11-29-2020

Park Meadows Church

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Okay, let's have a word of prayer and we'll get started. Lord, thank you so much for your Word and thank you for your

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Holy Spirit, the water and the Spirit, those two items that bring us eternal life in the first place, at the calling and the regeneration, and that keep us growing and alive all the days of our life on this earth, and for all eternity,

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I would think. And so we thank you for the water of the Word and for the Holy Spirit.

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And we thank you for Jesus Christ who gave his life and his blood as a ransom for your people,

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Lord. And thank you that his life and his blood is perfect, complete payment for the sins of your people, to remove them and to cause us to have a standing of having been redeemed and having been justified, made as if we've never sinned to be given the very righteousness of Jesus and go with us in this time of teaching, be our teacher in Jesus name.

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Amen. All right. Let me move one item over here just a little bit.

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Okay. Well, we've been in Romans chapter eight for quite a while, and we're trying to finish up verses 28 through 30.

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We've already finished the verses from there to the end of the chapter. So once we've finished these, we'll jump right into Romans chapter nine.

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I wouldn't say we ever jump into anything. We kind of slowly move into the next thing.

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And but anyway, these, we've hung out here on these verses because they really start before time began.

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They come into time and then they go out the other side. And there may be some of the most fascinating three verses in the whole

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Bible right there in Romans chapter eight. So that's where we are. And we will continue at that point.

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We had, this is a little bit of review going way back a couple of months ago or more probably.

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And we took this little passage from Romans chapter three and notice that there are seven items listed there that a person has to understand in order to understand what it means to be justified.

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And of course, what we're studying right now is justification. John Calvin said, justification is the main hinge on which salvation turns.

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And if we cannot understand justification, we cannot understand the whole of God's plan of salvation.

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And yet there are seven things we need to understand if we're going to understand justification itself.

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And we've already covered five of these seven. We're on number five right now, positional righteousness.

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And we will eventually finish number six, number seven. They're a little briefer than some of these others.

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So we'll be done within a Sunday or two, and we'll be ready to go into Romans chapter nine.

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All right. But to review a little bit, Romans 8, 29 through 30, where we are now, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.

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Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified.

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The next verse would say, and them who he justified, he also glorified, wouldn't it? So what we see is that the two items that happen in time are in verse 30.

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And so when your lifetime began and when my lifetime began, since we belong to the

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Lord and he knew us before the foundation of the world as his own child, knew us by name and knew us with love, and predetermined that we would be adopted into his family because he knew us as his children before he started anything, before he made anything.

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Then when we were born, something had to happen. God had to have a means to save us.

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And that was part of his predetermined plan as well. And of course, that is the water and the spirit, the water being the word of God.

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We have to hear the gospel and the spirit being the Holy spirit who does the calling. And you see right there in verse 30, it says they're called.

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That's known as the effectual calling. The Holy spirit has to light upon us if you will, and open our blind eyes and our deaf ears and quicken our dead hearts and make alive our little spiritual part of the human body, soul, and spirit.

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That spiritual part was just a dead seed and the Holy spirit put the water of the word on it.

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And it came alive at the moment of our calling and regeneration happens at the calling.

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And so we were regenerated by the Holy spirit while we were still in our sins. He quickened us.

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He brought us to life. That is the great cause of salvation. Nothing else is the cause of it.

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Everything else is an effect that happens because of that event. And as the great

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Charles Spurgeon said, an effect can never be the cause of the cause. So all the little things that the denominations argue over, as far as what we do to be saved, they're all effects.

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And we shouldn't be arguing over it. The salvation, the cause of it is the Holy spirit saving those whom

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God had foreknown and calling them. And those who he called, it says he also justifies them in the same nanosecond.

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It happens in a blink of an eye over 33 things that the Holy spirit does to the child of God that he gives birth to.

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And so we're on the justified part of verse 30 is what we've been hanging out here. And like I said, there were seven things we have to understand, even know how justification works.

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And we've already covered most of those. We're on the fifth one right now to be justified is in the passive in Greek, which means someone greater than us has to do it to us.

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So it's, it means to be rendered righteous. It's not something we do. It's not an act of righteousness that we do.

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It's not good works. That's not what brings salvation at all. So it is, it is truly an act that God does to us and for us and on our behalf and for his son,

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Jesus, because after all, he gave us to him as a love gift. Jesus, the book of Proverbs says that he loved the earth of all the planets and he loved human beings.

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And yet with Adam and Eve, the entire race was lost. And so God, the father and his mercy, and in his love and in his grace, he determined a way to save a small remnant of that race known as the elect, the chosen ones all through scripture, old

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Testament and new. And those chosen ones, his plan was to send

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Jesus his son to die in their place and to pay their sin debt and to ransom them from Satan and then to send his

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Holy spirit to awaken them and let them have the desire for Jesus Christ that they never could have in the flesh.

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And that is God's plan of salvation is, and there is no other, there is no other plan that will fit all the scriptures of the entire

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Bible. And so this is what we've been studying. And we're down to the fifth of the seven things we need to know to understand justification.

