Revelation 22:14-21 (Say, “Come” Jeff Kliewer)

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Say, “Come” Revelation 22:14-21 Jeff Kliewer

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Come to claim the rebel and the rebel worthy, he is worthy, all glory and honor and praise be to your name, be to your name, for no one could rival your glory and fame, we lift high the name of Jesus Holy, holy is the
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Lamb who died, cancelling our debt at Calvary, rising from the grave to reign on high
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Worthy, he is worthy, all glory and honor, all power and praise be to your name, be to your name, for no one could rival your glory and fame, we lift high the name of Jesus Holy, holy,
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Lord Almighty, worthy is your name, holy, holy, none beside you greatly to be praised
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Holy, holy, Lord Almighty, worthy is your name, holy, holy, none beside you greatly to be praised
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All glory and honor, all power and praise be to your name, be to your name, for no one could rival your glory and fame, we lift high the name of Jesus For no one could rival your glory and fame, we lift high the name of Jesus Holy, holy,
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Lord Almighty, worthy is your name, holy, holy, none beside you greatly to be praised
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To God be the glory, great things
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He hath done, so love to the world that He gave us
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His Son Holy, holy,
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Lord Almighty, worthy is your name, holy, holy, none beside you greatly to be praised
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Jesus, the Son, and give Him the glory, great things
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He hath done, big redemption, the purchase of blood, to every believer the promise of God, the truly new covenant from Jesus, a pardon received, praise the
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Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice, praise the
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Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice Come to the
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Father, through Jesus the Son, and give
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Him the glory, great things He hath done Great things
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He has taught us, great things He hath done, and great are rejoicing through Jesus the
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Son But all good, high, and great will be our wonder, our transport when
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Jesus we see Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear
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His voice, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice
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Oh, come to the Father, through Jesus the
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Son, and give Him the glory, great things
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He hath done Let's sing that together, just acapella Praise the
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Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice, praise the
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Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice
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Oh, come to the Father, through Jesus the
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Son, and give Him the glory, great things
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He hath done If you could stand with me
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We come together this morning to praise the name of the Lord, our God Praise His name forever
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This is just practice for when we get to heaven And we want to sing praises loudly throughout this world
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So that people can come and see the light that we receive through Him It's all because of the cross
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That we can praise His name I cast my mind on Calvary Where Jesus bled and died for me
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I see His wounds, His hands,
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His feet My Savior on that cursed tree
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His body bound and drenched in tears
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They laid Him down in Joseph's womb
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The entrance sealed by heavy stone
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Messiah still and all alone
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Oh, praise the name of the Lord, our
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God Oh, praise His name forevermore
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For endless days we will sing
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Your praise Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, our
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God Then on that third and break of dawn
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The Son of Heaven rose again
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Oh, trampled death, where is your sting?
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The angels roar for Christ the
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King Oh, praise the name of the
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Lord, our God Oh, praise His name forevermore
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For endless days we will sing Your praise
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Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, our God He shall return in robes of white
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The blazing sun shall pierce the night
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And I will rise among the saints
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My face translates on Jesus' face
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Oh, praise the name of the Lord, our
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God Oh, praise His name forevermore
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For endless days we will sing Your praise
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Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, our God Oh, praise the name of the
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Lord, our God Oh, praise His name forevermore
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For endless days we will sing Your praise
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Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, our God Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and that they may enter the city by the gates.
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Outside are the dogs, and sorcerers, and the sexually immoral, and murderers, and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
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I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches.
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I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.
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The spirit and the bride say, come, and let the one who hears say, come, and let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
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I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them,
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God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy,
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God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
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He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
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The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. Let's pray.
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So, Father, we have read these words, and we've already received a blessing, because your word tells us, right here in Revelation 1 -3, that we're blessed for reading these.
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We know that you taught Timothy to devote himself to the public reading of Scripture, so we thank you for just the reading of your word, which has power in and of itself.
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I pray also, Lord, that you would inspire me to proclaim these words, that I would rightly divide them to be a faithful handler of the
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Scripture, and that by your Spirit you would bring them to bear upon the consciences of your people, that you would transform us by your word, and that you would send us out by your word to invite others to come to drink of that living water, in Jesus' name.
