Two Advents

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, help us grow in the knowledge of yourself and to remain firm in the confession

of your beloved word.

Give us the love to be of one mind and to serve one another in Christ, and then we will not be afraid of that which

is disagreeable nor of the rage of the arson of Satan, whose torch is almost extinguished.

Dear Father, guard us so that his craftiness may not take the place of our pure faith.

Grant that our cross and sufferings may lead to a blessed and sure hope of the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ, for

whom we wait daily.

Amen.

Okay, give me a second here.

I'm gonna put that over here.

And as is our practice, you are welcomed and encouraged

to ask questions.

I don't know what it is about certain pastors.

They are threatened by questions.

We are not.

So let me check the chat to see here if there's anything.

Bruce says, I'm here.

That being said, I have a question based on the sermon for the Bible study.

Oh no.

Oh no. Oh no.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Willing that any should perish.

That's awesome.

The question is, how do we reconcile the patience of God not willing that anyone should perish

with the times in Scripture, Pharaoh and Moses most notably, when God hardens the heart of a sinner so that they

cannot repent?

That, by the way, is a legitimate thing.

We'll talk about that in a minute here as I'm formulating my answer for Bruce here.

And then additionally, Jesus says in the Gospels that he preaches in parables lest people hear,

understand and repent.

Yep, he does that.

I would actually go to the Matthew text for that.

I think it's a little clearer.

So what do we do with this idea?

So we as Lutherans, we are not Calvinists.

I need to point this out.

And so we have some differences of theology

regarding the other branches of the Reformation.

So, and oddly enough, if you were to talk to confessional Lutherans, confessional Lutherans do not

like to be listed as Protestants.

That's not what they, so we get a little touchy about that.

And you're sitting there going, well, what are you?

We're Catholics, small c.

And we believe that the Reformed, they misappropriated

reason, human reason, and have created doctrines that are not in scripture.

So one of the doctrines that the Calvinists hold onto is the idea of

limited atonement, limited atonement.

And so limited atonement is this idea that Christ did not bleed and die for the sins of the whole world.

In other words, John the Baptist was wrong when he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Whenever the Calvinist runs into a passage like that, they say, behold, the Lamb of God who died for

the elect.

Okay?

And so in the Calvinist system then, when you come across passages where it

says it's not his will that any should perish, they will add a word.

It's not his will that any of the elect should perish, but that God has willed from eternity that

people would perish in their sins, and that he would be glorified by that.

So the Lutheran sits there and says, you can't do this because there's no biblical texts that say that.

So we as Lutherans then, we hold onto what the scriptures say and

which requires us to hold some things in paradox.

So it is absolutely true that Christ bled and died for the sins of the whole world.

It's also absolutely true, it's not God's will that any should perish.

So when it comes to the question, why me and not somebody else?

How is it that I'm saved but that person who's also heard the gospel has not repented and doesn't believe?

The Lutheran gives the answer, we don't know because God hasn't given us the answer in scripture.

If you remember last week in the book of Revelation, in fact, I have it on the screen in front of us,

that John, when he was in heaven, he heard things spoken by

the seven thunders, right?

Let me read this out.

So when he called out, the seven thunders sounded, and when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write what I

heard a voice from heaven saying, and then I heard a voice from heaven saying, seal up what the seven

thunders have said and do not write it down.

The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and the land raised his right hand to heaven and swore by him who

lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, and earth and what

is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay.

So we don't know what the seven thunders said.

The best way to put it is you're gonna note that this is an example of, hang on, I got a rock in my sock.

It's bugging me.

All right, how did that get in there?

All right.

Yeah, yeah.

Anybody misbehaving out there?

I could do a Brezhnev.

Anyway, most people don't know what I'm talking about.

All right, that being the case, you'll note that God doesn't reveal everything to us.

He doesn't tell us everything.

There are certain things that stay within the counsel of the Trinity or the angels in heaven that

are not for man to know.

So at the end of the day, there are two things that are absolutely true.

We know this from clear passages.

It's not God's will that any would perish.

It's also true that anybody who perishes, it's their fault,

not God's.

They are perishing contrary to the expressed will of God.

And then, so this does not give us the freedom to sit there and say, well, some people resisted more than others.

That's not the answer to the question.

We don't get to use our logic and reason to fill in the blank.

We just don't know.

That being the case, there is a pattern in scripture

that Bruce mentioned immediately here in the book of Exodus.

As it relates to persistent impenitence.

So let me go to Exodus 5.

Let's see here.

And let me make this just a little bit bigger.

So afterwards, Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, let my people go,

that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

But Pharaoh said, who is Yahweh that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?

I do not know Yahweh, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.

And then they said, the God of the Hebrews has met with us.

Please let us go a three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our

God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.

The king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work?

Get back to your burdens.

And Pharaoh said, behold, the people of the land are now many and you make them rest from

their burdens.

So you're gonna note that as then the story develops and unfolds,

as Moses and Aaron keep coming back to Pharaoh and

saying, and saying, Yahweh says, let my people go,

what ends up happening is as you hear these words that Pharaoh hardened his heart.