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We need to understand that man is totally depraved. We need to understand what grace means. It means free.

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Can't pay for it. Can't earn it. We need to understand what propitiation means. It means God is satisfied with Jesus's death in our place.

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And we need to understand what imputation means. It means God took our sins and imputed or accounted that to Jesus and he died and he took

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Jesus's righteousness and put that on us, imputed that to us. So now we have the righteousness of Jesus Christ, not our own righteous, but his righteousness.

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And because of imputation and because of foreknowledge, for love is what

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I like to call it. We now have what's known as positional righteousness. And that's what we're talking about.

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When we started out talking about that in the new Testament. And then last Sunday we started looking at it in the old

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Testament as well. It's all throughout the Bible. So remember that positional righteousness can be lined up with the part of salvation that we call the cause of salvation.

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It's part of the cause. It's part of what the Holy Spirit is part of the work that the Holy Spirit does to us when he saves us and regenerates us.

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All right. And we find an example there in second Corinthians five 21, for he has made him to be sin for us.

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That's Jesus. God the father made Jesus to be sin in our place who knew no sin.

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Jesus was not a sinner, but he had our sins on his body on the tree.

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Why did God do that? So that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. So here we see very clearly that this positional righteousness is not our own righteousness.

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It's God's righteousness and God imputes it to us. And so it's positional.

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It's not positional means this. We stand in this position because God put us in this position and what we do or don't do tomorrow, can't change our position.

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A great example would be if you're born into a family, what you do or don't do tomorrow does not determine whether you're still in that family or not.

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And especially if you're adopted, the laws of the land say that if you adopt a child, you can never disown them.

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And that's exactly what God did to us. He adopted us. He cannot disown us and would not, but he cannot.

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But he's given us the very righteousness of his son, Jesus. Now there is a thing called experiential righteousness in theology.

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And that is the verses that talk about us trying to live right. An example, that would be first Peter 1 15, but as he, which has called you, there's the calling.

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He that's called you is holy. So be ye holy in all manner of your lifestyle. So that's experiential.

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That is not part of the cause of salvation. That's actually part of the effects of it. Isn't that interesting?

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So if you can keep that in your mind, right, you'll understand justification. If you don't have that, right, you'll never get it.

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Or I should say, you've got it right. I'm preaching to the crowd out here. I mean, to the choir, but your neighbor won't get it.

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If he doesn't understand that positional righteousness, something God does to you and gives you, the very righteousness of Jesus is the cause of your salvation and the result or the effect of that cause is experiential righteousness, where we try to live right and do good acts.

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That's just how it works. So the effect part down here has nothing to do with causing us or keeping us saved.

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This is what does that. This is just simply a result because think about it. One of the other things the

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Holy Spirit does to us when he regenerates us is he puts himself within us. We are sealed with the

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Holy Spirit. How can we be the same after that? We have God living in our body, right? So we're going to do good works.

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We're going to mess up sometimes because the old man is still there, but the new man cannot sin and will not sin.

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And we'll do good works for the Lord. That's the effect of our salvation. So we've talked about all that great stuff.

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We had even more evidence that we talked about last Sunday, some in the Old Testament now, but we talked about position is kind of the same as our standing.

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And what do we do to get it or why do we have it is a great question. Is it because of imputation because of redemption?

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Is it because of substitutionary death or ransom? Is it because of propitiation? Actually, I say no to all those.

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The great cause of our having this position is because of foreknowledge. We have this righteous position before God because of all the things

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I listed here. Jesus did all that work and the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ and the father did all that work so that he could righteously and justly save us.

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But it was his foreknowledge that caused all this to happen. Foreknowledge remember is an

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English word that in the Bible language doesn't mean exactly what it does in an English dictionary.

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In the English dictionary foreknowledge would be more like omniscience. God knows everything. He looks out and sees things happening in the future, right?

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That's not what foreknowledge means in the Bible. Foreknowledge is more like for love. It's a loving personal relationship with another person to know them is what that means.

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So foreknowledge is that God knew us as his own children before he made anything. And that's throughout scripture, old and new

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Testament. That to me is the reason that we have been given positional righteousness because he already knew us and loved us as his own.

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And he had to save us from a lost race. And so he gave us the very righteousness of his son.

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Isn't that beautiful to know? So then we took a look in Isaiah 43 last time and we saw here where it said that God had called us by name.

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We are his. That means before time he called us by name. We saw that this beautiful promise of when we pass through the waters, he will be with us.

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When we go through the rivers, he will not allow them to overflow us. Even if we walk through fire, we will not be burned.

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And this is all allegorical saying that as we go through the trials and tribulations of this world,

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God is right there with us. And our true, our new man cannot be burned.

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Our new man cannot be drowned because Jesus said, whosoever liveth, that means you've been born physically, and believeth in me, that means you've been born spiritually, shall never die.

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So the born again part of us, the new man can't be affected by water that would try to drown our body or by fire that would try to burn us or by a pathogen that would try to kill us.