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Amen. So, there is a practice within broader evangelicalism, especially the charismatic or Pentecostal wing, which looks for the anointing.
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Have you guys heard the phrase, the anointing? We want the anointing of God. And in looking for the anointing, some have gone to excess.
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There is a group in California where people have actually gone to a grave site and laid down on the graves of departed
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Christians, hoping to suck out of the ground or soak some kind of anointing from the dead.
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This is a problem. Others will go to a charismatic leader and hope to get an impartation of the anointing from that person.
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So, maybe by being slain in the Spirit, they will kind of lay and hope that a person will give them this power to do what they can't do without it.
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They're looking for the anointing. But today I'd like to just begin the sermon by opening, if you will, to 1
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John. Chapter 2, verse 20.
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And I want you to understand something about the anointing, because the anointing is important. It's real.
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But understand this, that if you have the Holy Spirit, you have the anointing.
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If you have the Word of God and knowledge from His Word, you have the anointing. 1
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John 2, verse 20 says, But you have been anointed by the
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Holy One, and you all have knowledge. Now, if we had time to exegete this passage, we would see that John goes on to refute
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Gnostic teachers. Gnostic teachers are false teachers. They're antichrists, according to our text, who preach something contrary to what was handed down once and for all to the saints.
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These antichrists have, quote -unquote, secret knowledge. That's why they're called Gnostics.
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Gnostic, from the Greek gnosis, means knowledge. These Gnostic teachers have something deeper, something mysterious, some anointing that they alone can give you.
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The Gnostic teachers are refuted by John in 1 John. And again, in verse 27, he says,
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But the anointing that you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you.
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But as His anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in Him.
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So the teaching, biblically, about the anointing is that we are to abide in Christ, remain in His Word, filled with the
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Holy Spirit, and we already have knowledge to impart. We have that knowledge.
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It's not something we need to soak out of a grave. We don't need to go to a charismatic prophet to receive this anointing.
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It belongs to all of you. And all of you and myself are commissioned and anointed to go and preach the good news of Jesus Christ.
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We have the Holy Spirit, the anointing of God, to go forth and invite people to come to Christ in the power and authority that comes with being a child of God.
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It's part of your inheritance. Now as you look at the broader culture, you notice that the culture needs anointed
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Christians to come to them, because there are many who are deceived and living in a spirit of fear.
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And it's our job to go and call them to faith in Christ. So going back to Revelation 22, in a minute we're going to see from verse 17 that the one who hears is to say, come, and the one who is thirsty is to come.
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We are going to offer the gospel to a people who desperately need it, inviting people to come.
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In our culture today, there are many people who are enslaved by a spirit of fear.
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Enslaved by fear. We have the very life and hope that the world needs, but too often we're silent.
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I think of the example of the coronavirus that's spreading through the world.
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It is a real virus, but the statistics, even from the very liberal
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CNN, is that the survivability rate of COVID -19 across all age groups, follow this, is 99 .4%.
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The CDC recently announced that the survivability of COVID -19 for those 70 and older is 94 .6.
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Now that's according to the CDC, it could be even better than that. But for those age 50 to 70, the survival rate is 99 .5%.
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Of people who actually get infected with the virus, let alone the many who never get it.
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Of those ages 20 to 50, the survival rate goes to 99 .98%.
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And of those from 0 to 20, the survival rate is 99 .997%.
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Now, that's not a classic definition of a pandemic.
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There's not carts going through the streets and a man yelling, bring out your dead!
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This is not the Black Death, okay? But I just recently saw on TV a woman at her son's football game, in the bleachers, and a police officer came to arrest her for not wearing a mask.
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That's ridiculous, to arrest someone for not wearing a mask. Now, a lesser magistrate, like a police officer, according to the doctrine of the lesser magistrates, you can look this up, is responsible to resist the tyrants who are above them.
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On behalf of the people who are oppressed by tyranny. But this story doesn't end with the arrest of a woman in the bleachers.
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Some of you saw it, and you know what happened. She resisted arrest, which is a problem.
