Solis Christus

We'll see about that, but I do pray for g3 coming up. There's a lot of folks going to be there

I'm going to be pray for me especially because as I mentioned last night the the schedule right now is

That I'm the warm -up act on Friday night and I'm the warm -up act for voddie

Balcombe and Paul Washer Let me let me do my Paul Washer impersonation

I Don't know why you're laughing.

I'm talking about you Don't tell him

I did that I Haven't seen voddie since all the heart stuff

So I'm looking forward to to seeing him But so I'm gonna need to be on my a -game and it's interesting that my son my subject this evening is

Very similar to where we'll be at g3. I'm not going to go to the same text. I'll be preaching then but it is

Always an honor to be able to speak on a subject such as this

But once again, we're talking about the solas, so let's get to it And we need to talk about them first historically so that we know let me remind you from last evening

Nobody was running around in the 16th century selling five solas merchandise coffee mugs for Luther it would have been beer mugs anyways, but What you're shocked at that come on some

Baptists in here or something come on If If you don't know how Luther did theology and the stuff he talked about be careful if you actually start reading about some of the things he said

And what he was drinking while he was saying it but We are looking back in history and we're looking at what they taught and how they taught it and what they defended and It has been later generations that look back and have realized these were the things that marked

The Reformation these solas these Emphases and I did mention last evening that for example

Luther translated the text in Romans 3 as as faith alone sola fide

And if you go to the to the castle church in Wittenberg up in the stained glass windows

You will see that in Latin up there or was it in German? It's one of the two I forget which one it was now that I think about it

But we are looking back at that and we are projecting these things back and recognizing what they were talking about So why would there be an issue of solus

Christus? Christ alone Because no matter what you say about Rome Rome doesn't believe what the

Mormons believe that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer They don't believe what the

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is Michael the Archangel So, why would someone identify solus

Christus and I think most of you who are former Roman Catholics especially in a in a sort of an older form of Roman Catholicism the more

Pre Vatican to forms of Roman Catholicism would recognize how vitally important other individuals are in the

Sacramental system of Rome in the obtaining of grace and in the final coming to have a relationship to God So, what do

I refer to here? Well Most of you would recognize

The absolute centrality of Mary the absolute centrality of Mary Even in the dogmatic teachings of the

Roman Catholic Church today Now the current Pope does not seem to be

Nearly as focused upon Mary as for example, John Paul the second was John Paul the second his papal coat of arms said totus tuus totally yours and That was addressed to Mary And so the current

Pope doesn't seem to be nearly as Focused upon Marian devotion and things like that but certainly a large portion of Roman Catholics, especially in places like Spain Central America So on so forth are still very very much focused upon their

Relationship to Mary and a lot of people who are not former Roman Catholics just don't understand

How important this is theologically speaking now, I don't recommend this to you. I think it's spiritually

Degrading in a way, but there is a book That you could read called the glories of Mary that really represents

Where So much of Rome's theology of Mary in the past 200 years has come from Alphonsus de

Liguri is the author he's considered a doctor of the church and It's hard for me to describe

I did not queue up my Mary quotes because I don't want to spend a lot of time on this but the fundamental nature of the quotations is that we need a

Mediator with the mediator Because Jesus doles out justice

We need someone basically to make Jesus like us and no one better can be found than his mother

Mary and so you will find prayer after prayer in this book of individuals addressing themselves to Mary and Asking Mary to intercede for them asking

Mary to save them and trusting their souls to Mary Because she is the mediatrix feminine form of mediator and Once you understand the position that Jesus takes as Judge in essence and Once you understand that Rome does not have a finished work of Christ.

Oh, they'll say yes. Yes. Yes There's only there's only one work of Christ But once you understand the doctrine of the mass once you understand the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass as Rome teaches it they believe that when the priest utters the words of consecration and In the old

Latin said hocus corpus ma 'am. This is my body That's where hocus -pocus came from by the way, did you know that?

hocus -pocus is just a it's just a Latinized slurred version of hocus corpus ma 'am the

Latin of this is my body. That's what that phrase came from You're all sitting there going They're sort of looking at each other.

