Romans 15:16 - Our Offerings to God, Pt. 3 (08/14/2022)

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Thank you, Maddie. That was beautiful. Thank all of you for the music today. That was fantastic because one of the things we're going to talk about today is the joy of the

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Lord, and it's connected with music in the Bible. And, you know, it's funny, every

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Sunday is different. With a small church, I guess, it's easier to have sort of a feeling of the mood everybody's in.

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Big church, you got so many different moods in there, you could never tell. But this one, it's either kind of pensive and tired, or it's just joyful and gibbery talking by, you know, 100 miles an hour, and you can't even get their attention.

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And Dave stands up here and goes, I'm trying to make announcements, you know. So today, it seems like one of those more somber days.

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And what's funny is we're going to talk about the joy of the Lord. I'm thinking, well, everybody is serious today. And it seems to me, but maybe it's just me, you know, serious.

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I'm serious today. But it's kind of funny. But, you know, it doesn't depend upon our flesh.

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That's the cool thing about it, is like it's a spiritual gift. And it comes from the

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Holy Spirit. But, Kenner, that was beautiful.

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I love the simplicity of that. So I was talking about four hands. That one only took two hands. But simplicity is beautiful in music sometimes.

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And you know that. That's why you switch sometimes. Good to have you back,

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Ron. We enjoyed you better than Speaker Pelosi last week.

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Did you hear about that? Yeah, Speaker Pelosi led singing for us last week.

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Did a good job, though. Kind of sound like a guy. All right.

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We're in Romans chapter 15, verse 15. Good to see everyone today. We're going to dive down into the

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Word of God, because it does not matter what your mood is. When you do that, you benefit.

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You climb above this world. You climb above the fears. I mean, even the prayer requests today were heavy, weren't they?

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Think about that. Think about the specific requests. And I think about the different families involved in these very serious matters.

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Brother John, when he was talking about Paul Abraham, his father pastored this church for two years.

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I was his associate pastor. And Paul is one of the sweetest, most handsome, athletic, brilliant young men.

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I don't know why he had to have brain surgery, but I need to look into that. So I'm going to call

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Brother John this week. But it's been too long since we've visited, way too long.

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And then a granddaughter with cancer. I just imagine the weight that he's carrying. And all of these prayer requests are so serious.

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And yet we know the Lord rejoices in answering prayers and being glorified when we praise him for the answered prayers.

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And the joy that we have when we have a major answered prayer like that. We've seen those in the life of our church often.

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And we'll see them yet again. And so let's go down into the Word of God today.

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We'll start with Romans chapter 15, verse 15. Let's pray first. Lord, we ask you to anoint us with your

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Holy Spirit. Anoint your Word. Speak to us by your Spirit today.

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Be our teacher. Be our the one who draws us to worship through your

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Word. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Worship is not a result of something that we do here in this room.

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Neither is joy, by the way. But worship is not brought about by something that we cause to happen in this room.

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If you study the Scripture and you see the great revivals in the Bible, many of them you see in the

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Old Testament times, you will see that they were caused by someone standing and merely reading the

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Word of God all day. The greatest revival of the Bible is what happened. They just read the

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Bible. They did give the sense of it. But it's not like they're preaching a sermon. They're just reading it.

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And when they come across a difficult word or something, we give the sense of the Word, of what God meant by that phrase, and then keep going all day.

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And at the end of the day, revival broke out. So it's the Word that brings it. The Word of God and the

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Spirit of God that brings it. And we can have revival in our hearts in a somber mood today or in a joyful mood.

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Doesn't matter. We may all be dancing by the end of the message here. Who knows? That would be a scare me to death if you do that.

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And it might be me scaring you. You just don't know. Romans 15.

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Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort as putting you in mind because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the

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Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, and that the offering up of the

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Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. And so today, we're actually going to get to a point where we see what makes that happen, why it is that the offering of the

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Gentiles could be acceptable to God. But before we get to that, let's review just a little bit.

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We've talked about what some of the sacrifices we as believer priests can give in this day and time on this side of the cross.

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We don't offer little lambs anymore. So what can we offer? Romans 12 .2 says we can offer our bodies as a living sacrifice.