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Because if a police officer is arresting you, just go with it. You'll have your day in court. And those who resist arrest have often wound up dead, because things escalate.
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And so it's not wise to resist a police officer. But this police officer, who was unable to pull this woman's arm back to put her in cuffs, resorted to tasering her.
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He tasered the woman for not wearing a mask. Absolute insanity.
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So, here we are as Christians, who don't live in a spirit of fear. We recognize that there are real dangers for people 70 or older, or people who have pre -existing conditions.
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There's some danger. You want to be careful? Let each person be responsible to be careful, okay?
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But here's what we know as Christians. There is no sting in death itself.
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We have no fear of death, because we know the resurrection and the life. And so while we live happily, day after day,
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I look around and I see people living in abject fear. And that's sad.
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That's sad to see. And we have the message that brings life.
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How different would things be for that man with the taser, or that woman in the bleacher, if somewhere far upstream, before the absolute nonsense of this took place, if somewhere far upstream, a gospel preacher or a gospel believer had come to their house and said,
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Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Come with me to church. Come hear the good news. And then was discipled in the scripture.
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Their world would have been entirely different. Nobody would be getting tasered. You see, the culture has moved very far from the scripture.
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And it's only getting worse. Don't get me started on the social justice stuff. I go down that road often, so I'm just going to try to resist that temptation at this particular point.
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But to say to you that the world is living in fear, and we have the good news to offer to the world, to say,
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Come, believe the good news. So look at verse 14. Today, what I want to teach you is how important it is to say,
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Come. To go to a world that's lost and hurting, that's literally burning.
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I mean, I will say one thing. There are cities in our country that are on fire. There are people who are dying because of the fear and the lies of the culture.
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And we have the truth. We must learn to say, Come, to go out in the power of the Spirit. So a few things about that.
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First of all, the message that we bring has only one thing needful for salvation.
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A person doesn't have to become perfect, although Christ will make them perfect.
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And in time, that transformation happens. They need only to come. Look at verse 14.
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Blessed are those who do one thing. What is the one thing that is needful?
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Who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
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One thing is needful. To be washed. For your robes to be washed clean.
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And there is only one thing that washes away the stain of sin. That is the blood of Jesus. The one needful thing for every person, man and woman, boy, girl, regardless of the color of your skin or any other thing, any other distinction, the one thing that is needful is the washing of Jesus' blood.
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Isaiah put it this way in chapter 61, verse 10. I will greatly rejoice in the
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Lord. My soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me.
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Did you hear that? He has clothed me with garments of salvation.
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He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. God offers to us a robe of righteousness.
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What that means is that he will impute to you the righteousness of Christ.
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In the Bible, there are three imputations. Three imputations.
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Now, imputing means to credit or to account. To reckon.
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There are three imputations in the Bible. First, in the sin of Adam, his sin was reckoned or credited or imputed to all of his progeny.
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Everyone who comes from Adam inherits from Adam his sin nature.
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Adam's sin is imputed. And all people are born sinners. What was
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Adam's last name? All we know is Adam and Eve, right? What's their last name?
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Well, their last name could very well be sinner. And everyone who comes from them inherits that last name, sinner.
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But there are two other imputations in the Bible. Both of them are found in 2 Corinthians 5 .21.
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God made him who had no sin to be sin on our behalf, that in him we would become the righteousness of God.
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The first imputation is Adam's sin is inherited by all who come from him. The second imputation is our sin imputed to Christ.
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And he takes on himself like a robe our unrighteousness. All of our sin is imputed to him, and he suffers the consequences for it.
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He dies on the cross because our sin is reckoned to his account and laid on his head like this scapegoat.
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He wears a crown of thorns. He takes the nails. He dies a death that we deserve because God has imputed to Christ our sin.
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And the third imputation is his righteousness to our account when we put our faith in him.
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Through faith, his righteousness is imputed to us. That's the third imputation.
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His perfection. Jesus actively lived a perfect life.
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He obeyed every command. There was no sin found in him. He was righteous. Then he passively obeyed the
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Father by laying down on the cross, accepting the death that we deserve.
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And his active and passive obedience makes him perfectly righteous. Now he robes us with that righteousness when we believe.
