Did the Holy Spirit know? with John Harris of Living Waters

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All right. Okay. Okay, so I am

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Terry cameras. And I'm here with creation fellowships and T and we're a group of friends that are bound by our common agreement that that creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how

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God created the earth and all life in just six days. Several thousand years ago.

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So, we've been meeting most Thursday nights here on zoom since June of 2020 and we've been blessed by with presentations by scientists pastors doctors authors evangelists prophecy speakers and just all around smarty pants people who love the

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Lord and have a message to share. You can find most of our presentations by using our new shorter

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URL it's a tiny url .com forward slash cf sanity that see like creation

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F like fellowship sanity essay and T and on that page you'll be able to find links to our three new channels and to our

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Facebook page. And you can always email us at creation fellowships anti at gmail .com,

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so that you don't miss any of our upcoming speakers and we promise never to spam you. We also want to make mention of our partner ministry throughout all ages ministries, and you can learn more about them and their work at throughout all ages .com.

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And tonight we are very blessed with a very long distance guest who's here in the middle of his night to speak to us.

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John Harris is the director of Living Waters Europe he's been doing that since 2013 and his focus over there is evangelism in England and I'll let him tell you more about himself and about that but tonight we're blessed to have him come and talk to us about the

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Trinity and some of the nuances including whether or not the Holy Ghost knows about Jesus second return.

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So with that, john. Hi Terry Thank you so much. Yes, I'm john

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Harris yes definitely director of Living Waters Europe nearly 10 years now, we do training on in conferences and set up academies to teach people how to go out there and evangelize know how to share the faith, effectively, it's, it's a great pleasure to be here today we also do monthly apologetics training on zoom so people are interested if they just get in touch, that'd be wonderful.

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And today we have a very interesting subject I'm going to bring up my PowerPoint now and hopefully you guys can see that I'm going to click share, and I don't have permission to share so Terry you might have to give me authority there to go ahead and share my screen.

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Robin, can you do that, I don't, I'm not. Oh, there it is. Yes, sorry about that.

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I, I was busy talking when you came on and I should have been working. No problem you can probably see my screen now but I'm going to share it so can you guys see the screen that says

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Matthew 2436. Yes. Okay, fantastic. So today we're looking at this verse here,

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Matthew 2436 that says but concerning that day and our no one knows not even the angels of heaven, nor the sun, but the

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Father, only. So the big fat question is this, how come Jesus didn't know when he'll come back.

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Isn't he fully God. How can he be fully God yet not know something to make it worse,

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Jesus says, only the Father knows. So it seems to be saying that not even the

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Holy Spirit knows, it doesn't make sense. So what is going on here. Now the first time I came across this question or objection if you like was when this

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Muslim guy brought it up. His name is Joshua Evans or was Joshua Evans but he changed it to Yusha, which in Arabic means

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Joshua. He used this argument against Christianity to show that Jesus couldn't possibly be

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God because Jesus is clearly not omniscient. Otherwise, he would have known when he's coming back, and God is by definition omniscient.

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He released a short video giving about 10 reasons why he thinks Jesus is not

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God and this is the link there on the screen, and, and his objections listed one by one here, you'll see in a minute and as you know the idea that Jesus is

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God is very important to Christians because if Jesus is not God well that falsifies all of Christianity. This guy lists his reasons in this video in reverse order, and this is it in reverse order on the screen.

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Some of them may sound challenging but what's interesting is that when you dig deeper in the

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Bible, not only do you discover that the Bible does indeed affirm the deity of Jesus but along the way you also find treasures hidden in there that you may have never discovered if you weren't challenged in the first place.

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So most Christians take Christianity for granted and never look into these things deeply until we're challenged.

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So in a strange way I'm thankful for those skeptics who force us to dig deeper and learn better.

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Now I plan to make a video one day tackling each one of those objections separately one by one but today we're looking at number five.

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I've highlighted that where it says why didn't Jesus know the day and hour of his return.

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In fact, why did Jesus say only the father knows? Why not the Holy Spirit? And in number five

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I also will be briefly answering the reason why Jesus said the father is greater than him.

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You see Muslims say if Jesus is God then how can God the father be greater than God the son?

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Does that mean the father is also greater than the Holy Spirit? But aren't the three persons in the

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Trinity supposed to be the same in essence? So again what's going on here? Now this gets worse when you realize that Jesus also called

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God the father his God. He did this many times. How can God have a

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God? It doesn't make sense. Why does Jesus say in certain places in the Bible when talking to his disciples saying you're

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God and my God if he is God? What about the Holy Spirit? Does that mean the

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Holy Spirit refers to God the father as his God too? How many gods are there? If you like me and if you like me to go ahead and answer that which

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I believe I was told I can go ahead and answer that so I'm going to answer that later on as well on top of the question about Matthew 24 -36.

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Now this is why Muslim would say see that's how you know that Jesus is not God. If Jesus were

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God then he wouldn't be calling God the father his God. He wouldn't be saying the father is greater than him and he would certainly know the day when he's going to come back.

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Obviously the Trinity is false because neither Jesus nor the Holy Spirit knows stuff. God would certainly be all knowing and would certainly know when he's coming back.

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So Jesus is clearly not God. He's just a good prophet doing what good prophets do and he's only the son of God in the same sense as we all are sons of God.

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There you have it. Checkmate Christians. Christianity is false. End of story. That's how they view everything.

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You see how why it's important we deal with these things and also we

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Christians want to know the answer to those things. So this video this Muslim released was so effective against Christianity that I recently went to the

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YouTube channel where I found it and I checked some of the comments there. This is what I found. These are just a few of many similar comments that you can more or less immediately find.

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People say things like this. They say why has this information come to me so late in my life?

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Wow need to change my belief. Thank you my brothers will need to learn more.

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And this guy here said I'm being completely honest about this. I swear this video is the reason

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I'm no longer a Christian. This side says ex -Christian and alhamdulillah Muslim.

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Okay so just for those guys who recognize that I'm obviously not

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English or American. I'm from Lebanon and that's the reason my accent is the way it is.

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Alhamdulillah is an Arabic word. I speak Arabic and it means thanks to be to God.

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He's thanking God for being a Muslim now and then he's saying Christians are embracing Islam in the West. As you can see this video is having a big impact on people.

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So it's a big deal. It also highlights the need for us Christians to know our

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Bible better. It also highlights the need for us to educate the next generation better.

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Anyway today we're mainly looking at Matthew 24 -36 but concerning the day and the hour no one knows not even the angels of heaven nor the son but the father only.

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But while we're at it you're going to learn so many things. You're going to be lavished with rich Christian theology.

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This journey of learning stuff is going to be important to understand what Jesus was saying. That's because it appears that most

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Christians are not familiar with basic Christian theology in general. Why did

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Jesus say no one knows the day and hour of his return? If he did know then why didn't he tell them?

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Is he lying? And if he didn't know then how can he be divine? That means he can't be

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God. Even worse it falsifies the Trinity because the Holy Spirit didn't know either because he said no one knows and only the father knows.

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Why say only the father knows? Do the three persons of the Trinity hide secrets from each other? Do they not communicate?

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Now today not only am I going to show you how this does not affect Jesus' omniscience but this verse on its own affirms his deity.

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In fact more interestingly it reveals an amazing truth about God's relationship with us that we all missed in this verse.

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That's the beauty of digging deeper in God's word. Now before we go any further let's see how

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Christians normally answer this question. How do Christians deal with the fact that Jesus didn't know the day and the hour?

