cleansed a bit, if you want to put it that way, where we're not so interested in the things of the world these last few days?
Well, listen, he includes his own people in this because we're in the midst of a nation that's led by these evil people, just like Israel's had that happen in their history. In fact, it's kind of interesting to note that this book was written around 700 and I don't know, 700 and looking at my, let me take a look here.
Take a look at this book, the Bible. All right, about 760 BC and then less than 200 years later, Israel was totally taken and destroyed and taken into captivity by the Babylonians, right? And so you had evil people in control, but the good people went into captivity too.
Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people. That was Israel and that's us today. And he has stretched forth his hand against them and has smitten them and the hills did tremble and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets.
For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. That is sombering, ladies and gentlemen. Verse five says, and now go to, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard.
This is God talking about his nation, Israel, which is a picture of us today, Christians, God's people today. He says, I'll take away the hedge thereof. Now you want to hedge pictures in Bible language.
It's like a fence of protection around you to keep the enemy out. God says, I'm just going to remove that. And it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and it shall be trodden down and I will lay it waste and it shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come up briars and thorns.
He's talking about his vineyard, which is a picture of his people, Israel. This vineyard will have briars in it and thorns and I will also command the clouds that they rain not anymore on it. It won't be fruitful anymore.
Now, I can't tell you that this has a primary interpretation toward the United States of America and its Christian, you know, the people among America, which are Christians, but I can tell you it has a secondary application.
Because Israel is a picture, according to two different verses in the New Testament, the things that were written for were written for those of us who live in the end days, the end of the age, as end samples or examples, as types and pictures to teach us spiritual lessons.
So in that regard, this does have a secondary application to the United States of America, in my opinion. But we're going to cease to be as fruitful as we have been. The biblical economic principles that built this nation and the entire West are being removed quickly by this administration and the Congress, the new Congress.
We do have a Supreme Court that can strike certain things down as unconstitutional, but they actually have to be unconstitutional and raising doubling taxes is not unconstitutional, so they'll be able to do that.
And then companies like Tradeway won't be hiring any new people. We'll go four years not hiring any new people because of these new laws that are about to be enacted, and we hate that because we can hire one a month and one couple with little kids a month and give them a great job in a Christian environment.
That will stop. Many things will stop because of this, and the Bible says it will stop. The vineyard will cease to be fruitful. It won't have rain, which means it won't bear fruit and so forth because we have allowed our leadership to become this way.
Now, we tried. I mean, we voted, didn't we? The problem is that a lot of dead people voted for Biden, and I've got proof of that in my letter, by the way. That has not been debunked. If you fact check the fact checkers, they're lying.
And if you look at the interest that they have and who they are, they're lying. So Isaiah 3, 5 says, and the people shall be oppressed, every one by another and every one by his neighbor. So that just simply means that Americans will no longer be united, and half of them will turn the other half in.
One person will oppress another person, take advantage of them, get them in trouble with the government or whatever. The child shall behave himself proudly against the older people. Are we not seeing that?
And the base, like the base, uneducated, ignorant people that don't, they're not productive in society. They will rise up and behave themselves against the honorable people who are trying to live right and trying to be productive.
This is prophetic and it's pathetic, isn't it? You go back in the context of Isaiah to chapter 3, a couple of chapters earlier, look what it says, for Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen. You have to remember, God says twice in the New Testament that Israel is a type or a picture or an example for those of us who live in the end times.
This is how it will be to God's people because we live in the midst of an evil nation, just like Israel did, because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, that's the leadership of America, to provoke the eyes of his glory.
I've been so disappointed in the Republicans. You only got six or seven or eight that took a stand in the whole country. The rest of them have turned and run just like the apostles did when Jesus was taken.
You only had one apostle, John, and two women. One was Jesus's mother that hung around, maybe three women, that hung around when Jesus was taken and as he was crucified, the rest of them ran. This is a picture of the Republicans, right?
Now, the apostles came back after they saw the resurrection, and I don't know what it takes to get the Republicans to come back, but to me, they've shown, I mean, this has separated the men from the boys.
We know who's who now. The show of their countenance witnesses against them these bad, evil leaders who don't look at the word of God, don't count it as anything, and then look at this. They have declared their sin as Sodom.
So, these leaders are people who put forth homosexuality as if it's okay, and they make it lawful in the nation that they lead, and they hide it not. So, they come out of the closet. In fact, the Antichrist, the Bible says, will have no use for women.
What does that mean? Woe unto their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. That's the leadership in these end times Christian nations like America. As for my, as a secondary application, this was talking about Israel, of course, as the primary application, but it's prophetic because the New Testament says it is, and it's also a type or an example for how it works, how God works with nations.
As for my people, children will become their oppressors, and look at this, and women will rule over them. Now, do you think that that is in the context of being something God does when he's blessing a nation, or something God does when he's rebuking and chastening a nation?
Now, we have a female vice president who's one heartbeat away from the presidency, and a very old president whose brain isn't even working right, and who could be one heartbeat away from a stroke or a heart attack, or a fake stroke or a heart attack, if you know what I mean, and this is just part of this curse.
Oh, my people, they which lead thee cause you to err. Now, think about that. Look at America right now. I've got dear friends I've talked to about this in recent days, and I can't believe that they're missing some of these points.
That's why I'm writing the letter, and I hope they'll read it, take it to heart, because the facts are in the letter. You're being misled by the media, even when you don't even believe in the media, because you can't turn on a TV, you can't turn on anything, or even look on the internet without it hitting you in the face, and you're not understanding the subliminal effect it's having, even when you disagree with it, is over time, it makes you think Trump is crazy, or it makes you think he's evil, and yet, if you look at the policies, where he's trying to stop killing babies, he made Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and is a friend of Israel, and you look at all those to lower taxes, create a good environment, get rid of poverty for all races, all these good things that he does, and yet you feel like he's evil.