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Philippians 4 .18 says that our love offerings, when we give money to help other people that are in need, that is an offering unto

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God and acceptable to Him. Hebrews 13 .15 says praising God with our lips is a sacrifice, an offering to the

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Lord. Hebrews 13 .16 says that doing good works and, once again, giving, those are sacrifices to the

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Lord when we do them, led by the Holy Spirit. And then 1 Peter 2 .5

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and 1 Peter 2 .9 -10 and John 4 .22 -24 talked about the fact that worshiping

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God is a form of spiritual sacrifice that we can offer. And we had in last time in 1

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Peter chapter 2, I read verse 9. And a dear friend of mine that's one of our members from online pointed out a word study he did while I was preaching.

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And I would criticize him for that because he wasn't listening if he was doing the word study. But I can't do that because I sit back there and do it with you when your son is teaching up here.

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So it's great that we have the ability to do that. But I'm glad this one happened because it says, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.

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And I was saying that that word in the Greek meant more like holy, different from the world.

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And in other places in the New Testament where that word peculiar is used, it does mean that.

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But this word is a different Greek word, which I didn't catch, my mistake. But I want you to see what it does mean in the context.

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It's richer than that. It's amazing, actually, because this word peculiar here in 1

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Peter 2 .9 is a word that literally means a possession or a purchased people.

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Now think about that. A purchased people makes you peculiar. Yeah, it does.

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It's a pretty good English translation, but it's in the old English. And that word has changed a little bit over time.

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But peculiar in the sense that your own family, I mean, we wouldn't use this word in modern

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English. But in the 1600s, if they said, well, I peculiarly love these people because they're in my family, that's what it means.

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And that's what the Lord has for us. He loves us in a peculiar way, a close way, because we're his particular children.

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So I thought that was great. Appreciate that, Brian. That is beautiful. So we learned a little bit about spiritual sacrifices last time.

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And I believe that brings us to the seventh way that we can sacrifice to the

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Lord. And basically, it's this through giving thanks. We've already talked about praise is an offering, but so is thanksgiving.

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And they're different. We talked about that already. So they're a little bit different. But thanksgiving and praise and included in this are going to be what we'll call sacrifices of joy.

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And that's why I said what I did about joy a while ago. But you'll see that in this passage. Think about that. A sacrifice of joy.

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What can that even mean that that's a sacrifice we can offer up to the

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Lord being joyful? Because circumstances don't always make us happy.

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And when we can be joyful in those circumstances, that is an offering to God, because it's impossible for humans to do that unless they're filled with the

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Lord, the Holy Spirit, walking with Jesus. So it is a spiritual offering that brings glory to God when we can have joy in the worst circumstances.

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So we'll see that here. First, Psalm 116, verse 17 says, I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

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So there we see thanksgiving is considered to be a sacrifice to God when we give him thanks.

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And I will call upon the name of the Lord. And then in Jeremiah 17, verse 26, and they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places about Jerusalem, bringing sacrifices of praise unto the house of the

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Lord. So there we have thanksgiving and praise, both listed as sacrifices that we can give to the

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Lord. Then in Psalm 27 5, for in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion.

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In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me upon a rock.

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And remember, he's talking about when you're going through trouble is when he will do these things. He will set me upon a rock.

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Who's the rock? Jesus Christ, right? Peter was the little pebble, little stone, and Jesus was the rock.

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And now shall my head be lifted up. Remember, we're still in a time of trouble here, right?

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Now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies round about me. Who are our enemies?

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We know David says, my enemies are many and they hate me with cruel hatred.

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But what are our enemies? We have three. Who can name one? The world system.

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What's another one? The flesh. And the other one? The devil, Satan. So he says, and now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies, which are round about me, especially in the case of the flesh, right?

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He's talking about your enemy being round about you. Isn't that the case? Therefore will

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I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. Look at the context of that.

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Joy offered up to God in the midst of our enemies attacking us while we're under attack.

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That is perhaps one of the ultimate sacrifices we can give to the Lord. Is to show him that we're thankful.

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We are praising his name. We're also joyous even in the midst of the attack. And we better be because we're going to be under attack until the rapture.