Do you believe him? I'm not sure Do you believe him? I'm not sure either. No, it's true. That's where it came from When the when the when the priest by his power of ordination

Says those words the miracle transubstantiation takes place and the elements of the bread and the wine are changed into the body soul blood and divinity of Jesus Christ but because the veris a teal

Ian philosophy the Accidents what they look like stays the same but the substance changes in the body soul blood and divinity of Jesus so Jesus is represented in Unbloody fashion upon the

Roman altar every time mass is said the problem is that That sacrifice perfects no one

So you can come before that sacrifice 10 ,000 times 20 ,000 times in your life and Still die impure and go to purgatory or even lose the state of justification and go to hell

So you have to keep coming and you have to keep coming and you have to keep coming So there is no finished work that perfects anyone

That is why I like I said last evening Romans chapter 4 who's the blessed man in Roman Catholicism.

There is no blessed man That's the problem That's the issue so you have a different gospel that does not give peace and So, can you understand why you'd like to have a mediator with the mediator to try to soften the justice that would come from his hand and Mary becomes the individual that is appealed to but not just Mary Most of you probably know the

Roman Catholic liturgical calendar every single day Is a day dedicated to some

Saint someplace There is literally a pantheon of minority deities and While a lot of Roman Catholics today just don't even pay attention to this

It is still the theology of the church that Saints are Able to intercede for us and in fact in Roman Catholic theology a

Saint is a person who has Sufficient merit before God at the point of their death to enter directly into his presence

You see when you die in Roman Catholicism if you have temporal punishments of sin upon your soul

Now if you have eternal punishments go to hell But if you have temporal punishments of sin and every time you sin you get temporal punishments

That's why you have to do penances. That's why you'd go to the priest, etc, etc that those are supposed to remove those things, but if you've done your penances imperfectly and Forgot to do some and things like that.

You didn't confess certain sins Then your soul was impure and nothing impure can enter into the presence of God So, let me let me contrast this

I didn't mean to go this direction I'm sorry, but since I've said it now you're all and you're all honestly looking at me like really

But you do need to understand this Luther used the illustration of Justification Being like the the first snow of the winter that covers over the dunghills because in Germany you kept all your animals refuse and used it to fertilize your fields the next spring and Those things wouldn't smell very good by the end of the summer

And so that first snow comes and covers them over and you no longer have the ugliness

You no longer have the smell and he said justification is like that the righteousness of Christ Covers over us who are dunghills

It's not sanctification where we are actually changed from being a dunghill into something else. It's something that covers us

Now Luther would not have denied that there's a direct connection between the two That he who

God justifies he will sanctify But he said you have to differentiate between the two if you conflate the two you have a real problem.

That's what Rome does Roman Catholic apologists love to attack that illustration Love to make fun of it.

The problem is when you turn the illustration around in Roman Catholicism when you are baptized You're turned into a pile of gold and that's why you go to heaven

You go to heaven because you are intrinsically pleasing to God God likes to have gold in heaven.

But what happens if you commit a mortal sin? back into a pile of dung

Not a pile of dung with some gold or gold the pile But if you commit a mortal sin, you lose the grace justification the enemy of God you're lost.

Boom. Now you can be forgiven go through the sacrament of penance and Back to a pile of gold

But now there are temporal punishments to come along with that. So you might be a pile of gold that has flecks of dung on it when you commit temporal sins not mortal sins venial sins

Then temporal punishment and you remain a pile of gold, but now you start getting more and more dung on you

So the point is when you die in that state You have to be cleaned up and that's what purgatory is all about purgatory is not a second chance

Purgatory is a place you go to to be cleaned up to undergo what's called status fossil the suffering of atonement

But it's your suffering not the suffering of Christ that cleans you up and That's why you could buy indulgences and you can still get indulgences the current

Pope only last year Gave plenary indulgences to people who attend who went to many cathedrals in the world

All I have to do is walk through certain doors and you get a plenary indulgence Which would wipe you clean of all the temporal punishments of your sins even

Frankie the hippie Pope Did that so The intercession of Saints is extremely important because when they died

They had excess merit and that excess merit goes into what's called the treasury of merit when

Mary died Mary didn't commit any sins as a bunch of extra merit and Jesus he only would have had to have shed a single drop of blood to forgive the whole world and since he bled copiously there's all sorts of excess merit from him, too and All that excess merit goes into the thesaurus meritorium the treasury of merit

That the church then controls and can make deposits to your account in the form of indulgences now how many of you knew all of that before a

Couple of you. Okay. All right good So Do you see now?