Pharaoh hardened his heart.

Let me see if I can get an example of that.

So let me scroll down.

I'm scrolling down further into the text.

So let's see here.

All right, we wanna get a little farther along here.

832, someone's ahead of me.

This is an inefficient way of doing this, but that's okay.

Let's see here, 832.

So Moses went, verse 30, went out from Pharaoh, prayed to the Lord and Yahweh did this.

Moses asked, remove the swarm of flies from Pharaoh and from his servants and from the people

and not one remained, but Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also

and did not let the people go.

And so here's what's happening, if you would.

And these plagues are actually helpful in a study of the book of Revelation, especially as we get into the

chapters that are ahead.

Pharaoh is seeing the hand of God at work.

Now, we happen to know the name of the magicians that were with Pharaoh.

And when Moses first used one of his signs and put his staff on the ground, it became a

serpent.

The two magicians of Pharaoh were able to do the same thing.

When Moses, with the staff of God and by God's command, was able to turn water

into blood and change the Nile into blood, these fellows also found some

scant amount of fresh water and turned it into blood as well.

And then with the subsequent miracles and judgment signs,

the plagues that God sent, these two magicians, we know their name from the book of Jude, they are Janus and

Jambres, that's their names.

They told Pharaoh that this is the finger of God, this is the hand of God that is at work.

So Pharaoh, who is a false god king, I always like to point out a

few things regarding Pharaoh.

The headdress of Pharaoh, what's it look like?

It looks like a snake's head, like a cobra head, right?

The Pharaoh is a stand -in for the devil, if you would.

A false god king, a tyrannical false god king oppressing the people of God.

You kind of see how the types and shadows work there.

So over and again then, as these plagues are unwinding, this false god king is being shown to be

what he is, a false god king, powerless against the one true God, and rather than saying,

I am undone, he continues to harden his heart,

and then later in the plagues, the verbs change.

God is the one then, it says, that the Lord hardened his heart.

He hardened his heart, he hardened his heart, he hardened his heart, and then it switches, and then Yahweh hardened his heart.

I've done a teaching on this in the past, and in fact, it's in the Kongsvinger website,

I think it's something about going full Burger King.

The idea here is that at some point, if you're going to persist in sin and unbelief, especially

when God is acting in powerful and unmistakable ways, and you can, there's no doubt that his hand

is at work, and you're gonna persist in sin and unbelief and rebellion against that, then

at some point, God will say, fine, have it your way.

And I always like to invoke the old Burger King commercials, hold the pickles, hold the lettuce,

nevermind.

Anyway, those of you old enough can remember.

But so the idea then is that, yeah, and when God does that, when God hardens somebody's heart

in the here and the now, it's usually under extreme circumstances, and all

that is at that point is God basically saying, all right, you don't wanna repent?

You don't wanna be forgiven?

Fine, we'll go ahead and we'll just go ahead and make that, we'll ratify that now, we won't

even wait for the day of judgment, and we'll make it impossible for you to repent.

God will do that, but it's usually under super extreme circumstances, best way I can put it.

And this then becomes the context of what will happen in the New Testament and what Christ refers

to as the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Let me open up another tab here, and we're gonna go backwards into

the book of Matthew, because it's Matthew 13 where there's the big turn.

And so in Matthew chapter 12, I think Matthew does a really good job of

kind of giving us kind of the fuller context of what was happening in Christ's ministry

prior to him preaching in parables.

And there's a definitive turn in the book of Matthew, and it takes place in 12.

So you'll note that from the Sermon on the Mount all the way

up to Matthew 12, Jesus teaches plainly, he teaches openly,

and he's performing miracles that are undeniable, absolutely

undeniable.

But in chapter 12, you see now an absolute collision between

Christ and the Pharisees.

They are going to war with Jesus is the best way to put it, and it really comes to a head in 12.

At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.

His disciples were hungry.

They began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.

But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him,.

Look, your disciples are doing.

What is not lawful on the Sabbath.

They weren't breaking the Sabbath, by the way.

They were breaking the rules created by the Pharisees regarding the Sabbath, but they weren't breaking the Sabbath.

And so Jesus goes into the Old Testament and says, have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him,

how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for him to eat nor for those

who were with him, but only for the priests?

Or have you not read in the law how the Sabbath, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath

and are guiltless?

I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.

And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless for the

Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.

Now, I'm gonna kind of make a point here, and that is that if you really wanna get in trouble with people,

just start showing mercy and grace and kindness and forgiveness to those whom the self -righteous have condemned.

That's gonna get you in a lot of trouble.

And here, Christ has said that his disciples are guiltless.

They were not guiltless according to the so -called tradition of the elders.

They had clearly broken the Sabbath according to the rules set up by the Pharisees, but not according to the

rules set up by God.

And then, Christ continues.

He says he went on from there.

He entered their synagogue.

A man was there with a withered hand.

And many of us, we have experience.

We've met people with this type of condition.