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This is what you see in verse 14. You have to have clean robes through the imputed righteousness of Jesus.
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His blood washing us, clothing us with righteousness.
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In Matthew chapter 22, a man threw a banquet, and he sent out messengers to invite people to the banquet.
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But what did they do to the messengers? They killed them. That picture is the prophets and Israel rejecting those who were sent.
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Finally the Son is sent. But then, after this people rejected, other messengers were sent to the highways, and everybody was invited to come in to the banquet.
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No one excluded. Everybody's welcome into the banquet. But when the king arrived in the banquet, he saw a man there at the wedding banquet who wasn't wearing wedding clothes.
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And the king asked this man where his wedding clothes were. He had none. So the king threw him out of the banquet.
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Here's the lesson. Unless you have the righteousness of Christ, you have no entrance into the kingdom.
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You need the righteousness of Christ. Nothing else will do. Whatever works you think you've done that are good, it's not the wedding banquet.
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It's not the wedding garment that makes you righteous. Look what comes of the many works done by men and women.
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Verse 15. Outside are the dogs, and sorcerers, and the sexually immoral, and murderers, and idolaters, and everyone, everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
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The kingdom of God in heaven is for those who are dressed in the righteousness of Christ.
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Outside are the dogs. Who are the dogs? Well, there's really two options biblically.
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Philippians 3 .2. Paul calls the Judaizers of the gospel dogs.
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Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. They were adding works to the gospel, and so they lost the gospel.
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And Paul refers to them as dogs. But a more likely reference is from Deuteronomy 23 .17.
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There, dogs refers to sodomites. And if that is the case, it probably is the case, because it parallels with Revelation 21, verse 8.
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Turn back a page in your scriptures. There's a parallel with the word detestable.
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If you notice the list in verse 8, you have the cowardly and the faithless. Okay? Then it says the detestable.
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Or the King James has the abominable. Comes from the Hebrew to -eh -vah, which is an abomination before God.
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Okay? And then look at what follows that word detestable. The same list that you have after dogs in Revelation 22.
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So the context here is that detestable or abominable, and then murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, turn back to Revelation 22.
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Here, John is using the figure dogs to refer to the detestable, the abominable, followed by sorcerers, sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, and all liars.
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Same list. Most likely that's what's in reference here. Sorcery.
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I mentioned this a few weeks back. But sorcery is not something that you only see in television, on television.
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Sorcery still exists in the world today. It's very much so on television, on the
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Disney Channel, and all these shows which just glorify witchcraft. One show after another.
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But sorcery is not just what you see on TV. It's not just what the
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Inquisition did. Remember burning of the witches and all the things in the Puritan camps where witches would be burned?
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Or Monty Python makes fun of it. You see if they can float to determine if they're a witch. Many people just make light of witchcraft and think, well that's just something to dress up at as a witch for Halloween.
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No big deal. Meanwhile, our cities in America today are burning because of witchcraft.
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Sorcery. The founder of Black Lives Matter, Patricia Cullors, I've talked about this before so I won't belabor it.
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Although I have to say something. There's sorcery involved. The contacting of the dead by her own words, they contact dead spirits to gain and conjure up those spirits to empower the work that they do.
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And she says without the spirits of the dead enabling them, they wouldn't have the power to stir up the things that you're seeing in society.
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Sorcery. In fact, another moment on this. It isn't just sorcery.
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It is an entire full -orbed satanic religion. When you see the teachings of critical race theory and the social justice movement which is destroying many...
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Listen, I was a minister in the inner city from 2004 to 2016.
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I preached, I think, 12 funerals for kids that died in the inner city that I knew that I loved deeply.
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I see the destruction of the lies of the enemy and I love the people. But the lies are utterly destructive.
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There is a full -orbed religion developing around this so -called social justice. They have holy books, white fragility, the color of compromise, the required reading of the social justice movement.
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They have religious zeal. They have a born -again experience.
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What's that called? Getting woke. To be woke is to be born again.
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They have saints because the victims of police are the hyper -victims who then are called upon and revered in this religious tradition.
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The saints of the movement. It's religious and it's sorcery.