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Now typically some Christians say well there are some things that Jesus didn't know in his human nature.

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You've heard this before? I'm sure you did. But that's really confusing. First of all what does it even mean that there are some things that Jesus didn't know in his human nature?

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What kind of things was Jesus ignorant of because of his human nature? Do we have a list? Nowhere in the

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Bible does it teach us that the divine knowledge of Jesus sometimes didn't work. But according to some questions one moment

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Jesus knows something and next moment he doesn't know anything. And when he does know something we call him divine or God but when he doesn't know something we call him human.

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And the Muslims would say well how convenient. You just pick and choose when he's God. Now you see the

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Bible teaches that Jesus is both 100 % human and 100 % God at the same time which means his human attributes and divine attributes are present all the time.

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If that's the case then what happened that day? Did he accidentally trip and for no reason lost his divine attributes?

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If that's true then where else did Jesus lose his divine omni -attributes?

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Is there an asterisk next to these verses? If Jesus didn't know something wouldn't it directly contradict what the

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Bible teaches us about Jesus? Isn't it unbiblical to believe that Jesus lost his divine omni -attributes at some point?

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It just looks like sometimes Christians are just making things up or even worse making excuses for Jesus when he doesn't know something.

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This is confusing for Christians. Never mind that poor Muslim who keeps bringing this up. It also doesn't answer the question of the

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Holy Spirit not knowing. But let's stick with Jesus for now because there is a good reason for this.

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Now some will say but hang on a minute John doesn't the Bible teach that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature?

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If he does doesn't that mean he's learning like the rest of us and there could be things he doesn't know?

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Well first of all let's get this right. The stature means mature in years.

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In other words physically aging. Jesus grew and became stronger. And wisdom means insight, skill, human or divine or general intelligence.

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Of course there is a difference between intelligence and omniscience right? As you know omniscience is the attribute of knowing everything.

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Wisdom and intelligence is how you process what you know humanly speaking. Since this is talking about his human body it must be talking about his physical brain developing similar to his physical body developing.

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So this is talking about his mental capacity as a human. This could never mean that Jesus was growing to become more omniscient.

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It wouldn't make sense. It's humanly impossible to be omniscient. If he was really becoming more omniscient as he grows physically then we could also become more omniscient as we grow.

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Well that's not going to happen. That's obviously not true. So in view of everything we know about Jesus from the

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Bible this verse cannot possibly be understood as Jesus slowly learning stuff to become all knowing.

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No way. He's either all knowing in his existing divine nature or not.

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Therefore the only way to interpret this verse is in relation to his body. Jesus was growing to become humanly stronger and becoming better at using his natural human brain.

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Not divinely speaking but in his human body. I'm hoping that makes sense. Okay. Now one last thing to go through before I give you the answer for Matthew 24 -36.

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Some people are going to say this. Now wait a minute John you don't understand. In Philippians chapter 2 verse 7 the

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Bible clearly says that Jesus emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant taking on the likeness of humanity.

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There you have it. See Jesus was already limited when he first entered his own creation.

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That's why there are some things he just couldn't have known. Because of this

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Christians came up with five ways to interpret this verse. All right. This is going to be for your own good.

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Right. I'm going to take you through this because you're going to learn some stuff through this because it appears that some

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Christians need help to understand this verse. And I did promise that you're going to learn a lot of stuff along the way while we're answering this

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Matthew 24 -36. Here is the first one. Some say that Jesus emptying himself means that Jesus stopped being

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God. He set aside his deity. In other words Jesus was nothing more than a man.

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Well no. No Bible believing Christian ever believed that. Jesus was still 100 %

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God and still 100 % man. Both at the same time. He wasn't 100 %

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God sometimes and then 100 % man another time. He was both.

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If Jesus had set aside his divinity then his testimony would not carry any real weight.

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He wouldn't have been able to speak about any issue with absolute authority. His knowledge of divine mysteries as we call them would be no better than yours or mine.

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Also the Bible doesn't say that Jesus stopped being God. It says that God was manifest in flesh that the word became flesh.

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It says that God became a human being without stopping, without ceasing to be God. And the

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Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. There is no way out of this so Jesus didn't give up his deity for sure.

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Okay. Some Christians think that he put aside some of his divine attributes when he came to earth.

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In other words he gave some of his omniscience or omnipotence or omnipresence and so on away.

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He just gave it away. Well that can't be true either because if Jesus is the eternal God as the scripture teaches then it's hard to imagine that he could somehow get rid of some of these divine qualities and still be

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God. We know that Jesus was limited in his body but that doesn't mean that he lost some of his divine attributes.

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The emptying of himself couldn't really be about his attributes as God because by definition

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God cannot stop being God. Of course this also contradicts what the Bible teaches.

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For example if Jesus is not all knowing then why did the disciples say that he was? Like in John chapter 16 verse 30 his disciples said now we understand that you know all things and that you have no need for anyone to question you.

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Because of this we believe that you came from God. Jesus didn't know all things in his human nature.

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He knew them in his divine nature, right? That's why the disciples are saying here it's because of your omniscience

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Jesus we believe that you came from God. How did Jesus reply to the disciples?

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Did he correct them and say wait a minute no no no no you got it all wrong. I only know some things in my human nature.

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Is that what he said? No that's not what he said. That's not what happened at all. Jesus affirmed that what they said was right.

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He said do you now believe? Basically Jesus said finally at last do you now get it?

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To make it worse he seals the deal by telling us about the future.

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Not only does Jesus know everything about the present but he's now telling them about the future. He said so this is immediately afterwards he said look and an hour is coming and has already come when you will be scattered each to his own home and you will leave me all alone.

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Now wait a minute. How come Jesus all of a sudden knows about this hour but apparently not know about the other hour of his return?

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Is this some kind of a pick and choose type of omniscience? Is this one of those verses that should have this little asterisk next to it that tells us that this time

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Jesus actually acting in his divine nature instead of his human nature? I don't think so.

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Not only that but with this verse Jesus affirmed his omniscience and didn't try to suggest that there are any exceptions.

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So I think we can very confidently say that Jesus did not set aside some of his divine attributes when it says he emptied himself.

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Okay how about this next one? Some say that Jesus did not know that he was God. Now that's laughable right?

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This is basically saying that Jesus didn't give up any of his divine attributes when he came to earth but he simply gave up his divine self -consciousness.

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He just didn't know that he was God. I mean that's ridiculous right? I don't even have to answer this. But anyway

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I will do. So he had all these divine attributes but he just didn't know he had them.

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Well that's basically rubbish and on so many levels. It's just the opposite of Christianity.

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If you remember the story when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus said to his disciples that if he wanted to he could order at least 12 legions of angels to stop the soldiers who came to arrest him.

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He knew who he was then. He also knew who he was when he said I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of my him who sent me right?

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So he knew who he was and where he came from. He said Abraham he said before Abraham was

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I am which nearly got him stoned for blasphemy. He prayed to his father saying glorify me in your presence with the glory

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I had with you before the world began. That means he knew where he was from eternity past.

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He even knew who he was when he was 12 years old when his parents accidentally left him behind when they went back to get him three days later from Jerusalem.

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His mother said to Jesus why did you do this to us? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.

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He said to her why do you seek me? Do you not know that I must be about my father's business?

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He wasn't worried because he fully understood who he was. So we can safely say that Jesus was definitely not confused about his identity or his deity nor was he ignorant of them.

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He certainly knew that he was God in the flesh. I have plenty more examples but sadly we don't have time to go through them all.

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No one could ever come up with this such a ridiculous conclusion if they ever read the Bible even once.

