Why Jesus Came to this Earth — Sandeep Poonen

Jesus’ Unique Message: The Kingdom, the Gospel, and Belief

I wanted to share something from Mark chapter 1, Mark chapter 1 verse 15. Maybe we can read 14 and 15. Mark chapter 1, 14 and 15. Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God and saying the time is fulfilled.

The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. I just wanted to underline very simply the unique message of Jesus that is written in here. In this one sentence, just underline a few words to understand the difference that the unique difference that Jesus brought.

First, I want to underline the word kingdom and then I want to underline the word gospel and then I want to underline the word believe. Those are three words that I just want to remind ourselves of what makes Jesus so unique.

Living Under the Kingdom of God

The kingdom of God is at hand. That was a unique message that Jesus brought. John the Baptist couldn't bring the message of the kingdom of God, but Jesus did. These words become such Bible words that we may forget the simple power of that word.

Kingdom. It's like me telling you, you have to pack your bags. We're going to Mars. Okay. Well, the kingdom of God is here. Imagine if I were to tell you, well pack your bags. We're going to Mars. Well, what am I going to take with me?

Cell phone won't work over there. Your notebook won't work over there. A lot of things that you have to really think, okay, do I want to be part of this kingdom? But that's what Jesus was saying. The kingdom of God is here.

And he says in another passage, John 18, My kingdom is not of this world. So, none of the way the world works is going to work in the kingdom of God. Jesus came to deliver and to explain the kingdom of God, which was completely different than the kingdom of any of this earth.

If I were to tell you, we're all going to have to move to Romania. Well, you're going to have to have passports, you have to have visas, you have to understand what will work over there, different countries.

Kingdom of God is here. It's a completely different lifestyle. It's like living on a completely different planet. And so, your spacesuit, if you're going to Mars, is more important than your cell phone.

Your spacesuit is so much more important than all the money in your bank account. And all the diamonds and the gold and everything you've stored up. Well, who cares about that? Let's make sure our spacesuit is proper because we're going to Mars.

The kingdom of God, when Jesus came, John the Baptist's message and many other messages all pale into significance because Jesus came and said, pack your bags. We're going to a completely new kingdom and it's not a short transition down to the grocery store.

That's not where God was asking us, come, let's go to the grocery store. Jesus was not saying, I'm going to give you slightly different principles by which to live on. You know, John the Baptist had his message, I've got my message, was slightly different.

No, it really was a massive shift. Nobody else was coming in and saying, I'm going to bring in a new kingdom and Jesus obviously was the king, but this is a new kingdom and thinking of it like going to Mars, thinking of it like going to a brand new planet, helps me think about how massive a shift it is for me to say, well, did I receive that message?

And if I'm in the kingdom of God, even today the spacesuit is a lot more important than the diamonds and the bank accounts and the cars. And so when Jesus says, you can't love God and money, it makes a lot of sense because the spacesuit is more important than money and so the most important thing that I need to check today, if I want to listen to the message of Jesus and if I want to say, Jesus, you're so unique in the message you have, is I need to check my spacesuit.

Humility as the Essential Disposition of the Kingdom

And what is it that the kingdom of God has? I was thinking about this, you know, when somebody comes to live on this earth, when a baby is born, what is the most important muscle that the baby needs to have?

Or let's say some of us have been living for 30, 40, 20, 50, 60 years. What's the most important muscle that you need to have when a baby is born all the way till you die? There's one muscle or it's a muscle that you need to have.

I'm not a doctor. I'm not a biologist. I don't know it. I can google it and probably find it. The most important muscle is the muscle that says this, I need oxygen. That's the most important muscle and a baby comes into this earth and very quickly the doctors are trying to get the baby to get that muscle going.

Because if that muscle doesn't go, it's dead. It can't live on this earth if you can't activate and get that muscle going. And so the doctor will slap the baby. It doesn't mind maybe breaking a bone. I look at that doctor hitting the baby.

I'm like, you afraid of breaking bone? I don't care what I do. I've got to get this muscle going, which is I need the, what is the muscle? The I need oxygen muscle. And if you can kickstart that muscle, we'll fix all other problems in the baby.

Even if it's a broken bone or broken rib, doesn't matter. We need to get the I need oxygen going. And I look at these, you know, I don't know if you can picture this big bodybuilder. I don't know if you can picture this big bodybuilder with five biceps and 25 triceps.

