Christians Will Win Down Here | Jeff Durbin

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If you would open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs, God's wisdom from above,

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Proverbs chapter 10. We're doing, working through this incredible word from God, verse by verse, we're in chapter 10 now.

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Today we're gonna be looking at Proverbs chapter 10, verse 25 and verse 30.

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Here now the word of the living and the true God. When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established forever.

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And then verse 30, the righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not dwell in the land.

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Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray. God, we pray, please

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Lord, teach today through the proclamation of your word, the illumination of your spirit.

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We pray God that you would use your word to transform and encourage, edify, teach, renew your people.

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Lord, allow this message, Lord, to go deep within us and challenge us, encourage us, give us hope, but also

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Lord, allow this message to go around the world, Lord, to raise your church up for your glory and kingdom.

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We pray this in Jesus name, amen. It's interesting, Proverbs chapter 10, you remember

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I said, as we've been working through this, as you get into chapter 10, so much of those preceding chapters have big chunks of themes.

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So it's, you know, a lot of verses on a particular theme. It's a little easier to manage because it's a theme, thematic, maybe the entire chapter where you're working through, plugging your way through.

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And it's this whole section on a particular theme. And as you get into chapter 10 and beyond, now you're getting sort of, as Bonson says, these amazing vitamins in pieces, but they're not necessarily connected.

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And so there's a lot of wisdom about different topics, point by point, but sort of scattered in a way.

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But what's interesting is that you'll see so much of it as you read Proverbs is thematic. It's saying the same thing over and over and over again, like God is trying to get us not to take our eyes off of wisdom, like he's trying to get us to actually treasure it up within us, to listen, to not lose sight of.

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And so the book of Proverbs is absolutely incredible. And I'm grateful to God. We were talking with the deacons today, grateful to God for what

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God is doing within us as a church body, to renew our minds, to heal us, to challenge us, to make us godly and wise people.

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But it's interesting because the principles here in these two verses from one chapter, and there's more, today's not gonna be exhaustive.

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Of course, you can't do it in a standalone message. I mean, I might be able to if we go till midnight, but you can't exhaust this, but this principle is throughout scripture, but in particular, it's throughout the book of Proverbs.

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It's everywhere. You've already seen it. We already have captured it. We understand it. It's foundational to so much of what

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God says about wisdom opposed to foolishness, stupidity and foolishness.

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And all of that, we understand the consequences of not pursuing wisdom.

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It's already been there, but it gets amplified in this particular chapter in verse 25 and 30.

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When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established forever. The righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not dwell in the land.

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And the principles of wisdom, God's divine wisdom. This is the word from God.

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These are the words from God as much as the red letters of Jesus in the Gospels. This is the word of the

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Lord. God gives us principles here that tell us that the wicked will not dwell in the land and the righteous will never be removed.

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This goes strong against the evangelical cultural word on this subject.

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We've been taught and we've embraced this idea of total defeat.

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We've embraced the idea that the earth essentially belongs to Satan. We've embraced the idea that we lose down here.

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It's before us in the book of Proverbs, we read a different story. This is something entirely different.

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This is something that goes against the basic Christian presuppositions of our day. They're not necessarily the presuppositions that all

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Christians carried in history. There's giants behind us that taught things that militate against the idea of the wicked inheriting the earth or the wicked dominating the earth or dwelling in the land.

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The whole idea of cultural defeat is something that comes right against these passages.

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God's wisdom says that will never work. You live wickedly, you won't inherit the land.

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What do we do in chapter 10? The last couple of weeks, chapter 10 verse two, it says what? The treasures gained by wickedness do not profit.

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So wickedness will not get you what you're asking for. They will not actually profit. It will lead to death ultimately.

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That's the consistent principle theme throughout wisdom is that wickedness does not profit you.

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Foolishness will not work. Stupidity never works according to the book of wisdom.

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And in this particular passage, we hear that the righteous will never be removed.

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I wanna say, I wanna challenge us if we actually looked at the Bible and believed it in all these ways and we're willing to test our traditions, we would never ever come to the conclusion or embrace the idea of cultural defeat.

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We'd never embrace the idea that somehow the wicked will end up ruling the world through their wickedness and their foolishness.

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No, Proverbs in principle teaches us that that always ends in death and destruction.

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The principles of wisdom tell a very different story than we've been taught. Now, I wanna address just quickly this just to give us a foundation of something to work with in terms of actually not creating a caricature of something but actually reading the position.

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Dr. John MacArthur is someone that I am grateful to God for. He's a godly man.

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He's a fantastic example of a godly man and teacher. And as a matter of fact, it was

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Dr. John MacArthur's book, The Gospel According to Jesus, that God used in my life as I was coming out of drug and alcohol addiction.

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It was in the scriptures and it was reading that book where I learned about Christ's call in the gospel to come to him in repentance as Lord and Savior.

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So in many ways, I believe that it was through that process and hearing from Dr. MacArthur and his teaching that I had a true conversion to Christ.

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Whatever was true about me before, I guess I'll never know in terms of what is it a false profession, but it was

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Dr. MacArthur that helped me to understand the gospel. I'm grateful to God for him. And in many ways,

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I'm his fault. Okay? And so as much as I love and appreciate and respect this dear brother, and I will never ever believe that I will accomplish even half of what he's accomplished for the kingdom of God and the teaching of God's saints,

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I have to, of course, point out a critique where I think that he's off and he's missed something.

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There's a famous quote from a fairly recent sermon by Dr. John MacArthur. So you see, this is not just a caricature that we build of the other side in terms of optimillennialism and pessimillennialism, right?

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The idea of victory, conquering the world through the gospel, the kingdom, and cultural defeat.

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Are we creating a caricature? Well, here's what brother MacArthur said. He said, oh, guess what?

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We don't win down here. We lose. You ready for that?

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Oh, you were a post -millennialist. You were just gonna go waltzing into the kingdom as you took over the world.

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No, we lose here. Get it. They killed Jesus. They killed all the apostles.

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We are all going to be persecuted. And later in that same message, he says, no, we don't win down here.

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Are you ready for that? Just to clear the air. I love this clarity. We don't win.

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We lose on this battlefield, but we win on the big one, the eternal one.