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Now some say that Jesus behaved as if he didn't have divine attributes. That means they say that Jesus did have his divine attributes but he behaved as though he did not have any.

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So even though Jesus was still omniscient and omnipotent and so on, his life didn't reflect them, didn't reflect those attributes.

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But if that's true then Jesus was just deceiving people. He says that he emptied himself but he didn't really empty himself of anything.

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Also we have many examples of Jesus using his divine attributes. So clearly and certainly this is not true either.

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And lastly we come to this one before we go ahead and answer that big question. Some say that Jesus set aside the use of his divine attributes.

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So that means Jesus had these divine attributes when he came to earth but he gave up their use.

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Jesus just surrendered them or handed them over. Again this flies in the face of all the

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Bible verses where Jesus did use his divine attributes on many occasions such as healing, raising people from the dead, forgiving sins of others that nearly got him killed, claiming that he had power to answer prayers.

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That's in John 14. This is a very famous verse we can come to later if you want to.

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Even the devil knew that Jesus didn't set aside his divine attributes. Otherwise what was the point of tempting

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Jesus by telling him to turn stone into bread? The temptation would be meaningless.

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For example, the devil couldn't tempt me or anyone else to do anything like that because we wouldn't ever be able to do anything like that in the first place.

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We have plenty of examples to prove that Jesus didn't set aside the use of his divine attributes.

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I just don't have time to go through them all. This directly conflicts with the New Testament teaching.

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Therefore this has to be false too. So what's the correct answer? What did

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Jesus empty himself from? Well, the answer is easy. It can only mean that God emptied himself of his divine majesty and glory and willingly humbled himself and took upon himself an additional nature, a human nature.

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He came as a servant rather than appear in his full glory as king of kings.

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He voluntarily limited himself by being a genuine human being with genuine human limitations.

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That means as a human being, he could physically only be at one place at a time, but in his divine being, which he still fully possesses, he's still fully omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and he still holds the whole universe together.

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That's why Jesus could say things like, for where two or three are gathered together in my name,

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I am there in the midst of them. That's why Jesus could say to Nathaniel, when you were under the fig tree,

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I saw you, even though Jesus was nowhere near this person physically at the time. He was omnipresent, but in his limited human body, he needed to eat, he needed to sleep, he needed to drink, he needed to rest like any other human being.

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He could feel pain, he can bleed, he can die. Before he became a man, he didn't have any of these restrictions.

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He added these restrictions within his human nature. So what does it all mean?

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Well, it means that his glory was totally hidden from humanity. This is the kind of glory that humans could not look at and survive.

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If they tried, they would die. So it was a good thing. So he temporarily set aside his wonderful divine majesty and glory.

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I'm hoping this is making sense. This explains multiple other verses in the Bible. For example, that's why in John 14, 28,

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Jesus told the disciples that my father is greater than I. Why would

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Jesus say that? Is God the father greater than Jesus in his essence or divine nature? No, it can't be.

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This chapter, actually, this chapter of John 14, actually affirms the deity of Jesus, especially when he said, if you ask anything in my name,

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I will do it. That means he's got all the attributes in order to be able to make that claim.

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The reason Jesus said that should be clearer now.

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The phrase greater than can only be in relation to his status on earth. Why? Because he spoke those words while he was on earth and whilst

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Jesus was in his humble human state. But this humble human state is only temporary.

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It will change when Jesus goes back to the father. How do I know this? Because just before this in the same verse,

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Jesus told his disciples, you have heard me say to you, I'm going away and coming back to you.

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If you loved me, you would rejoice because I said I'm going to the father. So Jesus is saying that the father is greater than him, but he tells them that if they loved him, they would be happy if he goes away.

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But why should they be happy for him? Because something very special will happen when he goes back to the father.

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The glory and majesty of Jesus that he once had will be restored to him. How do

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I know that? Because Jesus tells us this in John 17, verse five, when he prays and he says, and now, oh, father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which

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I had, which is past tense, glory which I had with you before the world was.

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So Jesus had this glory in the past, but doesn't have it at the moment. That's why he's asking his disciples to be happy for him, because he's returning to the father to restore this glory that he had.

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Why else should they be happy for him? You see, if he doesn't go back to the father, then he'll continue in the state of humiliation.

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But if he returns to the father, not only will the father no longer be greater than Jesus, but he will enjoy once again the divine glory that he had once with the father.

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Is it making sense now? I'm hoping it does. So let's summarize. Jesus set aside his majesty and glory for our sake when he entered his own creation.

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As a result, the father is now greater than Jesus in his humble human servant nature.

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But later, Jesus is telling us that how happy he is because he's going back to the father and asks his disciples to be happy for him because he's going back to the father.

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The father will restore his original glory and majesty that he once had. Can you see how this links with Philippians chapter 2 verse 7 and what he emptied himself of means?

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It makes much more sense now in light of the whole Bible. You probably knew all this, but I had to emphasize it to make my point.

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If Jesus still has all his divine attributes, like omniscience, and he knows all things, then why did he say no one knows the day or the hour except the father?

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So we seem to have two problems. Jesus, who is omniscient, didn't know something.

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And Jesus also implied that the Holy Spirit didn't know something. So what's going on? Well, it turns out what

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Jesus was really saying or doing was far more exciting and amazing and mind -blowing than any answer a

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Christian has ever given to this question. Jesus was revealing an amazing truth about himself and his relationship with his followers or believers that it wasn't made clear to them before.

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This is the first time. So to understand what's happening, we need to look at some facts. The first fact we want to look at is marriage.

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This is important. The Bible has a lot to say about marriage. In fact, it says something very specific.

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It says in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 31 to 32, for this reason, a man should leave his father and mother, be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

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This is a great mystery. Paul calls this what? A great mystery.

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Why is it a mystery? Well, he tells us. It's because it's describing the relationship between Christ and the church.

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It's saying that there is something special between us and Christ that can only be explained in terms of marriage.

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In fact, according to Ephesians, the purpose of marriage is to help us understand our relationship with Christ.

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The Bible says in Ephesians 5 25, husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

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Marriage is the picture of our relationship with Jesus. We are the bride. He is the groom. That's not the only time this is mentioned, by the way.

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It's all over the Bible. In John chapter 3 verse 27 to 30,

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John the Baptist refers to Jesus as the groom and us as his bride. Even Jesus himself refers to himself as the groom in Mark chapter 2 when

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Jesus is explaining to the Pharisees why his disciples don't need to fast. In Isaiah, God says to Israel that your maker is your husband.

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The Lord of hosts is his name. When Israelites committed adultery,

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God told Isaiah to bring charges against the Israelites and to tell them that she is not my wife and I am not her husband.

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He's literally warning them that he's about to divorce them. God keeps saying this. He repeats those words of husband and wife again and again in verses 7, 16, 19, 20, almost all of Isaiah.

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The marriage contract is God's covenant with Israel. That's why God says things like I'm a jealous

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God in many places when he sees his people get involved in idolatry. It's all over the place.

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He is jealous in the same way a husband would be jealous if his wife cheats on him. Even Paul said in 2

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Corinthians chapter 11 verse 2, I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.

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Now, if that's not a contractual agreement for marriage, I really don't know what is. The Old and New Testaments both say that it's a marriage between us and God or Christ.

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This is not just this can't be a coincidence. This unique relationship between God and his people can only be found in Yahweh, only in Yahweh, the

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God of the Bible. Not only that, but this relationship is an affectionate relationship. For example, in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 9, when

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God was telling the Israelites to not bow to idols, he said, you must not bow down to them or worship them.

