2023 Laborers' Conference- Session 3 Psalm 110: The Last Enemy is Death

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April 29, 2023

Claude Ramsey will bring the message in session 3 of the conference. Your live podcast hosts will be Jesse Gomez and Dan Self. We would love to have you attend in person. Please register at verticallifenc.church/conference. If you are unable to attend, we hope you will enjoy the broadcast.

2024 Laborers' Conference

00:02: Hey, yo, welcome, welcome to the Laborers Conference. This is the Chicano Knox, aka
00:08: Jesse. And I got the homie Dan with me. What's up, man? Hey, man, tell everybody where you're from and where can they find you real quick.
00:18: I'm from Oneonta, New York, and you can find me on Facebook, YouTube. Me and Rob do the
00:24: Truth and Love podcast. Yeah, that's about it. Yeah, and so this is day two.
00:32: Of the podcast, not just the podcast, but the conference and what you call it,
00:38: Claude Ramsey is going to go ahead and kick off the conference. And real quick before he starts, before we go into his message today, and you know, his message is going to be about the last enemy is death.
00:52: And you can't really talk about Jesus' kingship, Jesus' authority, without talking about this one issue of death.
01:02: And death is the real thing. You know, as a whole world, we just experienced something called, you know,
01:10: COVID -19. And, you know, a lot of people lost their lives and every day people lose their lives.
01:17: And, you know, death is a real thing. And there is a Christian response to death.
01:23: There is a theology and an explanation for it. And you can't really talk about Jesus without talking about death.
01:32: And I think it's a great way to start off the conference is to talk about the
01:39: Christian response to death. So real quick, I don't want to steal too much thunder from Claude.
01:45: Dan, what is, you think, the big issue with death other than everybody feels it?
01:55: The big issue with death is because we have sin. Sin causes death and that causes us to all have issues and troubles from illness, disease, heartache, all the different sort of crimes that are committed and world violence and all that.
02:14: It's all stemmed from sin, which leads to death, which is why it's so incredible that Jesus himself on the cross died and then got back up.
02:24: Once again, not to steal too much from, well, no, Claude's going to be talking about here in just a few minutes, but seeing
02:31: Christ have victory over death is what gives us our hope, knowing that once dead, not always dead, because Christ has risen again.
02:43: You think it's started already? Let's go ahead and see if we can.
02:53: I believe they are. Here's the music. Let's see. I think they're still warming up.
03:02: All right. Give it another few minutes. So if you guys can, please go ahead and subscribe to The Laborer's podcast on YouTube.
03:14: Go on YouTube if you're on your phone and type in The Laborer's podcast and you would see us and very much appreciate it that you guys would just subscribe, hit the like button, go ahead and share it with your friends and family.
03:36: Any support that you guys could give us would be tremendously appreciated. For all of this, it's just an attempt that we're trying to do to get out there, to get the word out there, especially about Jesus.
03:52: Things like this takes effort, takes time, takes energy, takes money, resources and all that stuff.
03:57: So we want to continue this. We want to expand this and continue doing this in the future.
04:04: And we cannot do that if people are not catching wind of this and liking, subscribing is part of,
04:15: I guess, your participation is to jump on board by supporting this. And we need more conferences like this.
04:23: What do you think? Yeah, absolutely. One of the cool things about this particular conference is that the folks who are here are all part of local churches somewhere.
04:32: They're all doing their own thing under the authority of their elders in their local church.
04:40: So we're not just a group of guys with no authority or anything. We're coming together as Christ Church together to encourage the church to build one another up.
04:50: That's one of the reasons why this is so important, why we're trying to do things the way that we are.
04:57: That way we can provide an extra resource to be a benefit and a blessing to the churches all across the world, which is crazy to think about since we all just started in our basements and computers and fancy microphones that I haven't really dealt with before.
05:16: Yeah, it's a little different, huh? So tell us about the resurrection real quick.
05:24: How does the resurrection story, narrative in Christianity is an answer to death?
05:35: How is the resurrection the answer for death? The resurrection is the answer for death because of what
05:41: Christ has done. And here's what I mean by that. I'm basically just rephrasing your question.
05:48: The resurrection means that what was once dead is then alive, which is what it means.
05:55: Christ entered death sinlessly so that way he can defeat death. So that way when we enter into a physical death, we don't have to stay there because Christ has adopted us as brothers, brought us into relationship with the
06:09: Father and brought us into the family of God. And one of the things that's a benefit and inheritance of the family of God is righteousness and eternal life so that we can receive life as family members of God Almighty in heaven with Christ as our brother and God as our father.