I remember attending a congregation, Faith Lutheran Church in Capistrano Beach, California.

There was a fellow, both of his arms were withered.

And he was very good at using his feet as for

writing and other things because he had no ability to do it.

So we've all met people like this.

So Christ is in the synagogue.

It's a Saturday.

And they asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him?

He said to them, all right, which one of you has a sheep?

If it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?

Of how much more value is a man than a sheep?

So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

And then to make the point, he said to the man, notice here, Jesus didn't

touch him.

Jesus didn't go up and actually physically do anything.

He just said to the man, stretch out your hand.

And the man stretched it out and it was restored healthy like the others.

But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him.

How hard does your heart have to be that God has miraculously

performed a healing in your presence?

It was undeniable.

This man's hand was withered and Christ said, stretch out your hand.

And the guy stretches out his hand and guess what?

He's got a normal arm.

The normal response in church is praise God.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Lord.

Their response was, kill him, kill him, right?

Yeah, so their response was to kill him.

And so you're gonna note here that the Pharisees are in a similar

circumstance to Pharaoh.

Very similar.

There's no doubt that the hand of God is moving mightily in their presence.

They've witnessed it.

It's undeniably God who is at work.

So Jesus, aware of this, then withdrew from there and many followed him and he healed them all.

And he ordered them not to make him known.

And this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah.

Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him

and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

He will not quarrel or cry out aloud nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.

A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice

to victory.

These are kind words.

I love the fact that Isaiah's words get rolled up into the Gospel of Matthew here because if you're

like me, then there have been times in your life when the world, your own

sinful flesh and the devil have gotten the better of you.

And it just feels like you don't believe for a second that God could possibly be

kind or forgiving towards you.

And so your faith is like a bruised reed or a smoldering wick.

It's still there but barely.

And the Pharisees and the self -righteous would have you believe that if your faith gets down to the smoldering

part, that Jesus is gonna lick his finger and go and just put it out.

But no, that's not how Jesus operates.

Instead, Jesus will protect the smoldering wick and even begin to fan

it back into flame.

All right, now comes the big to do.

So a demon -oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him.

All right, so the guy's blind, he's mute.

Oh, and he's demonized.

That's a lovely combination, right?

And what did Jesus do?

He healed him.

So that the man spoke and he saw.

And all the people were amazed and they said, can this be the son of David?

Their seeing of this miracle, the demon cast out, the man's eyes being opened, him being able to

speak, and they're going, oh, it's the son of David.

It's Jesus, it's the Messiah, all right?

And if you remember the movie Monty Python, the Holy Grail, there was one particular character who wanted to dance and to

sing.

And every time he would start to break out in song,.

No, no, no, no, no, not like that, not that, not,.

You know, they would always stop him, right?

The Pharisees are like that.

So here the people are going to break out, praise God, it's the son of David.

And the Pharisees all, no, no, no, no, not like that,.

Not, no, no, no, right?

So, yeah, I've watched Monty Python's Holy Grail more times than I can count.

Anyway.

So, the Pharisees then, they heard this and they said, it's only by Beelzebul, the prince of the

demons, that this man casts out demons.

Really, what?

So Jesus is performing miracles by virtue of the fact that he's,

this is all some kind of demonic, you know, ruse.

So knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, every kingdom that's divided against itself is laid waste.

No city or house divided against itself will stand.

If Satan casts out Satan, he's divided against himself.

How then will his kingdom stand?

And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?

Ooh, burn, getting a little salty there, Jesus.

Therefore, they will be your judges.

But if it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man?

Then, indeed, he may plunder his house.

Whoever is not with me is against me.

Whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Therefore, I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, people, but the blasphemy against the

spirit will not be forgiven, and whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven,

but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age nor in the age to come.

Full stop.

So now we've got a problem, and you're gonna note here that Christ is making it

clear that these Pharisees have blasphemed.

They have blasphemed the Holy Spirit, and they know full well that God is working among them, and

rather than bend the knee, repent, be forgiven themselves, and give praise and glory to God,

that in their lifetime they were privileged to see the Messiah working among them, they

instead ascribed his powers to the devil.

Very much like what Pharaoh did.

Very much, all right?

And so in 13 then, Jesus goes full Burger King on him,

and he begins to preach in parables, and this is to make a distinction.

It's to make a distinction between those who believe in him and those who do not believe in him, and the whole purpose of

him preaching in parables is not because Jesus is the greatest communicator on earth, and he has

just this amazing ability to take ideas and concepts from the everyday world and just

explain the word of God in those manners.

No, the whole purpose of him speaking in parables is so that certain people would not get it.

It's a form of judgment.

So that same day, Jesus went out of the house, sat beside the sea, a great crowd gathered about him.

Then he got into a boat, sat down, the whole crowd stood on the beach.

He told them many things in parables.

A sower went out to sow.

As he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and birds came and devoured them.

The other seeds fell on the rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil.

But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away.

Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

By the way, verse nine is proof positive that what was planted was corn.

Anyway.

Does that sound about right, Wayne?