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And the attack is going to get stronger and stronger until the rapture. We can't let the news affect our joy.

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Maybe it can affect our happiness where we're not just bubbling over with outward happiness, but it cannot affect our joy.

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Because our joy is an offering up to the Lord. Now shall my head be lifted above my enemies round about me.

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Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea,

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I will sing praises unto the Lord in his tabernacle. Now that shows us that it is important to meet together.

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Let us not forsake the assembly of ourselves together as the manner of some is. And especially as we see the day approaching.

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What day? The day which we'll get to that day a little bit later in this message.

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And so there we have why it's important. Because listen, where is it that you can come when the

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Lord blesses you with a great blessing and you want to praise him and let people know about an answered prayer?

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You come to his meeting place where his people are so you can tell everybody. And that is a sacrifice to the

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Lord in itself. And so these things are beautiful things that he's given us to be able to offer up to him.

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Now that pretty much is what I wanted to cover on those, but now I want to go a little deeper.

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I want to talk about how it works. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 9 and we'll be in this area for a while.

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I think the Lord especially likes it when the little ones offer up praise because they usually lift their hands.

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Sometimes they're picking their nose when they lift their hands or sucking their fingers, but the

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Lord loves that even better. At least grandpas do and I think we get that from the Lord.

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All right, Hebrews chapter 9. Let's start with about verse 8. And let's talk a little bit about why it is that God himself has made it be so that our meager offerings are sanctified.

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Why are they acceptable to God and why are they a big thing to God? They seem so small to us because we seem to be able to not give

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God much, right? How can you give the one who owns everything and who's given us everything, anything, right?

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But these little things that he's given us are big things to him. And it's nice to know too that the

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Holy Spirit magnifies our words and takes it into the heavenlies and puts it in the words of the in the communication mode of the

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Father and expands our meager little adjectives. That's in the book of Romans verse 8 where it talks about that by the way.

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It's the greatest passage in the whole Bible on prayer in my opinion. But let's look at this.

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This is amazing information that the Holy Spirit's given us in this world, pinned by human hands, preserved by the power of God until the last generation.

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The Bible, Hebrews 9 .8, the Holy Ghost, this signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first tabernacle was still standing.

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Now this goes back and refers to the wilderness tabernacle, which had an outer space for the

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Gentiles to worship. It had a middle area where the altars were, where the sacrifices were done, the blood was shed, and then it had the inner, the holy of holies, the innermost place where only the high priest could go once a year and not without blood, right?

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And commune with directly with the Shekinah glory, which is not all of God. God, listen, the

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Father does not dwell in time or space. He's not even in the third heaven. Most people think God's in heaven.

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God's not in heaven because there's time in heaven and wherever God is, time and space and stuff would flee.

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It would disappear. So he's outside of it all, the Father. Jesus is in heaven and he is at the right hand of power and the power is signified above the holy of holies, which was also in the wilderness tabernacle.

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A model of it was there and the Shekinah glory dwelt above that mercy seat, which was only a mercy seat because the blood had been applied to it.

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Before that, it was a judgment seat and the priests dare not go in there without blood and he sprinkles the blood on that mercy seat first before he sets foot in there and then he walks in and he's in the presence of a resemblance of the glory of God.

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Now it really was God letting a little bit of his glory being seen. It's not just a resemblance.

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I shouldn't call it a resemblance. I only mean in that sense that you cannot imagine all of God.

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Have you looked out at the stars lately? The telescopes we've been able to put in space lately have revealed even more and more galaxies way beyond the ones that we thought were the edge of the universe just in recent five years.

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They can't even count the new ones. They couldn't count the old ones. They sure can't count the new ones and the old ones.

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God is outside of all that. Bigger than all that. You don't know.

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That might look like the tip of a pin compared to God's size.

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All of that. He's enormous. He's untouchable.

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He is outside of sin and beyond sin and not anywhere around sin and yet Jesus is

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God with us. Jesus is God in time. The Holy Spirit is also omnipresent.

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He is God omnipresent and the only place I can figure out where he's not is in the heart of a goat.