Why do you feel that way? Because you're getting it from the media, whether you know you are or not. Listen, if you can't just quickly test yourselves, quickly, can you name 10 great things he's done for the country, without looking at the slide I put up there a minute ago, and if you can't, it's because you're listening to the news media, which is Arwellian.
The news media is news speak. They are changing the meanings of words. They are bringing lies for truth, and calling truth lies, and lies truth, calling good evil, and evil good, and you hear enough, something in you starts to feel, maybe they got something to it, and that's exactly what happened to the Republican senators Wednesday, when they should have voted to give the people, 75 million people in this country, don't believe the election was true.
Why not take 10 days and look at the evidence that the courts refused to look at, because they've been debunked, right? Wait till you see my letter, and see that they weren't really debunked. This whole thing is smoke and mirrors.
This whole thing is as bad as Satan's wizards that came with Moses in Egypt before Pharaoh, and could do almost the same miracles that Moses could do, but not quite, right? They could fake it, right? That's what this is, and we're seeing it, and it is so frightening to see this happening, and way over half the people are buying into it, and now Republican people are buying into it.
Two Republican senators have now called for President Trump to resign. He won't do it, because he knows the truth, but this is amazing to me, and woe to those two senators, woe to them, shame on them.
Now, the leaders are causing the people to err, that means to make errors, to believe wrong philosophies, to think incorrectly, and think that facts that are actually lies, and to believe they're actually facts.
The leaders are causing the people to do this, and to destroy the way of God's paths, to destroy God's ways. That's what they're doing. This is a perfect type of America today. Secondary application, yes, but it is an application.
The Lord stands up to plead. You got preachers across this country today, I'll guarantee you pleading with God's people don't believe what you're hearing. Don't believe what you're hearing. They're making the good to look evil, and they're making the evil to look good.
Just stop listening to it, because you will be sucked into it subliminally with your subconscious, whether you know it or not, and you'll get weaker. The Lord stands up to plead, and stands to judge the people.
That's where we are. The Lord will enter into judgment, doesn't say he might. He will enter into judgment with the ancients of the people, these leaders that are leading them the wrong way, causing the people to have error in their thinking, and in their actions, in their lives, and the princes will be judged as well.
That's the political leaders, for you have eaten up the vineyard. You took away all the fruitfulness, all the great economy. You took away the good of the country. All the biblical base things are gone, and the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
Everyone is going to tend toward poverty when you raise those taxes, because companies are just going to pass that along to people. That means all the prices of every product and service goes up, and people have less disposable income, and people are living more and more hand-to-mouth, and the government that's socialist, the Democrats love it that way, because then the people need the government, and the government becomes God.
There is no recognition of God among these people. Listen, only God can affect an economy. It's too complex for a human to understand it. But the Democrats will tell you, oh, we'll fix it, right? We'll print more money.
We'll fix it. The Republicans will think they can, too. Listen, only God can control the weather, and yet the Democrats say, oh, we can stop global warming. We'll just shut down everything that makes all the military work, all the planes work, the cars drive, and we'll just do everything electric.
They don't understand. They can't generate enough electricity without gas-powered plants. No way in the world, and it's all lies, and yet this is the direction that even good people are starting to believe this stuff is real.
So, yeah, they're God. They can control. They can stop global warming, and they even think humans were strong enough to cause the global warming. So Democrats think they're God. Now, the other thing is only God has the right to determine who lives and who dies, and yet the Democrats think through abortion they can determine that.
So I'll tell you why I'm not Democrat, is number one, I'm not sure they think there is a true God, but I know one thing, they think they're God, because they're doing the things only God can do, and they're saying they can do it.
Biden said, as soon as you elect me, I will cure COVID. Really? Listen, COVID is a pestilence that God sent to the entire West because they've turned away from God. The Western nations like Switzerland, like England, and the different nations that were Protestant are simply secular now.
They're nothing. They're walking dead men and women and young people. I've seen them. I've been over there and looked in their eyes. They don't believe anything. That's where Obama wanted to take America.
He said, I want you to be more like Europe. That means he wants us to be secular, and the Democrat party is all about the secularization of America, and you take what happened Wednesday, and they demonized the Christians that were there, 200 ,000 or more Christians there, and a few bad apples mixed in with them, and so now all Christians are being condemned.
You don't think there's a day that will come when they will select you out and send you to prison because you're a Christian? You don't think the day will come when they will kill you because you're a Jew or you're a Christian here in America?
The day just got a heck of a lot closer Wednesday, and listen, I got people, my own family didn't want me to preach about this today, and I understand why. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good to know that the things that you've had, like we live out here on a ranch that's like third generation.
Now it's fourth and fifth generation. All these things that our family for generations have accumulated through family business and biblical principles, it will belong to the world someday because we'll have to flee.
We'll just have to leave it. And that day may be very soon. I don't know. We don't know when that day is, but all of us, this is a wake-up call to God's people to get ready now. Don't get ready next year.
You need to make plans now for what you're going to do, especially you guys, friends of ours that live in the cities. You can't be in a city when this thing hits, all right, and it's so much closer now.
I mean, the whole timetable moved closer for the seven-year tribulation and Armageddon moved closer within three days this week. It's amazing to see, especially the prophecies of neighbor will turn in neighbor, child will turn their parents into the government.