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It's not simply brother MacArthur who gives this story in this particular generation, particularly in the

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West. You can add exhaustive quotes, add infinitum of people saying things like, don't bother polishing brass on a sinking ship or why bother rearranging the deck furniture on the

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Titanic? Because ultimately it is the wicked who will prosper and it is the righteous who will need to be somehow snatched out of this world because they're overwhelmed by the wicked, by the foolish, by what

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Proverbs would say is the stupid. But of course, Proverbs tells a very different story, doesn't it?

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It says the righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not dwell in the lands.

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And so it's as though we're reading the Bible and the story of redemption through the wrong lens and tradition.

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Just think about this in terms of how we embrace this or imbibe this teaching. We actually sort of accept this as part of how we think today, largely in evangelical culture.

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Instead of what Jesus said, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

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We say and think the proud inherit the earth. Instead of the earth is the

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Lord's and the fullness thereof, we say the earth is Satan's and the fullness thereof.

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Instead of the righteous is established forever, we say the wicked is established forever.

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We've been so blinded by tradition that we say the righteous will not inherit the lands.

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That's how we tend to think. We tend to think of this world as a throwaway, right? I mean, just consider, just think about this for a moment in terms of, is this actually the case?

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We tend to think of the Christian life and the world that God's made as really primarily about the spiritual, right?

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As my friend says, we tend to think about sort of the spirit is the important aspect and the body is just sort of this vehicle, right?

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Your spirit is in the body and the body is sort of the vehicle that your spirit is driving.

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And it's just sort of this, in a way, kind of an appendage, right? You're just sort of utilizing the spiritual realm to drive the physical body.

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And what we really want is to escape this sin -cursed world where it's all corrupt and God isn't really concerned with it to escape to this higher spiritual story out there where that's where the real stuff takes place.

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That's what God's really concerned with, the spiritual realm. All of this is a throwaway.

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Why do we concern ourselves with a world that is cursed by sin when really the important part of our reality is to escape the world to get out there someday to that spiritual higher story?

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That smacks so much of Gnosticism and the dualism of the pagan worldview.

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No, how does the Christian worldview begin with God's revelation? In Genesis, what does

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God do? He creates a physical cosmos. He creates a physical world.

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He creates the imago dei, but when he does, he breathes the breath of life in him and her.

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And when God creates, God creates humanity, how? With a physical aspect and a spiritual aspect.

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And what's true about it? That God declared good over not just the spiritual.

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He said, it's good. What was good? All of creation, the physical cosmos, the physical world.

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What was good was the physical and the spiritual. There's a unity between the physical and the spiritual.

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And when God created the world, he called it good. And my contention is this, even with the fall, even with the curse, and even with sin,

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God's creation is still good. And you remember that the end of the story isn't

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God throwing away the world. The end of the story is a new Jerusalem, the bride coming down to the heaven from God and hitting the world and offering life to the world.

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That's how the story goes. It's a harmony between the spiritual and the physical, between heaven and earth.

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And God is concerned with both, not one. We are not pagans. We're not supposed to have a dualistic worldview.

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We're not supposed to have a theology, an eschatology that smacks of gnosticism. But my fear is much of the bad eschatology of today forces us to ignore passages like this that give us the wisdom principle.

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And here it is. The righteous will never be removed. Do you believe it? Do you believe it?

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Now I admit, I grant that we live in a particular time where it's hard to look out there and say, yeah,

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I see that, right? Because we live in a time where we see an erosion of Christian truth.

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We see the loss of Christian light and witness, but let's be honest about something. That's our fault.

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That's our fault. It's first a problem of this pulpits, the pulpit in America, the pulpit in the

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West. It's a problem of the pulpits. It's a problem of the pulpit crimes being perpetrated upon God's people.

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But it's a problem of the Christian witness into the world, because my contention is this.

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We have the same God. We have the same savior. We have the same gospel.

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We have the same spirit as the church at its inception. And the early church turned a pagan empire upside down through the proclamation of the gospel itself.

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It took persecution and hardship and suffering, but that gospel light won.

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We have no excuse. They dealt with the same challenges and difficulties that we deal with today.

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The problem is our witness. And my challenge to us is this. If we actually believed in the power of the gospel, if we actually sacrificed ourselves for the sake of neighbor and leaned on the spirit of God through the proclamation of the truth, we would see transformation.

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And if we stood on passages like this principle from God's wisdom, the righteous will never be removed.

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We would actually be anchored in the hope that God's telling us about our future. We wouldn't say things like we lose down here.

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Now, I, again, respect so greatly brothers like John MacArthur, but when you take

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Proverbs, the righteous will never be removed, the wicked will not inherit the land, and you compare that to we lose down here, get it?

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Those two things do not work. And so the question is, where's that come from?

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Is that coming ultimately from scripture or is it a tradition that we've adopted? Because we need to consider this.

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God is not the author of confusion, amen? God is not the author of confusion. He doesn't speak out of both sides of his mouth.

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He is the standard of all consistency and reason and all of that. God is not the author of confusion, and better,

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He tells us a consistent story of redemptive victory over the cosmos and all creation in the law, the prophets, the

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Psalms, and wisdom literature. Because what we can't do, and I grant this, and I hope that we model this for you as brothers and sisters when we teach, what we can't do is read the

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Bible via proof text, amen? Now, of course, you have to pull text from scripture to prove a point, but when we say something is proof texting, that means that we're reading it out of context.

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What we can't do is say, well, I found a verse over here, it's a single verse, it seems to say this, so I'm gonna run that rough shot against the entire

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Bible, not considering the context of that immediate passage or the book itself or the entire redemptive revelation.

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We need to make sure we're not simply proof texting, but what you'll see here is that this principle from wisdom is not a matter of simple proof texting, it's actually a promise.

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It's a promise that runs throughout redemptive history, through the redemptive story, in the law, the prophets, the

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Psalms, and wisdom literature. Do you have your Bibles? Yes? Are you ready?

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It's not even that hot in here today, so don't complain, okay? Feels pretty good, actually, right now. There's even no fan behind me today, which is nice.

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It won't be that way in about a month, I'm sure of it. Let's do it together. So have your Bibles ready.

