Revelation 13:1-10 (The Unholy Anti-Trinity, Part 1, Jeff Kliewer)

Psalm 24 and the Question of Who the King of Glory Is

I will bless your every single night pre-chorus. Bring you more than us is not what you have required. On church, and I'm actually just saying this morning, saying welcome to Cornerstone Church as opposed to emphasizing this virtual service.

Because you see, we're sitting here, we're standing here in the sanctuary with empty seats, but this isn't the church. The church is you. The church is me. The church is all of us together who are God's children, celebrating, praising God, worshiping together.

So this morning, I just want to encourage you and say welcome to Cornerstone Church. I'd like to take us to Psalm 24 this morning. Psalm 24 is a great psalm. It's a psalm acknowledging God. It's a psalm worshiping Him.

It's a psalm professing the sovereignty of God. It starts out by saying the earth is the Lord's and all that is within it. Just the strength and the power and the extent of that, all that is is of the Lord's.

And then it transitions by asking a question. Who can ascend to this Lord? Who can ascend to the throne? And then it answers it in a couple of ways. It's those who are obedient and those who are of a pure heart.

It actually sounds like the Beatitudes, blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God. Those are the ones that get to ascend to the Lord. And then it ends up with a question by asking, well, who is this Lord?

It actually says, who is this King of glory? It's gonna answer it in a couple of ways. And one is, in fact, who is He? And in that way, we can look at the Lord of hosts is the God, He is the Almighty, He is the Lord of hosts.

It actually says that in the psalm. In reality, that's who this Lord of hosts is. But I wanna look at it in another way. We can clearly see in scripture who this Lord of glory is. But the question is, who is He to you?

Jesus was with His disciples and He asked them a question, who do people say that I am? And they responded, John the Baptist, Elijah. And after these responses, Jesus then looked at them and almost looks right into their heart.

And He says, but you, who do you say that I am? It's a powerful question because we can, in knowledge, in our heads, we can have knowledge of the God of all creation. But the question is, do we, in our heart, know the God?

So that's our challenge to you this morning. Who is this King of glory? We know who He is, but I want you to look into your own heart and to confess and to profess who you say this King of glory is in a personal relation way.

A couple of announcements. First, last Sunday was a great opportunity, a fellowship here at our church parking lot as we had our first ever drive-in worship service. It was exciting. We had 31 cars come in.

We were able to establish the proper social distancing. We had a stage set out front. We were able to proclaim the message and sing and worship together. And at the proper time, people honked their horns, waved their hands and sang amen.

It was a wonderful time and we're doing it again today. We're gonna continue to do that until we're able to come into this sanctuary and fill seats with people together. We will continue to worship in that way together.

So we invite you, when you get the opportunity, come out here 1030 as we have our drive-in worship service. We have some good news from both Eleanor Webster and from Shannon Gregory. They're both recovering quite well.

They're not completely there yet, but the news is very positive. Both of them are doing quite well. So we're encouraged by that. Speaking of encouragement, we encourage you to be in contact with us with any words of praise, any words of prayer, anything that you would like us to know, any support that you want.

We do encourage you to contact us. You can reach us on the app, Info Cornerstone SJ. You can reach us on the website. There's a link to contact us. Reach out to us and let us know how we can support and pray for you.

The other thing is looking around the building, it's exciting to see the preparations that are made for when we get to come back together again. The building is getting cleaned up in a lot of ways, new carpet, new paint.

And we've turned one of the rooms, what was the office now, into a classroom. So when we come back together, come back with a sense of excitement. The building is gonna be fresh. And come back with excitement that we're gonna be able to be with each other directly in worship.

We're anticipating that time and we're praying about it. So now let's pray. Lord God, we seek to thank you for all that you are and all the blessings that you give us. We thank you, Lord, that you've given us the ability to continue in worship together.

We've given us the ability to be fed through your word. You've given us your blessings. You've given us an understanding of the sovereignty of God that gives comfort. In a time where it hasn't been the way necessarily we would have wanted it, but we have grown, grown in you in our understanding of the sovereignty of God and help us to continue to grow spiritually, to grow even in this time.