All that just moved closer. All right. So I'm sorry I have to preach this today, but God called me to do it. So I'm doing it. And I hope you're listening, and I hope it will help you realize that we're supposed to stay joyful.
We're supposed to think on things that are lovely, and we got to keep doing that, but we have to be preparing while we're doing that. That's my message today. So the Lord stands up to plead, and he stands to judge the people, and the Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of the people and the leadership, like the religious people who haven't been speaking out against this stuff and the leadership like Biden and all of his crew and all the Congress that they now control.
All of those people will be judged by God. The Republicans that have joined in with the rot, they'll be judged by God. All of us who have joined in with this will be judged by God, for you have eaten up the vineyard and all the good things God put in America, it's been eaten up and spoiled.
And poverty is going to be the end of it, is what the last part of verse four says, because biblical economic principles will no longer be followed. Listen, the Bible is clear. It says you don't tax the rich more than you tax the poor, but we've had a progressive tax in America since I was in junior high.
Ronald Reagan spoke against it before I was in junior high and said, if you ever stop teaching your kids that when you tax the producers of the country more and then give their money to the non-producers, you're going to go into socialism and you're going to condemn your children to a thousand years of darkness if you don't teach them the difference.
And yet, look what we've done. I say the truth in Christ and I lie not. Okay, so I'm done with this part, right? So I had to bring this to task today and show you the context that the phrase that there is a people who will call good evil and evil good, it's in the context of judgment, that when those people gain the power and leadership in a nation, that nation is not long for the earth.
And the scripture says in many places that when the leadership turns over and makes things like homosexuality, where it comes out of the closet and it's okay and you're condemned if you don't say it's okay, that God will cause the land to spew the people off the land and he'll bring in another country to destroy him.
That's usually how God does it. In our case, he may not need to. We may just destroy ourselves from within, but he may do both actually is what I think. And I've told my family so many times, when America gets judged, I want to be watching it on a color TV from the Caribbean.
I don't want to be here when it happens because I'm not that far from Fort Hood. All right. And I know which way the wind blows and they're going to nuke Fort Hood. So I, you know, this is an alarm that I'm giving to you.
We can't talk about getting ready anymore. Like we have the last two years. Now we have to get ready. What that means to you is different for every family. It doesn't mean that we get on the housetop and stop working and just expect Jesus to come back and take us out of here before any of this happened.
Because it's going to be he comes back at the end of all this. So that's not going to happen. We still have work to do. We have to still accumulate. We have to still stay busy. And any money we can make, we need to make it and use it toward the effort of getting ready and all that.
So we don't stop doing what we're doing. I tell you the best picture of it is when the Israelites were allowed by Cyrus to come back and build their wall in Jerusalem. Again, the Bible teaches they built with a, with a, forgot what you call the instrument you lay bricks with.
One of those things in one hand, I almost got it in my mind, but I can't say it. And then they had a sword in the other hand, probably the other way around. They had the sword in this hand probably. And they had the little thing you smear the mortar with in the other hand.
And they built that wall while they had the sword ready to fight. That's how we have to be now the rest of our lives on this earth at this point. So there you have it. Well, we still got time left. So let's get our minds off of all that for a little bit.
Now I'll preach the sermon most people want me to preach. Let's talk a little bit, go into chapter nine and, and review just a little bit and make a few more headways into this chapter. All right. So last time I started an introduction to chapter nine and the first two verses, you know, basically there's four things Paul's saying.
Number one, he's saying that I'm speaking the truth in Christ. Number two, he said, I'm not, I'm not lying. So that's kind of redundant, isn't it? It's interesting that he had to say it this way. He's really bearing home that the stuff I'm about to tell you in this chapter, you're going to think I'm lying, but I'm not.
And furthermore, he's saying the Holy spirit says I'm not lying because he bears witness with my spirit that I'm telling you through. So three different exhortations to believe I am not lying when I tell you this stuff, because so apparently this stuff is going to be so hard, even for God's people that they're going to tend to think Paul's wrong about it.
Now, I want you to think about that because that's how he sets up the chapter. And he says, I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart is another interesting point right there in the introduction to this chapter.
Why? Why is he sorrowful? You got to ask yourself that question. Now, also, you've got to ask yourself, who is the book of Romans written to? That's one of the great rules of Bible interpretation. You can't just take something that's, for example, that's only written to Christians and say that applies to the whole world, to every man, woman, boy, and girl in the whole world.
It doesn't. So when you see the word all in the context of only Christians, that means all Christians. It doesn't mean every man, woman, boy, and girl. You got to remember that when you're interpreting scripture or you'll get it wrong.
So who is this written to? Well, if you look at the first part of the book of Romans, you'll see it's written to the called. Who is that? That's those who God knew before the foundation of the world with love.
And he predestinated that they would be adopted. And in time, he called them. That's the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit, where he opened your eyes and regenerated you and gave you life so you could see Jesus and you would receive him as your personal Lord and Savior.
And he calls them the beloved. That's always Christians. God's people are the beloved. And he calls them the called to be saints, those who are called to be saints. That's obviously Christians among. And then he says among all nations there in the middle of verse five.
So it's Jews and Gentiles, all kinds of people, those who are called out by God to be saved from among all different races and people. That's who this book is written to. We talked about that last time.
Now, what is the topic that Paul is about to discuss with only believers? And why is his heart heavy? Well, here's a hint. He's concerned about some of his kinsmen, the Jews, and he's concerned for their souls.