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None of that really affects us because we just blink and we're with the Lord and we live forever. And we've been totally healed by his stripes, not in this life, but that's a reference to the future life.

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We've been made immortal by Jesus's death on the cross.

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That's what it means in Isaiah. When it says by his stripes, we were healed. It's not promising us we're healed from every disease here, obviously, because our great grandmothers are in the grave.

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And so we can die. We can get sick. We can die. And the Pentecostal teaching on that is using it out of context, in my opinion.

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I think the proper context in Isaiah 53 is it's a reference to the healing of our soul and our new man.

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Our new man is healed by his stripes and created by his stripes, actually, and healed by his stripes, his suffering on the cross.

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So this beautiful promise in verse two, no matter what we go through in this life, God is with us and nothing can kill us.

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Isn't that amazing? Think about that. Now, verse four said, since thou was precious in my sight.

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Now notice the past tense, since you were, you see that goes back to before the foundation of the world,

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God already knew you. See, this is like most people's preacher never taught this to you growing up. Most of us in the last many decades never heard this taught in church.

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If you go back to 1600, 1700, 95 % of all Baptists knew these things and believed in them.

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Only 5 % didn't understand, but I don't know about the other denominations.

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I know the Presbyterians, if you go back to the 16, 1700s, they all knew this stuff and the

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Lutherans knew it, you know? So most Christians on the earth knew this back then, and now we don't see it.

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So it looks new to us, but look at verse four, because you were precious in my sight, God says past tense, before he made anything actually, because of that, you have been made honorable and I have loved you.

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So we see here that the making, when he makes us honorable, that means he gives us the very righteousness of Jesus, not our own because our righteousness is like filthy rags, the

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Bible says, but when he gives us Jesus's honor, Jesus's perfection,

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Jesus's righteousness, this is imputed to us and it is positional. We can't change it tomorrow or the next day by what we do or don't do because it's his righteousness on us that the father sees, which makes us honorable in the father's eyes.

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And the reason he made this happen with his plan of salvation is because we were already precious in his sight before he created the world, before he created the universe.

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Think about that. We saw that last Sunday. Now think about what are we going to get into this Sunday? Well, nothing if I don't hurry up and get done with the review, right?

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We are made righteous because we were precious in his sight. In other words, he knew us with love, like verse four says.

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All right. So we are not made righteous because we are good or because we do good works.

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That is not what positional righteousness is about. God doesn't count us as righteousness because he sees us doing good things.

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All right. Isaiah 43 verse 24 proved that it says, you've been, you brought me no sweet cane with money, bought me no sweet cane with money.

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Neither has thou filled me with fat of thy sacrifices. Thou has wearied me with your sins.

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You see, in this same beautiful passage where it speaks of positional righteousness in the old Testament, God says, it's not because you did well to me.

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It's not like you gave me things or you offered sacrifice to me. In fact, you wearied me with your sins.

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So now we see that this is not on the basis of our good works, is it? And look at 25.

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I even, I am he that blot out your sins. Why? For my sake,

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God says, not because of what you've done or because of what you want or because what you didn't do is because I wanted to save you and give you as a love offering to my son,

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Jesus, because he had lost the entire race. And I saved some of you for him and you'll live with him for all eternity.

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That's God's plan of salvation. And we don't hear a lot of it in the modern church, but it's the old, old gospel.

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I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake and will not remember your sins for my own sake.

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God says it's positional. It's done to us. It's not what we've done. It's what he has done to us and for us and for himself.

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This is pure grace. This is also positional righteousness.

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Nothing we do or do not do can cause it or change it. It is our position.

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It is our standing in Christ, the righteous, right? All right.

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Talked about that last time. Now think about this for a minute with me, ladies and gentlemen, the passage we're covering is a passage that's well hated in Christian churches today in the modern church.

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For whom God foreknew, for whom he did foreknow, that happened before time began.

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He also predestinated, which happened before time began. So there's no sequence here. The foreknowledge did not cause the predestination or vice versa.

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They both just are. As God is, this is true. As God is, he doesn't have to learn things.

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The father doesn't have to know. He does know all things. He doesn't have to learn something or think about anything.

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He just knows all things. And part of what he knows is us. He knows who his children are and always have been.

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So he knew us and he predestinated us that we would be his adopted children. We find that in Ephesians chapter one, don't we?

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Moreover, that same group of people in God's heart and mind before he created anything and for whom

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Jesus died before the foundation of the world, the book of Revelation says. Moreover, that those same groups were called at a point in time in their lifetime, the

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Holy Spirit woke them up and call them and gave them a desire for Jesus that they never had before that.

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And now they receive now they received him as their their personal Lord and Savior because they wanted to, because the

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Holy Spirit changed their want to. So God didn't do this against their will. He just gave them new desires and saved them in that manner.

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Us in that manner in the same group that he called, he also justified.

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This is this idea of foreknowledge and predestination and the calling and positional righteousness and justification, something

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God did to us. He made us justification merely means the act of making us righteous in his own eyes.