Father, we lift our missionaries throughout the world. We think of our missionaries who are seeking to get out onto the field, rejoice in news that passports and authorizations are in process. We think of those who are in areas that are dangerous.

We think of areas where there is disease. But most of all, Lord, we think of the world that desperately needs the word that they give out. Empower our missionaries, we pray, Lord, with your spirit, lift them up.

Now, Lord, as we continue, we ask for wisdom for our government, for our leaders to bring us out of this quarantine. We pray, Lord, for our church that when we get together, we will be prepared in a way that will be blessing to people in our area that need to hear the word, that we would be exalting the Lord of all lords, that we'll be ascending that throne, that we would be able to answer who is this King of glory.

He is our King of glory. Now, Lord, please be with Pastor Jeff as he opens up scripture to us, that your Holy Spirit would speak through his heart, through his words, that our hearts would be opened and desiring to hear your word and to be encouraged by it.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Hard Teachings That Strengthen Faith

Good morning. Heavenly Father, we are filled with joy. What an opportunity we have right now to come to your word, that we could learn at your feet. Lord, you say that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Father.

So Lord, this morning, we want to hear every single word that you have for us. And we know that some of the words that you speak are hard. They're scary. They're difficult to understand, difficult to comprehend.

And it's even things that we don't want to hear in our flesh, and yet, it's by these words that we live. So we ask now, Lord God, that you would make us alive together with Christ. Make us alive with joy in the Lord.

Make us alive to your word, that we would hear and desire to hear the hard things, the true things, the things that make us strong and make us like you. Give us enduring faith that cannot be shaken. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Yeah, it makes me think of John chapter six and John chapter eight, where crowds were flocking to Jesus, and he had a following at that point in time. And one would think that he would try to assuage them and maybe tickle ears a little bit.

Instead, what he does is give them such hard truth. So many words that are difficult, not only to understand, but to accept, that the crowds disperse and leave him. By the end of John chapter six, there's no one left but his disciples, because he said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.

And that was difficult for the crowds to swallow. And then in John chapter eight, he claimed to be the light of the world, and he said, before Abraham was born, I am. And the crowds dispersed because he's claiming to be God.

Such a strong claim. And yet he never watered down the truth. He never, for the sake of drawing an audience, establishing a large crowd following him, he never watered down the truth. And so it is that we go now to the book of Revelation.

This is not where we would go if our goal was to attract the most number of followers on YouTube, or the most number of people in these seats when we open back up. No, we would spend our time, maybe in John chapter six, we would tell about the feeding of the 5 ,000, but we wouldn't go on to the hard teaching, which caused the crowd to leave.

But we need to hear every word that God says to us. We need to hear about the Antichrist. It's in his word. We need to hear that our names are written in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world.

It's a hard teaching, and one we'll get to in a minute here, but it's true. And these are the kind of teachings that make us strong. These are the kind of teachings that make believers real believers, not just disciples who can be swayed by another wind that blows through, but so rooted, so grounded in the truth that we can not only endure for time, but endure persecution, endure temptation, overcome the enemy, conquer the enemy.

How do we conquer the enemy? Revelation chapter 12, verse 11 says, conquer him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of the testimony. I didn't get a chance to really stress this to the degree that I wanted to last week, but this way of defeating Satan is just like God.

It is a beautiful crushing of the enemy. God uses the foolishness of preaching to overcome the wiles of the devil. God does not suit us in armor and give us superpowers and give us a mighty sword to fight this demon gone bad whose name is Satan or the accuser who accuses us night and day.

Instead, he gives us our testimony and we preach the blood of the Lamb and in the foolishness of God, the wisdom of God that looks like foolishness to the world, God has become man and the world would scoff at such a thing that he would come and take on human flesh, God in human flesh, and then to die, that the God man dies and not any death, but death on a cross, the most humiliating display, a bloody death, the blood of Jesus poured out for sinners and in this, a sinner like me conquers the enemy because I don't have righteousness of my own.

I have nothing but the blood. It's the only thing that can wash away my sins and so standing under the blood, it turns out to be enough. My sins are forgiven and as I testify, as I go out preaching and you listen to these words, the preaching of Jesus Christ and him crucified, that old message of Jesus dying on the cross, this is the wisdom of God and this is what crushes the head of the enemy.