Right. Why? Why is he concerned? Well, one thing we know is not the reason. It is not because of a lack of the word of God going out. Listen, these Jews, they're not saved. The fact that they're not saved is not because God didn't give them the word of God.
He gave them Isaiah 53 hundreds of years before Jesus came. It tells the whole story of what the Messiah would do. They had the word of God. So that's not the reason that they didn't believe. All right.
And then it also talks about the fact that then this is the astounding part in verse seven. And here's where we stop reviewing and move forward a little bit today. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they saved.
And now this is the news that they're going to think he's lying. Because at that time, and you got to remember Paul speaking to a mixed group. You got Jews and Gentiles in the room that he's speaking to, or he's writing this letter to in this church, the local church at Rome.
Jews and Gentiles. And you have three different kinds of people in the room as a matter of fact. Okay. You've got people that are lost sheep who will be saved someday, but they're not. And they're sitting there listening.
You got people who are saved sheep listening, Jews and Gentiles. And then you got goats who will never be saved in the room. And Paul's preaching to them, but he's really speaking to God's people, not to the goats.
And what they will do is reject his word entirely. And the lost sheep will come under conviction and get saved. And the saved sheep will grow. And that's what always happens when the word of God goes out.
So he's not blaming the lack of word of God. But what he is saying is just because you're of the seed of Abraham does not mean that you're going to be saved. Right. That's what he's telling them. And this is part of the news that he said, you're going to have to understand.
I am not lying to you because the Jew thought, well, I'm a Jew. So I'm going to heaven. Now tell me that's not a picture of the modern church today. People think, well, I'm sitting here in the pew if they are still going to church.
Right. I'm going to church. So I got to be saved. No, you don't. You don't have to be saved just because you're going to church doesn't mean you're saved. And back then, just because you say your father is Abraham does not mean you're saved and said, here's the truth.
Only in Isaac will the seed be called. And the called is the effectual calling, which means foreknown, predestinated, called, and justified and glorified the same group of people. You're going to be part of God's family only if you're coming through the line of Isaac.
Now, this is the part where the Jews got really quiet. And Paul had told him, I've told you for three different times, you're going to have to believe I'm not lying. The Holy Spirit told me to tell you this.
And here it is. And this is the truth. Oh, my goodness. You know, he is discussing something that man has no control over, the calling of the Holy Spirit. You have to be called and placed into the line of Isaac.
And what's interesting about the line of Isaac, it is a spiritual line. It is not by physical procreation. Just because you're of Abraham physically does not mean you're going to be saved. That's what he's saying.
It's a spiritual seed, and it comes through the Holy Spirit's calling. And just like Jesus said, it's like the wind, it blows where it listeth. It blows where it wants to. You can't control where the Holy Spirit lights on a person and when he doesn't.
And you know what? No humans like that. And Christians don't like it. And the Jews didn't like it. And that's why Paul had to prepare them for chapter 9 by saying, I'm about to tell you some stuff you're not even going to believe is true.
But I'm not lying. The Holy Spirit told me to tell you this. So he's discussing a hated doctrine, which is the doctrine of salvation by promise, but not by works. And that's a reference to the Abrahamic promise, which was unconditional, which means man had nothing to do.
God did it all. And man hates that message. Verse 8 says, that is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, just because they came from Abraham. But those who are the children of the promise through the lineage of Isaac.
And why did he pick that lineage? Because that's the line of Jesus Christ. The Messiah came through Isaac down through time and was born into the world. So it's by promise. That's what's counted as the seed.
So those who believe in the Messiah who came through Isaac, those are the ones who will take advantage of the promise. And that's how you're saved, not by works. And the Jews certainly did not like that doctrine because they love the idea that you can accomplish something.
God will be pleased with it. And he'll save you because of what you did. And so many Christians love that doctrine today in so-called churches. But it's never been true. He is discussing another hated doctrine here, too.
And it's called the doctrine of imputation of righteousness by God to only his chosen people. God imputed only his chosen people's sin to Jesus and placed it on him and he died for it. And then when Jesus was risen, he took Jesus's righteousness and put that only on God's people, not on every man, woman, boy and girl.
He imputed it to only God's people. And the world hates that doctrine because the world has no control over it. Only God does. All right. So why is Paul starting out with these four facts? I'm speaking the truth.
I'm not lying. My conscience bears witness that the Holy Spirit says it's true, too. And I'm heavy of heart. Why is he starting out this way? He's teaching this remarkable, almost universally hated doctrine of salvation by foreknowledge or for love, by predestination, by the calling, by imputation, by justification.
In other words, God does it to you. God makes you righteous. You don't have any righteousness of your own. He makes you righteous and grace rather than works. Why is he so concerned that they're going to hate this?
Well, because he knows what he's about to teach. That's why he gave this warning. I'm not lying. I'm not lying. I'm not lying. And I'm heavy hearted because I can't control whether or not my Jewish friends get saved.
And I'm heavy hearted because of that. So even Paul wasn't so sure he liked the doctrine. Romans 9, 16. Here's where he's going. And he knows it. We're not there yet. But he's going to go there. And he knows it.
And that's why he said, I'm not lying. The Holy Spirit gave me this truth. And that verse says, so then it is not of him that wills. Salvation is not just because a person decides he's going to get saved.
And yet that's the modern gospel, right? Come down the aisle here. I'm going to give you a little prayer to pray. And if you decide to pray that prayer, you'll save forever. So it's of the will. Like you decide or you don't, you'll determine your own destiny.
Salvation's never worked that way. But the modern gospel, the preachers today say that's how salvation works. Now, let me be quick to say, I have to do this every time. If you went down an aisle and did what the preacher said, it doesn't mean he unsaved you either.