What the background is? To the assertion on the part of the

Reformation the Reformers of Solus Christus Christ alone not

Christ Dependent upon or even channeling through others

Because for example in the current Roman Catholic theology regarding Mary one of the claims that Liguri's book makes is that Mary is the neck of that turns the head of grace and through which all grace flows see the centrality that makes of Mary and So what the what the

Reformers were emphasizing? Was that Christ will not have?

Comediators co -redeemers co -saviors He will not have little individuals that in essence are the channels

Through which he has to work I remind you of Jesus's words in John chapter 6

Remember Jesus said I have Not come down from heaven to do my will but the will of him who sent me and this is the will of him who sent

Me that of all that he has given me. I lose none of it But raised up on the last day

Whatever else you do with that text Jesus has to be capable of Doing what the father?

Wills for him to do Jesus has to be able to be a perfect Savior He has to have that power and so the

Roman system with its many many Intermediaries Has Jesus way up there as a judge and the

Reformers said what you find in Scripture is a Focus totally upon Jesus.

The fact is fascinating to me. It's that same sixth chapter of John where Jesus makes this so clear and Rome misses it there, too

Because what else is in John chapter 6 you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood Now what

Jesus was saying? Was that he is the bread of life and You must be in him to have eternal life

The focus was completely on him The focus never left him Rome has missed that and turned it into some type of Aristotelian magical act

With accidents and presence and so on and so forth that nobody at that particular point in time in history would have ever thought of as the interpretation of his words and so this is our background and Is it not the teaching of the entirety of the

New Testament Turn with me to Philippians. Let's let's do some let's do some Bible here before you do some application

Philippians chapter 2 as I'm sure you know This is not anything that's gonna be new, but I want to make sure we're all on the same page

Philippians chapter 2 Paul is exhorting the Church of Philippi to live in peace and harmony with one another and The greatest

Mechanism for maintaining peace and harmony in the local fellowship of the church is for all of us to act in humility of mind toward one another as He says to think of others is more important than yourself to put others needs before your own.

I Think we all know that sort of naturally if you've been in the church for any period of time, you know The people who are the silent servants

Who are already always giving of themselves they're the ones that are setting up the food trains and visiting the people and they're the ones that stay late to put the chairs away and you know and they're not looking to be recognized and then

I was talking to a brother before this service started and I told him I used to Do what that those guys back there doing?

I was a sound man when I was about 18 19 years of age now

That is the most thankless job in the world If you do it perfectly, nobody even knows you were there if anything goes wrong, everybody knows where to look and Even if it's the doofus on the stage that messed everything up you're gonna get blamed anyways

Just how it works. It was really bad because I was in a church with a 5 ,000 seat auditorium a 250 voice choir and a full orchestra

And multiple services. Oh, wow. That was fun and We knew in the amongst the sound guys we knew who of the soloists were good was going to be our nightmare and They were the ones who wanted to make sure that Their voice was above everybody else's and they wanted their voice in the in the full back monitors

More me. We almost had t -shirts that said more me made up for certain of the soloists, you know and You could just tell they had an ego problem and It I'll be honest with you for those of us who knew this sort of ruined a lot of really good solos

You know what? I mean But that's

It does not surprise me then that a lot of the disciplinary problems and church split problems and stuff came from that part of the church

And so this is what Paul's talking about. He says Humility of mind. What's what's humility humility is having certain rights and laying them aside in the service of others

We may all be equal as Christians before the cross The same blood was shed for each of us the same righteousness has been imputed to us the same spirit dwells within us

You've heard it said before the ground is level at the foot of the cross, right? And yet there are people who don't recognize that as a reality and so if we act in humility of mind toward one another it is that and even if You act in humility of mind towards someone who doesn't return the favor

How many times has that brought peace within the local fellowship? It's over and over and over again in the middle of that exhortation the first four verses of chapter 2 in the middle of that exhortation you have a fragment

From The first century hymnal of the first Baptist Church probably of Jerusalem.

It's okay. You can chuckle at that It was meant to be somewhat funny There wasn't a first Baptist Church.