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I am not gonna do this exhaustively, but it's my duty to unpack this faithfully and to not read into the text a tradition, my own interpretation, but to let the text speak and ask the question, is this a consistent story throughout

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Scripture? Do we lose in history? Do Christians lose down here? Better yet, do the righteous lose down here or does

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Scripture say something different? Is it the wicked that actually lose down here in earth's history?

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Is that the story? So in the law, go to Genesis chapter 13, again, in no way exhaustive today, but just to give you something to work on, to go through, to read.

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In Genesis 13, verse 14, the text says,

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Genesis 13, 14, the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward.

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For all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your offspring forever.

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I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.

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Is that possible? It's not possible. Where did we ever get the idea that Abraham's descendants lose in history?

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Genesis 16, verse 10. Again, the angel of the

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Lord also said to her, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.

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Genesis 26, verse four. Genesis 26, verse four.

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The text says, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands.

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And in your offspring, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

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Genesis 28, verse 14. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.

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And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

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Now what you see, of course, is in the New Testament, the New Testament authors, under the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit, actually pick up on this promise to say that it's actually central, it's key.

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Because of the promise made to Father Abraham, we are the offspring of Abraham. We are the true descendants.

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We are the true sons through faith in Jesus Christ. We are the ones that have the true circumcision, the circumcision of the heart.

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And so the promise made in the New Testament, again, under the inspiration of the same God who inspired this text, is that we are the heirs of that promise.

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We are the descendants of Abraham. We are that offspring as numerous as the stars.

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We are like that dust filling the entire earth, north, south, east, west. God says, it's yours.

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That's the promise. New Testament affirms that. But more is in the law on this principle of the victory of redemption in this world and in history.

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In Genesis 49, 10, go there. Genesis chapter 49, verse 10. One of my favorite promises.

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It says, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him.

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And to him, this is about the Messiah. This is about Mashiach. This is a messianic psalm. And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

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There's the promise. Now, I'll just say quickly, as you think about a text like that, in the law, offspring as numerous as the stars, offspring like the dust of the earth.

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If you can count that, you can count then, or we can't, that's a heck of a lot of offspring. This text says that tribute's gonna come to him, and to him, this messianic king is gonna be the obedience of the peoples.

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They will obey this Messiah, this king who's coming, messianic psalm. And it's interesting because in Romans chapter one and 16, the apostle

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Paul, when he's explaining the gospel, of course, justification is in there.

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Peace with God is in there. Imputation and the righteousness of Christ is in there. But he starts explaining the gospel from bottom to top.

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And in one and 16, he says that their purpose is to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations for the sake of his name.

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Because what was the promise in the law? That all the nations were gonna obey this king, this messianic king.

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So that's the law. Is the principle simply in Proverbs, that the righteous inherits the earth, that they'll never be removed?

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It's in the law. It's also in the prophets. In Isaiah chapter two, I'll just say it quickly.

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You can go and read. It's a long text. It's a beautiful, one of my favorite texts in Isaiah. Isaiah is my favorite book of the prophets in the

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Old Testament. It's just spectacular how it fully describes Jesus and his ministry and his work in the world.

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But in Isaiah chapter two, there's this beautiful portrayal of the Messiah's kingdom, where it says all the nations are gonna stream up to God's mountain.

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That is to say, God's gonna draw that stream up to his mountain. They're gonna come up to that mountain, the scriptures say.

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And then the law, the Torah, would go forth from Zion. The nations coming up to God's mountain.

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The law going forth from the people of God. And then it goes more into this beautiful portrayal of redemptive victory in Isaiah chapter nine, verses six through seven.

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It says a son is coming, a child. It's the wonderful counselor, the mighty

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God, El Gibor, as a child, as a son, the father of eternity.

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And it says, what about his government? Of the increase, of the increase, of the increase of his government, there shall be no end.

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On the throne of David to establish it with justice and righteousness forevermore.

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And if you look out there, admittedly, it's a mess. Men dressed like women, little girls on beer cans, targets sexualizing children,

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President Biden. You look out there and you say, yeah, how?

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As it kind of looks like the wicked are flourishing at the moment. Yeah, and what does wisdom literature promise you about the end of the wicked?

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About the end of the unrighteous? About the end of the foolish? Is that they will be rooted out.

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That's the promise because where is history going? It's going towards the full victory of this messianic king, of the increase of his government and of peace.

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There will be no end. That's upward progress. It's not just a principle in wisdom literature.

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It's the promise of the prophets. And if you say again, out there, it doesn't look like it. It doesn't appear so.

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It says at the end of that promise in Isaiah 9, six through seven, it says what? It says, the zeal of the

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Lord of hosts will accomplish this. It's not you, it's not me.

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It's not the strength of the wicked. It is God himself that makes these promises.

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He secures them and he accomplishes them. You can read Isaiah chapter 11.

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Go read it later about the messianic kingdom. You can read Isaiah 42 about the messianic king and what he's going to do in the world.

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It says very clearly that he will, he will establish justice in the earth and the coast lands wait for his instruction.

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They wait for his law. That's the promise. He will establish justice in the earth. He will not grow faint or weary until he's done so.

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Admittedly, I confess, I'm not a giant, I'm not a superstar. I admit it, I get weary.

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I do. I confess to moments of fainting, but the glory of this king is that he doesn't grow faint or weary.

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He will accomplish his purposes. He's God. He's God become man to take his rightful place on the throne and to ultimately redeem all that has been lost.

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And so Isaiah 42 says he will not grow faint or weary. He will establish justice in the earth. And one of my favorites is

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Daniel 7, 13 through 14, the famous one where it says he's looking in the night vision to behold one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven.

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And he comes up to the ancient of days and is presented before him. And to him, what is given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, what's it say, tribes, nations, everyone's gonna serve him.

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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away. Where did we ever get the idea that we lose down here?

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The law says otherwise. The prophets say otherwise, but we moved to the

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Psalms. The Psalms also teach otherwise. I want you to see these, they're a little shorter.

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Well, except for Psalm 37, that's a big one. It packs a punch. In Psalm 22, go there, Psalm 22.

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You see, of course, one of my favorites, this incredible prophetic portrayal of the

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Lord Jesus, like a thousand years before his ministry, before his death, his crucifixion, his burial and resurrection and ascension.