Because most likely the Holy Spirit had already saved you in the pew before you ever went down the aisle. And the preacher just told you false stuff. That doesn't mean you're not saved. But you got saved in the pew whenever you desired to call upon the name of the Lord.
Because the Holy Spirit put that desire there. And you were regenerated or you wouldn't have desired it. So you don't get saved because you just decide by your will that I'm going to be a saved person today.
That's not how it works. And it's not of him that runneth. So it's not by works of the church or all these things, the hoops they tell you to jump through. And you got to run and jump and leap through it.
And then all of a sudden, God saved you. It doesn't work that way. But it's of God. And he's the one that shows mercy to who he wants to show it. And that's what the whole chapter of 9 is going to talk about.
Is he only shows mercy to who he wants to show mercy to, not to everybody. And the world hates that. And then verse 18, therefore, has he mercy on... I got ahead of myself, didn't I? Therefore, has he mercy on whom he will have mercy and who he will, he hardens their heart.
Who likes that doctrine? And tell me why that one was never in my Sunday school quarterly when I was a kid going to Southern Baptist Church. Because they knew that would create division in the church.
Some people would believe that and others would say that can't be true. And then there'd be division. So they wouldn't teach it. Well, that's not how preachers are supposed to operate. They're supposed to preach the whole Bible, right?
And let the Holy Spirit do the dividing and the calling out and the separating. And Jesus said, you think I came to bring peace? I tell you, nay, but a sword and father will leave mother and father-in-law, mother-in-law and brother will leave, you know, brother and father will leave son.
Because the kind of love that true believers have for each other is even greater than blood. You're even closer. You'll have some people in your family bloodline that you're not as close to as people you go to church with, because they're not saved yet.
And they don't have anything in common with you. But your brothers and sisters in Christ do. And you're closer to them than to those family members. And that's just the way it is. Jesus said it would be that way.
But listen, none of this is popular. So he started out and said three different times in three different ways. I am not lying. The stuff I'm about to tell you in chapter nine is true. You're not going to like it.
Even I have heaviness of heart and sorrow continually over the fact that I cannot just snap my finger and then get God to save all my Jewish brothers and sisters, because he's going to save who he wants to, not who I want him to save.
Wow, that is tough doctrine. And here's another reason, though. Here is even a greater reason that Paul started out with these three admonitions that he's not lying, is because there was a greater teacher than Paul that taught these same doctrines, and he was hated for it.
In fact, the greatest teacher who ever lived taught these same things and was hated for it. And people walked away from him forever because he taught them in his name was Jesus Christ. And Paul knew this.
So Paul trembled before he would teach these truths. And I want to warn you guys, when you start to try to bring these things to your family and you get bold, all of a sudden you're going to tell your friends about these things that go to some other church that are Arminian and they don't believe it.
Be really careful. Be humble, because you have to be so careful. You can't, listen, you can't take them from where they are to where this doctrine is in five minutes or 10 minutes in a visit at coffee.
It's going to take two or three days of sitting down with the Word of God, and they've got to be willing to do that. And then it's going to take the Holy Spirit opening their mind to it. If perchance God chooses to open their mind, the Bible says, then they have to decide, am I going to follow the world or this scripture I'm reading?
And then maybe they'll agree with you, you see. So be very humble when you present this. But we are supposed to be telling people the truth. And that if they're at a church where the gospel has been changed into them doing it by their own will, by the will of man, or by jumping through hoops or running and doing things, that that is not right.
We do need to tell our friends and family that. Now, this happened just before Passover. Jesus had just fed the 5 ,000 miraculously with a few fish and some loaves, and he had taught the 5 ,000, and then we see this context right here.
And I'm going to show you why Paul trembled before he taught these truths, because Jesus taught him, and look what happened. So let's see. In John 6, 25, and when they had found him, Jesus, on the other side of the sea, so he went over there and he fed the 5 ,000, and he got in a boat and came across the sea to get away from the throng, and yet the people found him.
They came all the way around the Sea of Galilee and found him on the other side. And they said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, when did you come here? And Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say to you, you don't seek me.
You don't seek me because the miracles that you saw happened where I fed you with the wasn't enough food and I made it be enough for all of you to eat. He said, that's not, you're not seeking me because of my power and my miracles and who I am.
You're seeking me because you wanted to eat food. You're seeking me for your belly's sake. Wow, what a rebuke that is. And he said, labor not for the meat which perishes, like food, money, but for the meat which endures into everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, for him has God the Father sealed.
Then said they unto him, what shall we do that we might work the works of God? See, they believe that salvation was by works, so it's a do proposition. I got to do something. Tell me what to do so that I can be saved.
This is humanism. This is Arminianism. The humanist, the Arminian always believes it's about what he does. It's about what the church does, the programs, all of these religious things. That's what it's about.
And Jesus and Paul and everyone in Isaiah, Isaiah, all the Old Testament, all of the writers of the Bible have said again and again, no, it's not by works. It's not by things because you're the best you can do.
Your righteousness to God, to holy God is like filthy rags. It's not about that. But that's what they thought. What do we do? Now, Jesus' answer is fascinating. Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has sent.
So if you want to get saved by works, here's the work you need to do. Believe in me. Believe in the Messiah. Believe in me. I don't think they like that answer. Too many people there. Then said, therefore, they unto him, well, show us a sign then.
If we're supposed to believe in you, show us something. Do a miracle in front of us. Then we'll believe you. We need to see with our eyes. See, they didn't want to believe, right? Belief is not with the eyes.