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But anyway, I mean a human goat. But he's everywhere else and so he can be in time but he can also go to the

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Father and to the mind. He's the only one who knows the mind of the Father is the Holy Spirit. Now read

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Romans chapter 8 and find that passage where you'll understand what I'm talking about. So you've got this holiest of places in the wilderness tabernacle where God the

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Father let a little bit of his resplendent glory show through and hover above that model.

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It wasn't even the real mercy seat. It's a model of the one that's in heaven. Now when we go to heaven and we look at it through the inspiration of the

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Apostle John who was transported there and allowed to see it, we see many things that are amazing.

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We see Jesus represented as a lamb with the seven lamps and seven bits of oil which represents the

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Holy Spirit attached to Jesus. And you can see them in his eyes when you look at his eyes.

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And then we see he was at the right hand of the throne of power with the

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Shekinah glory. That little bit of God that we're allowed to see in heaven. The glory that shines through above that mercy seat which to me is a vortex that goes out of time and space wherever you have to say wherever.

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It's not aware. But where God is. And there you see the same seven spirits attached to the

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Father. So the Holy Spirit connects Jesus to the Father, us to Jesus, and all of us to each other.

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So we're connected to God the Father and can come directly into his presence because of this.

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Because of Jesus and what he's done for us. So now I want you to think about that. We worry about the news sometimes.

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I only watch it. I don't watch it. I only read it because I have to. Because of stock market stuff I have to know.

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But and it takes me into stuff I don't even want to be reading sometimes. But you can't really let it get you down.

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I mean you look at a little puny thing like Nancy Pelosi for example. Imagine as far as you can see out into the universe and a

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God who that could be tiny to him. Obviously it is. He's outside it, beyond it, all around it, all in it, all through it.

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He's all in all. And he's the one who's in control of all that.

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And you, because of your relationship with Jesus, can go out there into his presence.

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They're in unison. That's awesome. You see

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I was wrong when I said we didn't have the joy of the Lord today. Because the little ones are bringing it to us.

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So when you see this where it says in the way to the holiest of all was not yet made manifest.

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Even when they had the model and the high priest could walk in there and see what to him looked like the glory of the

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Father. And it was a little tiny bit of the Father showing through this vortex thing. However that works into different higher dimensions where God is.

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And he could go in there with the blood of the lamb which represented whose blood? Jesus's blood.

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And it was a representation. And then verse 8 begins to speak of the real mercy seat in heaven that John saw.

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Where Christ is at the right hand of power. And he speaks of that. And he says that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest.

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You couldn't get there yet before the cross. Even the Jews who had died and gone to Abraham's bosom were not allowed into the place to see the real holy of holies yet.

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Because the blood had not yet been given for them or us yet. And then as soon as Jesus gave his blood for three days he went down and preached.

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I don't know if he's there the whole three days. But he preached to those saved Jews that were in Abraham's bosom in the center of this earth by the way.

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And he then took the blood and presented it. Sprinkled it on that mercy seat.

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The real one. And then went back and got those Jews and took them to heaven for the first time. So they're in heaven now.

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But they weren't. They were in Abraham's bosom which was paradise. And God gave them a beautiful place to be in.

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But now they're able to be in heaven. But in this time that verse eight speaks of they weren't yet able to do it.

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The holiest of all was not yet manifest while the old wilderness tabernacle yet stood.

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So in the times of the Jews they could only see the representation. That's what

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I see in verse eight. Verse nine. Which was a figure. Now this word figure.

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I better find my glasses. This word figure in the

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Greek is parabolae. Which sounds like parable doesn't it.

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The English word comes from that. It means a similitude. Something similar.

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It comes from a smaller Greek word that means to throw alongside. Two Greek words actually.

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To throw alongside. So it gets the contact.

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The component of a comparison. Of two things that are alongside one another.

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And they're similar. And one can kind of depict the other. And that's where we get this meaning.

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But it really means to liken to something else. Or to compare to something else.

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But it's like a model of the real thing. A model of the real thing.

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So this wilderness tabernacle that had the holiest place. With a curtain that divided everyone from the priest and the lord.

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And the priest was only in there one day a year. That is a figure of the real one that's in heaven.

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You see. So this all was a figure for the time that was present back in the old testament days.