I the trail of bloods a joke, by the way, if you're ever wondering about that, I Know it's really popular, especially down south, but it's historically absurd, but anyways

This is a fragment of an early hymn of the church now it might have been a creedal statement but probably it was a hymn and if it is it tells us that wow the early church had great hymns and What they were about and they weren't

Jesus is my girlfriend hymns You know what? I mean? It wasn't all about me and how

Jesus helps me. It was all about him So verses 6 through 11 and it may even be set off in some of your translations in Po as poetry how many of you in your

English translations? It's set off as poetry Just a couple of you. Okay In my

Greek text it's in poetic form it's set off in that in that way So what's

Paul doing? He is using You know if I said amazing grace how sweet the sound

See how easy that is Because we have a common heritage in the music that we sing and So Paul is using

Something that would be common to the people around him To the people he's writing to but it's a sermon illustration and he goes back to his subject afterwards

This is considered one of the greatest Christological passages passages teaching about who Jesus is in all the

New Testament and it's a sermon illustration I've always found that fascinating absolutely fascinating So what does he say he says have this mindset this way of thinking

Amongst you he uses the plural there. So he's talking about in the church Which was also in Christ Jesus So here's my illustration.

You want to know what it means to act in humility of mind toward others. Let's look to Jesus How did

Jesus act in humility of mind? Now I'm gonna give you my own translation

If you really want to dig deeper into this Many years ago, man. I wonder how many years ago. So it's now

It wasn't as long ago as Paul was some people think I'm that old but Probably 2000 2000

I wrote an article for the CRI Journal called The Carmen Christie, I think it was called the

Carmen Christie. Anyways, you can find it online. It's still there And I offer my own translation and commentary and go really in -depth into this particular text

If you want to go farther than we do this evening but Who Jesus that is?

Eternally existing because it's a the form of the participle is used there in the more faith

They you the form of God Who existing in the form of God?

Did not consider Equality with God Something to be grasped or held on to now, there's a there's a whole bunch of Debate and argument among scholars as to whether it's something to be grasped or something to be held on to I Think as we look at the text there is only one way to determine that that makes any sense

But there are those who would argue that But it's literally the to be equal with God the status of equality with God and Given what's going to be?

Concluding in verse 11 God the Father. So at some point in time in eternity past The son is equal with the father

But he does not consider and that verb means to give to analyze something to to give consideration to something something

So this is one of those verses mark this down How many of you have ever run into a oneness

Pentecostal? Jesus only folks, okay Mark this one down.

This is one of the key texts that demonstrates that the son Existed as a divine person before the

Incarnation which they do not they do not believe the son existed as a divine person

In fact, the son is simply the physical nature of Jesus. It's just a physical body Why does it prove that because here before the

Incarnation? he is considering things and In fact, he does two things.

He considers in verse 6 and then he makes himself of no reputation in verse 7 so these are actions of a person and Therefore Jesus was a divine person prior to the

Incarnation. So just make a note of that if you have friends or family in those co -workers, whatever

So he eternally exists in the form of God But does not consider that quality has with God the

Father something to be held on to But makes himself of no reputation the term there is to is literally to empty

This is called the kenosis from the Greek verb that is used But Paul never uses this term literally

Every other time he uses it. It's like I did not want my my labor amongst you to become empty

That is vain or of no reputation. So he Notice does this to himself?

It's not done to him This is a reflexive pronoun So this is something he does to himself he makes himself of no reputation and how does he do so this is fascinating By taking the morphe.

So he has the morphe say you the form of God eternally But he takes the morphe

Dulu the morphine Dulu because it's in the accusative He takes the form of a servant.

This is something he does. This is how He he makes himself a reputation by taking on a human nature

Because of who he was before and we know from other scriptures for example

That John tells us in John chapter 12 that when Isaiah Saw the

Lord sitting upon his throne in his temple vision. That was Jesus Look at John 1241

Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and he spoke about him and the only him in the context of Jesus John identifies

Jesus as Yahweh and So that's where he was in that glorious position.