Faith is in things that are invisible, right? But they wanted to see something. And then we'll believe you. Show us the work that you will do. And Jesus answered it this way. Our fathers did eat manna in the desert.
And then Jesus said, well, they're pointing out, look, Moses showed us miracles. We want you to show us a miracle. And Jesus says this, truly, truly, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
He says, look, Moses didn't give you that bread. God did. But you say Moses did it. And now you want me to do something miraculous like you think Moses did. And I'm not going to do something miraculous for you to see with your eyes.
You're just going to have to believe that I am the true bread from heaven. Me, Jesus Christ, I'm the true bread. For the bread of God is he, me. It's a person who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
That's the true bread of God that God gave you. And I am that person. And you got to believe in me. And that's the only work you can do to be saved. It's not a work. It's faith. And it's a gift. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He that comes to me will never hunger. And he that believes on me will never thirst. And notice that as we progress through, there's going to be a passage about election and predestination and calling and all those things people hate.
But right in the middle of it, Jesus offers the gospel. He says, look, I'm the bread of the life. If you eat me, you'll never hunger. And you'll have life everlasting. You'll never thirst again. He offers himself to them.
So that's the universal call. That call goes out to every man, woman, boy, and girl in the world. Jesus saying, I am the bread of life. If you eat me, you'll live forever. And that, of course, is an allegory or picture that if you have Christ in your heart, if you take Christ into your life, you have eternal life.
And he's telling all of them this, but they're not all going to receive this. In fact, most of these people are going to walk away from him in a minute. But he said, I said unto you that you also have seen me.
And I'm the bread of life. And here you are. And you don't believe. Wow. And this is the will of him that sent me. That everyone, which the Greek word here would be beholds the son and believes on him, may have everlasting life.
And I will raise every one of them up in the last day. So anyone who truly can behold me with the eyes of understanding. Now, we know from other scripture, only the effectual call of the Holy Spirit can cause this.
Only when the Holy Spirit comes on a person and regenerates that person and opens his eyes, can he behold Jesus, right? Because you didn't get saved two seconds before you got saved because you couldn't, because you didn't see him.
And when the Holy Spirit opened your eyes like he did Saul's on that road to Damascus, and he became Paul and a saved man, that's when you got saved. The same thing happened to you and to me. And that's the only way it ever happens.
And so everyone that beholds him, yes, it's true. Everyone that beholds him will believe on him and they'll have everlasting life. And Jesus won't lose any of them. He'll raise them all up in the end.
He tells them that. So there is the gospel. There's the universal call right there. All right. But he also told that crowd, you've seen me and you don't believe me. So they saw him, but their eyes weren't really seeing.
They heard him speak, but they didn't hear with understanding. Many of them. So let's jump back up to 37. All that the Father does give to me, they do come to me. But see, he just got through telling them that you see me and you won't believe.
But he said, there are people in the crowd that the Father gave to me, and they came to me with the same speech I just told you, and you didn't. And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. So you do have the will of man involved.
We, no one will be in heaven that didn't personally receive Jesus Christ, their personal Lord and Savior. But you also have Jesus saying, yeah, but a lot of people are going to hear the gospel and reject it.
Because the Father didn't give that person to me and the Holy Spirit didn't call them. And that's the part in John, in Romans chapter nine, that Paul was fearful of teaching. And now we see Jesus just about to teach that.
Or he just taught it actually. He said, look, only the ones the Father gave me are the ones that come to me. Wow. Well, that kind of takes it out of man's hands, doesn't it? But the person who does decide to come to me, I will never cast him out.
He'll be in heaven. For I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. Now, Jesus is saying, look, I'm not going to save anybody that the Father doesn't want me to save.
The Holy Spirit says, I'm not going to light on anyone and call them unless God the Father told me that they're one he chose. Now, I'm going to give a universal call through the word of God and through the church.
And God's people are going to tell people the plan of salvation. But I'm not literally going to save anybody that the Father didn't call me and tell me, hey, I have given that one to Jesus. My son is a gift.
Call that one. That one's one of them. Wow. Think about that. And this is the Father's will, which has sent me that of all which he has given me, I will lose nothing, but will raise that up again at the last day.
Now, that's amazing information that the world had not heard before. The Jews certainly didn't hear because he thought it was all by manishness, works. He doesn't like the fact that they just got there asking Jesus, what works can I do?
And he said, there aren't any. You just have to believe. And now he's telling them, but you can't believe unless you've been called. And you can't, you won't be called unless the Father gave you to me before the foundation of the world.
And they are not liking this preaching. And the Jews murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And because he said all this other stuff about predestination, election, and the calling.
And Jesus therefore answered and said to them, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the Father which sent me drew him. So here it's taken out of man's hands completely. But of that group, I'll raise them all up at the last day.
I won't leave one. I am the good shepherd. I won't lose one of God's true sheep. And all sheep will be saved in their lifetime. Some are lost sheep right now today because their spiritual birthday hadn't happened yet.
But they will be saved because I'm not losing any of them. And the Holy Spirit can't let them go either. He will regenerate them. He will call them and show them who Jesus truly is so that they have a desire in their heart all of a sudden to receive Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.
It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God. Who? Everyone that's truly saved. And what was their question that started all this? What works should we do to be saved? And he said, can't do any, got to believe.
Now he's defining and saying, look, all people that do eventually get saved, every one of them will have been taught by God, the Father. So the Father sends the Holy Spirit to teach them Jesus is who he claims to be.
And he really is the one that makes them decide to receive Jesus. Not a single one of them seeks God in the first place in his own flesh. They have to be regenerated and their eyes open and their ears open and hear and be taught by God before they'll ever receive Jesus.