Amen!

Yeah.

The Lord's crop.

I got an amen from the Hoosier in town.

Alright, that's hilarious.

Anyway, so watch then, the disciples, they didn't come up to Jesus and go way to go Jesus, that

was a great message,.

Best one ever.

The disciples came to him and said, why do you speak in parables?

Well nobody got that, Jesus.

We're all sitting there going,.

So he answered them, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them,

and who's the them there?

The Pharisees, the people who are accusing him of healing by the power of Beelzebul,

right?

But to them it has not been given, for to the one who has, more will be given, has faith, to the one

who, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, hearing they do not hear, nor

do they understand.

Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, that says, you will indeed hear, but never understand,

you will indeed see, but never perceive, for this people's heart has grown dull, with their ears they can barely hear,

and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart,

and turn, and I would heal them.

Now I would note then also, that in this context, in this context, that you

can trace out another facet of this idea that

exists in the Old Testament, and has an antecedent in the New.

And the idea then is, is that scripture talks about those who refuse to hear the voice of God

in scripture, that God himself will send what is called a famine of the word.

It's a similar concept.

So you refuse to hear the scriptures?

Well, God's gonna make it so that there's a famine of the word, and you're not, and you can make it impossible to hear the word of

God.

That's a judgment of God similarly.

Yes, sir?

That's a great question.

Okay.

He knows that in the future.

Uh -huh.

You, that is a very good insight, and here's the reason why I would say that, because here's the point.

He did break the fourth wall, because at this point, you're gonna note that Matthew is treating you as part of the inside

group, and that's the important bit.

And remember in Matthew 28, you have the Great Commission.

Go and make disciples of all nations.

The disciples were the ones who were tasked with the job of discipling all nations.

Technically, it is not my job to disciple nations, and although I have the

privilege of serving and preaching the word to people around the world, the disciples were the ones tasked with

discipling the entire world, all the nations.

And so Matthew is discipling us now, and you're gonna note then, we're being discipled the exact same way that

Matthew was discipled, the same way that Peter was discipled.

The same miracles, the same teaching, the same Jesus, and you're right, the fourth wall has

totally been broken.

It's kind of like, if you've seen the movie The Neverending Story, it's when,

you haven't seen that?

Oh, please God, what is happening to this generation?

Okay, I don't want to give it away, but it's a good

date movie.

Just trust me, just trust me on that one.

It's a good date movie, The Neverending Story.

Okay, yeah, okay.

But in the movie The Neverending Story, there is a book, and the book is

not like any other book, and the weird thing about it is that the reader has

a say in what's taking place in what he's reading.

But so in that particular case, The Neverending Story goes a different direction altogether, but here's the thing, the fourth

plane has been broken, and Christ is speaking to you.

And so you'll note then that what follows is, for the disciple of Christ, to let

Jesus teach you how to interpret his parables, and he teaches you the same way he taught his disciples.

So that's what's going on there.

So I'm gonna give you two extra Sunday school points for that.

Don't know what you're gonna do with them, but there you go.

So, but Bruce, I'm going to, I'm gonna assume that I've kind of answered your question.

It was a little, yeah, we haven't gotten to Revelation, have we?

Um, Bruce is in the house, sorry, sorry, okay.

All right, so at the end of the day, let me answer this question.

Why is it, so the question is, why am I saved and not somebody else?

The answer is, I don't know.

I just don't know.

That's kind of a mystery that's not given for us.

So, you know, and then you'll note that this kind of dovetails with another teaching of Christ.

Over and again, we have this really silly, self -centered way of looking at things.

We like to think that the sinners are out there, but not in here.

And Jesus, when he talks about a natural disaster that occurred, a tower that was being

built fell down in a construction accident, killed a bunch of people.

And Jesus asked the question, do you think that they were any worse sinners than anybody else in Israel?

And his point was, unless you repent, you will likewise perish.

And so this is one of the reasons why, you know, one of the themes of Advent

is preparing for the advent of Christ.

And we're not preparing for his first advent.

We're celebrating his first advent, but we're preparing for his second.

And so the two advents will always kind of come blending together.

And so the same way that people were prepared for the first advent of Christ is the same way people are prepared for his second advent,

by repenting, confessing their sins, by being forgiven.

That's always and again what the point is.

All right, let me check questions, more questions here.

So also, what about when Jesus preached to the ones that were in prison?

Okay, so Mike in, I love, these are like catechism questions.

All right, okay, so when we confess in the creed that Christ descended into

hell, we English speakers, and especially those who are influenced by American

Christianity or evangelicalism, you hear those words and you go, ring, what do you mean he descended into hell?

Ring, you know, that doesn't sound right.

And of course, Kenneth Copeland, the arch heretic, he claims that Christ suffered in hell

for our sins.

Well, Jesus said on the cross, it's finished.

He didn't say, I'm almost there.

You know, he said, just one more thing.

You know, it wasn't like an Apple event.

You know, Jesus said, it's finished.

And so he accomplished our entire salvation on the cross.