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For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.

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In Exodus chapter 34, verse 14, God says, you must worship no other gods for the

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Lord, whose very name is jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you.

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God views our relationship with him as a marriage, and this marriage is particularly described in a

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Jewish context. And if there was ever any doubt about God's relationship with his people being a covenant of marriage, then this should nail it for you.

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Check out Hosea chapter 3. God uses Hosea's own marriage to explain his relationship,

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God's relationship with his people. Hosea's wife was committing adultery. She cheated on him, and Hosea was devastated.

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But God told him to do what? To go back to her, not only go back to her, but go back to her and pay her debt, pay her debt off and get her back.

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Did you hear that? He told him to pay her debt and get her back. It says in Hosea chapter 3, verse 1, then the

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Lord said to me, go and love your wife again. And even though she commits adultery with another lover, this will illustrate.

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What will it do? It will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.

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So this act of going back to her and loving her despite what she did will illustrate.

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It's a picture of how the Lord loves Israel as a husband who loves his wife despite committing adultery.

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Hosea goes on to say, so I bought her back for 15 pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine.

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Then I said to her, you must live in my house for many days and stop your prostitution.

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During this time, you will not have sexual relations with anyone, not even with me. So Hosea paid the fine on her behalf and took her back.

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But Hosea tells her that there will be no sexual relationship with him until the relationship is restored.

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This lack of relationship with his wife is a symbol of Israel's lack of relationship with God.

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How do I know that? Because it tells me that in the next verse, it says this shows this being what?

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The lack of sexual relationship that Israel will go a long time without a king or a prince and without sacrifices, sacred pillars, priests or even idols.

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So this whole relationship between Hosea and his adulterous wife is an illustration.

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It's a reflection of God's relationship with his people. I could say a lot more about this, but I think

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I made my point. So bearing in mind that our relationship with God is basically a marriage, then everything else will hopefully fall falls in place now.

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So you're wondering what on earth is all that about? Well, let me take you through a

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Jewish marriage and show you how it all links. When a

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Jewish lad would propose marriage to a prospective bride, he would offer her a cup of wine.

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If she drank it, she was accepting the betrothal. Now, in case you didn't know, a betrothal and a

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Jewish engagement. It's much more than our understanding of engagement.

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It's a binding agreement in which the woman is legally considered the wife of the man, but don't have any sexual relations.

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Same as Joseph and Mary when they were betrothed, but we're not together. And it says that in Matthew chapter one.

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In fact, to come out of the contract, the man would need a religious divorce to cancel the contract.

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The interesting part is that the woman couldn't initiate the divorce. Only the groom can. They call this the this arrangement,

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Kiddushin, which means sanctified or sanctification or set apart. They are set apart for each other.

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The legal marriage comes later and it's called Nusian, which means elevation. Then the groom would tell the bride,

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I must now go to my father's house to prepare a place for you. And the bride would typically respond with, when are you coming back?

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The groom would answer, only my father knows. Sometimes the groom says, no one knows the day or the hour.

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Only the father knows. Are you seeing what's happening here? It's not the case that the groom doesn't know when he's getting married.

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In fact, sometimes the entire Jewish community knows when they're going to get married. But that's still the typical response the groom gives out out of respect for his father.

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That's because usually the father of the groom is the one making arrangements for the wedding with the food and all the planning.

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Are you with me? After this, the groom signs a contract and pays the dowry.

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This payment is made to the father of the bride and the mount represents how valuable this bride is for the groom.

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The higher the dowry, the more important the bride is to the groom. They now enter in a special period called the betrothal period.

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This period is typically one year, but it can vary. During this time, the bride is being prepared for marriage.

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She learns from her mother and father how to be a wife. When the betrothal period is over, the groom goes and gets his bride from her house on her wedding day.

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Finally comes the celebration and everyone enjoys the wedding supper. Now, I'm sure you know where I'm going with this, but let's see what this

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Jewish wedding tradition reveals to us. Let's go through this step by step one more time. Let's start from the top.

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When a Jewish lad would propose marriage to a prospective bride, he would offer her a cup of wine.

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If she drinks it, she was accepting the betrothal.

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Can you guess where Jesus did exactly that in the Bible? We see this happening when

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Jesus and his disciples had this very discussion the night of the last supper after the disciples drank the third cup.

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You need to read this, which was symbolically the cup of betrothal. In the

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Jewish culture, each time they drank from the cup, it had a symbolic meaning. They drink four times.

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The third cup is also called the cup of blessing or the cup of redemption. This is what we're doing when we're taking communion, guys.

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Each time we drink from this cup, which is called the cup of redemption or the cup of betrothal, we're actually accepting our betrothal to Jesus.

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It's a serious engagement. It's a serious contract. So by taking part in communion service and by drinking this wine, we're basically accepting the marriage proposal.

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It's an engagement that Jesus called the new covenant in his blood. It's a new agreement. It's a marriage contract between us.

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If you're interested, this Passover ceremony took place in John chapter 13. You can read it for yourself.

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It's where the drinking of the cups took place. I have a whole complete talk on the subject. Maybe we can do it one day purely to do with the celebration and what it means.

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It will blow your mind. So we're not even going there. Okay, so let's see what happens next during the

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Jewish marriage ceremony. Then the groom would tell the bride, I must now go to my father's house to prepare a place for you.

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Now compare that with what happened after they drank the cup during the Lord's Supper.

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Jesus said, in my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would

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I have told you that? I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you,

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I will come again and will take you to myself. That where I am, you may be also.

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Are you getting the picture now? After this, in the Jewish marriage tradition, the bride would typically respond with, when are you coming back?

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This is where you see the disciples also making the same question or asking the same question in Matthew 24 verse 3.

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Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming? In other words, when are you coming back?

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In the Jewish marriage tradition, the groom would normally say, only my father knows. And sometimes the groom say, no one knows the day or the hour.

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Only the father knows. And guess what? After predicting some stuff that will happen in the future,

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Jesus says, no one knows the day and hour. Only the father knows. Are you getting all this?

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Are you getting it? It's not that Jesus didn't know something.

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It's the exact opposite. He just finished explaining in detail about the end days. He told them about the future to help them know when he's coming back.

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He wasn't ignorant. Think about it. How did he know all the things that will happen during the end times in great detail if he was acting in his human ignorant nature, as we keep saying?

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He spoke about the future. He spoke about future wars, future quakes and famines.

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He spoke about persecution. He spoke about apostasy, false prophets, wickedness. He spoke about the abomination of desolation and what will happen to the sun, the moon, the stars.

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He talked about how he will come on the clouds of heaven with a loud trumpet call.

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All these things were about what will happen when he comes back. But after this, after all this,

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Jesus said, no one knows the day and the hour except for the father. And then he goes on to say how the kingdom of heaven is like a

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Jewish wedding when the groom comes back to pick his bride. Now, get this.

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Why is Jesus talking about a wedding in the middle of talking about the end times and him coming back?

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Unless he's talking about his own wedding with the church. He was warning them to be ready and he's emphasizing his relationship with them.

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Are you getting this? This is amazing stuff. Now, did Jesus know the Holy Spirit were being ignorant? How could he not know?

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He just finished predicting the future in detail. It wouldn't make sense. Check out what comes next in the

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Jewish marriage ceremony. The groom signs a contract and pays the dowry. The payment is made to the father of the bride, and the amount represents how valuable this bride is for the groom.

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The higher the dowry, the more important the bride is to the groom. Now, think about what happened after the Lord's Supper.