The Beast, the Sea, and the Unholy Anti-Trinity

Revelation 12, 11, he's conquered by the blood of the Lamb. So we come to Revelation 13 now and we left off with this dragon, Satan, our enemy, the adversary, opposer, resister, the slanderer, the Diabolos, the deceiver, he is the arch enemy.

His foot is planted in the sea and then out of the sea arises this one who is the Antichrist, who we'll look at today. The Antichrist is a human being. Interestingly, as God has always existed as Trinity, he's always been Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three in one God.

As God has always been Trinity, Satan has desired to overthrow God and imitates God at every point. So he desires to have an unholy anti-Trinity. We saw earlier in the text that he celebrates Antichristmas when the two witnesses are killed, the people of the earth are exchanging gifts with one another, celebrating Antichristmas.

Well, not only does the Antichrist appear in this chapter, it is the second member of an unholy anti-Trinity. Satan is like the father in this image. The Antichrist is a human being like Christ. And next week, we'll get to part two of this message, the unholy anti-Trinity, and we'll look at the false prophet who is like the false spirit, the unholy spirit.

And then we'll see next week the mark of the beast, and you'll notice that his number is 666. God is Trinity. In perfection, he exists. The number seven represents perfection, completion. God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit could be represented by 777, but the imitation falls short, 666.

And we'll get more into depth because it's amazing when you see what's happening in the world as it moves toward the mark of the beast being implemented. So interesting stuff, it's all coming. Let's get into it.

Revelation 13, one and two. We're gonna do 10 verses today. Part one, the unholy anti-Trinity. So here we have the Antichrist. And I saw a beast. Remember the rider on the white horse in Revelation chapter six?

The first seal is broken and you see, this is the Antichrist. He's bringing a false peace early on, but he's really coming to conquer. He's bent on conquering. Here he is, the beast, rising out of the sea.

Remember the devil, I should just read it, hold on, and then I'll get into my preaching. And I saw a beast rising out of the sea with 10 horns and seven heads, with 10 diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.

And the beast that I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear's and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it, the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. Take a couple of verses at a time.

The sea. The dragon, the devil, plants his foot on the sea. And now we see an Antichrist arising out of the sea. Well, the sea represents the sea of people, the nations of the world, all of humanity. So these are Gentile peoples, as opposed to the earth, which often represents Israel.

So next week we'll see the false prophet comes out of the earth. He's probably a Jewish false prophet. Here you have a Gentile ruler coming out of the sea. Now the beast represents not just the king, who is the Antichrist, over the kingdom, but the kingdom itself.

The beast could represent this empire that's arising, a one world government. A government that conquers and rules the world and is headed by the Antichrist. 10 horns. What does that represent? Well, 10 nations.

10 nations that have come together, each with a head. And we learn more about this in Daniel. And seven heads. We learn about this in Revelation 17, so I won't go in depth to it here, but I think it represents the great kingdoms, the empires that ruled the world.

Okay, we'll see some of this right now. With 10 diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard. Now, think Daniel chapter seven. The empires of this world.

You have the Assyrians, which are then displaced by the Babylonians, then the Medo-Persians, then the Greeks, finally the Romans. Here you have the illusion of three of them, which are made clear in the book of Daniel, so we'll recognize what they are.

Like a leopard. A leopard is swift. The opposite of me on the basketball court. The only thing that I can do quickly anymore is shoot. I just shoot. I can't beat anybody on a first step dribble. I can't move quick.

I'm not swift. But the mark of this kingdom, which represents Greece, Alexander the Great, when he came upon the scene, he swept through the whole world swiftly. So that kingdom represented Greece in Daniel chapter seven.

Its feet were like a bear. The bear represented, which one was it? Persia. Strength, Xerxes, dominant power and strength. And its mouth was like a lion's mouth. In Daniel seven, the lion is Babylon. Fierce, ferocious lion, Nebuchadnezzar.

So each of those had a head. So Nebuchadnezzar was kind of the ruler of Babylon and he was like a lion. The bear, Xerxes, Persia, Medo-Persia, and then the leopard, of course, Alexander the Great, heading up the Greek empire.