And so he makes himself of no reputation By taking on the form of a servant by being made in the likeness of men

This is the incarnation, this is John 1 The word became flesh and dwelt among us here is the early church confessing this reality and Being found in appearance as a man

He humbled himself the very same verb that was used up for example in verse 3

Humility of mind which he's exhorting his readers to He's saying here is what this glorious personage who made himself of no reputation

Entered into human flesh and when he's found in appearance as a man He humbled himself again reflexive pronoun.

This is something he does. This is not something that was done to him. He does it himself He humbled himself becoming obedient unto death and then literally

Even the cross death and I think

Paul puts it that way or the early Christians expressed it that way because the fact that Crucifixion was the most vile method of execution

That existed you could not crucify a Roman citizen no matter what they did If they tried to assassinate

Caesar, you still couldn't crucify him if he was a Roman citizen is beneath a Roman citizen to be crucified

There were people in that day that wouldn't even use the word and So the death of a cross is the most vile death you could have

He became obedient to the point of death even the cross death therefore

God and again given the end of verse 11. We know this is the father

God the Father Exalted him and gave to him the name

Literally the name the above every name the name which is above every name

In order that at the name of Jesus Every knee shall bow of the dwellers in the heavens and Under the earth and it really he divides things up into into three different and upon the earth under the earth

To make sure you you realize Everyone every knee will bow every tongue will confess celestial beings all the authorities that exist

Every knee will bow and Every tongue will confess Now in the original language you have a little word called hockey it's normally translated that But it also functions because there were no

Quotation marks back then Y 'all know that For the first 900 years the transmission of the text of New Testament.

It was written in all capital letters No spaces between words and no punctuation, right? Think about what that would look like All capital letters no spaces between words and almost no punctuation

Reading those manuscripts is really fun. You can you can take

Greek and seminary But you look at one of those manuscripts and you're like what? this term functions as a introduction of a quote

So what is it that every tongue will confess? literally

Could he ask Jesus Christ's Lord Jesus Christ Where have you heard that before?

What what can you only say by the Holy Spirit? Jesus Christ is

Lord, right? And what did Caesar demand you say?

Kaiser courteous Caesar is Lord That's why Christians couldn't say it Because they say

Jesus courteous Jesus is Lord and you can't put the two of those together so the confession of every tongue is courteous

Lord Now you need to know understand something What was the primary language spoken by people living in Philippi?

You're allowed to answer. It's okay. I know this isn't a charismatic church. So there's normally not a lot of give -and -take

Philippi is a Roman colony So what language is the lingua franca of the day it's not

Latin. It's coin a Greek vast majority of the people read

Greek and So, how would they have access to the Old Testament scriptures what we we call the

Hebrew scriptures? They had it come something called the Greek Septuagint the Greek translation of the Old Testament What is the name of God in the

Old Testament Yahweh we slaughter it in English as Jehovah. It couldn't have been

Jehovah, but that's another issue It's called the Tetragrammaton yod. Hey, wow.

Hey in Hebrew four letters comes from the verb to be and Guess what that what one word is used in the

Greek Septuagint to render Yahweh Kurios all the way through Kurios Lord So, what do you confess?

Kurios Jesus Christos So what's anyone who has the Old Testament scripture is going to hear

Paul saying who is he identifying Jesus as? There's only one Kurios. It's Yahweh to the glory of God the

Father It's never a situation you never worship

Jesus And Diminish from the glory of the Father There's only one

God that one divine name Yahweh is used of the

Father. It's used of the Son It's used of the Spirit. Why? Because we have one being of God and three divine persons

Who are distinguished from one another? It's not the Father who became flesh. It's not the Spirit who became flesh

It was the Son who was incarnated But when you see the New Testament authors

Applying passages from the Old Testament. There were about Yahweh to Jesus. You have to believe what they're saying. And did you notice that?

Paul just did that and you may have not seen it How did he do it? Every knee will bow and every tongue confess hmm

Look back at Isaiah 45 23 That is what Yahweh says about himself

Yahweh says to me every knee will bow to me every tongue will confess the early church took from the language of the prophet

Isaiah and even in their hymnology Made application of a text specifically about Yahweh to Jesus Paul did the same thing in first Corinthians chapter 8

What defined Jewish monotheism hey, we're at a seminary I can ask these questions, okay, it's alright y 'all sitting there going

Don't ask me that question That's how I keep everybody awake is Because I might

I might just go you So now everyone's averting their eyes.