Bulging triceps after triceps after triceps. Bulging out and huge pectoral muscles and all the other muscles in the body. But it's just missing the I need oxygen muscle. Just take away that one muscle.

I don't know if it's the diaphragm or whatever it is. Just take away that. What do you call such a massively strong bodybuilder? We call them dead. Well, you see the amount of power there is in that body?

Yeah, I see, but it doesn't have that one muscle, which is the I need oxygen muscle. All of our healthy eating, all of our healthy living, is all centered around one muscle. The I need oxygen muscle. Little babies have it.

The most muscular people have it. And when the most muscular person loses that muscle, you're gone. When we enter the kingdom of God, dear brothers and sisters, we need a muscle. And it's not the I need oxygen.

It's it's the I need you Jesus muscle. And that's just a paraphrase of what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 3. Matthew chapter 5 verse 3, Jesus talks about the kingdom of God. Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven.

And he said, you want to be in the kingdom of heaven? You want to live in the kingdom of heaven? You want to own the kingdom of heaven? Here's what you need to have. You need to have the I need you Jesus muscle.

And the way Jesus called it was, he called it poor in spirit. Matthew 5 3. That's what that is. And another word for that is humility. Which we've heard over and over again. But it's worth our meditation.

It is worth our recognizing that it is so vital, like a spacesuit is required to live on Mars. It is as vital as the most muscular person is dead, if it doesn't have a I need oxygen muscle working. It's as critically important that if I'm going to be in the kingdom of God, I have this Lord Jesus, I need you.

Not as a prayer that we keep on repeating as a mantra or as a rote prayer. Like the Catholics tell you to pray our father's thousand hundred times a day or whatever it is. It's not that. It's a muscle that I must have as part of who I am.

I need you Jesus. This is a different muscle than the muscles of going to Bible study. It's a different muscle than the muscle of doing a lot of good works. This is a different muscle that is exercised even more than victory over sin.

It's separate from that. Because we can get victory over sin and lose our I need you Jesus breathing. Like the nine lepers who got healed by Jesus of their leprosy, which could be a picture of sin, and they lost their I need you Jesus muscle.

Only the one leper came back and said I'm not done with you. I know my leprosy is gone, but I'm not finished with my interactions with you. And maybe it's one out of ten, maybe it's one out of hundred.

I don't know. But that's the muscle that we have to keep checking throughout the day, throughout our week, if we have victory over sin or if we fall more than we would like to have. The question is, is your I need you Jesus muscle healthy?

Dependence on Christ as the Vine

And that should be the fundamental gauge I'm checking. As I said, not as a repeated prayer, but is that muscle a recognition of it? As we read the parables of Jesus are the perfect ones. As he said, I am the vine, you are the branches.

The branch always has this I need you muscle. And the moment it bears this beautiful rose and some human comes and cuts it off and says I think this rose is better used on my vase, it's dead. It looks so beautiful and humans admire it and say what a beautiful bouquet of roses, but it's dead.

Death has crept in. Just wait a couple of days and it will show its death. But that rose was so perfect, even if it was a bud, even if it was nothing, when it was connected to the vine. And so I can get fooled by this beautiful rose that's sitting in my vase.

I can look at these beautiful messages or beautiful good works that are sitting out there and God says, you've lost your I need you Jesus muscle. You're no longer a branch connected to the vine. And so we're actually, death has set in.

And this started all the way in the Garden of Eden. Eve was standing before the two trees and the serpent deceived Eve from reaching of the tree, which was I need you God. And says no, no, no, go eat of that other tree.

You don't need God. You can be wise like God. And that's what the tree of life represents. Simple, pure, loyalty, dependence, devotion to Jesus. That's what the serpent deceived Eve of. That's what the devil tried to deceive Jesus of.

And that's what all of our circumstances God allows. He's saying what I'm fundamentally interested in is do you still have that muscle in order? All of the muscles we can work on over time, the muscle of getting up and staying up, the muscle of victory over sin, the muscle of purity of the eyes, the muscle of purity in your tongue, the muscle of purity of all bitterness.

These are all incredibly important muscles. Like the biceps and the triceps and the many other muscles. But dear brothers and sisters, one that we can so easily forget about is the porn spirit, the vine branch depending on the vine, this muscle of humility.