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Following on in the text, verse 15, not only dogs, sorcerers, the sexually immoral, that's fornication and adultery, murderers, idolaters, everyone who loves and practices the truth.
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I love setting up good news with bad news. This looks bleak for the world because the dangerous thing here is that these people are outside, meaning eternally outside in the outer darkness in eternal punishment.
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But the gospel is not condemnation. And there's good news coming. Jesus will introduce it.
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Look at verse 16. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches.
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When he says, I, Jesus, this is the only place in the New Testament where that construction is used.
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The emphatic, where Jesus reflexively says, I, Jesus. This is me speaking.
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Jesus is saying, I sent my angel to testify about these things for the churches. Then he identifies himself as the root and descendant of David.
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Now wait a minute. How can he be both the root and the fruit of the same tree?
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If David is the tree, how is he both the root of David and the fruit of David?
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How is he root and descendant? Well, the answer is a wonderful one.
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And it's one that stumped the Pharisees and the Sadducees. After that parable I told earlier from Matthew 22, the banquet, the wedding garment, then the
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Sadducees and the Pharisees come to question Jesus. And the Pharisees bring their best and he answers them easily.
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Then the Sadducees bring theirs and he answers them easily. And after refuting them, he poses a question back to them.
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And he says, when David says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
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Of course, Psalm 110 verse one, whose son is he? And how does David call him
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Lord? If he's David's son, how is he Lord? And from that moment on, the
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Pharisees and the Sadducees never questioned him again. No answer.
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But we who believe in Jesus the Messiah, we easily understand how this could be. He is the root of David because he's not just a man, he is
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God in flesh. He is the I am. I am who I am. That's why he says,
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I Jesus. And he says, I am the root. Just like he said,
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I am the light of the world, I am the living water, I am the bread of life, I am the door,
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I am the resurrection and the life. Before Abraham was born, I am. Jesus claims to be
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God. And so before David was even born, Jesus is the creator. He is the
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I am. And then at a moment in time, Jesus is born to the virgin, born under the law.
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He comes into our world, the word made flesh. He's born from David's line, a descendant of King David, both through Mary and through Joseph, who is not the physical father, but the earthly father to Jesus.
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He is the descendant of David and the root of David. He's claiming here the deity,
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I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. Nobody but God should ever call themselves the bright morning star.
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If you got somebody referring to themselves in those kind of terms, you have a problem on your hands.
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If that's you, stop it. Rappers, don't give yourself those kind of labels, but Jesus has a right to them because he is the bright morning star.
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Now for the good news. It's not condemnation to the world. He didn't come to condemn those who have been deceived by Black Lives Matter, those who have been deceived by government status control measures.
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He didn't come to condemn. What does he say? The spirit and the bride say come and let the one who hears say come and let the one who is thirsty come.
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Let the one who desires take the water of life without price. There's some debate about that first part of that verse.
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Does come refer to the prayer of the saints that Jesus would come back or is that an invitation to the world to come to Christ?
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I think the first part is a prayer because it parallels what John says in verse 20 where he says, surely
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I'm coming soon, amen. Come, Lord Jesus. But clearly by the end of the verse it's an offer.
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It's an invitation to come. Let the one who hears say come and let the one who is thirsty come.
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It is our job, brothers and sisters, to go issue that invitation. Every person in the inner city and in the suburbs, in America and in China, every corner of this globe, regardless of skin color or what sexual problems and sins have happened in the past, regardless of any past history, here is the good news.
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He is inviting you to come. He is offering you living water and this water, when you drink of this water, it will become in you a well of water springing up into eternal life.
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You will be forever satisfied by this water. You will have joy like you've never known before.
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You will have the promise of eternal life. Trust me, I've drunk of this water. I know it. It doesn't wear out.
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I've been preaching for, I've been a full -time minister for 20 years, but I began to drink before that and the water doesn't run dry.
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It keeps satisfying the soul and this offer is for all people, all people, no one excluded.
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Now let God be the one that makes people thirsty. I think of a time just last week
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I shared the gospel with some guy. My kid was playing soccer and I was witnessing to the guy. Now he avoids me like the plague.