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How does Jesus pay the dowry for the dowry? The Bible says, you were bought with a price.

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You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. What is this price Jesus paid for his bride, which is us?

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He pays it with his life. His love for us is obviously infinite.

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We now get to the next stage of this Jewish marriage. They now enter into a special period called the betrothal period.

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This period is typically one year, but it can vary. During this time, the bride is being prepared for marriage.

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She learns from her mother and father how to be a wife. That's exactly what the

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Bible tells us we're going through right now. We're being prepared for this union with Jesus.

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That's why after Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour, he talked about the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, which represents the church.

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It represents us going through the betrothal period, getting ready for the wedding.

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Five virgins were ready, and five weren't and were turned away. Jesus is warning us to be ready.

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And now comes the end of the betrothal period. When the betrothal period is over, the groom goes and gets the bride from her house on her wedding day.

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Now tell me, if Jesus is the groom, when does this happen? When does Jesus pick up his bride?

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Well, he obviously does this when he comes back. That's exactly what it says in Revelation 21. Then one of the seven angels came and said to me, come with me.

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I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. I mean, it couldn't be more obvious.

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This is talking about Jesus coming back to pick up his bride. That's when Jesus comes back to get us, the church.

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And finally comes the celebration that everyone is waiting for, the wedding supper. When does this happen?

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The Bible says this will happen in Revelation 19, verse 6, the marriage supper of the lamb.

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The lamb is obviously Jesus celebrating his marriage with the church. So the whole purpose of marriage is to describe and explain the true meaning of God's relationship with us.

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This close union with God and this infinite close relationship we have with him can only be understood and appreciated if and only if marriage exists.

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Jesus is God, and that fact that he viewed his relationship with his people as a marriage proves that he had to be the

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God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why? Because only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would view his relationship with his people as a marriage since the very beginning.

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In fact, Jesus affirmed his identity as Yahweh himself by answering this question the way he did.

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So in conclusion, both Jesus and the Holy Spirit both knew the day and the hour, but it was not their place to announce it.

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The doctrine of the Trinity says that the Son and the Holy Spirit submit to the Father's authority. So Jesus was basically affirming that relationship in this verse, explaining what is going to happen leading up to his return, which will be the same as the events leading up to the

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Jewish wedding. So I hope that was clear. But now I'm going to mention the elephant in the room.

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What is the elephant in the room? The elephant in the room is why did Jesus say no one knows?

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Why couldn't he just say it's only for my father to say or something like that?

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That's because he was using the wedding ceremony language that they recognized very well. Remember who the audience is.

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They all knew what Jesus was saying. He was affirming to be Yahweh of the Old Testament by using this very language.

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The only people who wouldn't have understood this, what he was saying, would have been the

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Gentiles, us. But Jesus was not talking to the Gentiles. He was talking to the disciples who fully understood what was going on.

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But now you're thinking, but why couldn't Jesus just say it? Why not say, look, it's not my place to tell you.

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This is reserved for my father. He's the only one who has the authority to reveal this.

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It would have been so much easier. Well, apart from the Jewish wedding is the whole point of Jesus.

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Something similar did happen later on when his disciples kept pushing and pushing and pushing.

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I like the way the NLT puts this in Acts chapter one, verse six. So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking, they went on and on.

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Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom? By the way, when the apostles talked about Jesus coming back and freeing

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Israel, they're talking about his return. So the apostles kept asking Jesus, come on now, tell us, when is this going to happen?

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When will you come back? Look, Jesus, we all know, you know, just tell us, please tell us. That's what they were doing.

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I guess I would have done that. I have to admit if I were there. And Jesus says the father alone has the authority to set those dates and times and they are not for you to know.

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You get that? Let me translate it for you. Look, I'm not going to tell you because it's not for you to know those dates or times.

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Only my father has the prerogative, authority and the right to reveal this information. You see, this time

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Jesus did not say nobody knows, did he? Instead, he says, look, I told you this already.

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This is my father's jurisdiction. It's his call. Let it go. Okay? This also points out something else interesting, that the disciples did not believe for one minute that Jesus didn't know he's coming back.

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Or that Jesus didn't know certain things in his human flesh, like some Christians say. Right? Because they kept asking.

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So obviously when Jesus told them earlier, no one knows, the disciples didn't think that he didn't really know.

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Therefore, they must have understood the reference he's making to the Jewish wedding ceremony.

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So the disciples knew he had the answer because they knew he's God in the flesh.

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That's why they kept asking. I could take you through every stage of the

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Jewish wedding custom and show you how each stage beautifully fits with God's plan and his relationship with his church.

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But I think what we have so far is enough. If you want more information, a simple Google search would do.

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Usually the Jewish messianic websites would be a good place to start. We truly have an awesome

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God who sent his son into the world who is 100 % divine, who was and still is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, who took on flesh, making him also 100 % human to rescue and save us from hell and condemnation.

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So I really, really hope that helps. Now, I did promise to answer one other question.

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If Jesus is God in the flesh, then how come he referred to the father as my God? How can

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God have a God? And how come the

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Holy Spirit doesn't call God the father, his God? Now, I'm happy to do that, so I'm going to do that right now.

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Okay, so Jesus called God the father, his God, many times. In John 20, verse 17, he says to Mary, my father and your father and my

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God and your God. Some say, well, this happened before Jesus ascended and was glorified.

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Okay, but in Revelation chapter 3, Jesus says my God at least four times in one chapter.

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And this does happen after Jesus was glorified and he had the glorified body. He's still calling the father his

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God. What's going on? In Hebrew chapter 1, verse 9, quotes the psalmist that talks about Jesus saying, therefore,

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God, your God has anointed you. What? So the God of Jesus anoints

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Jesus with oil? It doesn't make sense. So what's going on? I've heard many explanations for this, so I'm going to give you a couple and then give you the answer.

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Some say that Jesus is equal to the father by nature but subordinate to the father in his personal role.

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Now, I know what they mean, but the problem with this is that to me this statement, my

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God and your God, is not a question of role. It's a question of essence. It's saying that Jesus is the inferior to the father in his nature, not in his personal role.

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So I don't think it works because it changes the essence of Jesus. So this can't be the answer. I've also heard people say that when

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Jesus spoke to Mary saying, don't touch me because I've not yet ascended to my father and your father and to my

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God and your God, it was in comparison and equivalent sense. What on earth does that mean?

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Okay, so stay with me. If you don't get it, it doesn't matter because I'm going to give you the answer later. What they mean is that when

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Jesus said to Mary, your father and my father, he obviously didn't mean your father in the same sense as my father.

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Clearly, your father to Mary means less than my father to Jesus because of his triune relationship.

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That's the same with my God and your God. When he said my God to Mary, it obviously means less to Jesus than God to Mary because of her relationship with God.

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Anyway, I hope that made sense. It doesn't work for me either for so many reasons. First of all, I can't see how

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Jesus can refer to God the Father as his God in any comparative or equivalent sense.

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I just can't see it. Secondly, this doesn't seem to explain the other Bible verses where Jesus isn't using it in this comparative or equivalent sense, such as Revelation.

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In these verses, Jesus is just simply saying my God. There is no comparison there. Right, just simply saying my

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God. So what's happening here? What is the answer? Well, this can be easily explained when we read

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John 1, verses 1 and 14. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

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Word was God. We all know these verses 1 and 14 very well. And the

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Word became flesh. We're familiar with that. And dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the

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Father, full of grace and truth. We're familiar with that. And as you know, this is talking about Jesus, the Creator, entering into his own creation and taking on flesh.