06:29: Death affects everything, huh? Like the one man, Adam, disobeys him and his wife and then death just comes into the cosmos and then it wrecks everything.
06:41: It destroys relationships. It destroys creations, dying. You know, there's death everywhere now.
06:48: And then with one man, Jesus, dying on the cross, doing that sacrificial act as a priest, as a king, you know, dying to make a people for himself to create that access, you know, to bridge that gap.
07:06: You say, with one man, you know, Christ Jesus comes to that reconciliation between God and man.
07:16: Now it's possible. So death is like, Jesus is the solution for that, for that answer, for that question of what about death?
07:25: How do you think other religions answer death? Like I met somebody at the conference talking about reincarnation.
07:34: And I never thought about this, but reincarnation is kind of like a, like a very tempting, provocative thought for human, for people.
07:45: Because it's like, I get to come back and live and get a second chance at life again.
07:52: Right, yeah, if I screwed up the first time, I get a second go around at it. Yeah, so it's like, it's very tempting because it's like, okay, well, it kind of doesn't really matter what
08:02: I do then, right? I don't like to slate clean and try over again. Right, because I'm looking forward to coming back.
08:08: And even if I don't remember my old life, the thought of coming back again to participate in life and do it all over again kind of takes the weight off consequences, the judgment and, you know, things like that.
08:27: So I thought of it as, that's very tempting to, that's like a pop -up. That's very tempting to like, believe that.
08:33: It can be, but it neglects one big thing that when we die, our sins don't just get wiped away to try over again.
08:43: We have to answer for what we've done. It takes away justice. Right, it takes away justice because it just makes everything arbitrary, mystical.
08:54: It's like a, it gives things absolutely no meaning. So why try to do better? It doesn't matter anyway.
09:01: Yeah, so I thought about that yesterday when I was talking to somebody about that and I was like, dang.
09:07: Yeah, that does take away the responsibility, you know, the justice, doesn't it? Is Clive starting it?
09:14: Go ahead, Clive. No, let's take a look, guys. Let's see. Why?
09:26: Let's go ahead and see. Put us on the small screen, side by side.
09:40: I believe we're about to get ready to start some music. So let us act like we've done this before.
09:57: Switch it up. You can probably just unmute it and then play it.
11:07: So we want to, again, issue our thanks to Vertical Life Church for hosting this event, for bringing us all in, for being so gracious of a host and as a church for helping put this on.
11:21: This isn't something we had really envisioned for so long and then it's staring us in the eyes.
11:26: So there's that. We have a order form on the back table for Labor's Conference t -shirts like Mr.
11:36: Big John's wearing right now. We didn't have enough for everybody, but we've got an order form back there if you would like to get one.
11:42: Reserve a size and quantity. And so those are, we're going to be doing that throughout the day today.
11:50: And then while you're back there, there is a resource table. We provided some books on various topics concerning the gospel.
11:58: Those are free to take, free to read, free to share. We've got about 23 copies left of John Owen's The Morification of Sin, courtesy of Rochester Book and Bible and Easley.
12:10: They were gracious to donate those to us. And there's quite a few over there. I just know about the one because I brought it.
12:19: We'll be taking up a love offering a little bit later starting in the next session when
12:25: Brother Dan comes out to preach. We will be taking up a love offering for the expenses of the conference, for feeding the future ministry of the
12:33: Truth and Love Network. We would invite you to prayerfully consider partnering with us on that one.
12:39: And without further ado, let us pray before we get started. And Brother Collide will be preaching on Psalm 110 this morning.
12:48: Father God, we are grateful for all that you are and all that you do.
12:55: And we are grateful that you have blessed us with this opportunity to gather, to hear, to sharpen, to exhort one another, to provoke one another in the gospel, in every facet of life, not just the easy ones.
13:10: And Lord, as we gather this time throughout this day, would you sharpen our minds, not according to what the speaker says, but according to who you are.
13:22: Let us hear you. Let us hear your words. Let us be exhorted.
13:29: Let us be convicted. Let us be humbled by you. In Christ's name, amen.
14:08: He came from glory, took on flesh to save us.
14:19: His weight upon the cross, our redemption. He's the hope for all.
23:17: In the power of your name, we have power over sickness, disease, over hell, over the grave.
23:24: Lord, we thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. And we praise you. We praise you,
23:31: Lord, for the work that you have done in us, that you do through us, Lord. And we ask that you would bless this time.
23:39: Brother, as he brings a message this morning, and Lord, I pray for those in this room that I thank you that they're here, but I thank you,
23:50: Lord, that they've come to hear. And if there are those here or online who don't know you, who don't know
23:57: Jesus as their savior, that your name would have power in their lives today.