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I'm glad to share that with you because that's fine. If they avoid you like the plague, that's fine.
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It's not your job to convert them. You can't make somebody thirsty. But I do know one guy
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I made thirsty. Back in Dallas, he came by and knocked on my door. I was renting a room from another seminary student and he asked to mow the lawn.
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And I said, well I don't own the house but I'll pay you to mow the lawn. How about 10 bucks? I'm a cheapskate there so I would pay more today hopefully.
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$10 to mow the lawn. So he mows the lawn and after he finished, I give him the $10 and I say, can
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I get you a cup of water and you want to stay and talk for a few minutes? And as I gave him a cup of water, I began to share the gospel with him.
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And it was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. One of the most incredible things. He just started to shake.
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He's like, why am I shaking? And then he started to cry as he heard about Jesus and he understood the gospel and he was just gloriously saved and transformed in that one second.
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In that moment of believing. There was nothing different about that time sharing the gospel and the hundreds of other times when people say, no.
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When God makes someone thirsty and you bring the water of life and they drink deeply, it's him doing it.
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You just do your part and you preach and you let him determine what comes of it.
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It's like the scatterer of seed in Matthew chapter 10. Some will be good soil. That's up to God and that's the point here.
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Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
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You don't have to earn anything and there's probably many people who will hear this message maybe later online. You'll be listening online and you'll think, well, not me.
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I've sinned too much. If God knew what I did, he wouldn't want me.
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The church would burn down if I entered in. If you think that, listen.
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The offer to come is for you. The good news is for you.
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You're already to the point where you realize you're a sinner. There's nothing you could have possibly done that's stronger than the blood of Jesus that washes sinners like us.
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No matter what you've done, no matter where you've been. I don't care what you've been involved with.
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Maybe it's sorcery. Maybe you've been in the New Age movement and listening to things like that.
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Maybe you've actually gotten involved in dark things like tarot cards and the
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Ouija boards and all of that. Maybe it's homosexuality. Maybe it's some other form of sexual immorality, idolatry, lying.
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Wherever you've been, whatever you've done, if you will turn from your sin, simply come, repent, and say,
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Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. I can't save myself. He saves sinners like that.
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This is good news to the sinner, but you must repent of your sin. You have to turn and come to him for forgiveness and drink of that water.
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It's a free gift, no price. Verse 18 and 19 is this warning you're familiar with.
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I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them,
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God will add to him the plagues described in this book. Who in the
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New Testament was famous for adding to the scripture? The Pharisees.
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They always added to what God said. They had laws upon laws upon laws.
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And so they wouldn't accept Jesus' message of grace. Verse 19, if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, who in the
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New Testament is famous for that? If the Pharisees added to the words, the
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Sadducees, they in fact said that they only needed the first five books. And they took away the writings and the prophets, the
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Nevi 'im, the Ketuvim, but they only wanted the Torah. They took away. And in a similar way, today you have people that will add to the scriptures or take from the scriptures.
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God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city. Now the
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King James has, have your name blotted out from the book of life. If you read the actual
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Greek, this is in fact the right translation in the ESV. It's the xylo, zoes.
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Xylo means timber or tree or stick. Zoes means life. So it's the tree of life, not the book of life.
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But the point remains, if a person will doctor the scriptures, as liberal scholars do all the time, in fact some of these translations, somebody was sharing with me a translation called the
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Gen Z Bible or something like that. It's supposedly a paraphrase put into modern language.
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Like John 1, 1, in the beginning was the big G. And the big
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G was with little J or something like that. Just however they tried to make it hip and modern for the next generation.
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Listen, you're doctoring the scripture at that point. Your job as a translator of scripture is to be faithful to what was written.
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These are the very words of God. You can't play fast and loose with this word. So this would apply not only to the book of Revelation, but as the book of the, the last book of the
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Bible, it applies also to the 66 books of our canon. And one day we can talk about how the 66 books were given by God and how we know that is the case.
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But we'll do that another night, another day. Verse 20 and 21, we close with these words and then all
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God's people will say, amen. He who testifies to these things says, surely
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I am coming soon. And John's reaction should be ours. It's our prayer.