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During the laws of Moses. During the time of Moses in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices.

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Now listen though. This is where the legalist gets in trouble. Because the legalist likes to focus on the things that God has them to do.

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That picture the real thing. And they don't focus on the real thing. They focus on the model.

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You see the problem? Same way in our churches. When we get legalistic we're focusing on the outward things.

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Not on the spiritual truths that really matter. The really important big issues. And so here they had this figure of the real glory of God in heaven.

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And the mercy seat. And Jesus at the right hand of power. And the holy spirit depicted there tying everything together.

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And everyone together. And they were offering up both gifts and sacrifices.

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Now listen to this. That could not make the person offering them. Could not make him that did the sacrifice perfect.

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They could not make him where he could actually come into the real presence of God. He could come into the place that depicted it.

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The model where the Shekinah glory probably would frighten us if we'd seen even that.

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But it was not. It was not the father. It was not all of the father. It was not much of the father.

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But it was awesome. But none of what he did in that day could make him be able to go into the presence of God the father.

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Because Jesus said no man has seen him at any time except the son of man. So Jesus had dwelt in his presence for all what we call eternity past which is a funny word term.

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You can't have a time word with it. But for all of that time Jesus was with him.

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But none of these old testament people could come into the presence of the father even with the blood of these little sacrificial animals.

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And it goes on to tell why. It could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience.

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Not even his conscience was made clean by this. It helped. He kind of rolled his sins forward another year and another year and another year until you got to the cross as brother

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Otis used to say it. Verse 10 which stood only in meats and drinks and diverse washings.

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Talking about all the legalistic things. And they weren't really legalistic for them to do it. They were told to do it.

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But for them to focus on that more than the God who gave it to them was not right. And it led to the pharisaical movement 300 years before Christ was born which stood only in meats and drinks and diverse washings and carnal ordinances.

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In other words, fleshly things that pertain to the flesh. Ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation.

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Now I love that little phrase the time of reformation. To the

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Jew that meant the time when the Messiah would come and set things straight. The word itself in the

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Greek at least means to set something straight. The time of reformation.

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The time when the Messiah would come and set everything straight and rectify everything.

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And so until that time could come they had to do these carnal offerings of little animals.

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Now it's interesting because we know with hindsight the Jew had trouble with this at the time looking forward.

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But we can see with hindsight and Jesus really taught the Jews this but they didn't get it.

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Remember when Jesus was in the temple and he took the parchments and he read.

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Not the parchments but the scrolls. And he read part of the prophecy about him coming and he stopped and didn't finish the whole

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Old Testament prophecy. So he only spoke of the first coming. But if you go and you read the rest of the sentence that he left out it speaks of his second coming.

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They should have caught that but they didn't. But we with hindsight see it very clearly that when we talk about this time of reformation it had two components.

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It had a first advent and a second advent and it covers both. But specifically in the context of this it is saying that the

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Old Testament Jews had to do these carnal offerings until Jesus came the first time.

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Until he came the first time and set things straight. Now he did set things straight de facto because when he died he slew

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Satan. He brought him down took him off of the dominion that Adam and Eve gave to him.

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He got it by right of conquest. Well Jesus won it back by right of conquest when he rose from the grave that day.

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Right so he really did set things straight at least spiritually but when he comes again the second time he's going to set it straight physically also with a rod of iron.

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And yeah like Dave was teaching this morning Psalm 2. Yeah you will serve him in fear but in joyful fear because he's going to be so awesome is what it means by the fear.

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I mean anyone who ever saw God in the Bible fell right on their face did they not. It didn't mean they don't love

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God or God doesn't love them. It's just so awesome we don't know how to deal with that in this body that we're in and it'll be like that.

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But now we see that with his first advent all of a sudden something changed in a huge and magnificent way.

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The way that man worships God changed. Do you know that the Jews from the time of the very moment of the crucifixion where the curtain that separated the outer the middle portion of the tabernacle from the holy of holies was torn from the top to the bottom by God himself making it symbolizing that we now could come into that room.

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We even as Gentiles can go into that room which really doesn't mean we go into that room.

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It means we go into the room in pictures which is a dimension we can't even comprehend or even think about but it's much larger than any of the known universe we can see.