I don't see no, I guess an ugly Scottish man up there. I don't look at him, you know See you were looking at me.

That was dangerous. That's that's that's you made a mistake there and some of you in the back I know you know engines

So I'm not gonna ask you about anything because I may need you to fix my truck again in the future So I'm not gonna pick on you

No, no, I did. Thank you profusely on my on my webcast today. However, so you need to go

You need to go listen to that. I said I enjoy watching somebody who knows what they're doing and When it when it comes to the the thing that keeps me alive at 70 miles per hour on the freeway.

That's I'm thankful for people to know what they're doing so Greek Septuagint Isaiah 45 23

Identifies Jesus as Yahweh and what was it that identified all Jewish people in the days of Paul?

What was they what would they all know? What would they all do every day? They get up and they would say the what?

the Shema Shema you're gonna learn something tonight when you walk out of here Shema Shema Israel Yahweh Eloheinu Yahweh echad

Here Oh Israel Yahweh is our God Yahweh is one That's what defined the

Jewish faith the Shema that's that's found in the Old Testament both

Numbers and Deuteronomy and This was what they would pray. Did you know?

then in 1st Corinthians chapter 8 Since I mentioned to you does it be really quick here and make make application because They were smart enough to have someone else speaking after me so I can't go on and on and on but in talking about idolatry

Even though there are so called God's many and so called Lord's many verse 5

Verse 6 is in poetic form too. Why because it's an early creed of the church, but to us

There is one God the Father from whom are all things and we for him and one kudios

Jesus Christ Through whom are all things and we through him now if you were to take the

Greek translation of the Shema and Lay it next to what Paul gives you here You would see he has taken the

Shema and he has expanded it in light of what has happened in Christ He's expanded it out the word heis one same word that's used in the

Shema They asked same your word used in the Shema kudios same word used in the

Shema and the kudios is translating Yahweh So to apply this to the

Sun here is again One of the many places in New Testament where Jesus is identified as Yahweh.

So there's your connection It's not some new religion The Shema is true but in light of what happens in history

Now you have the expanded version of the Shema which becomes the creedal statement of the early church now

I only have a few minutes. So let me try to make application like I did last night What I am saying is one of the most

Amazing claims that has ever been propounded by man to be seriously considered.

I Recognize that outside of the role of the Holy Spirit. No one would ever believe this message

You need to understand that to the secularist what we believe and what we are calling them to believe is absolute pure insanity

We are actually saying That the one who created this vast universe there's over a hundred billion stars in our galaxy and And we now know and have only known for we've known for less than a century there are over a hundred billion galaxies like our own as so far beyond That is so far beyond our thinking it even dwarfs the amount of money the

Democrats are trying to spend in Washington It's big out there and we are literally telling the world

That The one who not only created those things but according to Colossians chapter 1 in whom all things hold together

That's holds all of it together by his power that he was born as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem in the armpit of the

Roman Empire and that he never went to Rome and he never wrote a book and he left 12 disciples to get things rolling and We're actually telling them that was our

God And the secular mind they look at you and go you are nuts And that's why

Paul said the preaching of the cross The message of the cross is what to them that are perishing.

What is it foolishness? You know what the Greek word is more on us more on us

Moronic and one of the stupidest things that we do in the church is when we try to make it non moronic

When we try to sacrifice the wisdom of God to the wisdom of man,

I think every professor in a seminary Should have to at least once a month

Read 1st Corinthians chapters 1 & 2 and Be reminded of the fact that the wisdom of God is wiser than men

Because far too many seminary professors want to be seen by the world as Wise like they are

We will never be wise like they are because what we believe is foolishness to them We are literally telling the world

That our God invaded his own creation and having invaded his own creation.

He lived amongst us and And then he gave his life in the most degrading manner possible

From the world's perspective crushed under the power of the heel of Rome and he did it purposely

It's what he and the Father and the Spirit had decreed to do from time immemorial To accomplish what could only be accomplished in that way and when he came out of that grave

Before he ascended up to the Father To be seated at his right hand before the son of the one like the

Son of Man was presented before the ancient of days and given a Kingdom and people that worship him

Daniel chapter 7 He said to that small group of followers words

That I'm not even sure most of his followers today really do believe

Because we know the Great Commission, right? Oh Everybody knows the Great Commission Everybody knows the

Great Commission. Therefore go Make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the

Father the Son Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all things What's where I've commanded you and I lo I am with you always even under the end of the age.