This is not a new message. This is an old message. This is just something that the Lord has been reminding me of, the kingdom of God. Everybody's talking about Jesus coming and everybody's talking about thinking about why Jesus came to this earth.

Well, he came to bring a kingdom and he said put on your space suit. You're not going to survive in the kingdom of God if you don't have a space suit on and breathing in the oxygen of God, the vine, all the nutrients that the vine is supposed to give you.

And so don't lose the I need you Jesus cry. And the beautiful news about it is an adulterer can do that. A tax collector can do that. A Pharisee is in great danger of not having it. The religious have real trouble with that muscle.

But those who are down and out, those who are struggling, they can easily activate that. Maybe a brother or sister in Christ can come slap them in the back of the back and say wake up. Come on get that I need you Jesus going and they'll say yes.

But some other religious Pharisees, some of us who've gotten victory over sin, it may be harder for us to say really I do need you Lord. Like I needed you when I was down in the dumps, when I was struggling with sin.

We know that. We know how desperately we needed God when we were low on finances or when we were struggling in sin. It was so easy to activate that muscle, but now things are going okay. And then we can get lulled into not that muscle getting atrophied.

The Kingdom Comes Through the Holy Spirit

Dear brothers and sisters, Mark chapter 1 verse 15. The kingdom of God is at hand and that kingdom of God came when the Holy Spirit finally came into our hearts. Jesus was the kingdom of God living on this earth, but wasn't available for the rest of the disciples even until the day of Pentecost and then the Holy Spirit came upon us and was given to our hearts because the hearts had been cleansed and then the kingdom of God is in us.

Righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit. So the kingdom of God is what God's asking us to do. The fundamental muscle is the I need you Jesus one. The second word I said I'll underline is gospel.

From Repentance and Forgiveness to Salvation from Sin

What's the gospel? The gospel is differentiated from the message of John the Baptist and Mark chapter 1 verse 4 tells me what the message of John the Baptist was. Now remember John the Baptist was the greatest of the Old Testament saints and I wonder which message, which quote-unquote gospel we've embraced.

What is the message of the John the Baptist? Verse 4, a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. That sounds awfully good. We are taught so much that Christendom has lost the message of repentance.

That's true. So now you come hearing about a message of repentance and forgiveness of sins and you say well, that's pretty good. Well, that's the message of John the Baptist. What is the message of Jesus?

The message of Jesus was in Matthew 121, not repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance and the salvation of sins. Very different and that difference is where the gospel is. The difference between forgiveness of sins and salvation is the good news that we have to understand that Jesus is uniquely equipped to give us.

Let me give you an example of how that can apply to my life by an analogy. Something that I have trouble with, I've always had trouble with, is oily foods. I've always had trouble with oily foods. I love oily foods way too much and you put oily foods and sugar together, that's like a killer combination.

I love the two of them combined together. A lot of Indian sweets, combine them to success, to great success. But that's my problem. I got a lot of oily foods. Now, what do I do with oily foods? And this is I'm speaking from experience.

I love oily foods. I love oily foods. So I eat oily foods and I eat oily foods and I eat oily foods and then I get sick. And then I get a stomachache and then I repent of my love for oily foods. And I wish God I don't eat oily foods anymore.

And I said, please Lord, forgive me. Please heal me from my overindulgence of oily foods. And so I get over my oily foods for a few days. But oily foods are too attractive to me. So a few weeks later, I'm back at it, eating oily foods, this time in moderation.

Because I've been told everything in moderation is good, but oily foods is too good for me. So sooner or later the oily foods has its effect on me and then I get another stomachache. So then once again, I repent and I ask for forgiveness.

I take some medicine and I get better over time. And that's the repeated cycle. This is my life with oily foods. I'm not done with it. I'm still struggling a little bit. It's better. But this is the challenge with oily foods that I have.

It's the story of repentance and forgiveness. That's what I get. And God has given some doctors some good medication that helps me sometimes with this oily food forgiveness. It helps my stomachache goes away over time.

But I'll tell you this, you put a plate of doughnuts or you put some oily foods in front of me. It's not gonna last very long. My restraint only goes so far. But I'll tell you what will solve my oily foods problem.

I know what will solve my oily foods problem. I've not solved the oily food problem as yet, but I know what will solve the oily food problem. If I get a little pain in my stomach and I go to the doctor and the doctor does a scan on me and says, you've got cancer.