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It's where God is. We can go there any nanosecond that we choose to be spirit -filled because when we're spirit -filled that's our spirit choosing to connect with the holy spirit who lives in there too and when you become connected you're connected with the father and you don't even have to ask in Jesus name.

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Jesus said that you don't have to pray in Jesus name. Amen. You can pray straight to the father. You remember that means you can go into that.

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Can we call it a place? He's pure spirit. We don't even know what that is. It doesn't have to have a place but where he is you can go.

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There's a good way to say it. Bill would have been proud of that. I miss Bill. We were talking about that today.

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From the point of view of this church it's like he was raptured like he's there and then he isn't.

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Y 'all didn't know brother Bill. You might have heard him online or something teaching and we got lots of him on on our website but it's a whole other story.

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It's like he got raptured before we did. I hope it wasn't the real one. We missed it. Anyway, imagine being in the very presence of the father and we have that ability any second that we choose to be spirit -filled rather than carnal.

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We can make that choice many times a day. We can even connect those moments together and have long periods of time when we're spirit -filled if we choose to.

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It's our choice. You see believing in the sovereignty of God and election predestination doesn't mean you don't believe in responsibility of man and man makes choices and that they're of ultimate importance because man chooses what he wants to choose and God holds him responsible for it.

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So we will be held responsible for how many times we choose to be spirit -filled as opposed to carnal someday at the judgment seat of Christ.

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It all works together all the same time and yet God is over it all and here we see this is just a figure and they did all the things with the meats and the drinks and the washing until the first advent of Christ there at the end of verse 10.

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Now verse 11 says but Christ being come a high priest a good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle.

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See now that's talking about the real one and it does talk about the third heaven where you have the mercy seat and the shekinah glory does dwell.

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It's probably far more glorious than the one at the little dab of it that would of himself that God allowed them to see in the wilderness.

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You probably see a lot more of it in the third heaven but even that is not where the father is.

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It's unspeakable. We don't have the words to talk about that but we're connected to the father through the

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Holy Spirit. So this greater tabernacle is a reference to the one in the third heaven.

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It's not made with hands. Now the one on the earth was Moses and his people made it didn't they according to a model that God gave them and the whole thing was a model and it's made by hands.

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Verse 11 now begins to speak of the one that's not made by hands that is to say not of this building and that word in the

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Greek is titsis and it means not of human creation.

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It's of God's creation not of this creation not made by human hands neither by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood

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Jesus entered in once and I always have that underlying circle in my bible he entered in once into the holy place having obtained eternal and I have that circled in my bible redemption for us now what's interesting about that if it only happened once and once it happened it was eternal how long does eternal last okay so by definition when can it stop so how can you lose your salvation you can't lose if you already have it in the present tense which in the

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Greek it is you have it now and it's eternal you can't lose it so anyone that teaches that is a false prophet anyone who believes it is duped by the false prophet but we have friends that are in places that believe that the

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Roman Catholics believe you can lose it the Pentecostals believe you can lose it the church of Christ believe you can lose it the

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Methodists believe you can lose it we're surrounded by friends who believe you can lose it but there are literally into the hundreds of verses that prove you can't you know

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I've got to stop and tell this story um let's start saying

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Elnora Allen but Charlotte what's the sweet lady's name that I met at the trailer house when

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I was knocking on doors one day and went in there and she invited me in and then she came to church here for a while then she best rentals yeah you couldn't get

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Elnora Allen's name best rentals and um she a total stranger she invited me into her house and she said well it's amazing you came to visit me today because I'm thinking about looking for another church

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I don't like the church I'm going to and um I said well

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I wouldn't want to steal you from that church and on the inside I was saying great it's super uh but it was real we had a sweet talk and she was all lined up to come

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Sunday right and then she asked me a question and my first thought was oh man and my second thought was hallelujah it means this visit's not over yet because she said well you don't believe in that once saved always save stuff do you and listen and my mind freaked out for a second because I thought this whole thing's gone now we'll never see her at church is what

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I mean in a nanosecond I'm thinking that right and uh and then the lord put in my mind exactly what to say so I said yes ma 'am in fact