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All of that is God's plan of salvation. It is not man's and man hates it. And modern religion hates it because the church has no part in this.

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It won't bring any extra tithe money in. Matter of fact, if you preach this, you'll run most people off, literally.

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So your tithes will be less and less. The more you preach this in the modern church, in the end times, that is a fact.

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All right. So, but here's what I want to say. This theme of election and predestination is an ancient theme.

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It goes back way back to Abraham. It goes back to Noah. These men, it says

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Noah was found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Does that mean Noah was a good man? No, he was just as bad as any of them.

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And grace means undeserved. Favor. He didn't deserve it.

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God just put his grace on him and the Holy spirit awakened Noah and Noah got saved.

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Same as you did. And, um, same with Abraham. These were all men who were elected before the foundation of the world, loved by God before time started, and then when it was their lifetime on their spiritual birthday, the

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Holy spirit woke them up and they became gods. And the first Jew was a

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Gentile named Abraham lost as a goose. Worshipping many gods along with his father and the

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Holy spirit showed him the truth. And he came out from that, didn't he? And came to know that one true

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God. So it's very ancient. A lot of people call it Calvinism, but just to review a little bit,

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John Calvin, who was born in the 1500s, he did not invent these doctrines because Augustine taught the same doctrines 1100 years before Calvin was born.

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Augustine, one of the great Roman Catholic fathers taught predestination, election, salvation by grace, eternal security of the believer.

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In fact, if he had won the argument, we'd all be Catholics and be happy to be Roman Catholics, but he lost the argument.

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So they went with the Armenian position that it's all about what man does and all about what the church does.

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And the history of the church is what saves you. Not really, but you know what I'm saying? All of, all of that's huge in their salvation plan.

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It puts mostly man in it and a little bit of God. And then fortunately

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Martin Luther noticed that and tried to revive the Roman church, but couldn't, so he had to pull out from it.

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And that's where Protestantism came from. Martin Luther couldn't save the Roman Catholic, couldn't bring them back to the truth of, of salvation by the blood of Jesus only, but millions of people came to see it through the preaching of men like him and John Calvin and the ones that came along later.

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But then if you go back Augustine, you know, 1100 years, over a thousand years before Calvin was born,

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Augustine was teaching these things that people call Calvinism, which is ridiculous. It's not Calvinism.

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Calvin was just a teacher of the Bible, wonderful teacher, by the way. But if you go back before that, you had the apostle

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Paul who lived in AD 5 to AD 64. He taught the same doctrines, but if you go back before him,

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Jesus taught those to Paul when he was with him out in the desert. So it really goes back to the times of Christ.

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But guess what? He goes back before that. Isaiah taught these same things in 700

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BC. He was born in Jerusalem. He taught the same things 2 ,720 years ago, which was 2 ,209 years before John Calvin was born.

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So it's not Calvinism. Don't let people call you a Calvinist just because you believe in election and predestination and foreknowledge and the calling and regeneration and salvation by grace without works.

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Those have all been taught throughout all of the history of man since the days of Adam and Eve, when God taught them these same truths.

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All right. So this is an ancient theme. So let's continue in our passage in Isaiah 43.

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We'll pick up some new material here in verse 27. Thy first father has sinned and thy teachers have transgressed against me.

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So here we see once again that salvation is not because the Jews were good people or a great nation.

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God just saved them because he wanted to. And they are a picture of us as individual Christians, by the way.

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Two different verses in the New Testament say that. So we know that's true, that that which was written aforetime was written for those of us who live in the end of the age, that we might have these end samples or examples of our doctrines lived out in the lives of the

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Old Testament people. So they weren't perfect. Their teachers taught wrong things.

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They transgressed against God. So did their fathers. But God still saved them because election is not based on works.

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Neither is salvation or justification or any of it based on the works of man. It's based on the work

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God does. So now let's drop that's the last verse in verse 43.

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So now we go into Isaiah 44, verse one. And he says, yet now here,

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O Jacob, my servant. And this, like I said, this is an end sample so that we can learn more about ourselves as God's children, individual

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Christians are pictured here by Israel. Yet now here, O Christian, we can say it that way, whom

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I have chosen. You see, God chose you. If you're saved today, it's because God chose you just like he chose the nation of Israel.

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He chose you to be his adopted child. Thus saith the

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Lord that made thee and formed thee from the womb. So before you were ever born, even while you were in your mother's womb, you were already elected to be saved.

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So what role did you play in it? Nothing. All of this happened before you were born.

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Just like when a physical baby is born, all the work's done by the parents, all the planning's done by the parents.

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The baby doesn't have anything to do with his own birth. That's a beautiful picture of spiritual birth, isn't it?

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All right. So now, but we always find responsibility hand in hand with election in the

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Bible. Now, isn't that interesting? So here, almost everywhere where we see this, we're also going to find a lesson on responsibility taught right there with it.