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It's amazing, but the passion of the Messiah is here in Psalm 22. But in Psalm 22, after it describes this incredible passion of the

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Messiah and laid in the dust of death, in Psalm 22, 27, the

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Psalm changes direction. After this one who is killed is killed, it says in verse 27, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the

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Lord. And all the families of the nations shall worship before you for kingship belongs to the

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Lord. And he rules over the nations. Where did we ever get the idea that we lose down here?

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No, Jesus wins down here. He won in his death.

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Something we were talking about this week on Apologia Radio, when we had Kirk Cameron on preaching post -millennialism.

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Goodness, what 80s people thought that was gonna happen, right? The victory of the

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Messiah, the fact that Jesus actually won when he was murdered.

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We see it as a grave sin because it was, we see it as wickedness and evil because it was, but wickedness and evil wasn't triumphing over God.

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God was triumphing over them. He won in his death. He won in his resurrection.

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He won in his ascension. And before he's ascending, what's he say to us, to his people?

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He says, go therefore, because all the authority in heaven and earth is mine and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to what? Obey, observe all that I have commanded you.

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Jesus, of course, there is giving us what Daniel 7, 13 to 14 was saying, but the goal of the gospel was to bring the families of the nations to God to worship

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Yahweh. That's what the Psalm says. After the passion of the Messiah, the result of the passion of the

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Messiah was that all the families of the earth were gonna come to worship before God for kingship belongs to the

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Lord and he rules over the nations. We do not think, we have not thought that Christ is truly ruling over the nations.

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We think Satan is ruling this world. Satan is ruling the nations. We actually think somehow that there's land that is not owned by Christ.

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Let me just say this, very important. It's not just Christians who are ruled over by Jesus. Every unbeliever on this earth is ruled over by Jesus right now.

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He's not waiting to rule over the world. He's not waiting to have his authority to rule over the ungodly.

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Jesus is ruling and reigning now over every king, over every Lord, over you, me, and every unbeliever out there.

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Over the gay pride events that are happening in cities across this nation, Jesus rules there too in judgments.

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That's the truth. So the Psalms tell the same story that the wisdom principles give us, a victory of the righteous, the wicked are uprooted.

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In Psalm 37, I won't read the entire one. You've already had it once today. In Psalm 37, you see, this is packed into our worship hymnal.

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It says, Psalm 37, verse one, fret not yourself because of evildoers, be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.

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Does that sound like the wicked wind down here? Does it sound like the wicked wind down here? Is that the story of scripture, that the wicked wind down here and that we lose down here?

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God is saying to us, to his people, sing these songs, you sing this song to me.

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It says, fret not yourself because of evildoers, be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.

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Verse seven, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices, refrain from anger and forsake wrath.

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Fret not yourself, it tends only to evil. For, God's saying what? Don't worry, it looks like they're prospering now.

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Sin can look like that for a season. Don't worry, don't worry, don't be angry. Don't do that, don't worry, because the evildoers shall be cut off.

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But those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the lands. Does it sound like we lose down here?

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That the righteous lose down here? Is that what the law and the prophets and the Psalms are teaching us, that we lose down here?

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Verse 10, in just a little while, the wicked will be no more. Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.

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But the meek shall inherit the lands and delight themselves in abundant peace.

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Maybe it was just Old Testament. Maybe it was just an Old Testament thing for the

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Jews. Maybe it was just for Israel. Maybe it was just for them. No, as I read it, you went,

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I know that verse. The meek shall inherit the earth.

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Who said that? Where did he say it? The Beatitudes, the

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Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, blessed, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

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Apparently Jesus didn't believe that the wicked inherit the earth or the wicked win down here.

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Jesus is telling us the same redemptive story. It's almost like it's the same God over the same revelation.

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It's the same story. That's what the text says. And more in verse 20 of 37.

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But the wicked will perish. The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures. They vanish like smoke, they vanish away.

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The wicked borrows, but does not pay back. But the righteous is generous and gives. For those blessed by the

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Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off.

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Verse 27, turn away from evil and do good. So shall you dwell forever.

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For the Lord loves justice. He will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.

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The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever. Okay, we're done, we're done, right?

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No, right? We can keep going and going. This is the thread running through scripture, this redemptive victory of God and his people in history.

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This is his world. Psalm 72 gives us the story of the

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Messiah's victory in the world. Psalm 72, one of my very favorites in terms of the promise of the future.

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Verse one, give the king your justice, oh God, and your righteousness to the royal son.

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May he judge your people with righteousness and the poor with justice. Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people and the hills and righteousness.

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May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy and crush the oppressor.

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May they fear you while the sun endures and as long as the moon throughout all generations, may he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.

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In his days, may the righteous flourish and peace abound till the moon be no more.

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May he have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.

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May desert tribes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust.

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May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute. May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts.

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May all kings fall down before him. All nations serve him. Does that sound like victory, brothers and sisters?

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Or does that sound like defeat? If you had just the Old Testament, the law, the prophets, the

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Psalms so far, what portrait would you have for the future of this world?

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What portrait would you have? Victory, victory, victory in Jesus.

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That's the portrait you would have. So the law, the prophets, the

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Psalms, and of course our favorites, Psalm 110 .1, the most quoted verse from the

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Old Testament. In the New Testament, we call it God's favorite Bible verse because he uses it a lot.

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The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until what? Make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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That's quoted in the New Testament as happening now, not later, it's happening now.

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He is reigning now, according to the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, and he must reign until all enemies are a footstool for his feet.

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Death is defeated according to Christian eschatology inspired by Paul. Death is defeated after all of God's enemies are put under his feet.

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Death is the final enemy, the final enemy. And so there's the Psalms. But then you get into wisdom, the wisdom literature that we're in now, the book of Proverbs.

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And again, I don't need to belabor this because we've been in this together as a congregation for some time now.

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You've already heard the principles. You've already seen these promises about wickedness and foolishness.

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We've been telling it to our children. We get impacted by it within the body. It comes on the Lord's day from the word of the

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Lord. And we carry that with us into our children's lives. We've already been telling our children, this will not prosper you.