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I believe in that more than anything else in life and I really emphasized it and it stunned her because she thought

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I would at least be smart enough to say no I don't believe in that you know it stunned her that I said it was zeal and she said the thing that the lord wanted her to say guess what she said no better than that why why do you believe that same thing right so I sat back down and literally in this this very bible years ago lord had led me to go into genesis and find the first eternal security verse

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I could find and then beside it I put where the next one was in exodus and leviticus and all and then that one had numbers and it went all the way through all the way the book of revelation every single eternal eternal security verse that I could find were all attached together and I had that bible with me and I started the first one and I took her through for two hours

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I bet it seemed like maybe that long read every single one to her and she never tried to stop me never asked a question

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I would look at her to see if she wanted to say something nope psych went to the next one I went all the way through and when

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I got done I said that's why I believe in eternal security because the bible teaches it from the front to the back she said

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I'll see you Sunday so I walked out and she had a door that had glass on it where she could watch me walk to my car and drive away so she shows up Sunday and uh we were in this we call this the new church it's not new anymore but we were in a storefront before this one but we were in this one and she shows up and she told me and Charlotte might have been standing there

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I don't remember I know we know the story so well uh don't know if you were standing there

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I told it to you but she just said well um I got saved the other day when you were at my house and I said well

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I just was sure you were saved I mean you've been going to church your whole life and you're such a sweet lady she said no she said

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I never saw anything like what you showed me and she said when I saw that that's when

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I knew I was really saying so I got saved and she said I was watching you through that glass get in your car and and the lord saved me and I said praise the lord so you think about that now this was one of the verses that I showed her right here and uh so you know when the bible is so clear when it says by his own blood he entered in once it means he doesn't have to do it again hebrews chapter six is a verse that those very people try to use to prove you can lose your salvation and if you just read it really carefully it teaches the opposite I believe it's verses one through three or something like that uh one through six in hebrews chapter six it teaches the opposite because what it teaches there is that if you could lose your salvation you could never get it back again because you would have to re -crucify jesus on the cross and put him to open shame which is blasphemy and that ain't going to happen because in chapter nine it said he died once right so you have to pretend the roman catholics the church of christ all these people have to pretend that they're putting him back on the cross you know that's why the catholics keep him on the cross you know they do they never have an empty cross we used to have one here

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I wish it was still there but we had we we show them empty right they always have him on the cross why because they have to re -crucify him every time they do their um sacraments and it puts him to open shame and it's blasphemy and they don't even know it and they think it saves them and the very thing that they think saves them is killing them it's very very sad he died once and he obtained eternal redemption now the for us is in italics it's not in the original greek but it's a very good translation because it doesn't mean for everybody it's for us and you'll see this as we continue for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh made them feel made their conscience feel better right how much more shall the blood of christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to god how much more can that purge your conscience consciences from dead works to serve the living god well that's there's so much in that little that little passage but you remember in romans 15 15 the little springboard that took us into all this where it said that paul was telling the jews hey god god will save a gentile too in fact he makes their offerings he sanctifies their offerings and makes them acceptable well look look at this this ties in with that because it says how much more shall the blood of christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to god purge your conscience from dead works you see anything that we would offer to god whether it be singing or praising or speaking or work doing good works or whatever all of it is just dead works and meaningless to the father unless we're connected to the lord when we do it unless we do it because the holy spirit led us to do it and did it with us otherwise it's a dead work and so this is the very thing that makes it not be a dead work that makes it be sanctified and acceptable to god all of these sacrifices and offerings spiritual offerings that we can give him and it's all because of the blood of jesus christ that was given for us now notice it speaks of the blood of christ christ like dave was saying in sunday school day was the word wasn't he the living word so here you have the word of god which is jesus the the true living word mentioned but you also have the eternal spirit so you have those same two components we kind of talked about the last two three sundays that must be involved for salvation to happen and for growth to happen which is the water and the spirit the water being the word of god the water being the living word of the written word and the spirit being the holy spirit both components are here again and again the theme runs throughout all of this look at verse 15 uh can someone tell me what time it is okay i'm glad i asked because my watch is not working i noticed it back there my watch says 11 20.