Good news is we can fix it. You've got to cut out oily foods forever. Now all of a sudden I will find that I don't need repentance and forgiveness. I need salvation from oily foods. And this is the problem that I have with sin.

The problem with sin, it's not a new gospel, you've heard this before, is that I don't think that sin is like cancer. I think sin is like a stomachache. I don't like it. Nobody wants a stomachache. Nobody wishes stomachache on their children.

I'm not planning to eat the oily foods knowing it's gonna give me stomachache, but I think I can get away with it. And I do the risk and rewards and the pleasure of sin is too much that I take off it.

But what I don't have is the view that sin is like cancer. And so I'm stuck with the gospel of John the Baptist. Repentance and forgiveness of sins. And I don't know, dear brothers and sisters, if that's also the gospel that you've really been living.

I don't know if that's the gospel that you are really embracing right now. The gospel of repentance and forgiveness of sins. And dear brothers and sisters, that is the message of John the Baptist. That is not the message of Jesus.

The message of Jesus is, I want to save you from it. And I look at Jesus and I tell him, are you serious? You're telling me that you can save me from this natural instinct that is in me to eat oily foods.

You think it's that? You know how deep my love for oily foods goes? And we look at God and we look at some of the sins in our lives and we see the way our eyes cannot be controlled, or the way our tongues cannot be controlled, or the way our unforgiveness keeps coming back at us because somebody hurt us.

And we say, are you serious Lord? You're really saying that you can save me from it? Because you know how pleasurable it is for my eyes to go in the wrong direction? You know how it is that this person was a co-worker of mine.

I love looking at her on Zoom. I can't stop myself from shouting. I've had this anger issue for decades. Are you telling me that you can save me from it? Because I know the oily foods is a problem. But is it possible that you can save me from it?

And I got to tell you that if I take the analogy of the oily foods, I see how difficult it is to fathom that I really can be saved from it. Because I know how deep it goes. And you may have something like that in your life, where you're like, I know it's not good for me.

I just can't help myself. And this is where Jesus came and said, this is the good news. This is the gospel. I'm gonna be able to save you from it. And there are two things required for that. One is I really need to see it as a cancer.

And then two, I really got to believe what Jesus is saying. And I need God's help for that. I need God to open my eyes to see that sin is like cancer. I don't see it for all the sins in my life. Some more than others.

Because I know the difference that would happen in my life if oily foods was directly connected to the cancer. And there was a direct link that I could make in my mind. I would walk away from oily foods so quickly.

I would say no, thank you. I don't care if it took two days to prepare this with me in mind. I don't care if you really had me in mind when you spent the last one week going to the ends of the earth to buy all the ingredients to make this oily food.

I'm sorry. I can't eat it. It gives me cancer. I'm a cancer survivor. I can't eat it. I don't have that attitude towards sin. And I really believe that that's what Jesus says. This is the gospel. I have to give you the Holy Spirit.

Because the Holy Spirit is holy in his very essence. He's holy in his very essence. And he has to come dwell in me so that holiness in his nature starts. I get a taste of holiness as a nature. And when somebody who's holy in their nature, when I interact with them, they have such a natural hatred for sin that I partake of that.

And I have to partake of that. I can't do it on my own. But I need to fellowship with somebody who's holy in his nature. Not holy as an act or as a set of actions. That's what Jesus says. This is the good news.

I've come to change how you view sin. I want you to have an enmity towards sin. I want you to look at a loose tongue and hate it. Like a cancer patient hates oily foods, who says you have to stay away from oily foods.

We need God's help for that. So that's where my first point and my second point get connected. When we see our lack, not of good works, not when we see our lack of victory over sin, when we see our lack of this basic nature of enmity towards sin is when we say, Lord, I need you.

And that's where this repeated looking up to Jesus and saying, God, I need you. This repeated raising my hand and saying, Lord, I need you comes from. Because I need something for my eyes. Because yes, I've been able to program some kind of set of victory over sin, but I don't have this hatred and an enmity for these sins.

Which is why I give in to a repentance and forgiveness of sins gospel. And I say, Lord Jesus, you came for something different. You came to save me from it. A salvation from it. That I look at the oily foods and I'll see an enemy.