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This will give you no profit. Don't be foolish. Don't be a scoffer. We've been already sharing that with our families and healing our families with that, right?

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We've already been saying this will not prosper you. This will end in death. But the principle theme in the book of Proverbs can be summed up with wickedness doesn't work.

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That's what we've got from the beginning. Wickedness doesn't work. Foolishness doesn't work.

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Stupidity doesn't work. In Proverbs 1, just a section here. When the book opens up with wisdom for us, in verse 29, it says this.

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When wisdom is crying aloud on the street, calling out to everyone, portrayed even at the gates in the public square at times, it says in verse 29, because they hated knowledge, it did not choose the fear of the

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Lord would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof. Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices for the simple are killed by their turning away and the complacency of fools destroys them.

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But, here's the promise, whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease without dread of disaster.

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In chapter two, verse 20, it says, so you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous for the upright will inhabit the land.

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It's almost like it's the same God and the same revelation, same story.

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What's the text say? For the upright, the upright will inhabit the land and those who with integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.

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God's principles of wisdom teach a very different story about the prospering of the wicked.

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They will not, they will be uprooted. They will be cut off. It is the upright who inherit the lands.

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They are the ones who remain. Jump ahead to chapter 10, where we are today.

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Chapter 10, verse two, what'd we learn? Ready? The principle you know, treasures gained by wickedness do not profit.

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Sin sells a lot, right? It promises you all kinds of stuff, pleasure, fame, happiness, joy, contentment.

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Sin will always entice you, but the promise in wisdom is what? Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit.

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It's actually a blank check, right? It's a blank check. Like it was funny this week, there was the

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Babylon Bee. We're friends with the Babylon Bee guys, great guys over there. And it's amazing that a

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Christian platform like the Babylon Bee with these guys that we know are responsible for Elon Musk buying

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Twitter. Did you know that? Go look at their channel and see this week, they actually had, they were canceled by Twitter.

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The Babylon Bee was canceled by Twitter because they're Christians and they wrote Christian satire and were jabbing at the powers that be.

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And so Twitter shut them down and canceled them. Well, weirdly Elon Musk loves the

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Babylon Bee. And so that made him upset. What? And so they were kicked off of Twitter and Elon Musk bought for like 40 something billion

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Twitter to stick it to Twitter for messing with his boys. Yeah, that really happened.

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That really happened and Elon Musk said so. He said, it was you guys that made me buy Twitter. Why? Because it wasn't right.

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So I bought like a failing company. It wasn't even profitable. It was like a huge act of benevolence, right?

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To reinstate the Babylon Bee, Elon Musk goes, this isn't right. I'll buy Twitter. You kicked off my friends.

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Weird how God runs the world like that, right? Babylon Bee, satire site.

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Elon Musk is like, those are my boys. I'll pay. Weird. Well, this week, in the episode, they said like, thank you for doing that, for spending billions of dollars because of what happened to us.

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So like on a napkin, they wrote an IOU for like $40 billion and they handed it to them.

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They were like, here, this is, you're gonna want this. That's the treasures gained by wickedness.

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It's worthless. It's meaningless and everyone laughs about it, right? Like it's an IOU that means nothing and so is every

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IOU promised to you by wickedness. Every one of them. IOU, worthless, completely worthless.

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It'll never pay. But that's what scripture says. The principle is not that wickedness prospers. The principle is not that wickedness inherits the land.

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It's actually the other direction. It won't prosper you and it's the righteous who inherit the land. Here in the text, you've already seen 25 and 30, but if you move ahead to chapter 12, it's everywhere.

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Verse three, and again, this isn't exhaustive. 12 verse three, no one is established by wickedness, but the root of the righteous will never be removed.

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12 seven, the wicked are overthrown and are no more, but the house of the righteous will stand.

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The law, the prophets, the Psalms, the wisdom literature of God tells a very, very different story than we've been taught in this generation.

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And you know what? Maybe, just maybe, beliefs have consequences.

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Maybe, just maybe, ideas have consequences. Maybe if we've told

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Christians, you lose, you lose, we lose, this is futile, don't bother, this is a throwaway, maybe, just maybe, they'll act like it.

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Maybe they'll raise their kids like that, like the future doesn't matter. Maybe they'll raise their kids and not think about their great, great, great, grandchildren.

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Maybe they'll actually believe the preacher who says, you lose down here. Maybe they'll actually fight like they lose down here.

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If we're taught that the wicked prosper and that this is Satan's world and the wicked will inhabit the land, then maybe we'll actually give up the land to them and we'll do it in the name of personal piety.

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We'll act like it's a spiritual event. Look what I did, I gave up ground that belongs to King Jesus to the wicked.

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Isn't that spiritual? We live like it's a virtue to give up land claimed by Christ.

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It's not virtuous, it's not a badge of honor, it's actually unfaithfulness.

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The principle in wisdom is that wickedness doesn't profit, wickedness doesn't work, and sooner or later, to quote a famous prophet, one of our own,

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God is gonna cut you down. You see, we see it today, don't we? Now I know, what does

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Psalm 37 say? Don't fret, don't fret, don't fret, don't. Soon they'll be cut off, they will be destroyed, don't fret.

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We look out there, we say, man, look all the Christian witness loss, all these blessings of the gospel, we're losing these things today.

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I grant, I grant, you see it, but the principle of wisdom is that it's not gonna profit, it's not gonna work, they will be destroyed, and what will be left is

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God's people. Every time, every time. If we see what we're dealing with today, we see those who destroy their genders.

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They destroy gender, well, what's the consequence? Well, you're gonna reap what you sow, you're gonna eat the fruits of what you plant.

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And so if you destroy gender, then you're gonna have a generation coming up with their bodies destroyed, never able to have a

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God -glorifying and beautiful, harmonious sexual experience because of the drugs that we're giving these kids.

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They're gonna destroy their bodies, they're gonna reap the rewards. You're gonna be dealing with the obvious problem of suicide in that community and depression.

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Wickedness doesn't work. It will not profit you, you will not gain from it.

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If you destroy marriage, if you act wicked, if you're foolish as we are collectively today, if you destroy marriage, then you're gonna disrupt the creational order and purpose of what

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God first builds into the world to build everything else. You undermine that and everything collapses along with it.