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OK, and that's just kind of how this stuff works. The Bible always, when it talks about election, predestination, predetermination, it always has a verse following or in the same verse, whether it'll talk about the responsibility of man.

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So look at this. Yet now here, O Jacob, my servant and Israel, whom

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I have chosen, thus saith the Lord that made thee and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee.

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Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, and thou, Jesseron, whom I have chosen.

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So there we see election very clearly, the choosing. That's what elect means, to choose.

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God chose who would be his children. And then we see this, for I will pour water upon him that is thirsty.

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That's responsibility. So the person who all of a sudden finds himself having a thirst for God may ask for that water and the

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Lord will give it to you. Hold on one second. We got to take care of something. Sorry about that.

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I am back. All right. Think about this. Isn't it true that when

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Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, he didn't give her the plan of salvation or the Roman's road in the way that the modern church doesn't say that you need to pray this little, hold on one second, that got on this.

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Hold on one second. I've got a box I need to get rid of. Love the technology changes every three minutes with, all right.

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Dave, are you watching? Can you see my screen? Because I have a box in front of my screen. Is that interfering?

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No, it looks good to me. Okay. Did you just say it's a part of the question and answer box?

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It says no, it says no open questions.

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Can't get rid of it. Stuck right in front of my thing, but that's okay. All right. I shall continue then as long as it's not interfering.

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Hold on one second. Let me see if I can get this window looking like I want it to look,

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I guess not. All right. No problem. Zoom has changed yet once again, but praise

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God for zoom. All right. So, um, let me collect my thoughts.

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Technology does get in the way sometimes. Okay. Um, okay, here we are.

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Where scripture says that Jesus was talking with the woman at the well, he didn't give her like dear

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Jesus come my heart and save me. Amen. Did he? And yet that's the plan of salvation in the modern church.

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You know, come down to the altar. We'll show you how to get saved a method of getting saved. And that's not how salvation works.

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Salvation is a spiritual calling by the Holy spirit to you. It's not something you do something he does.

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He regenerates you and opens your eyes. You do respond to that. The effects of it are many.

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You'll want to be baptized. You'll want to do good works. You'll want to publicly profess Jesus's name.

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And all of a sudden you won't be embarrassed to tell people you're a Christian, all that, all of those are effects of the salvation that happens.

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But all Jesus did with the woman at the well, he said, look, if, uh, you know, if you knew who you were talking to, you would ask him for water.

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Now, remember they were standing at a well, a water well. He said, you would ask him for water and that water would be everlasting water that will spring up in your life forever.

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And that was him giving her the gospel. I am the Messiah. I'm like living water.

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If you receive me, you'll be saved forever. I mean, that that's, he didn't word it that way, but he just said, I'm the living water, and if you knew that you would ask for it, you'd have it forever.

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And eventually she got saved within a few seconds, didn't she? So that you see the Holy spirit called her and opened her eyes to who

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Jesus was while she was talking to Jesus. That's pretty cool. Right. But that water was offered.

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I will pour water upon him. That's thirsty. You see, she had to have the thirst to be saved. That's her responsibility, but it was the

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Holy spirit that made her have the thirst. She didn't have it when she first met Jesus, because the

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Bible says no man seeketh after God, not one. She wasn't going out there seeking God. Jesus sought her.

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That's how it works. The Holy spirit tracks us down. He's seeking us. We're not seeking him and he seeks us.

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And then when he opens our eyes and our hearts, then we, then we follow after God, don't we?

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And that's, but that's an effect. That's a result of the salvation, not the cause of it. So many people get that backwards.

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I hope it's clear to all of our listeners this morning, because the responsibility nevertheless is always there.

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And even though it's true that the Holy spirit calls us, we will and must respond to that calling, just like a bride must hear the call of the groom saying, will you marry me?

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She has to say, I will, I do. But you know what Jesus said? He said, no man comes to me unless the father draws him and of them,

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I will lose nothing. So he's very persuasive. He like, he's not going to lose you. He, he, he will woo you until your heart desires him and he'll use the

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Holy spirit to do that. He'll use other people. He'll use, uh, things that happen in your life, all manner of things to bring you to the place where you desire him.

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And at that moment, you're born again. And that desire just grows and grows and grows. So the responsibility is there hand in hand with the election, but you never would have the desire if the

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Holy spirit didn't open your eyes and ears and change your heart, just wouldn't happen. The Bible says it can't happen and it won't happen until that calling takes place.

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All right. So there we see the responsibility, uh, in the middle of verse three, we need to desire the water.

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Anyone who requests the water will be given the water. Um, those who the

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Holy spirit opens their eyes to Jesus and says, look up there's, there's your shepherd, your sheep, and are you, are you thirsty?

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He's got water. Then all of a sudden you will desire it. And you will receive him as your personal

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Lord and savior. That's your responsibility. And at the great white throne judgment, God only has to ask one question.

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He'd just say, what'd you do with my son? And everyone that's at that judgment seat, that's the judgment of the goats.

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They'll say, well, I didn't do anything with him. And they'll say, then depart from me. I never knew you. And there'll be cast into hell because they were responsible.