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Now, the moment Jesus entered into his creation, the moment Jesus took on a created nature, the nature of man, the moment he took on flesh, from that moment,

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Jesus began relating to the Father as his God. So just to repeat, it's only from the moment of the incarnation when

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Christ became man and therefore became part of his creation, from that moment, Jesus' Father also became the

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God of Jesus. You get that? So now the question is why?

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Why did Jesus suddenly have a God when he took on flesh? Why would that be the case? Well, that's easy.

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It's because of what it says in Jeremiah chapter 32, verse 27. In Jeremiah, it says that Yahweh is the

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God of all flesh. That's the literal translation of the Hebrew. In a couple of Bible translations, this verse says the

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God of all mankind, but that's more of a paraphrase. The actual original Hebrew here says that Yahweh is the

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God of all flesh. Now think about it. If Yahweh is the God of all flesh and Yahweh is triune, as we believe he is based on Scripture, and one of the persons of Yahweh, that is

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God, became flesh, should it really surprise us that the other member of God, specifically the

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Father, would begin relating to that particular person of the Godhead who became flesh as his

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God? No. It shouldn't surprise us at all. Think about it. If Jesus is fully

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God, who is the second person of the Trinity, and he alone becomes flesh, then it shouldn't surprise us that the

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Father, who didn't become flesh, begins relating to Jesus as his God.

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In fact, it should surprise us if Jesus didn't refer to the

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Father as his God. If he didn't, the Bible would be inconsistent, and the Muslim guy would be saying something like this.

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Aha! See, your theology is not consistent. Otherwise, Jesus would call the Father as God because it says in Jeremiah that Yahweh is the

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God of all flesh, and Jesus became flesh. This also explains why the

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Holy Spirit never refers to God the Father as his God, because the Holy Spirit never took on flesh. If he did, then he would also have to refer to the

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Father as his God. Are you getting this? Here's one last interesting fact.

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Not only did Jesus have a literal body after his resurrection, but this body became permanent.

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We know this because after his ascension, the angel promised that the same

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Jesus who left would come back the same way. But we know that when

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Jesus left the earth, he was both God and man. They saw him ascend as a human. Therefore, it's necessary that Jesus stays

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God -man until he returns because he will return as the God -man.

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We also know that the body is permanent because he's mediating between God and humanity. According to Paul, it is the man,

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Christ Jesus, who is mediating for us. Paul says the same Jesus who died for us is also interceding for us.

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Not only that, but Jesus is also our high priest. To qualify as our priest, Jesus would have to stay a human.

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Now, we know it's permanent because he promised to have the same. But we have been promised to have the same body as Jesus, which is incorruptible, permanent, and imperishable.

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So what does it all mean? It means that one of the price of Jesus was willing to pay out of his infinite love for us is to take on a human nature that he'll be attached to forever, making the

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Father his God forever. He knew this price, and he still did it. So remember, Jesus is in heaven.

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He's got his human nature, his human body, albeit glorified. Therefore, God the

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Father is still his God as well. How great must be his love for us.

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He paid an eternal price because of his eternal love. No wonder they call him love, and no wonder we call him our

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Savior. So going back to Matthew 24 -36, I hope this clarifies it a bit better.

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By Jesus answering the question in this way, he's proven to be Yahweh of the Old Testament. He is the groom, the church is his bride, and he is coming back soon to take her home.

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I can't wait. Praise God. Now, if you have any questions, I'm all yours. If you want me to,

56:26

I can stop sharing. No, if you want to leave that up for a minute and just tell us how we can get some of those videos that you were talking about earlier, and then you can stop sharing.

56:39

And then we'll go into it. Yeah, sure. So you mean this video over here? This particular video talks about, well, these are the 10 reasons given against the deity of Jesus.

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Okay, so that's the video you can fetch. Take a picture if you want right now. And these are the points.

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Maybe I moved on too quickly here, but these are the points that were brought up in reverse order.

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He actually mentions them in reverse order, one by one, like that. So this is the link.

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Does that help? Yes, thank you very much. No problem. Also, I was hoping for a better body when

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Jesus came back. What were you hoping for? I'm sorry? A better body.

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Oh, better body. It is a much better body. I mean, look,

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Jesus ascended into heaven in that body. I can handle the body like that. I'm okay with that. So, yes, very happy with a glorified body that Jesus is going to give us one day.

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We're going to be like his body. The Bible specifically says our body will be like his. Okay.

57:46

It sounded like you were saying that he came in the same body and left in the same body.

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And I'm hoping that ain't true for me. Well, he did come.

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He was resurrected in the same body, but it was obviously a glorified body. So we're going to be resurrected in our same body, but a glorified one.

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And apparently that's a good thing. So I'm taking it. Awesome. Okay. And if you want to stop sharing,

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Terry, I'll turn it over to you. Yes. Although I don't see any questions in the chat.

58:19

I don't know if there were some that were put in there before I came back on. I'm not able to see them.

58:26

No, we were having a conversation when John was talking about the betrothal.

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It's very much like the betrothal that Spock had to his lady on Vulcan.

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And so I was just making a comment about that. Leonard Nimoy was Jewish. And I think a lot of the things that Spock did were lean more towards Jewish.

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And then we were talking about the wedding supper movie that we watched called

58:57

Before the Wrath. And this was an amazing talk, John. I really enjoyed this.

59:04

Oh, was that the one that Jan Markell had on? Yes. Yeah, I listened to that.

59:10

And yeah, I kept thinking about that during John's presentation. It's such a beautiful story and analogy about how we're

59:19

Christ's bride. And it just makes when that context, John, the way that you described it in that context, it just makes so much more sense.

59:28

It answers all the questions. Yeah. I mean, can you see how Christians completely missed the beautiful kind of picture that Jesus was sharing?

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And we resorted to God simply didn't know certain things in his human nature, which took away the beauty of what he was actually doing.

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There was no way Jesus couldn't have known what he was doing. The whole chapter was about him telling us what he was going to do.

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So there was no way he could not have known this. So clearly he was describing the wedding.

59:59

And when a lot of the New Testament, he is talking to Jews that would know what he's talking of.

01:00:07

And I never thought of communion as such.

01:00:14

You know, my mother's side was Jewish, but my mother converted to Lutheranism.

01:00:22

And, you know, communion was just something you did after you got, what did they call that?

01:00:29

Into the faith or whatever. Then in the eighth grade, you could go for communion. Nobody ever said this is a symbol of, you know, our marriage to Jesus.

01:00:40

I thought that was just really awesome. And I think there's so much implication.

01:00:47

I mean, we're Creation Fellowship Santee. You know, we put an emphasis on Genesis and reading the straightforward version of Genesis.

01:00:55

And, you know, we talk a lot about the consequences of not doing that. And we see them in the world around us.

01:01:02

How, you know, because a lot of the foundations for everything that our society, that our country's laws, that everything are built on come from Genesis.

01:01:11

And that includes marriage. And Christ just, like not only does he confirm the creation account in the

01:01:19

New Testament in his own words, but he also confirms marriage. And it's so important that we recognize that that is how

01:01:28

God created human beings, males and females. And that's the way that he intended for marriage to be.

01:01:35

I know this is very controversial. And maybe we're not going to be able to post this video to YouTube since I just said that.

01:01:40

But it's very, it's important. And a lot of Christians have overlooked that and factoring in this thing.

01:01:48

Like it's always important as Christians that we know where we came from. You know, the history of the earth and everything that's led here, where we are right now, who we are in Jesus, and then where we're going in the future, what's going to come in the end.