But the question is, when we say he descended into hell, there's just a couple of texts in this

regard that talk about the fact that Christ, when he descended, you know, and you can say he went

to Sheol.

That's probably the more accurate way of putting it.

And one translation of the creed says he descended to the dead, because hell, when we think of hell,

we think of the lake of fire after the last day.

But in Sheol itself, there is a hell -like place where people are being held,

currently to this day.

And those who die impenitent end up in that portion of Sheol.

It's referred to as Hades.

It's a place of torment and punishment, awaiting the day of judgment, and then the whole thing just

gets tossed into the lake of fire.

You know, so a difference that makes no difference is no difference at all.

But when Christ descends to Sheol, we know that he descends to the portion of Sheol known as Abraham's bosom.

And it says that he proclaimed, you know, he preached to the spirits that were in prison,

to those who refused to believe in the days of Noah before Noah got into the

ark.

So the idea then is the purpose of Christ's descent into Sheol was for the purpose of proclaiming his victory.

And then the second portion of it you see in the book of Ephesians, where it says, when he ascended, he led a

host of captives in his train.

Okay, so we recognize that the Bible teaches that the intermediate state for saints

in the Old Testament is different than the intermediate state now.

So the idea then is that when those who believed in God rightly

and trusting in his promises to send the future Messiah, that when they died,

they went to Sheol, to the portion that's known as paradise, and they were awaiting

Christ to come down.

And the purpose then of his ascent was, in his ascent then, they then, the

intermediate state, they went from Sheol to the heavenly kingdom.

So we as New Testament believers recognize that then when we die, our intermediate

state is we are in the presence of Christ.

We are escorted there by the angels themselves.

They take us to the presence of Christ.

So as Paul says, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

Whereas the Old Testament saints, to be absent from the body was to be present with your fathers in Sheol.

And then now, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, they're all with Christ in heaven.

It's part of the great multitude, that's the idea.

So yeah, good question.

These are the kinds of topics that come up in our catechism classes, by the way.

And if you are not attending our catechism classes online, join us, join us.

It takes me about two, two and a half years to go through the catechism.

And the reason being is because I believe in quality, not quantity.

It's like the basics of the Christian faith take that long to teach.

All right, so could these locusts we talked about last week be what demons look like?

We recognize that the depictions that we get in the book of Revelation are very

symbolic, best way to put it.

They're just symbolic.

I have no idea what a demon looks like, and it's weird to talk about something that is a

spirit in a physical way like that.

So it's a little bit difficult.

All right, all right.

Let's see here.

In other Sunday schools we've attended, questions take up too much time from the scheduled

materials.

Thanks, Sylvester family.

So do I need to repent?

Okay, that's my follow -up question to your point.

Okay, let's see.

A great point, even more nasty a reaction than pointing out our sin.

So ultimately, ultimate means to show Pharaoh's rejection of God.

So hardening of the hearts is God providing the means of making the rejection manifest as their final testimony against them.

Yeah, exactly.

So again, everybody who's saved, they are saved because God has been the one who has drawn them and

repented them and given them faith.

Everybody who perishes, it's their fault.

It is their fault.

So very, these are two truths that we hang on to, and we don't try to reconcile

the paradox.

All right, charismatic movement says you can't criticize them unless you blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

Yeah, they do.

Apparently I've made a career of blaspheming the Holy Spirit because of all the charismatics I've criticized, and over and

again, the thing that is thrown up in my face.

So we, with regularity on fighting for the faith, take people's so -called prophecies, take their

doctrines, and we compare it to the word of God, and we show that these prophecies are false.

Most of them, they're not even, there's no way for them to even be true.

It's just complete word salad.

If you listen to the people who claim to be prophets today, they'll say, oh, I received a download from the Holy Spirit, and

he's saying that a season of breakthroughs and shakings is coming, and all this

kind of just word salad nonsense, and you sit there, and what does any of that mean?

Or I kind of feel like the Lord is telling me right now, and what a weird way to talk.

Isaiah never said, I kind of feel like the Lord is telling me that the Messiah will be the prince of peace,

and that he kind of sort of kind of might be born of a virgin -ish Mary thingy, you know?

No prophet ever spoke like this, all right?

These people are clearly not hearing from God, but their followers, they get right in my face, and

they'll say, touch not God's anointed, or how does this glorify God?

Or you are blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

You're still not believing.

No, I'm not blaspheming the Holy Spirit by pointing out that these wackadoodle wingnuts aren't hearing from Jesus, or the

Holy Spirit, or anything.

They're hearing from their mentally -fevered minds, you know, or the demons.

This is clearly something that we are called to do, to test these spirits, hold fast

to what is good.

Yeah, right, yeah.

So, all right, does the Lord still actively close our ears so we misunderstand

Scripture today?

That's scary, what can I do?

All right, so let's, I'm gonna answer your question first, and I'm gonna add to

your anxiety for a minute, but hang on a second here.

So the answer to your question is yes, and I'm gonna give you an example from 2 Thessalonians, chapter two.