24:05: Lord, work in us as well. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You can be seated.
24:24: Well, good morning. So glad you're here this morning. Thankful that you're here on a foggy, sleepy morning, okay?
24:34: And that you are smiling. Are you smiling? Amen, amen.
24:42: I'm gonna invite Brother Claude Ramsey up. Claude has a podcast called the
24:49: Here I Stand Theology Podcast. He's also the pastor of Ref Amada Church.
24:57: A lot of people has been asking us, in Knoxville, Tennessee, by the way. I don't know if you guys realize this, those watching online and those that are here, how far some people have actually traveled to be here.
25:09: So Dan's come from upstate New York. They drove, the kids were doing good, so they drove pretty much all night, right?
25:15: Another night, just right on through. So he come from upstate New York. Jesse's probably the farthest away.
25:24: He and Santiago, they came from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
25:30: Jeremy from South Carolina, North Carolina, border right there. What's the name of the town?
25:37: Jeremy. Myrtle Beach, okay. He comes from Myrtle Beach. Suffering for Jesus at Myrtle Beach, right?
25:45: And so, and then again, Claude coming in with a couple brothers from Ref Amada Church from Knoxville, Tennessee.
25:54: Claude is a guy that when you meet him, you fall in love with him. He's a brother that's an encourager, strongly convicted with theology, but also knows how to use theology and conviction to encourage, to navigate with love through hard things, and a man full of grace and wisdom.
26:17: That's what I think about you, Claude, when I first met you. I said, man, this is a dude full of grace and full of wisdom, and I'm very thankful for that.
26:27: So real quick, after every session, there will be a breakout session, okay?
26:34: Today, Tyler will be leading a breakout session here right after service, and we'll do that right up front here for this first one.
26:43: We may move to the classroom right over there, but for our first one, we'll just meet right in here, and those will be recorded for the sake of those who can't attend or for some folks back home, okay?
26:54: Jeremy's breakout session will be right over at First Baptist Church. First Baptist Church is allowing us to host some stuff, and so we'll navigate over there.
27:02: If you guys wanna go there with Jeremy, wanna carpool, you can do that. So Jeremy, would you stand and just give us a quick, like, 30 -second synopsis of your breakout session, just so folks can know?
27:34: Amen, amen. Anybody need some help with patience in life? Amen, all right.
27:40: And then, Tyler, would you please do the same? Would you please just give us a quick overview? Very good, and again,
28:04: Tyler has worked very hard to acquire those books back there. The resource table, anything on that resource table is free, and so we had a couple folks grab, like, an armful of stuff the other night, and we're thankful for that.
28:17: Please help yourself, that's to equip you, so please do that, and especially the mortification of sin.
28:24: That's a great resource that we've been supported with. Let's pray, and let's pray over Brother Claude. Come ahead,
28:30: Brother. Father, thank you so much for this morning. We pray for our brothers. He stands to deliver this message that's gonna glorify you,
28:38: Christ, that's gonna raise you high. We thank you for that, and so we pray that you would anoint him, even as we read to open up this whole weekend, in Isaiah chapter six, we pray that you would cleanse his lips, purifies heart, make clear his mind this one objective, to lift you high,
29:00: Jesus, for you are our audience of one today, whether we're singing or preaching, it's all for your glory, all for your honor, and then we know from that we get great good, we get strengthened, we get sanctified, we are edified.
29:18: So blessing that today, we pray. We bless this, our brother, in Jesus' name, amen, amen.
29:24: Come ahead, Brother. If you would, this morning, please turn to Psalm 110 and stand with us, if you would, to honor the reading of God's holy word.
30:07: These are the words of the living God. The Lord says to my
30:17: Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
30:26: The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies.
30:35: Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power and holy garment.
30:40: From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.
30:53: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand.
31:03: He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses.
31:13: He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way.
31:21: Therefore, he will lift up his head. If we could, let's pray one more time.
31:38: Lord, as I come before you once again, I wanna thank you and I wanna praise you for assurance of faith and the witness of your
31:57: Holy Spirit to the truth of your word. And Lord, my desire today is nothing else but this.
32:20: Show us Christ in your word. Today, only you are able to do the work that is necessary to be done.
32:39: And so what I would ask you is this, Lord, as we look at your word today, draw back the veil in a sense,
32:50: Lord. Show us your glory. Let us know your holiness.
33:02: How great and how awesome and how mighty that you are. And in seeing that, we will inevitably recognize how little and weak and small we are.