Every one of them, Jesus said, is that way. As it's written in the Old Testament even says it, you just missed it, you Jews. You missed it, but it's there. They shall all be taught by God if they're going to be saved.
Every man, therefore, that has heard with the ears that hear with understanding and has learned from God, the Father, those are the people that come to me. I remember Brother Otis used to say, have you ever learned anything from the Bible?
Because if you have, you're saved. And I used to question that. I know Brother Bill did too. But when you really analyze it, he was right. Because you can't truly learn anything spiritual if you're in a lost state.
The Bible says these things are spiritually discerned. You cannot discern them. So the Holy Spirit has to open your eyes and your mind and your ears and your want to and regenerate you before you learn anything from the Father.
And only until then will you come to Christ. That's what Jesus just said. Isn't that amazing? Truly, truly, I say unto you, he that believes on me has everlasting life. And that means already has it. Listen, understand what it's saying.
It's not like the modern gospel, where if you'll just decide to believe in him, you'll be saved. That's a mental pep rally. I believe, I believe, I believe. That's not what it means. Hebrew chapter 10, the end of the chapter teaches that.
Verse 38, 39. There is a way of believing not unto salvation. That's human belief, the mental pep rally. That doesn't save anybody. And then there is a way of believing unto salvation. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes on me already has everlasting life.
You would not have believed had you not been foreknown, predestinated, and called. Okay, called. And now you're justified. All of that was done by God to you. And that's why you have everlasting life.
And that's why you believed. You already had it before you believed. God knew it. You just didn't know it. And in so many ways, Brother Otis was correct. I didn't like to use it too much because it's not biblical language.
But he said, listen, when you get saved, all that is, you just got notified. The Holy Spirit notified you that you've always been God's child. Now you can receive that. Here's Jesus. What will you do with him?
And of course, you receive him. He's got the food, and you're hungry, and you're a sheep, and he's the shepherd. It all works together. Yes, you do have to receive him, but you will receive him. That's like saying, well, I'm going to starve a 10-year-old boy for three days and then throw a Whataburger in there and give him the choice whether to eat it or not.
Yeah, he does have to choose to eat it, doesn't he? But what's he going to do? Because it's irresistible. And the Holy Spirit makes Jesus irresistible to those who are going to be saved. And so anyone who believes on me already had everlasting life.
And he has it forever. And it's eternal. Eternal means it's just he's always been God's. He always will be God's. But now he knows it. Isn't that beautiful? Now, this is not popular. And Jesus says it wasn't popular when Jesus preached it here.
You'll see that. He said, I am the bread of life. I am the living bread and came down from heaven. If any man eat this bread, which is me, if he takes me into his heart, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the cosmos.
He's not only going to save the human race by saving a remnant of it and letting it move into the millennial kingdom, but he's going to save all of the orderly universe. This is what John 3, 16 actually means.
That was placed out of order when Adam and Eve sinned. Jesus died to put it back in order. And the Jews, therefore, strove among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? See, they didn't have ears that could hear it with understanding.
They didn't get the allegory. They just took it literal. And this is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate manna and are dead. He that eats this bread will live forever. These things said he in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum.
Many, therefore, of his disciples, when they heard these things said, this is a hard saying, who can hear it? Who can understand it? And when Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said to them, does this offend you?
Now, these were his followers. And here's the greatest teacher that ever lived. Does this offend you? What if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before? Would you believe then? Well, that happened at the transfiguration, right?
And it also happened at his ascension. And it is the spirit that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not.
For Jesus knew from the beginning, you see, foreknowledge. He knew from the beginning who they were that wouldn't believe and the ones that would betray him. And he still knows that today. And he said, therefore, said I unto you that no man can come unto me unless the father, unless it were given unto him by my father.
That's predestination. For the time from that time, when he taught, when he said that remark right there, same when I say it today, people walk away from me. Same when you say it, they'll walk away from you.
No man can come to Jesus. Now, any man that comes to me and partakes of me will have everlasting life if they choose to do it. But no man will do that unless it's given to him by the father and he sends the Holy Spirit to open his eyes.
From that time, many of his disciples went away and never walked with Jesus again. Not the apostles, but disciples meant followers. A lot of the 5 ,000 people who had just fed and they loved it and they loved his teaching and they ate with him.
Now they left him forever because they didn't like this doctrine. Then said Jesus unto the 12, will you leave also? Wow. Do you really think the doctrine of predestination is popular? Do you think when you try to show it to your friends that they're not saved by works and the churchiness and all the stuff they think saves them?
You're only saved when the Holy Spirit opens your eyes and you receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. And it's a gift and you have nothing to do with it. You receive it. You really think they're going to think you're a great person and that they're going to think that's a great teaching or are they going to walk away?
Well, they're either going to walk away or think about it and eventually get saved, right? Then Simon Peter answered to him, Lord, to whom would we go? So it's not like Peter said, oh no, Lord, we'll never walk away from you because we think you're awesome.
It's like he said, well, we don't have anywhere else to go. We might as well stay. That wasn't real positive either, was it? So even his own closest apostles, the disciples who later became the apostles, they didn't like the teaching all that much.
Where would we go? You have the words of eternal life, but we're not that comfortable with it. And that's kind of what Peter was saying. And we believe and are sure that you are the Christ and the son of the living God.
We don't understand what you just taught. We don't feel good about it, but we're going to stay with you. Isn't that something? So John 7, 1, after these things, Jesus walked in Galilee for he would not walk among the Jews because the Jews sought to kill him right after he taught those doctrines.