That's what Jesus saw. By the power of the Holy Spirit, not because he was God, but because the Holy Spirit lived in him, he saw the oily foods and he saw an enemy. He saw sin and he saw enemy. He saw turned stone into bread and he saw enemy.

Not my own pleasure and satisfaction. He saw, jumped down from the temple and saw enemy. Instead of, well, now everybody will know I'm the Messiah. Now everybody will know that I love God. He saw the enemy.

He saw the serpent. And we need our eyes to be open to that. Dear brothers and sisters, our need is real, but the kingdom of God is here. Repent and believe in the gospel. It's good news because God's not just telling you you've got a horrible problem.

God's not telling you you've got a huge blindness issue. You don't see these things as sin. God's saying the good news is my name is Jesus. I will save you from it. And the way he saves me is to open my eyes to see how horrible sin is.

And we need his help for it. This doesn't come from Bible study. This doesn't come from prayer. This comes from the Holy Spirit opening our eyes and us partaking of a spirit who is holy in his nature.

Hope in the Spirit’s Work

And God says be patient with me. Be patient as the Holy Spirit groans within you. When he sees this weakness of yours to sin, it says Romans 8 26, the Holy Spirit groans with you in your weakness. Let's turn to that verse, Romans chapter 8.

I don't know if you know the verse before Romans 8 26, which says in the same way the spirit groans with our weakness. In the same way. In the same way as what? Because Romans 8 26 starts with that. We know though, maybe some of us know that phrase the spirit groans with our weaknesses, right?

It helps with our weaknesses because he groans with groanings too deep for words. But in the same way the Holy Spirit ends the weakness. In the same way as what? Well, you got to go to the previous verses to find out in the same way as what?

Verse 24 and 25. I mean you can go to the previous verses where he talks about how we'll one day get a body that's not corrupted and we will kind of be fully adopted as sons. But verse 24 and 25 is, I'll just start with those, which is in hope we have been saved but hope that is not seen is hope.

I don't see how I can see that sin as being such an enemy. I don't see how I will be able to treat that sin as cancer. I don't see it. Well, that's exactly where hope comes in. That's exactly what hope is because I don't know how it's possible that I will see that sin as cancer.

Well, that's why you need hope and in hope you'll be saved. As you keep hoping, hope against hope. I don't know how me as a 90 year old man will have a baby and my wife is 80 years old, but hope against hope.

Abraham believed for hope we will be saved. It's in the hope of it. It's the hope because you don't see it. Faith is the same way. We don't see faith, but faith is the assurance of things not seen. Hope is the same way.

I don't see it because if you see it, there's no point of having hope for it. That's what he says here. For how can you hope for what you already see? Verse 24. But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

That's what we need. Lots of hope and faith. With perseverance we wait eagerly for it. Not saying you immediately get it. So dear brother and sister, do you not have this eyes that are open that see sin as cancer?

You know the sins that are in your life. I do. That's not the question. Do I see those sins as cancer or do I see it as a stomachache? If we don't see it as cancer, have hope that he will do it. That he will save me from my sins because his name is Jesus.

So when we say Lord, let your name be hallowed, when we say your name has been given a name above all other names, that means that Jesus will save me from my sins. It takes on a greater significance than anything else in my life.

So I put on the swimsuit, I put on the spacesuit of I need you Jesus. I need you Jesus for what? For what I do not see. I do not see sin as cancer, but I want it and I hope for it. So with perseverance, I wait eagerly for it.

Where's the space for discouragement when you fail? Why do we fail? Because we don't have victory over sin or something like that. So you don't see the victory over sin. Well, that's why you need hope dear brother and sister.

And when you have hope, you wait eagerly for it. You don't have it. You don't see it. I know you and I don't see it. I don't see sins as cancer. I don't see so many of the sins that I fall in as cancer.

I'm very much with you on this. But that's why you need to have hope. That's why we need to have hope. And hope just means, well, I hope it's going to happen. That's the English definition. The Christian, the Bible definition of hope is I want to see a waiting eagerly for it.

I want to see an eagerness in your eyes. And I want to see a perseverance that a marathon runner has. I want to see that in our eyes on Sunday mornings every week as we come. I have hope. Well, did you have a good week?

No, I had a horrible week defeated in sin. Well, I still have hope though. I don't see this victory and I don't see sin as cancer, but I have hope. A perseverance and a waiting eagerly for it. That's what he said.