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our being gathered together to Him, the Apostle Paul says, we ask you, brothers,

not to be quickly shaken in mind, or alarmed, either by a spirit, or a spoken word, or a letter, seeming to be from us to the

effect that the day of the Lord has already come.

I guess you guys didn't know this, but apparently the Left Behind series was written 2 ,000 years ago, and whoever wrote

it put the Apostle Paul's name on as the author.

So, yeah, so he says, let no one deceive you in any way.

That day will not come unless the apostasy, that's what rebellion means, unless the apostasy comes,

and the man of lawlessness is revealed, who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called God, or object of worship,

so that he takes a seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things, and you know what's restraining him now, so that he may be

revealed?

We talk about the fact that what we saw in Revelation from last week was the

removal of the restraints and the unleashing of the hordes of hell, so

graphically depicted, and then you'll note then, with verse seven, the mystery of lawlessness is already at

work, only he who restrains it will do so until he's out of the way.

So the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his

coming.

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan, with all power and false

signs and wonders.

When you think of false signs and wonders, think of like Todd White and his leg -lengthening trick, that's a false

sign, okay?

Benny Hinn knocking people over with his jacket, claiming that's the power of the Holy Spirit, false sign,

right?

And with all wicked deception, for those who are perishing, and here's the part that needs to sober us up,

because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved, therefore God sends them a

strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned

who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

So along those same lines, we talked about the fact that there would be a famine of the word, that's another way in which God

exacts judgment.

He makes it very difficult for people to hear the word of God, or to understand it,

or what ends up happening, and we've seen this over the last few decades.

It's like watching lamps being turned out across the globe as more

and more faithful pastors are being run out of their churches and being replaced with clowns

and entertainers, and people who are not rightly handling God's word.

It's absolutely frightening.

I think about early on when the purpose -driven movement was really starting to get legs and we

saw the ascension of people like Stephen Furtick and Perry Noble and others

of their ilk, my criticism of them is that they weren't preaching the word of God.

They were basically, if you were to sit under their preaching an entire year, you couldn't fill

a thimble with the amount of Bible that they were preaching,

because all they were doing was ripping just tiny little verses or bits of Bible out of context, and the rest of the time

they were pretty much preaching about themselves.

And Perry Noble, fully aware, fully aware of the criticism

that I was leveling against him he went on a tirade at a New Spring Leadership Conference with a

room full of pastors.

I happened to be there on that particular occasion.

It was awkward having him rebuking me while looking at a camera, because I was sitting over here and he was looking at the

camera dead center.

And he was calling me, I'm not gonna use the phrase,

but we'll just use an alternative phrase, jackball.

He was calling me a jackball, but he was using a different phrase.

And he says, let me tell you about the jackball in the church.

The jackball in the church is the guy who says we always have to go deeper.

He says, deep?

Let's take a look at your tithing record to see how deep you are.

And he said, Christians are educated way beyond their obedience, so I don't have to preach the Bible.

And to that, a room full of pastors went,

and I sat there and said, whoa, you've gotta be kidding me.

You've got to be kidding me.

And so, the idea here is that God will send a famine of the word.

You don't wanna hear his word?

Fine.

He's gonna make it so your pastor will not preach the word.

And not only that, you'll think that he's honoring God by not doing it.

That's the weird thing.

That's the strong delusion talk.

So you'll note that, and then of course, I point out that many of the people who claim to be

prophets today, these are people who are obviously mentally ill.

And I mean obviously.

One particular woman who we've gone after in the past, we are good friends with her sister.

And this is a woman who had a platform in one of the major charismatic churches in Brisbane in Australia.

And she was often given the microphone on the stage to give prophetic utterances that she

claims were coming from God.

Well, in getting to know her sister, we know her, for a fact, she was mentally diagnosed with a

pretty severe mental illness.

You don't wanna hear the word of God?

God's gonna replace faithful pastors with people who are obviously mentally ill, and you're gonna think that you're hearing the

voice of God through them, when you're not.

It's a frightening thing.

So the question is, what can I do?

Repent.

That's the idea.

And so the way, let me show you from 2 Timothy, what this looks like.

So Paul, writing to young Pastor Timothy, who was a pastor in a congregation

in the city of Ephesus, as Paul's getting ready to finish his course, again, 2 Timothy is the last

letter that Paul wrote.

He says, as for you, verse 14, chapter three, continue in what you've learned, and I firmly believe, knowing from

whom you've learned it, and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you

wise for salvation through faith in Christ.

All scripture is breathed out by God.

It's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete

and equipped for every good work.

So I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing, preach

the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching,

for the time is coming when people will not endorse sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves

teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth, and they will wander off into myths.

What you do in this situation, and here's how this works in evangelicalism.

You point out, pastor, you're not really preaching the word, and the pastor turns on you and

says, well, you're just being selfish.

That's a personal preference, all right?

I am not preaching large amounts of the word of God because I want to make our

church friendly so that somebody who is a seeker can find something valuable in church

and for them.