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If you destroy marriage and you say, male with male is fine, female with female is fine, then the obvious, the obvious is right in front of you.

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That union does not create life. It doesn't create children.

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And so if you lived out that union, that foolishness, that wickedness, then you would die in your generation.

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So what do you have to do to live out that foolishness, that wickedness? You have to reach back into God's world and create an order to try to build families by taking the kids of the other couples or doing some very strange, disharmonious thing and adding what only

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God can create into your lives as a female, female couple. You know what I'm talking about.

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You have to dig back into God's created order to try to make your foolishness work, but it won't.

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It doesn't create children. You could do the foolishness that people are promoting today of communism.

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And it's crazy, isn't it wild? Don't you think it's wild that in the last 100 years, because of Christian influence,

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Christian foundations, we even made excuses to go to war and for young men to lay down their lives in the mud over the issue of communism.

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That idea is so wicked and so evil and so much thievery that we had young men barely out of high school or still in high school flying over the sea to go fight an enemy who thought something wrong, saying that is an infection and a disease that will destroy the world.

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We so thought that evil was actual evil, we were willing to spill blood and money over it.

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That was the excuse. And we've done that in the last 100 years. And amazingly today we have this foolishness on display.

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People in academia teaching it, praising it, extolling its virtues. We've got people in leadership today saying, this is good.

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And so you can do it. You can have state sponsored theft. You can try to run with that wickedness for a while.

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You can get to a place where there's no personal property, no motivation to increase skill for the image bearer of God, no motivation to increase production and wealth that blesses the world around you.

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You can do it, but ultimately it's gonna destroy you and your nation. You'll end in poverty.

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You'll end in destruction completely. Just listen to the testimony of Yonami, I hope I'm saying that right,

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Yonami Park. The woman who came to Christ after escaping

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North Korea was sold into sex trafficking, sex slavery in China. Listen to her life story of living under the communist regime in North Korea.

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Listen to her story of watching people die of starvation as a normative experience as a child.

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Understanding as a small child, a little girl, when she sees somebody dying on the street, which stage of death from famine are they in?

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Oh, they're only in the second stage. They got a little way to go. Oh, they're in the fourth stage. A little girl understanding what that looks like and which stage this person is in.

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A little girl walking into a room with piles and piles and piles of dead bodies of people dying or have died of starvation.

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Stupidity doesn't work. Wickedness will not prosper. You can try to run the game, but you're gonna end in destruction.

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You could try the wickedness and evil and foolishness of devaluing currency.

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You could do it. You could take a run at it. You could run a generation on it, but you devalue the currency.

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You create a fiat currency. You ignore God's principles and rules about money.

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And what's gonna happen is you're gonna end up stealing from your neighbors, devaluing their work, devaluing their capital.

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You're stealing from them. It leads to debt, poverty, and finally famine.

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You could do it, but wickedness will not prosper. And brothers and sisters,

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I'm not a prophet. Not the son of a prophet as they say, but I'll tell you what, if you look at our nation, when we turned away from God's money and the gold standard and real money, when we decided to go to a fiat currency, that was us signing our own death warrant as a nation.

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And if you don't believe me, just take a look at the debt we're in now and the fake money that we're printing all the time.

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People are saying inflation is Biden's fault. No, inflation is the fault of us and our wicked and foolish choices as a nation.

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We are now at this end over here of actually reaping what we sow. You talk about inflation and the prices going up and the problem of money and all these different things.

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It's because wickedness doesn't work. Stupidity will never work. If it comes crashing down, it will come crashing down because we are foolish.

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Because we are foolish and we refuse to listen to wisdom crying out at the city gates.

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She's telling us, here's how to live. This is the truth. If you want peace, if you want safety, listen to my voice, keep your eyes set on it, stay on the path, treasure it up within you, listen to me.

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You see, the answer is really according to the wisdom principles, the principles that are consistent in the law, the prophets, the

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Psalms, and the Proverbs, it's really Christ or chaos. And as Pastor James said in a recent conference that he did, that is not, that can't just, that's not just a slogan.

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It's not just a cute thing we put on a t -shirt. It just can't be that. It is a summary of everything you see here,

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Christ or chaos. It's Christ or chaos, choose Christ or chaos.

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It is God's wisdom or foolishness. It is, as you see in the text, inheriting the world or being cut off.

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Now, the final words here is that you see this, Christ's law, prophets, Psalms, wisdom.

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It's not the wicked who inherit the world. It's the righteous, the upright inherit the land, the wicked are cut off.

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The New Testament, however, only increases our confidence in these promises and themes from the

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Old Testament. Just a cursory look. When Matthew opens his gospel, the gospel according to Matthew, Matthew chapter three,

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John the Baptist is proclaiming what? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Kingdom of heaven means kingdom of God.

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Kingdom of God means what? The rule of God is at hand. That's what he was saying.

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That's what he was saying. Everyone listen, turn from your sin because God's rule is now at the fingertip reach.

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It's right here at hand, God's rule in history. The rule that he promised. The rule that he promised in the world, the inheritance of Abraham's seed, getting all the nations, establishing justice and righteousness and peace.

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That's good news. And that rule of God is at hand. When Jesus comes out of the wilderness, he comes out proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.

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The good news of the rule of God in history. That meant something to the Jews. And stop for a moment, stop for a moment, capture this.

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Why was the rule of God in history good news to the Jews? The answer is because they were reading their old testaments.

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They were reading the law and the prophets and the Psalms. They were singing the Psalms about the righteous inheriting the earth.

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They were singing the Psalms about he shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.

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That's why when Jesus comes out of the temptation in the wilderness and he's proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, they were like, now?

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It's arriving now? This is finally gonna, it's happening now?

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That's what you see in Matthew. And then of course, Jesus only affirms what we've read throughout already today.

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Matthew chapter five, verse five. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

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If we just believe Jesus, if we just believed what's taught in the Beatitudes, we would see the world a different way.

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It of course has amplified again in Matthew 28, 18 through 20 Jesus isn't teaching a novelty. It's not something new that would have shocked them.

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That was the expectation. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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That's a past tense there in Matthew 28. He's not waiting for it. That's gonna be important in a moment.