After, of course, Greece fell, it was to the Romans. And here we have, as we'll get into this later, Revelation 17, we have a revived Roman empire. A final empire whom the head, like this little horn with a blasphemous mouth, this head is the Antichrist.

So picture now an empire that's as swift as Greece. It conquers the world completely in a flash. It's as strong as Persia, that dominant force that came from the east. It's as fierce as Babylon, all rolled into one.

This Antichrist heading up this fierce, fierce empire. This is the picture of what's rising from the sea. A one-world empire headed by the Antichrist. Verses three and four. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.

And they worshiped the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast and they worshiped the beast saying, who is like the beast and who can fight against it? The world marvels at what the beast does.

One of the horns, this last empire, headed by this last great ruler, who is the Antichrist, endures what seems to be a mortal wound, a wound that they thought killed him. But its mortal wound was healed and the whole earth marveled.

The word Antichrist appears four times in the New Testament, all of them used by John. Three of them are in 1 John, 218, 222, 4, 2 perhaps. And then in 2 John 7, you'll see the word Antichrist. But the word, the prefix anti, Christos, anti, it does mean against.

So the Antichrist is against Christ, but the word anti also means in place of. It means an imitation that seeks to mimic Christ. So the Antichrist here is mimicking Jesus Christ. So the true Christ was killed, behold, he lives.

And here, the Antichrist rises to prominence by feigning some kind of mortal wound that the world believes actually killed him. And coming back on the scene, we thought he was dead. He's alive, he's alive, just like the preaching of the early Christians that their Messiah lives, the Christ lives, now the Antichrist rises with this fake glory.

He's a pseudo Christ, a fake Christ imitating the genuine. Wow, isn't that interesting? The unholy anti-Trinity. And here you have the unholy anti-Christ. He is called the beast. The whole earth is marveling at what he has done.

They're worshiping, they worship the dragon because the beast points to the dragon as the power that brought him back. Now they're overt Satan worshipers. And they worship the beast saying who is like the beast and who can fight against it.

There are Satan worshipers in the world. If you look at Sergeant Pepper's album cover, there are on the Beatles' famous album, Satan worshipers on that cover. And in our society today, there are Satan worshipers.

But generally, people follow the prince of the power of the air without knowing it. They're deceived into thinking that they're worshiping something good when in fact, they're following the prince of the power of the air, Ephesians 2 .2, following the course of this world.

False Prophets, Flattery, and the Antichrist’s Power

So we move on to verse five. We've seen Antichrist's empire. This dominant empire has arisen. And we've seen this, the anti aspect of the Antichrist. He's a pseudo Christ, a fake Christ who imitates the things of God to deceive.

And by the way, there are many false prophets. That first Antichrist verse I mentioned to you, spend a little time in that, 1 John 2 .18. There are many Antichrists who go into the world. This is how we know it's the last hour.

Many Antichrists. We talked about Antiochus Epiphanes was a picture of the Antichrist when he slaughtered a pig on the altar in Jerusalem hundreds of years before Christ came. But then there was Herod who tried to kill Christ and there was Nero who burned Rome and blamed it on the Christians.

And many false prophets go into the world. The reformers identified the Pope as the Antichrist because those Popes were trying to kill the Christian preachers of the genuine gospel, harassing them, tracing them down, inquisition, killing, martyrdom of Christians.

Well today, there are false prophets that stand using the Bible as their source because what would you expect but that a wolf who is wearing sheep's clothing would use the Bible to look like a sheep? And these false prophets preach another gospel, prosperity, health, wealth, rather than the genuine gospel of Jesus's blood.

Now not all who are accused of preaching the health and wealth gospel actually are. There are some genuine believers who are more to the charismatic end that are preaching Christ and Him crucified. They still have the genuine gospel.

So we don't want to lump everybody together in that, but there are indeed many false Antichrists in the world. Verse five, now we will see the beast and what he's like. A little study of the Antichrist.

The beast was given a mouth, uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming His name and His dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.

That's us at this point, because we've been already caught up, raptured to heaven. We were not destined to endure wrath. First Thessalonians chapter one, verse 10, but we escape wrath through the rapture.