Listen, Jews are people of work salvation. They do not like predestination, election, and the calling and all of that. Many of his disciples were offended by his teaching and murmured. Jesus stated categorically that no man could come to him unless it's led by the father.
Many of his disciples went back and never followed him again. And Jesus knew from the beginning who his sheep really were. And he asked the 12, will you leave also? And the Jews sought to kill him from this time forth.
Jesus taught that most followed him for their bellies sake, for the food that he gave them. He taught that everlasting life was a gift that you cannot earn. The only good work that a person could do for salvation was to believe on him who God sent.
And they asked for a sign. And he said, well, I'm the bread of life. Only those who eat me will have everlasting life. I'm the bread of life. He that comes to me will never hunger. And he that believes in me will never thirst.
And he taught that some could not believe, not that they wouldn't, they couldn't. You also have seen me and you don't believe. And he taught the only way any fallen human could believe is that all that the father gives me will come to me.
And of him, I will lose nothing. And he taught for I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. I'm not saving anybody, God, the father didn't tell me to save. And the Holy Spirit's the same way.
And this is the father's will which sent me that of all which he has given me though, I will lose nothing, but will raise it up again the last day. He also taught, and this is the will of him that sent me that everyone which sees or beholds the son and believes on him may have everlasting life.
And I will raise him up in the last day. That's the true invitation. Like, is there any spark of desire in your heart for Jesus? Because if it is, the Holy Spirit called you. He put that there. So now just receive him, just believe on him and you will have everlasting life.
And Jesus says, I will raise you up in the end. And the Jews murmured at it. Isn't that something? Jesus therefore answered and said to them, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the father draws him.
I will raise him up. Who can believe it is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God. And every man therefore that has heard and has learned from the father, that's the person that comes to me.
John 6, 66, from that time, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said to the 12, will you leave also? And then the Jews sought to kill him. Why? Because of the hated doctrines that the greatest teacher of all time had just taught.
So when you look at these things, predestination, salvation is a gift by the will of God, only to those whom God himself had taught and given ears to hear. The doctrine of imputation that God gives you righteousness, takes your sin away.
You didn't do it. The doctrine of eternal security, eternal love of God to his eternally known children. These are the things they hated. And if they hated Jesus, when he taught it, Paul knew they were going to hate him also.
And you can know that they'll hate you too. And that's why Paul started the whole thing out by saying, I'm not lying. I'm not lying. I'm not lying. And my heart is sorrowful because I can't guarantee all my Jewish brothers will be safe.
So now we kind of see where he's going and we'll get into that next time, the Lord willing. So I want to leave you with this encouragement. I started out today with some information that's not fun to hear, that your great nation may be crumbling around you.
We don't know the day or the hour, but Jesus said we're smart enough to know that when the trees are budding, summer is nigh. So I'm saying prepare and be ready, but I want to leave you with this. Listen, if you're even on here today, it's most likely because the Holy Spirit woke you up and gave you the desire to call upon the name of the Lord.
And you've done that. And you have everlasting life. Jesus said, whosoever lives, in other words, you've been born into this world physically and you believe in me, which means the Holy Spirit gave you the ability to believe in him and you've done it.
You will never die, the Bible says. So we don't have to worry too much about the people that can kill the body, do we? Oh, they may try, but for one thing, they got to find us. Jesus said flee to the mountains.
So that day will come. I don't think you got to worry about that too much though until you see the temple starting to be built in Israel. And that hasn't happened yet. So I think where we're headed, we're going to see some more great earthquakes.
We saw one two Sundays ago, I said that. And that Monday, there was one that killed a lot of people over in the former Soviet Union. I forgot to mention that last Sunday, but that's the truth. And we'll see more of those.
I think eventually we will see a meteor hit a portion of the earth that has population in it. And it will kill many people and change the weather and put smoke and dust in the air. We're going to see some of these sorts of things.
And Jesus said, these things have to come to pass, but the end is not yet. So we're supposed to keep working until he comes back for us. And when we see the temple being built, then we need to be preparing to have a place to go where we're not in a city.
And specifically the Bible said, go to the mountains. And so that's out there in the future somewhere. Right now, we just need to be preparing for that and loving one another. Try not to listen to the media too much and try to think on things that are lovely.
All right, guys. I enjoyed being with you today. I am going to turn it over to Brother Dave. Come on in here, Brother Dave.
Okay. Well, a passage that has been on my mind a lot during all these times is Psalm chapter two. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Kings of the earth set themselves and rulers take counsel against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.
The next verse says, he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them with his sore displeasure. It goes on to tell us that if we just put our trust in him, we will be blessed.
So I think this sermon speaks directly to that. We can't always trust in the devices of this world. We can't put our trust necessarily even in our political leaders because God is in control. So if we just trust in him and watch how he plays it all out, it's going to be just fine for us and there will be blessings for us in it.
Let's go on ahead and go to the Lord in prayer. Let me turn this off here. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just thank you so much for being in control. We thank you that ultimately, no matter what the world does to cast away our cords from them, you're just going to sit and laugh and you're going to turn to your son.
You're going to say, go get them, kid. We thank you so much for that. We thank you that it's so little to you. And even though it seems massive to us and does truly change our lives, Father, it's just a small problem in your eyes and it's just a bump in the road on the way to the blessings you have in store for us.
We thank you for that. We just pray that you help us trust in that. Help us with our unbelief. We love you, Lord. And we thank you for all that you're doing. Help us to trust you through it. It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Hope you enjoyed today. And we will see you again next week. Stay safe and stay warm.