33:14: But today, God, through the preaching of the gospel, save the lost, please,
33:24: Lord. Take hearts of stone out of the people who would hear this today and give them hearts of flesh that they can respond to you.
33:38: Oh, God, that today might be the day that the lost are saved.
33:47: And let today be the day, God, that the downcast, the cold, the nearly dried up would be refreshed and would be revived.
34:03: Lord, continue what you began on Thursday. Work according to your will and to you and you alone be the glory, honor, and praise.
34:18: For it's in Jesus' name that I ask you these things, Lord. Amen. Never think that you have knowledge enough or that you study the word more fully, but that God safeguards our humility by keeping us in continual dependence upon Him for teaching and for revelations of Himself from the word.
35:00: He never in this world brings any soul to the utmost of what is from the word to be made out and discovered.
35:08: Plain language, we do not know it all, but we do know what we have been given.
35:16: And thanks be unto God, Augustine said this, Just as there are shallows in Scripture where a lamb may wade, so there are depths in Scripture where an elephant may swim, depths which the most learned and the most godly have yet to plumb.
35:37: All Christians, therefore, should approach the study of Scripture knowing that we know but little and we must long to learn more and we must ever look to God Himself to open unto us
35:51: His word. I am a big dummy because I asked to preach on this text.
36:02: After having asked to preach on it and begin to pray and to try to prepare, I realized that I am absolutely inadequate.
36:10: Nevertheless, I'm going to do my best to glorify the Lord today and to give you the word of God. If you're taking notes today, there will only be two parts in this sermon.
36:22: It should make note -taking quite simple for you. Part one will be an exposition of the text here, and part two will be an exhortation and an encouragement for you to look unto the
36:36: Lord and be saved. Number one, beginning with our exposition of the text, let's establish this fact that this is the psalmist
36:48: David that we are reading here. I say that because there are some skeptics— thank you so much, brother— there are some skeptics who would argue and disprove that this is
37:04: David, but the Scriptures teach us the very plain truth in the Old Testament that by the mouth of two or three witnesses that every word will be established.
37:13: Well, here we have David speaking God's inspired word.
37:20: And in the New Testament, we have the apostle Peter affirming that it is David speaking in his inspired word when he quotes
37:28: David in the great Pentecost sermon. The great Pentecost sermon we hear
37:34: David referred to as being quoted here in this text. And as a third witness, as though we need it anymore, we have the greatest of witnesses.
37:44: We have it in the inscripturated word of God. So this is
37:50: David speaking here. Now what do we see in this text? Beginning in verse 1, there are a number of things that we see.
38:00: First of all here, we see the Father and the
38:05: Son. In this, we see the doctrine of the Trinity set forth in theological terminology.
38:14: Thus, there's another big theological term that we see, which is the doctrine of inseparable operations.
38:22: So simply to find the doctrine of inseparable operations affirms that the triune persons act as a single agent externally while internally their operations are divided.
38:35: Again, let me break that down in plain terms. In plain terms, where one person of the
38:41: Godhead is at work, they are all at work. They do not act individually, but they are all at work.
38:50: So we see the Father and we see the Son. Charles Spurgeon says this,
38:57: Though David was a firm believer in the unity of the Godhead, he yet spiritually discerns the two persons, the
39:04: Father and the Son. He distinguishes between them and perceives that in the second, he has a peculiar interest, for he calls
39:15: Him, My Lord. The psalmist David here, in what is beautiful and what is amazing here,
39:23: I think it's so very important for us here, this is almost an anticipatory exclamation by the psalmist
39:31: David as he's been led in on a divine conversation.
39:37: The conversation between the Father and the Son. We have this here in the text.
39:44: And it looks forward and it kind of echoes the New Testament, where in the New Testament, you remember, as John proclaimed the gospel so clearly to us last night, how
39:54: Jesus died, Jesus cried, It is finished, bowed His head, gave up the ghost, was taken down from the grave, but the good part is that on the third day,
40:07: He arose from the grave. Now, the Scripture tells us this.
40:12: The Scripture tells us that He appeared to a few of the disciples at one time, and Thomas, doubting
40:19: Thomas wasn't there, the disciples told their brother about it. Thomas just shrugged them off.
40:25: He said, Unless I see Him with my eyes, unless I am able to put my fingers in the scars in His hand and in the hole in His side,
40:35: I will not believe. But the Scripture goes on to tell us that Jesus appeared to Thomas.
40:43: Thomas was a big talker, but when he saw the Lord, the Lord said, Thomas, here are my hands and here is my side.