Amen We all know it, right? But there's a therefore Therefore go therefore what what did you say before that all?

Authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth That's the foundation upon which we go if God is going to invade his own creation the one who does so Who happens to control every beat of your heart?

Every breath of your mouth because he sustains all things Your life is a gift from his hand.

I like to mention that by the way to my Muslim friends If you want to see how that works look up the debate that I did at a

Baptist Church in London With Adnan Rashid, it was two stops away from where the

London bombing the 7 -7 bombings took place in the subway in the in the tube and It was a pretty pitched debate it was me and Adnan Adnan and I didn't know each other yet He was used to doing fisticuffs with people and we've now come to know each other and I've discovered he's just a big

Pakistani teddy bear so That's sort of changed our debates ever since then they completely changed their nature you you watch the first couple we did and then

I had lunch with him and got to know him and Explain to him why I do what I do you watch every debate after that.

They're all different They're all different Because he doesn't know what to do with me. What do you do with a Christian who knows what we believe and loves us?

Anyway, so I what in the world are we gonna do with that? It's wonderful. So pray for Adnan Rashid Pray for all the

Muslims I've debated but anyway in that debate he's presenting

Jesus as a mere prophet as a rasool of Allah and I just and the funny thing was all the

Christians sat over here and all the Muslims thought over there is self -segregation and So I just forget the

Christians and I just turned to the Muslims I Said you needed you need to stand something this book

Which was written centuries before your prophet came along and your prophet showed no knowledge this book whatsoever says that Jesus Christ Made you sustains you every beat of your heart and every breath of your mouth comes from his hand

You cannot treat him as a mere prophet and it was the Lucy Linus effect

Remember whenever Lucy would yell at Linus and his hair would go straight back That's what that's what that was.

I mean nobody had ever said anything like that to those folks before I feel like I need to say that to a lot of Christians because for some reason we have the idea that Jesus authority is really really really limited and somehow

Final authority has been given to the state Jesus is what is the phrase king of kings mean?

Lord of Lords What would that have meant to anybody before America came along got rid of kings and lords he has all authority

And so let me make one application and you can look it up tonight. I haven't linked to it yet on our blog

I did it on Twitter. I Mentioned last week. I I wrote a

I don't know it's if you type set it in book sizes about 15 pages I'll just go ahead and lay this out really quick Apology of Church is attempting to help

The Navy SEALs who are trying to not be kicked out of being Navy SEALs over the issue of the vaccines there's hundreds of them and many of them are

Solid Christian believers that we didn't know about they contacted us They listened to myself to my fellow pastor

Jeff Durbin Fell by name Doug Wilson if you know who he is We're trying to be an encouragement to them and they needed a statement

From a biblical perspective on This subject and so I spent last weekend.

I've had a very short period of time. It's now up on on a website and it's oh man

Supporting warriors org. I think something like that. I'm sorry. I don't I don't have any notes in front of me or anything like that So it's not in the

New Testament But in that statement

I emphasize Who Jesus is to ground the fact that Christ's law and Christ's Word Rules in all of human history and that's where a lot of us struggle

That's where a lot of us struggle. What's gonna happen? When Caesar can we call can we call the state

Caesar for the moment? But I don't know about you. This regime is trying to act like Caesar, but when

Caesar says look We're not asking you to stop worshiping your gods

Just admit that our God Caesar is one of your gods say

Caesar is Lord. You can say other people are Lord Why can't we agree to that because our

Lord is Lord of Lords and King of Kings and he is the only one standing the right hand of the father

Once you recognize the radical nature of that claim Then you can understand

Why communism saw the Christian Church as its mortal enemy? You know who

Karl Marx hated the most in London. Who was it? Charles Haddon Spurgeon, you know why because he knew that man's message kills mine.

Why? Think about it. Think about it Solus Christus if our

Jesus is who the word says he is It changes everything and provides you the foundation

To stand from generation to generation and generation not the changing standards of the world today

But the unchanging reality of the resurrected Son of God the

Lord of Glory That's our message. That's our faith. Let's pray together