First Thessalonians four and five. Anyway, the Antichrist still hates us and he's still talking trash about us even when we're in heaven. Verse seven, in verse seven, also it was allowed to make war on the saints to conquer them, and authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, a worldwide government for 42 months.

Three marks about this Antichrist. In each case, genius. Number one, the Antichrist is a genius orator, speaker. He is an orator extraordinaire, eloquent, passionate, powerful, just an orator that captures the attention of everybody who's watching their TV, watching online, watching him live.

He is, hey, Brother Stan, love ya. He's mowing again. Don't you love Brother Stan? He's just always working. The genius orator that is the Antichrist. Secondly, he is a genius politician. He takes over the entire world, and thirdly, he's a genius militarist.

Militarily, he is a genius that takes over making war on all of his enemies. Couple verses to look up, and we won't spend much time in each one, but just make note of these to see a picture of the Antichrist, to study a little bit more in depth.

I said that the Antichrist is only mentioned in 1 and 2 John. Well, other authors speak of him quite a bit, but just using different words for him. So Paul will call him the man of sin or the son of perdition.

Jesus refers to him in Matthew 24. Daniel refers to him as the prince who is to come, and Daniel also refers to him in these four places that I'll mention to you. Daniel 7 -8, Daniel 8 -25, Daniel 11 -21, and Daniel 7 -23.

Let's look at these real quickly. In Daniel 7 -8, it refers to him as this orator, this person who's given a mouth. It says, with his mouth he speaks great things. So in Revelation 13, we see a parallel to that.

Verse five, the beast was given a mouth, a mouth. He's uttering haughty and blasphemous words, arrogant, but it captures the attention of people who are willing to follow these lies. He's no dummy. He's a genius speech writer, orator, delivery of speeches.

Daniel 8 -25, this speaks to him as a politician. By his cunning, he shall make deceit prosper under his hand. He's cunning, conniving. There's just no sincerity about him. You know, Jesus commended one of the disciples because in him there was no guile.

There was nothing underhanded. Everything the Antichrist does is political. It's underhanded. It's conniving, cunning, Daniel 8 -25. Daniel 11 -21, it says he shall obtain the kingdom by flatteries. Now, this refers to Antiochus Epiphanes, and then as that passage unfolds from Daniel 11 -21 -35, you see that Antiochus is a picture of the coming Antichrist, and the rest of the chapter in Daniel 11 from verse 35 following refers directly to the coming Antichrist.

But Antiochus Epiphanes, this enemy of God who slaughtered the pig on the altar, he's a picture of the coming Antichrist, and in this way, the flatteries can apply as well. He flatters those who are on his side.

Beware of people who flatter you with praise because they're seeking your alliance. People love to hear praise, but beware of flattery. And then finally, Daniel 7 -23, he's not only a genius orator and a genius politician, he's a genius militarily.

Daniel put it this way, chapter seven, verse 23, it shall devour the whole earth and trample it down. This is the final revived Roman empire, this final kingdom, which will be even greater than the other horns, the other kingdoms of this earth that have ruled as empires over the world.

This one will devour the whole earth. Every tribe, tongue, nation, and people will fall under its power, trampling down every enemy. And notice in verse seven, who are the special objects of the Antichrist's ire, of his wrath?

He makes war on the saints to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language. He is killing Christians in these last 42 months. So here we see the power of unrestrained evil.

Second Thessalonians chapter two is very important at this point. It's also about the Antichrist. He's the lawless one. What keeps the lawless one at bay today? Certainly in the 1940s, it looked like an Antichrist, as the Antichrist was rising.

But by the power of God, nations, mostly Christian nations, in fact, the most Christian nations on earth, Britain and America, came to the rescue and conquered. That conquering by government was God restraining the evil of the Antichrist.

And even to this day, there's certainly an Antichrist who would be ready to take the reins of power if the restrainer released him to do it. God is the restrainer of evil, of course, by his Holy Spirit, through his church, through his people.

He restrains evil, but for the last 42 months of planet earth, again, this corresponds perfectly with the time, times, and half a time, three and a half years, or the 1 ,260 days. So this is the second half of the seven-year tribulation.