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They were held responsible to receive Jesus as their personal Lord and savior, and they did not do it right.

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They never had a desire to do it. Thank God. If you had that desire, because that was of God, that salvation is of God.

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It's a miracle that you ever had that desire. The Holy spirit literally had to come in and give you spiritual birth before you would have had that desire.

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And he did that for you. So praise God. And he did it because God's always known you and loved you since before he made anything.

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All of this is found in this ancient passage, uh, over 2 ,700 years ago.

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Written by the prophet Isaiah. I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground.

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I will pour my spirit upon your seed and my blessing upon thy offspring. I tell you, if you've ever moms have this problem to say, well,

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I don't like the doctrine of election because then I lose the control of whether my babies will be saved or not. If only

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God can choose. I don't, there's nothing I can do. And I don't like that feeling. Well, let me ask you this moms.

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Would you rather have God, God have had made it where you had to live such a perfect, pristine life in front of that child that you convinced them to be saved and you never made a mistake.

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So they would see that God is in you. And that's the only way they can get saved. Would you rather it be that way?

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Or would you rather a loving, just all knowing God be the one who's in control of who gets saved. You see, if you really think it through, you'll like God's plan better.

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It takes, you know, it takes some of that burden off of you. We still have to be a good mom. Don't we? And a good dad.

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And a good example, but the Holy spirit's who does the saving. So that takes, that makes life better.

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Trust me, but you know, what's interesting. If you look at verse two, there is a promise.

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I'm sorry. Verse three, there is a promise there that God will not only save the one who the

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Holy spirit gives the thirst to, but he will pour out his spirit on his children, that's your seed and be a blessing upon the offspring.

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So God went in his plan of salvation. He tends to gather elect people and have them born into Christian families quite often so that they'll hear the gospel from the time they're born.

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I mean, my babies, my five children and all nine of my grandbabies have heard about Jesus from before they were born while they were still in the womb.

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The dads will speak the word of God over that mother's tummy.

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And that child hears it every day of their life in our family. And, uh, that's the way it should be in every

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Christian family. And, uh, there's your promise there in verse three, that should make you feel better that God's in control of these things.

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He, he, he pulls everything together. Like it should be. Verse four says, and they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water courses, who will saved people will spring up in Christian families in that beautiful.

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And he said unto me, it is done. I am alpha and Omega. Now, where do we find this?

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I'm shifting over to the book of revelation chapter 21, because it's, it's, it is, you know,

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God wrote, put all the truths of scripture interwoven all throughout every book of the Bible. They're not, there are no standalone doctrines as brother, uh,

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Dr. Myron Golden says, but, uh, here we see the book of revelation shedding light on Isaiah or to be more proper.

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Isaiah being an in sample for those of us who live in the end times is shedding light on the book of revelation right here, chapter 21, verse six.

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And he said unto me, it is done. I am alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him.

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That is a thirst of the foundation. I'm sorry, of the fountain of the water of life freely.

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Now you see the same thing Isaiah talked about, uh, some, you know, 700 years before, uh, probably 780 years before ever revelation was written by the apostle

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John and Isaiah, he had said, I will pour out water upon him that is thirsty.

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And the book of revelation chapter 21, verse six, I will give unto him. That is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

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There's responsibility. It's, it's, it's, it's up to human beings to desire

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Jesus Christ. And if they don't, they'll never be saved. We know from scripture that they'll never have that desire.

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However, if the Holy spirit doesn't call them and he only calls those who, uh, God sends him to, he, he only does exactly the father's will and the same with Jesus.

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He only does exactly the father's will because they are one all, uh, that come to God, we're drawn by the father.

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Everyone that comes to Jesus, we're drawn by the father. And therefore Jesus said,

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I will lose none of them. Isn't that beautiful? He that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his

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God and he shall be my son. There's a little bit of responsibility found there in revelation chapter 21.

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But also we know that election had to be part of this too, or we never would have desired the water.

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Would we? God gave us that desire. Thanks be to God. We have a lot to be thankful for today, don't we?

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But the fearful and the unbelieving now here are the goats. So verses six and seven talked about the sheep, the elect.

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Now this verse talks about the non -elect those who will never receive Jesus, but the fearful and unbelieving and abominable.

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That means people who do abominable actions and have abominable lifestyles.

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You know who they are? And murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters, those who worship false gods and all liars shall have their part in the lake, which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

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Now think about this a minute. Are you ever a liar? No, not in God's eyes, because you have been made positionally righteous.

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You have the righteousness of Jesus. And when you look in the Greek, it's interesting in the actual

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Greek language, you can tell when something is sort of in the continual sense, and this means a person whose habitual lifestyle is that he lies all the time, that person won't be in heaven, a

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Christian doesn't lie habitually all the time. He may make a mistake and lie and then need to repent and get right with the person and with God, but he's not a liar.

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A liar is a person whose lifestyle is one of lying, a person whose lifestyle is a lifestyle of abomination, does abominable, unclean acts.