01:02:04

And when you look at that perspective, that eternal perspective, and you factor that in to society now, you can't make excuses or rationalize away, oh, but, you know, maybe it's okay for, you know, for people to be, oh, that's how they were born or that, you know, it's not.

01:02:23

I mean, there's a plan. There's a plan. Let's have John pray us out and then we'll stop the video and then we can wait.

01:02:32

We have one. We have one question here. Okay. In Zoom. So Bill asks, well,

01:02:38

I must have missed something. Did the Holy Spirit know the hour and day of Christ return? Yes.

01:02:43

Sum up, John, in one sentence. The whole language was not about knowing or not knowing.

01:02:50

It was affirming that he was addressing a wedding or a betrothal between himself and the believers and the followers.

01:03:00

So, of course, he did know. And, of course, the Holy Spirit knew. It was not for the Holy Spirit or for Jesus to tell.

01:03:07

It was purely an announcement that can be made by the Father. So Jesus was just affirming that he is the

01:03:13

Yahweh of the Old Testament, confirming that he refers to his believers, his followers, as his bride by saying those things.

01:03:25

And he was affirming that the Father is the only one who can make that announcement exactly in the same way as in a wedding would be, a

01:03:31

Jewish traditional wedding. Thanks, John. I got all of that with respect to Jesus.

01:03:37

It was wonderful. I learned a lot, but I didn't know you were attaching the

01:03:42

Holy Spirit to that same line of Scripture and thinking. And the answer is yes, the

01:03:48

Holy Spirit is attached to that same line of thinking. Thank you. Thank you. I have another question.

01:03:56

I was going to say the Holy Spirit was never flesh. So he never – what did you say about that,

01:04:04

John? I don't remember now. Yeah, we were talking about Jeremiah saying Yahweh is the

01:04:09

God of all flesh. And since the Holy Spirit never became flesh, he would never refer to God the

01:04:15

Father as his own God, which is what Jesus did. Jesus said, my God and your God, because he came in flesh.

01:04:22

That was answering the question of why did Jesus say my God when addressing

01:04:27

God the Father? Okay. And then, Bill, you had another question? Yeah, another one just popped up as well.

01:04:35

So one thought I just had is when all that was happening, the

01:04:41

Holy Spirit hadn't come down yet after Christ returns to heaven.

01:04:46

The reason Jesus – this is a guess. It's just a theory, an idea.

01:04:52

Maybe it's useless and wrong. But since Jesus hadn't ascended yet, the

01:04:59

Holy Spirit hadn't come down yet. So I don't think if Jesus would have said that's not for me or the

01:05:07

Holy Spirit to know, no one there would have known what he was talking about.

01:05:12

I don't think they knew what the Holy Spirit was when Jesus made that statement.

01:05:18

That's just a thought. I had been thinking about that too. John, what do you think about that?

01:05:24

Well, Jesus has already explained that the Holy Spirit was going to be there, was going to come when he leaves.

01:05:32

I believe that was in John Chapter 14. He said, I must go so that the Holy Spirit will come. So he's already addressed the

01:05:38

Holy Spirit idea. They understood the idea of the Holy Spirit. But we believe the Holy Spirit was there all along.

01:05:44

The only difference is if you look at the wording, it says he will be with you and he will be in you. So the difference is that the

01:05:51

Holy Spirit is going to be in them rather than just be around. Because the Holy Spirit was in action. Actually, the Holy Spirit came and ascended on Jesus during his baptism, if you remember.

01:06:01

So therefore, the Holy Spirit was there. They would have understood the Holy Spirit because Jesus already told them that when he goes, the

01:06:08

Holy Spirit will come, the Comforter will come. So therefore, to us...

01:06:15

I'm wrong. Sorry. I'm wrong. That's fine. Go ahead.

01:06:20

I didn't mean to interrupt. You broke up? But I think you heard. It's fine.

01:06:26

I think that's what I heard. He got it. He just realized that he was mistaken. So, Robin, did you have another question or shall

01:06:33

I go ahead and ask Joyce's? Go ahead and ask Joyce's. So Joyce's question about the marriage tradition.

01:06:41

So she says that there are a couple of pastors that she likes, but they dismiss the wedding as an example of the rapture.

01:06:48

Joyce says she thinks that they think that before the wrath is talking about the second coming.

01:06:56

And that they seem to think that the people involved in the movie are taking it out of context.

01:07:06

That's the end of that. Does that make sense? Have you heard of that movie, John, Before the

01:07:12

Wrath? Yeah. Left Behind? Oh, Before the Wrath. It's not Left Behind we're addressing here, is it?

01:07:17

No, no. It's with Brent Miller. Brent Miller Jr. produced it. And there's two evangelists that are saying that it's taken out of context.

01:07:27

But what you explained is exactly what's in that movie. And it just makes good sense.

01:07:33

So I guess, Joyce, speak up here. Yeah, there's Jack Hibbs and J .D.

01:07:40

Frogg and Jan Markell. They were all part of this movie. But then there's a couple of very prominent pastors, prophecy teachers that I really love.

01:07:53

But they think that they kind of like have made comments about the movie.

01:08:01

And then they found out who was involved. And they were like, I didn't realize that that person was. But they still make comments about, you know, they seem to think that Before the

01:08:13

Wrath is talking about the second coming, which it's not. It's talking about the father, you know, us going up to be the bride of Christ, to be raptured.

01:08:23

The father's going, you know, he's sending his son to get us. So I know in the movie, it talks about some archaeologist evidence, archaeology or whatever, evidence that they found something or something like that.

01:08:46

So I didn't know where do these people that you got the information from, where did they get their information on the marriage traditions that support that?

01:08:58

Oh, I see what she's asking. She wants to know how they know about the marriage traditions that they line up with the

01:09:07

Bible like that. So I and then I guess they were presented some archaeological evidence of what it was.

01:09:14

But how would they know what the bride with the bridal, you know, the whole bride and groom thing?

01:09:22

How would they know about that? Who was they, by the way?

01:09:27

How? Who are we addressing when we say how would they? Who are they? The people who think it's the second coming rather than the rapture.

01:09:36

So there's some people who are saying the marriage supper is the second coming rather than the rapture.

01:09:45

OK, so is that a question for me? Yes. OK.

01:09:51

And we do have a few people in the room that I do not believe in that are amillennials.

01:09:57

OK, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. The pre -mill view on eschatology is the idea that there's going to be a seven year period of tribulation and different people have got different views on when the rapture will occur.

01:10:14

You've got the pre -trib rapture, you've got the mid -trib, the pre -wrath and so on.

01:10:23

And the view would be under that belief would be that when the rapture occurs, the wedding will take place during the seven year period.

01:10:32

And when Jesus comes back at the end of the seven year period, there will be this supper of the celebration that will take place where there is a supper involved.

01:10:45

So that will be the view on the pre -mill view. There is a pre -wrath view, which means that just before God pours out his wrath after the first three and a half year period, the children, the believers will be taken up into heaven.

01:11:00

And during that time is when the wedding takes place. And then the celebration happens when they well, there's a celebration up in the supper happens when they when they come back again at the end of it.

01:11:10

So that's what the view would be under the pre -mill. I have to say it fits in really well.

01:11:15

I can't deny that it fits in very well with the whole idea of a wedding and supper.

01:11:21

And actually, there are a few more things we can add to that because there is a specific celebration that takes place and that falls nicely at the end of the seven year period.