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He's not waiting for it. It has been given to him. And so Jesus says, therefore, because I have it now, go get the nations, teach them, disciple them, teach them to obey me.

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That was the call. That was the expectation. Now I want you to see this one. I want you to see this one because I've been carrying us through the law, the prophets, the

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Psalms and the wisdom literature. But I want you to see this one. Look how the apostle

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Paul understands the story of history and the story of the gospel in Romans chapter four.

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Go there, Romans chapter four. You remember that when

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I opened up today, I took us to Genesis. I took us to Genesis. I gave us a couple verses of the promise to Abraham.

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Now the apostle Paul brings the gospel into complete connection with the promises to Abraham. He essentially, he's already argued here in chapters three and four.

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He's already argued, look, if you think you're really a child of Abraham and an heir according to his promises, then you got to have the same faith as Abraham, right?

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It wasn't according to the law. It was through faith. It was a gift. And so if you really want to be a child of Abraham, if you really are an heir according to this promise, your faith has got to look like Abraham's or you aren't

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Abraham's descendants. That's Paul's summary of a point he's making there. But in Romans chapter four, he says in verse 12 about Abraham and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father

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Abraham had before he was circumcised. Verse 13, for the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

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What is promised to Abraham and his offspring according to the apostle

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Paul? What? The world. These are the promises of God.

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These are the words of God. Those promises about Abraham's offspring, stars, sands, dust of the earth, all the nations, families of God, east, west, north, south, all of that summed up here by the apostle

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Paul. The whole world belongs to Abraham and his offspring.

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Then, I already pointed you to it, go read it later, dig into it.

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From chapter one in Romans to chapter 16, you see that Paul clearly has an eye on what the

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Old Testament promises about the rule of Jesus and he has an eye on clearly Genesis 49, 10, all the nations obeying

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Jesus. But I want you to hear how he sums it up in Romans chapter 16.

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Listen to how he sums it up in Romans 16, verse 25. He says this.

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Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations.

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Here it is. According to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith.

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That is God's command. That is where the world is going, to bring about the obedience of faith.

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What did Genesis 49, 10 say about the one who was coming? To him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

01:00:00

That's where history is going. But I want you to see one more before we finish today. One more section in the

01:00:07

New Testament that speaks to this. It's in Colossians. Most of you know it well. If you've ever been doing evangelism with some of the cults and you're talking about the nature of Jesus, you know this section well.

01:00:18

But I want you to think about the implications of this. Colossians chapter one, verse 15. He is the image of the invisible

01:00:29

God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created.

01:00:36

This is Jesus. In heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

01:00:48

And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church.

01:00:55

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

01:01:01

For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to, here it is, reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross, of his cross.

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You see, that's the story of redemption. That's the story of redemption. Everything under this

01:01:29

Messiah, God redeeming everything as far as the curse is found. Jesus, the creator of all things.

01:01:36

Jesus, God in human flesh, doing what? Reconciling to himself all things, whether on earth or heaven.

01:01:49

Do you understand now, brothers and sisters, why I have been trying to emphasize abandoning pagan dualism and Gnosticism, ideas about the earth and the spiritual, the physical and the spiritual, somehow as this is unimportant.

01:02:06

God's not concerned with this. This is a throwaway. We need to get to this higher spiritual existence, gassy experience.

01:02:12

That's the real thing. The spiritual stuff is the important stuff, not the physical. According to the apostle

01:02:17

Paul, that's not the only thing Jesus came for. Everything on earth and in heaven,

01:02:23

Jesus came to do what? To make a new creation. And brothers and sisters, make no mistake about it, what, according to the apostle

01:02:33

Paul, are you? You are a what?

01:02:39

New creation. That new creation has already begun. Jesus is already about taking dominion over the earth and beautifying

01:02:48

God's world. He's already bringing that kingdom and that salvation to the ends of the earth.

01:02:54

All the families of the earth are returning to worship God. And if you say to yourself, man, it doesn't look like victory out there.

01:03:00

I wanna say, how odd is it that here we are in the desert with a room like this, with people filling this room from every background, tribe, tongue, people, and nation, 2000 years after the time of Christ, worshiping

01:03:16

Yahweh. I wanna say the families of the earth are returning to worship Yahweh. You see it in just this one local body and it's happening all around the world.

01:03:27

See, here's the problem. And this is touching, I hope, the main thing.

01:03:33

What's the problem? How come we can't see this? How come we see the law, we see the prophets, we see the

01:03:40

Psalms, we see God's wisdom, we see that the wicked are cut off, they're uprooted, the righteous stay, wickedness doesn't work, it doesn't profit.

01:03:49

God promises the world to Abraham's descendants. The meek shall inherit the earth. It's everywhere and we can't see it.

01:03:56

The answer, the tradition of bad eschatologies. We've got bad eschatologies.

01:04:03

We have bad views of the future that cause us to be blind to these truths that are being shouted at us in scripture.

01:04:12

Bad eschatology is a major issue. And the second problem, and I'm sure we can probably, you can probably give me more, okay?

01:04:19

But another major problem is pietism, pietism. I don't mean piety in terms of personal holiness.

01:04:28

God says, be holy as I'm holy. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. We're there. We believe in personal piety and separation from sin and all of that.

01:04:38

But pietism is the idea that somehow, you know, this doesn't work.

01:04:44

Let's just sort of close ourselves off. Let's be personally holy over here. Oh, let's abstain from the world and the whole world is kind of a throwaway.

01:04:52

Let's get into our enclaves and stay over here. The spiritual is what counts. The physical doesn't matter at all.

01:04:59

We've believed that. We've believed with personal pietism that somehow there are realms outside of the authority of Jesus Christ.

01:05:10

We've actually believed and shared amongst ourselves as Christians, this lie about there's a distinction between the sacred and the secular.

01:05:21

Over here is the secular and over here is the sacred. No, it's all sacred because it all belongs to Jesus.

01:05:30

Why would the Bible say that Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth today if that realm was not under his rule?

01:05:37

It's a false perspective of scripture and the authority of Jesus Christ.

01:05:47

Pietism, the idea that the world is sort of a throwaway and the physical doesn't matter, the earth doesn't matter, the spiritual, the personal really matters.