So it's selfish of you to ask for more Bible, but you don't ever say the word repent.

Oh, we don't want to turn people away.

We don't want to be negative.

Okay, and so what happens is is that you end up believing that fellow, knowing full well the scriptures talk

the exact opposite.

The job of a pastor is to preach the word.

If I ever stop preaching the word, sack me.

I have broken my ordination vows.

That's the reality of the situation, and so what do we do?

We make excuses for it.

Well, I'll just spit out the bones and chew the meat, or I don't want to

be too judgmental or be accused of having a critical spirit, and so what do you do?

You stay there.

Get out.

God does not will for you to sit under a man who is scratching itching ears and who is telling people what they

want to hear rather than preaching the word, and if you have the

opportunity to sack a pastor who is not preaching the word, then sack him, but you're gonna note in these purpose -driven

churches, there is no way to get rid of them.

They've completely reworked how the ecclesiastical structure works where you're accountable to them, but they're not

accountable to you at all.

It's a frightening thing, absolutely frightening, so the idea then is that rather

than stay and hear poison poured into your ear Sunday after

Sunday after Sunday, you leave and you go find a pastor

who is going to preach the word, who is not going to give you Care Bears

sunshine and rainbows every week and tell you everything's gonna be okay, but rightly preaches law and

gospel, sin and grace, repentance and the forgiveness of sins, and rightly handles the word of truth,

and that's gonna require you to go, well, I better figure out what it means to rightly handle the word of truth.

Right.

That means you're gonna have to apply yourself to the word of God, and you're going to have to learn a few things and

not take it so nonchalantly.

Christ and the apostles and the prophets have all warned us about false teachers and false prophets,

and God has expressly stated in his word, it is not his will that you listen to them,

and it is his will that they be silenced.

Yeah, but that would mean I have to go to one of those churches with all those old people.

Yeah, I know, I know.

I'm one of them.

But isn't it true that God is blessing them?

Because look how many young people are coming to their church.

All it is is romper room for young adults.

They're not hearing the word of God.

They're not.

And I've demonstrated this thousands of times in reviewing the sermons from the top guys out there who are

modeling for the world how to do a purpose -driven church.

You're not hearing the word of God.

And worse, what you're ending up with, and what they claim, what they want to do is they want to give

you relevant life tips on how to make your life better.

So you go and you listen to their sermons, and week after week after week, you're left with a to -do list on things that you're supposed to

apply to your life to make your life more successful.

That's not what Christianity is about at all.

And no Bible, and taking God's law and strip mining the Bible for tidbits on things to

apply, all that is is law, and it puts a heavy burden on people.

Because at the end of the day, you're not going to be some bright, shiny penny

as you get closer to the end of your life, you're gonna look like a train wreck like me and like everybody else.

Christ prepares us for death, not for a victorious life now.

That's what it's about.

So yeah.

By the way, I really appreciate the questions today.

Yes, ma 'am.

Right, yeah,

God knows what's happening,.

What's gonna happen.

During the first play, it's fair as rose heart.

Yep.

So fair as rose heart, but he said that the fair was heaven.

Yep.

And the Calvinists

like to try to use is the tree is known by its fruit, which is in that same chapter that we were looking at with the man with withered

hand.

People say, well, good trees are good fruit.

And bad trees are bad fruit,.

And you just have to be a good tree.

Yeah, here's the issue.

God help you if you're not.

You're right, right, just be a good tree.

Even the Calvinists would agree that all of us are born dead in trespasses and sins.

None of us are born good trees.

I was born a bad tree, and I had bad seed, and you had bad seed.

I hate to say it.

You're my daughter, so you're just as awful as I am.

So there's just no way around it.

And so the idea here is that how does one go from being a bad tree to being a

good tree?

That is a miraculous act of God himself.

He's the one who makes us alive in Christ.

He's the one who takes us from being dead in trespasses and sins to being alive in Christ, and that's a miracle

that he works through his means, and that's the working of the Holy Spirit.

So it is the Holy Spirit is the one who has taken us from the dead category, from the bad tree, and made

us good trees.

But even the Calvinists recognize that that's done by God because the Calvinists are monergists.

They're not synergists.

So, yes, sir?

Uh

-huh,

yeah.

The answer to your question is yes, and there's a biblical precedent for it.

I believe it's James, but I'm doing this from memory, so there's a really good chance I'm wrong.

But one of the epistles talk about the false teachers and the false prophets, those who are so far

gone heretically.

It says don't even pray for them.

Don't even pray for them, all right?

So it's a weird thing that somebody who's so far gone, we don't even pray for them.

So the idea then is this, is that we, on the one hand, we absolutely affirm that what

Christ did on the cross, he bled and died for the sins of the whole world.

That is going to include Adolf Hitler's sins, as egregious as they are.

And so if you're offended by the fact that Christ could forgive Hitler, then you do not

yet recognize the depth and magnitude of your own sin.

You are not better than him.

You are just as condemned as he is in your own sins.