Follow that? 42 months, the devil is allowed to exercise complete authority on earth, ruling the world in a one-world government, 10-nation conglomerate, with him as the leader overall. Unrestrained, this is the power of evil allowed by God.

It says, in fact, the word allowed is used in verse five. It was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months. This is what the world would look like if God did not restrain evil. Praise God that he does.

I love the world that we live in, not because of the evil of the world and the course of this world, which is run by the enemy, but because of the restrainer who keeps that evil at bay that I can go for a walk on a Sunday afternoon, go for a jog, and have no fear of being attacked.

The evil of men's heart would attack Christians at every point if it weren't for the restrainer. We are protected by God under his power, by the restraining power of the Holy Spirit. So now we've seen this evil build.

For 42 months, this evil is left unrestrained. And here is the beauty of the passage. Verse eight. It's not the first part. And all who dwell on the earth will worship it. It's not beautiful. They're worshiping the Antichrist.

They're worshiping the devil. But look at that second part of the verse. And this beautiful, deep, important, hard teaching, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.

So every person on earth will worship the beast except those whose names were written in the book of life of the Lamb. And this writing of the names, according to our text that we believe, every single word that he speaks, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of the life, book of life of the Lamb who was slain.

This is the doctrine of election. This is taught in Ephesians chapter one. Turn with me for just a moment. This is the spiritual blessing of being elected unto eternal life. Chapter one, I'm just gonna read three and four, but the concept of this runs all the way through to verse 14.

And at the end, 13 and 14, this is the big point, that God who elects people unto salvation is able to keep them even in the most evil, unrestrained time in the history of the world. When the Antichrist is running the world, the elect stand strong and endure because nothing can take away the faith that God gives.

The gift of faith is so powerful and enduring that it cannot be broken even by the fullest expression of evil, which is unleashed at the end of the world. So Ephesians one, three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Blessed, well, what are these blessings? Verse four, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

I know I read an extra verse there. The concept continues and is reiterated again and again in Ephesians one. We see it in Romans chapter nine. We see it in the book of Acts a lot. Acts 2 .23, Acts 4 .27, Acts 13, verse 48, I believe.

Who is it that is saved? Who has faith that endures? Verse 48, Acts 13 .48. And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

The text in the Greek and here in the English does not say as many as believed were appointed to eternal life. It says as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. This is a hard doctrine because it provokes questions in our mind that doesn't, the questions don't make sense to us.

The answers don't come readily. We cannot grasp with our minds the implications of this doctrine. We can't fully sort these things out. Here's good news, we don't have to. We're called to believe every single word that he speaks.

And here the word of God says about me and about you who believe that your name is written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the lamb who was slain. That Jesus would die on the cross was not plan B for God, it was plan A.

It included God's only plan, included the fall of man. That's why there was a tree in the garden. That's why there was a serpent allowed to be there. God is not responsible for the sin, but it was part of his overarching plan.

The sin is always placed squarely in the Bible on people. I like the way Spurgeon put this. He said, damnation is man's responsibility. Salvation is God's responsibility. We are responsible people. That is a true teaching.

We are responsible for our own sin and we're also responsible to repent of sin and believe the good news. That is a true biblical teaching. But what we learn here from Revelation 13, another teaching, verse eight, when he peels back the layers, when he gives us a deeper insight into the word of God, here is what we see.

That salvation is of the Lord. Why did I believe the gospel? Well, it's because the gospel was sent to me. I didn't send a preacher to tell me the truth. God sent the preacher and through the foolishness of preaching, I believed.

And how did my heart respond? Was it that there was something so humble in me, something so righteous that hearing the truth, I would delight in it? No, he changed this hard heart of stone and made it a heart of flesh that I would feel.

He gave me eyes that I would see, ears that I would hear. He changed my desires and affections so that when I heard the preaching of Christ, I leapt forward to him. I was drawn to him. John 644, John 665, I was drawn by the Father.

This is the beautiful doctrine of election. And I know it makes some people smart. Not smart like intelligent, but it makes people smart. Like it hurts because our traditions often cut against the grain of this biblical teaching.