Believing and Resting in Christ

Believe. John the Baptist said, let's go back to Mark chapter one. Mark chapter one, John the Baptist, all he could say was in verse three, make ready. He's like, just get ready and wait. But now Jesus says, it's here.

Believe. And you know that word believe, it says put your trust in. I think that's what's in my margin. Put your trust in. All of you are putting your trust on the chair you're sitting on right now. You're putting your trust on it.

You know, all your leg muscles are like, you can take a break now. Well, when you're standing up, they can't take a break. They have to be pretty active. But right now, your leg muscles are like, I'm out.

No need to do anything. Just I'm putting my trust on the chair. That's what Jesus was saying is, put your trust in. Come and sit with me. Be at rest. I'll work it in you. Eagerly wait for it. Hold on.

Persevere. But it's going to happen. And one of the greatest deceptions about humility is that you can separate humility and faith that I've seen in my own life. One of the greatest deceptions about humility that I've seen in my life is that you separate humility from Christian faith.

Christian humility and Christian faith must go together. And that's Habakkuk 2 verse 4, which is quoted in the New Testament, says the proud, there's something not right about them. But the righteous, there's something right about them because they live by faith.

So the righteous are really the humble. And the people who live by faith are contrasted with the people who are proud. If you don't know that, we can turn there. Habakkuk 2 verse 4. That's what showed me that Sandeep never disassociate humility and faith.

They all go together. Habakkuk 2 verse 4. Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right with him. But the righteous one, aka also known as the humble one, because he's contrasting it with the proud one.

The proud one, he's not right. But the humble one, also known as the righteous one, he's right because why? He's living by faith. So I saw that humility and faith go together. He can't separate the two.

And when I had these pictures of humility, I had this picture of people who are putting their heads down. Who say, no, I'm a nobody. Don't give me any ministry. Don't give me anything to do. I'm just going to sit in the back.

And that's very different from him, like Jesus. He was the humblest man, but he was also a man of great faith. And humility is not a soft-spoken person. Some of us just have a loud voice. Humility and faith go together.

Faith is Hebrews 11, 1. Great assurance like hope. Great confidence that God will do it. So don't, it's this whole mindset of, I've been defeated, so I'm going to humbly sit in the back and say nothing.

And I'm just going to be quiet and put my head down. That's not Christian humility. I'm not saying that we portray ourselves as victors and victory over sin and greater than we are. No. Let us have a sober estimate.

Let us not think more highly of God than we should. That's Romans 12. But it also says have great faith if you're humble. If you've been humbled by sin, what's the proof that you're humble? Well, you'll have great faith in God.

When we see our need, when we see our lack of seeing sin like cancer, when we see our lack in salvation from sins, not forgiveness from sins, but we don't have that salvation, God says have faith and have hope for what you do not see.

Humility and faith ought to go together. Repent and believe. Put your trust in the gospel that Jesus will save you from your sins. The kingdom of God is here. Put on your spacesuit. I need you, Jesus.

The Present Day of Salvation

Finally, when is the day of salvation? You know the answer to that. When is the appointed time? Now. Now is the time to put on your spacesuit. Now is the time to say, I believe in you, Jesus. We were singing this song and I was struck by it.

We sang the song, when he takes me by the hand and he leads me to the promised land. What a day, glorious day. When's that day? I know what we were singing about. I agree with that. Every one of those lyrics is going to be a joy untold when we see Jesus face to face, 1 John 3, 2, because we will see him as he is.

But I was thinking, what's the promised land? Do we have access to the promised land right now? What a day, glorious day that will be when he takes me by the hand because I say, I need you, Jesus. He says, I'll take you.

And he leads me through my promised land and says, there's a snake there. There's a snake there. There's a snake that you thought was a pet doll. That's a snake. And he takes you through the promised land.

Your promised land. And he says, that instinct, snake. That opinion you have, snake. That thing over there, unforgiveness, snake. And he leads you through the promised land. And he takes me by the hand.

That's the way he's going to do it. What a day, glorious day that will be, that can be mine today. That's when the glorious day begins. I'm not negating the verse that I was saying about, that's a different day coming.

We look forward to the day. But dear brothers, don't miss the day now. Don't miss the day which is now. And he's saying, the gospel, the kingdom of God is here for those who are needy, for those who will be poor in spirit.