01:11:32

But it's kind of a bigger discussion, not suitable for now. But at some point, maybe we can bring that out and show you, which makes the pre -mill a little bit more feasible, rather than some other view where the marriage.

01:11:45

I can't see how the marriage fits in and under those views, but it's a different view. And as you guys know, there are many views on eschatology and this is one of them.

01:11:53

Yes. Okay. And that you're saying that the pre -trib is is the rapture and then the after the tribulation is the actual celebration marriage supper.

01:12:05

Well, the pre -trib is when we get caught into the sky or go to heaven, we've been raised into with Jesus, and that there's a whole seven year period when we're away with Jesus, celebrating the wedding, whilst things are happening on Earth.

01:12:21

That's the idea. Okay. And then and then at the end of the seven year period, Jesus comes back with us.

01:12:28

We come down with him. And then that's when there is another period of time where there's going to be the the supper, the wedding supper of the lamb, which happens when you come back.

01:12:40

So the wedding happens during the time when the rapture occurs and then it comes back down again. And then the 1000 year millennium takes place.

01:12:49

Got it. And then Bill followed up with, what about the unsaved Jews at Christ's return?

01:12:54

Are they part of the bride, therefore will become true believers in Christ? What about the unsaved

01:13:01

Jews at Christ's return? Are they part of the bride, therefore will they become true believers in Christ?

01:13:07

They would be, but they're not. And the view of the pre -Melt review, there will be people who get saved during the seven year period.

01:13:15

There is no doubt about it. There are some people, because we talk about the hundred and forty four thousand witnesses.

01:13:22

So suddenly you've got that many evangelists going out there and talking about you. They're the two witnesses that end up dying in Jerusalem, if you know about them.

01:13:30

So these are these are people who are speaking and evangelizing. So there are people who are converting during this time, but they're not taking part in the wedding itself, but they're taking part in the at the end with the supper.

01:13:42

And of course, then they take part, believe it or not, those who survive. Remember, people die during this time.

01:13:49

So they're joining in with the wedding. So as they die, they join with the wedding. And then those who survive will will go through into the millennium, continue.

01:13:59

Boy, I've got so much more to say about this and I'm avoiding getting into a four hour discussion. But I just happened that I wrote the document about this.

01:14:08

So I kind of feel that I'm familiar. Where could we get that document?

01:14:14

Is there can you tell us? Yeah, yeah. I wrote a document and at the end of it,

01:14:20

I did a whole graph on what happens in every stage. And I also put down all the verses that support it and you can print them in large can do.

01:14:29

And it's it's PDF, so you can put it on an A3 page if you print out, if you like, and stick it on the wall.

01:14:35

So, yes, just ask me. Send me an email. I'll send you the document. There's no problem. I was going to make a little booklet out of it, but you can have it.

01:14:42

It's a it's a PDF. I can send it to you any time you ask. Great, John. This is

01:14:47

Bill. Real quick. It sounds to me then like it doesn't matter if you're

01:14:53

Jewish, a saved Jew or if you're Jewish or Gentile.

01:14:58

It's all about belief in Christ. It's it's not the

01:15:04

Jews and Gentiles. There's no difference when it comes to eschatology, basically. Yeah, well, doesn't

01:15:10

Jew or Gentile with respect to eschatology, a seven year time period.

01:15:17

Yeah, it doesn't matter who you are. If you die in Christ, you're going to get resurrected in Christ. You're going to have the wedding of the lamb with Christ.

01:15:24

Doesn't matter what your background is and who you are. So from that point of view, we're all the same from that point of view.

01:15:31

I've heard a lot of Jews might get saved during some part of the tribulation. I've heard that. I think that maybe that's going to be a different talk, because I don't think the answer is going to be one sentence, one that we can hammer out tonight.

01:15:46

How's that, John? It's a very good answer. So, Bill, if you're saved during the seven years, the first three.

01:16:00

Bill, if you're interested in learning more about that, we can definitely send you some more resources.

01:16:06

But for tonight, I think we're going to go ahead and and wrap things up, not just because I've been cooking my dinner on the campfire and it's ready, but also because we're up against the hour, our time.

01:16:20

I typed my question before they even started talking about rapture and tribulation.

01:16:26

My question had nothing to do with end -time theology. Okay, well, we're going to have

01:16:32

John pray, and so we can sit down recording and live stream, and then we can chat with John for a little bit.

01:16:40

Before you pray, John, let's go ahead and tell everybody.

01:16:45

Now, I know that I heard about this presentation because I attended one of your monthly classes.

01:16:53

So, I don't know if you want to invite everybody, tell them what you do there for Living Waters in Europe, and invite people to participate, even if it's only online.

01:17:05

Absolutely. As a ministry, we've set up a monthly teaching that we do now, and we teach people how to evangelize effectively.

01:17:16

We teach them apologetics, answer those difficult questions. The idea is that whenever somebody has got a real hard question and they want it answered, normally

01:17:24

I get an email or something, and I think, oh, that's a good topic, let's cover that next time. So, on a monthly basis, it's usually done on the first Tuesday of each month, follow and repeat it again, the same one repeated again on the

01:17:35

Thursday of that week. And the idea is that you get to choose whichever day you want to come. It's free of charge, it's always over Zoom, so you can hook up and join in anytime you like.

01:17:45

Just send me an email if you want to be part of this, and I will automatically send you the invitation.

01:17:51

And if you like the topic, you can join us. If you don't like the topic, you can join us anyway. And if you're in the

01:18:00

States, you have to do some math to figure out what time. I believe it's 1130 for Pacific Coast time.

01:18:09

And it's 2 .30 in Florida. That's 11 .30am, 2 .30pm.

01:18:15

What is your email address that they would email you? Yes, they can simply send an email to my name, which is johnharris at livingwaterseu .com.

01:18:26

So, johnharris at livingwaterseu .com. Nice and easy. Thank you so much,

01:18:32

John. And I just want to remind everybody that they can find most of our past presentations by using the

01:18:39

URL, tinyurl .com forward slash

01:18:44

CFS. That's C like creation, F like fellowship, and then not just S, but the word

01:18:52

Santee, S -A -N -T -E, C -F Santee. And then also be sure to check out our ministry, our partner ministry, throughoutallagesministries .com.

01:19:05

And then, John, do you want to go ahead and pray? And then we're going to shut things down on the live stream and the recording.

01:19:11

And then people who are in Zoom can hang back and visit with you a little bit more. Sure, no problem.

01:19:17

Father, we want to declare that you are a mighty, gracious, loving

01:19:23

God. We want to thank you that you're not just the creator of the universe and all things, but,

01:19:29

Father, that you are our Redeemer, our Savior. We want to thank you that you loved us so much, that you were willing to give up your majesty, your glory to enter into your own creation, to surrender all things so that you can rescue us from our sin, from our rebellion against you.

01:19:45

We want to thank you for this infinite love that allowed you to come to earth, to die a horrible death on the cross, to rise again on the third day, to pay for the penalty that we committed, the crime we committed against you.

01:19:59

Such great love we will never understand. And on top of that, our relationship with you is so intimate.

01:20:06

It's like a marriage between a man and a woman. Father, we want to thank you that this intimate union that we have with you is as a result of us being reconciled with you.

01:20:18

And this reconciliation happened only because of what you've done on that cross. Thank you for bringing us to that cross.

01:20:24

Thank you for saving us. Thank you for coming and rescuing us from ourselves. Lord, we want to say how much we love you, and we look forward to spending eternity with you so that we can thank you and worship you for eternity for everything that you've done for us.

01:20:39

We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, John. Thank you.