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Come Lord Jesus. That is our prayer. Maranatha. Verse 21, the grace of the
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Lord Jesus be with you all. He circles it back around to the foundation of it all. The grace given us before the foundation of the world.
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First Timothy chapter one, I believe it is. No, second Timothy chapter one. Grace. He ends with it there as well.
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The Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen. Amen. So in closing, and we'll close with prayer.
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The worship team will come in just a minute. Guys, we have been commissioned commissioned to go and say what?
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Come. We have to go to our next door neighbor and invite them. Say come. Odds are they will reject you.
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They'll say, no thank you. But you still invited them. Invite them to your house.
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Say come over. I want to talk to you about the way. That might intrigue them. Invite them to church.
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Invite them to watch online. Invite the world to come. And remember, you are anointed to do this.
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You have the word. We just studied through the entire book of Revelation. You don't need any gnostic knowledge, any secret initiation to something bigger.
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You have what the world needs. You've studied it. You understand it. You have the word.
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You have the spirit. You are anointed. What did anointing signify in the Old Testament? The pouring of oil to designate a certain holy person as a role that they had, which were what?
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Prophet, priest, and king. We're all anointed. In Christ, there's a sense in which you are all those things.
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You are anointed to be a prophet. Go speak prophetically to the culture. Calling people to faith.
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And what is the spirit of prophecy? The testimony of Jesus. Go tell people about Christ.
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Go as a priest. First of all, a priest prays, interceding between the lost and a holy
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God. You begin to pray for that unsaved friend of yours. That's your role as a priest.
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For your family member. For your neighbor. In the anointing of God's spirit, you pray for their salvation.
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And then the kingly role. You will one day reign with him. So understand that you go in the authority of the king.
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After you are given the commission, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything.
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What? And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the earth. The king is with you.
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He's giving you the authority to do this. I know a young man back there starting an FCA. Two guys.
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Starting a fellowship of Christian athlete at Cinnamon High School. Go do that in the power that God supplies.
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And each one of you, you have a ministry where God has placed you. This world needs it, don't they?
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They're in fear. They're enslaved in sin. And we have the truth. Let's go and tell it on a mountain.
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Let's pray. Worship team, come on up. So Lord, I am aware in this moment that there are probably many who will hear this word who do not yet have the robes of righteousness.
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And I pray in Jesus' name that you will make them thirsty. Open their ears to hear the invitation to come.
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That they also can come and be washed clean. That their sins, though they are scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
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Draw them to yourself, Father. Command them to repent and believe the good news.
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God, I ask that you would open their hearts to believe that many will come to saving faith through this message.
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This final invitation in the book of Revelation to all who are thirsty. And I pray for us who are gathered in this room right now,
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Lord, that we would be filled with your spirit, anointed with the
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Holy Spirit and fire and the word of God, which is sufficient to go and say, come to the many.
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And we pray, Lord, that you would stretch out your hand to heal, stretch out your hand to change hearts.
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We pray that you would use each one of us to win many souls to Christ. In Jesus' name, amen.
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Let's stand and sing. When strength is gone
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You're the one Who calls me on You are the light
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You are the fight That's in my soul Oh, the resurrection vow
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Burns like fire in my heart When water dries
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I just know We are more than conquerors
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Nothing is impossible Every chain is breakable
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With you we are You are stronger than Victorious We are more than conquerors
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Through Christ You have overcome
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His life We will not bow To sin or to shame
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We are defiant In your name You are the fire
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That cannot be tamed You are the power In our veins
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Our Lord, our God, Our conqueror Surely I am coming soon
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Amen. Come, Lord Jesus, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Going to Hebrews, the book that presents
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Christ as preeminent and supreme. So we're just going to be lifting him up for these coming weeks. Yes, amen.
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It's a great book of the Bible. Thank you all for coming. About those statistics that I cited, somebody asked me afterwards where I got those from.
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They're from cdc .org and on my Facebook. If anybody does Facebook, you can just look at Jeff Cleaver's personal
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Facebook. They're on there from DeSantis, the governor of Florida. So you can look back and find them there if you need to cite them.
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Somebody wanted to share those with people in their lives, and they're helpful. So if you want to look that up there.