01:05:56

It's a plague upon the church. It is. But people will say, are you ready?

01:06:03

Here's the argument against everything I said. Are you ready? Here's the core argument against everything

01:06:09

I just said. Oh yes, Jeff, those verses are there. That's true.

01:06:16

That's what the Bible says, that Jesus is gonna rule over and establish justice and righteousness and peace.

01:06:22

We can't avoid that. The problem is that's one day, someday.

01:06:30

After, you see, we lose down here. After we lose down here and Christ takes his throne and authority here.

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Well, that doesn't answer pretty much every verse that I gave and all the principles from wisdom. It doesn't answer any of those, but the excuse is this.

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Sure, the Bible teaches the ultimate victory of Jesus here, but it's one day later.

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After we lose down here, Christ will then take his throne and authority here.

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What's the answer? He is on his throne now. 1

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Corinthians 15 teaches a very different perspective than most modern evangelicals.

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Someday he'll come with that authority and that power. Someday he'll take that throne.

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That is not the perspective of the New Testament. The New Testament says he is seated on the throne and he is ruling and reigning now, 1

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Corinthians 15. And he must reign until all enemies are under his feet.

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This New Testament says he is already the ruler of the kings of the earth, Revelation 1 .5.

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The New Testament says that Jesus is the king of what? Come on now, we're almost done,

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I promise. He is the king of what? He is the Lord of what? Now, today, even over pagan governments.

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He's not waiting to be the ruler of the kings of the earth. He's not waiting to take his authority over the kings of kings and lords of lords.

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Jesus said, Matthew 28, 18 through 20, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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He already said he's taken that authority and belongs to him. So if his kingdom is a present reality, if he's already seated, if he's on the messianic throne, if he has all authority in heaven and on earth, then what are we waiting for?

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We already know what the future's gonna be. And it's redemptive victory in history, all glory to him, none to us.

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And so these are promises from God, from his wisdom, principles about the world.

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This is how the world will go. What will defeat this?

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Pietism. You see, those who practice pietism, rejoice.

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They actually rejoice over their relinquishing ground to the enemy.

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They wear their abandonment of the crown rights of Jesus as a badge of honor. He claims that it's his, and many modern evangelicals just don't wanna concern ourselves with it.

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We don't wanna concern ourselves with it. What do we need? One, we need to believe the promises and act like they're true.

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I'm not just giving you a motivational speech. Here's a summary of everything I just said to you, an hour, and here's what

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I said. Believe these promises, live like it's true. Believe these promises, live like it's true.

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They will carry you through the storm and the tempest and the trial and the struggle, because this is what God says is the ultimate end of all things, the righteous inherit the lands.

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It's not the wicked, they're uprooted. So believe those promises and live like it's true. Fill our minds with those who remind us of these promises.

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Can I just give you two quick ones? What I'm giving to you now isn't new.

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It's one of the things that freaked me out when I started to challenge my perspective of the future, started challenging my eschatology, it really freaked me out as I was reading the

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Bible and just saying, God, let the text speak. I don't wanna mess with your word, but what

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I believe about the end of the world is just not working. And so you teach me, I just wanna see your word.

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I started freaking out because I was seeing like, it seems like Jesus is gonna win the world.

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And it seems like total victory. And it seems like, and I started like freaking out going, is this how heretics are born?

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They start seeing things in the Bible that no one has seen before. And then, oh, lo and behold, many of the great giants throughout church history believed exactly what

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I was taught. What I believed was actually a novelty in church history, something new in history.

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So in history, you have constant testimony to exactly these promises in Scripture.

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John Calvin, in his sermons on the book of Micah, he says this, Micah proclaims how all the world will be brought to God at the coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. The reunification has already begun, is taking place now, and will continue until the end of the world.

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Jesus Christ has been designated the Lord, not simply of one corner of the world, but of all nations.

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Since our Lord Jesus Christ kingdom has hardly begun, it is necessary for it to be implemented little by little until it achieves its full perfection.

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I like how he said that. It says, since his kingdom, Christ's kingdom has hardly, hardly begun.

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It sounds like we're in the infancy of the church kind of situation. We got a long way to go. We had a lot of fighting to do.

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Augustine, commenting on Psalm 12, not my son, the older one, he was commenting on Psalm 12 regarding the

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Lord laughing at the nations. He says, it is to be understood of that power which he gives to his saints that they seeing the things to come, namely that the name and rule of Christ is to pervade posterity and possess all nations.

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Ask of me, verse seven, may be referred to all this temporal dispensation which has been instituted for mankind, namely that the nations should be joined to the name of Christ and so be redeemed from death and possessed by God.

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I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance, which so possess them for their salvation and bear unto their spiritual fruit.

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And here's a final word from one of my favorites in history, Athanasius.

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Athanasius Contramundum, Athanasius against the world, Athanasius, the patron saint of post -millennialism.

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He says, it is right for you to realize and to take as the sum of what we have already stated and to marvel at exceedingly, namely that since the

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Savior has come among us, idolatry not only has no longer increased, but what there was is diminishing and gradually coming to an end.

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And not only does the wisdom of the Greeks no longer advance, but what there was is fading away.

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And to sum the matter up, behold how the Savior's doctrine is everywhere, increasing while all idolatry and everything opposed to the faith of Christ is daily dwindling and losing power and falling.

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For as when the sun has come, darkness no longer prevails, but if any be still left anywhere, it is driven away.

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So now that the divine appearing of the word of God is come, the darkness of the idols prevails no more.

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And all the parts of the world in every direction are illumined by his teaching.

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We need to listen to men who believe in the power of the gospel and men who know the story of history and where the world is going.

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And it is not the wicked who inhabit the land. It is the righteous who will never be removed.

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Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word, your truth, and the promises we have in your word and the principles that are there.

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The wicked won't prosper. They will be cut off. It is the righteous who inherit this world and will not be uprooted.

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And so God, I pray with all my heart, God, please use these words to challenge your church to raise up giants for your glory and kingdom.

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We pray, Lord, for the victory of the Messiah over every aspect of this world. We pray for your kingdom and rule to advance, of course, within our hearts and minds and in our families and in our church, but everywhere you rule.