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And can Christians make mistakes and do all things listed here? Yeah, but you don't have a continual lifestyle of it and it's not in the continual sense, that's the difference.

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But the unbelievers and the non -elect, it is their lifestyle and none of them will find their way to heaven because there is no way to build a stairway to heaven.

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You have to be saved and that's an act of the Holy Spirit called regeneration and he does it at the calling and at that moment, one of the things he gives you is the righteousness of Jesus because we don't have our own, right?

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And all of this is alluded to 2 ,700 years ago, right here in this passage in Isaiah 44, all right?

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Now let's go to verse six. Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel and his

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Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first, I am the last and beside me, there is no

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God. Now, if you've ever had anyone argue with you that try to say Jesus never claimed to be God, well,

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God claims he's God many times in the book of Psalms, but look right here, thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel and his

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Redeemer. I mean, there's two people listed there. The Redeemer is called the

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Lord of hosts and the father here is called the King of Israel, right? So you have the father, you have the son, and both of them claim to be the first and the last and beside me, there is no

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God. So God exists as a triune being, the father, the son, and the

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Holy Ghost. And he has many names and each name reveals certain parts of God's character. And who as I shall call and shall declare it.

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So what God is saying here in verse seven, who is there like me? Who is what false gods are there that can do this?

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What humans can do this? Who is there like me who can call and declare something and set it in order?

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And he said, I'm the one who appointed the ancient people. So appointed, that's predestination.

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God is the one who appointed that Israel would be his people and a picture of every Christian that would ever live.

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So God appointed the ancient people, but he also appointed us. Every born again person was appointed before time began to be adopted into his family and the things that are coming and the things that shall come.

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He's saying, look, I'm sovereign. Who else is like that? He says, no man is like that.

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No false god is like that. I am the one who calls, declares it. I appoint people before time begins.

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I call them in time and the things that are coming and shall come will just happen just exactly like I lay them out.

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And that's something God is sovereign. Now let's go to Isaiah 61 and let's look at verse 10.

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I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.

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That, my friends, is positional righteousness in the Old Testament. We've already seen it in the

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New Testament. God clothed us with his own righteousness. It is positional.

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Nothing we can do tomorrow will change it. We can't undo it. We can't make it happen. God made it happen.

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God put the clothing on us just like he did Adam and Eve after they sinned. They tried to put on the fig leaves.

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It wasn't sufficient. God had to kill an animal and shed the blood, which was a picture of Jesus's sacrificial death on our behalf.

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And he put those skins on them as clothing. God clothed them. He put those skins on them as a picture of being clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

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And he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robes of righteousness.

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There you have it, positional righteousness. As a bridegroom, decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride, adorneth herself with jewels.

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That's how God has put robes of righteousness upon me and you. And so it's a beautiful teaching in both the

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Old and the New Testament. Now, in Revelation chapter 6, we see the same type of picturesque language of the righteousness of God being pictured as robes of white, robes of righteousness.

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In Revelation chapter 6, verse 10, And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long,

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O Lord, holy and true! Dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

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And white robes were given. You see, it's positional. It's not like we do something to get it.

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It's something that's given to us as a gift. White robes, that picture is Jesus's righteousness are given to every one of them.

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And it was said unto them that they should rest for a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were shall be fulfilled.

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I've heard people mention to say this. False teachers have said it even in theology books.

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I've read it where good teachers got it wrong, where they said the church is not mentioned in the book of Revelation beyond chapter three.

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That is a lie. They're trying to prove a false theory of trying to prove that the rapture happens at the front of the seven years, which it does not.

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It happens after the first resurrection, which is at the end of the age, not at the front of the seven years, at the end of the seven years, trying to prove it by lying about it.

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That's a fact, lying about it. And and yet. It says so clearly here that these saints are already in heaven looking down on fellow servants, which are other members of the church, the body of Christ, who are being killed during that seven years that these false teachers say the church isn't on the earth.

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So that is a false teaching. The church is on the earth until the rapture and the rapture cannot happen, according to Apostle Paul, until after the great resurrection.

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It says we shall not precede them. They shall rise up and then we will rise up with them and be changed in the air.

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Check out your scripture, you know, put the word of God and Jesus's chronology in Matthew 24,

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Paul's chronology, Daniel's chronology. Give that more authority than the books you've written about the end times.

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And I promise you'll come out with a different result. Anyway, that's that's free. That's a rabbit trail. Verse six in Revelation 19 says,

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I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude and as the voice of many waters and the voice of mighty thundering saying hallelujah for the

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Lord God omnipotent reigns, there's the sovereignty of God. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him for the marriage of the lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready.

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I don't believe, by the way, another rabbit trail. I don't think the church will make herself ready because that's talking about experiential righteousness, made herself ready.

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That ain't happening without tribulation, folks, until the Lord takes away some of our toys. The modern church is not going to make herself ready.

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That's another way that I know the church goes through the tribulation. It just makes sense.