That being the case, we don't see any meaningful evidence

that Hitler repented in this lifetime and that he trusted in

Christ.

And because of that, without any evidence, we would say that we are very

doubtful that on the day of judgment that he will stand with the sheep, okay?

But here's the thing.

I'm not his judge and neither are you.

Same with Stalin and others.

So we are the ones who are judged.

So I have no evidence to believe that he had a confession of Christ.

And again, I love pointing to that book that CPH published regarding Pastor Gerke,

who was the chaplain, the Missouri Senate chaplain who was asked by the President of the United States to stay back after the war

and to be the pastor to the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.

And it's a fantastic, amazing account.

And Pastor Gerke, he held the line and he would not absolve any of them that didn't confess Christ.

But any of them that truly repented, he would not only absolve them, he also gave them the Lord's Supper and

he fed them as sheep.

And I forget the name of the one particular war criminal.

In this trial, he was found guilty of egregious war crimes.

And it was absolutely right that the man would be put to death for those crimes that he committed

against humanity and against God.

But that being the case, Pastor Gerke was his pastor, escorted him to the gallows.

And as this Nazi war criminal ascended the gallows, he turned around and said to Pastor Gerke, I'll

see you later, right?

So we all then, repentance requires us to remain humble and to

know that there are going to be people in heaven that it's absolutely scandalous that they're there and that's

the beauty of the cross.

And so Christ himself even brings that point up when he says that on the day of judgment, the people

of Nineveh will rise up and condemn this generation.

The people of Nineveh, all right, the ones who repented under the preaching of Jonah, all

right, that Christ affirms that those who repented in the days of Jonah, that

they are saved and that they stand with the righteous and that they will condemn those who

witnessed the very miracles of Christ, saw his miracles, heard his preaching, and they refused to repent.

Because at the end of the day, the message of Christ was repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand by virtue

of the fact that the king himself was present.

And so that's the message that is singular to every generation of every human being,

regardless of where you are, what language you speak, what nation you have as your nationality, the

word of God comes to us and calls us all to repent.

Period, full stop.

Yes.

Yep.

Right, yeah, yeah.

And I would make this one distinction.

Scripture commands us to judge on particular things and not judge on others.

Christ himself says that we need to make a righteous judgment, a correct judgment.

But the thing we are warned against is the judgment of the self -righteous.

And where the self -righteous is always quick to condemn somebody else, but never themselves.

And so that's where hypocrisy is.

And so when Christ talks about judging others and then the same standard being applied to them, he's

talking specifically about hypocrites.

A hypocrite will, a great example of is the story of the Pharisee and the tax

collector.

So two men went into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.

And the Pharisee looked up to heaven and prayed thus.

I thank you God that I am not like other men.

I'm not like the sinners, that I tithe all the way down to a tenth of my herbs.

And what did he do?

He prayed about himself.

And he condemned the guy next to him, right?

But the thing is is that he's not righteous.

He is a sinner.

The Pharisees always complained that Christ was a friend of sinners and that he ate with tax collectors and sinners.

Well, if Jesus didn't eat with sinners, he wouldn't be able to eat with anybody.

Poor Jesus would have to have all of his meals by himself.

Talk about social distancing, right?

Sin is way worse than COVID, let me tell you.

But what the tax collector, and this is a guy who is a complete,

he betrayed his own people, stolen from them.

He's egregiously mistreated his own people.

This guy couldn't even lift his eyes to heaven.

He said, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

And so you'll note then that we are, in certain things, called to judge.

We're called to judge when somebody's preaching false doctrine.

We are called to judge and rightly recognize that somebody is sinning, but not do

so in a self -righteous way.

So, because if I couldn't judge, then if somebody were to come to me and say, Pastor, I've got a problem,

I have the sin of the five -finger discount.

Every time I go to Walmart, there's a whole bunch of stuff in my shopping cart that I've never paid for, and

I've been stealing now for the past five years.

Well, if I couldn't judge them correctly, I wouldn't be able to say to them, that is a sin and you need to repent.

I would say, well, who am I to judge?

That doesn't help them, right?

So the way I help them is by saying yes and affirming that is a sin, you need to repent, and Christ

can and does forgive that sin, and you need to bear fruit in keeping with repentance and restore to

the authorities what you've stolen.

The idea here is bearing fruit.

So, yeah, we do make judgments.

We don't make judgments self -righteously or hypocritically.

Does that help?

Right.

We gotta be careful with that, too, because you'll note that it's sinners that end up in hell.

So we love a sinner enough to tell them the truth, and that is that God truly

does hate sinners, but also it's true that God so

loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

So the idea then is that an impenitent sinner is one who is at enmity with God, and

a forgiven sinner is a sinner for real who has also been pardoned by God.

So we wanna be careful of the slogans that we use so that we don't let our slogans

stand as the lens by which we interpret scripture.

We have to interpret our slogans by the text themselves.

All right, I have to end here because I have another congregation that I have to serve, so it was good to see you all.

Peace to you, brothers and sisters.

Lord willing, we'll see you next time.