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That's common sense. It makes sense. And scripture says she'll make herself ready. How? She won't do it without tribulation.

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I don't think. But there are so many scriptures such as Jesus's, Paul's and Daniel's chronology, then times it just proves when it happens.

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And Paul's saying it cannot happen till after the resurrection. And of course, these false teachers invent other resurrections that don't exist.

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And so there are many resurrections. No, the Bible says there's two. There's two. There's the first resurrection that happens at the end of the church age.

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And then there's the resurrection that happens at the end of the thousand year millennial kingdom. And we have we have two judgments, we have two resurrections, two judgments.

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We have the judgment seat of Christ after the first resurrection. We have the great white throne judgment for the goats and the tares at the end of the millennial kingdom.

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That's all just two. And they can make it sound good, but the scripture doesn't talk about it.

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They made it up. OK, so. Here we have the church making herself ready as she goes through this tribulation period and then look and to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, that is positional righteousness.

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So you see both mentioned within two verses of each other for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.

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So that positional righteousness, which is pictured as linen that God puts on us, as opposed to something we would do like in verse seven, this is something

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God does to us. That's the true righteousness of the saints that the father sees because it's perfect.

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It's Jesus's righteousness. So we see this positional righteousness is taught all through the book of Isaiah and the latter chapters of Isaiah and throughout the book of Revelation and many places in Paul's writings.

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Revelation 17, 14, these shall make war with the lamb and the lamb shall overcome them for he is lord of lords and king of kings.

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And they that are with him are called. You see, you have to have the calling and they are chosen. That happened before time began and they're faithful.

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That's the effect of the calling. All listed in one verse and chapter 19, verse 11 says, and I saw heaven open and behold, a white horse and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true and in righteousness, he does judge and make war.

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That's Jesus. His eyes were as a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew, but he himself.

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And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood and his name is called the word of God and the armies, which are in heaven, followed him.

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That's us after the rapture, followed him upon the white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

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There we have this positional righteousness, which is pictured as white linen.

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Robes and out of his mouth, go, go with the sharp sword and that with it, he would smite the nations, the goats, the tares, and he will rule them with a rod of iron going now into the thousand year millennial kingdom.

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And you can see that this occurrence took place right before the thousand year millennial kingdom was ushered in and he will rule throughout that thousand years with a rod of iron and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of almighty

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God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

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That's none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And next time we get together, we will just briefly talk about experiential righteousness, probably for 10 minutes, and then we'll move into the sixth and the seventh things we have to know to understand justification.

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And we'll be done with chapter eight, but what a beautiful chapter. I'm not in a hurry to finish it, obviously, but we will probably finish it the

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Lord willing next Sunday. And then after that, we'll move on into Romans chapter nine, which happens to be the one chapter that's never found in the

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Southern Baptist Sunday school quarterlies because they don't want to discuss it. Why? Because it doesn't fit their theology.

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So you have to remove it. That's my theory. Kind of say that tongue in cheek, but I mean, seriously,

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I never saw it growing up as a kid going to Sunday school. They left that one out because it didn't fit their

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Armenian theology. Well, once you understand that God's in control and you understand how his plan was written out, because the way he told us that he wrote his plan and that he saved a remnant called the chosen, the elect from an entirely fallen race.

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And he saved some and gave us to Jesus as a love offering. And that he's always known us with love and that no man comes to me unless the father draws him and the father sends the

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Holy spirit one at a time to call each one and open their eyes and regenerate them.

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And, um, we come back with Jesus, uh, you know, when he comes at the second coming, we rise up to meet him in the air and then he sets foot on, accomplishes several things.

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And then Armageddon takes place. Once we see all that plan, then the whole of Bible of the

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Bible fits together and all works. And that's the only way it works. So, all right.

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That's where we are. I think we're done for now. Um, brother Dave and, um,

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I'll turn it back over to you. Thank you, sir. That was fantastic.

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It's, it's always kind of exciting to hear, you know, when you start talking about the end times and, and what is in store for us, because a lot of times we get caught up in what's going on right now and it doesn't feel too great.

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But when you think about what's going to happen, it's nothing but goodness. Nothing but exciting.

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Yeah. Nothing but exciting. So we do, we have a lot to be thankful for. We have a lot to look forward to.

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I guess we'll close with a word of prayer. All right. Heavenly father, Lord, we just thank you so much for pastor

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David and for the message that you brought to him to give to us today. Lord, we just thank you that there is a lot to look forward to and a lot of excitement ahead of us.

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So if we're in a place right now where we're depressed or sad or even frustrated with the world around us, help us to remember that we are not of this world.

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We're just visiting and that you've got massive, massive adventures waiting for us.

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There's nothing but good and excitement ahead for us. And Lord, we thank you that we do get to be a part of that or we just pray that you ask or that you, you keep us and keep our minds and our hearts guarded until your return and help us to just be super excited with what you have in store for us.

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Lord, we love you and we thank you for everything you've done for us. We just ask that you bless us and keep us throughout the week.

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It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you brother Dave. All right.