40:52: And all Thomas could do was fall down and declare, My Lord and my
40:58: God. The words that are used here in verse 1, if you'll notice in your own
41:05: Bible, in your text, you'll see the first usage, capital L, capital
41:10: O, capital R, capital D. When you see that in the
41:17: Old or the New Testament, this is the Old Testament signification of the name of God.
41:24: So when you read capital L, you can understand this as being Yahweh, the eternal, self -existent
41:33: God. The God who is before all things and will be when all things are said and done.
41:41: He is God. In the second use, you see the Lord, Yahweh, said to my
41:48: Lord, capital L, small o -r -d. This is the Hebrew term
41:53: Adonai or Adonai, however you want to pronounce that. I'm with John. When you're country, nothing comes out right.
42:01: But this word signifies master. So Yahweh, David is saying,
42:08: Yahweh said to my Lord. David is referring to Jesus as Lord.
42:15: By the way, again, as I mentioned yesterday, that's the title of the message. These men were gracious to let me change it from the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death to Jesus is
42:26: Lord. So as we continue to move through this, I love how
42:31: Charles Spurgeon went on to say this, how condescending on Jehovah's part to permit a mortal ear to hear and a human pen to record his sacred converse with his co -equal son.
42:47: And Spurgeon closed and he said this, how greatly should we prize the revelation of this private and solemn discourse with the
42:57: Son herein which has been made public for the refreshing of his people.
43:05: We read in the book of Romans in the New Testament that these things, these things that we have in the
43:12: Word of God were written before time. For what purpose? So that they were written before time so that we through patience and through the comfort of the
43:22: Scriptures might have hope. The Word of God is our hope.
43:27: So we see the Father and the Son. We see the doctrine of the Trinity. We see the doctrine of inseparable operations.
43:35: Still in verse 1, what do we see next? We see the doctrine of God Himself. The doctrine of God Himself.
43:43: In 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 and verse 17, the apostle
43:49: Paul writes to young Timothy and he reminds Timothy what the Word of God is.
43:55: All Scripture, he says, all Scripture is breathed out by God, inspired by God, and is profitable.
44:06: Profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be perfect, so that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished unto every good work.
44:25: And when it comes to God, when it comes to the character, to the nature of God in our world, in the church world, there are those who profess to know
44:37: God. There are many who say, I know who God is. God is like this.
44:44: There's a big mistake. God is not like anything. God is unlike anything that we know, can fathom, or even imagine.
44:54: God is completely other. There we have another doctrine, the doctrine of the aseity of God, that God is completely other than us.
45:05: Nevertheless, there are people in our world today who profess to know God, and they say this, they have the right to believe
45:14: God to be a certain way, and they have a right to assume that God possesses certain characteristics that are they themselves uncharacteristic of what the
45:25: Bible says about God, about the character and about the nature of God. Now, there's a one -word definition for what
45:35: I just told you, and that one -word definition is called idolatry.
45:42: When you make a god in your own image, whether it's intentional or unintentional, it is idolatry.
45:51: And we are called not to have any other gods other than the
45:57: Lord God Almighty. So, in other words, people have a god of their own making.
46:04: I'm going to make a very bold statement here. And I don't mind being quoted, but don't misquote me.
46:13: But what I'm going to say here is a strong statement. We do not, you nor I, we do not have the authority or the liberty to think freely about who
46:30: God is. We don't have the authority or the liberty to think freely about who
46:37: God is. Now, in the Westminster Catechism, question 3 and 4, it gives us a very good in question and answer form, it gives us a very good pattern to shape our thoughts here.
46:51: Question 3 in the Westminster Catechism states this, what do the Scriptures principally teach?
46:58: The answer, the Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and what
47:05: God requires of man. Question 4, what is
47:10: God? The answer, God is a spirit, He is infinite, He is eternal,
47:16: He is unchangeable in His being, He is wisdom, He is power, He is holiness,
47:22: He is justice, He is goodness, He is truth. Who God is, His character,
47:29: His nature is unchangeable. And how He works and how
47:34: He does things, He does according to the counsel of His own will, so on and so forth.
47:42: So contrary to what some of the popular prosperity preachers say,
47:49: God never consults them, He'll never consult you or I, He'll never, as intelligent as Tyler is,
47:55: He'll never consult Tyler. Because guess what, Tyler's knowledge is minute compared to the knowledge of God.
48:05: So what we see next in this passage, still in verse 1, we see the decree of God, the decree of God.
48:16: Now what is a decree? The decrees of God are declarations or pronouncements that He has made in working out
48:24: His plans in various ages. It is what God has said and determined to do.
48:32: What God has said and determined to do. Moving forward, still in verse 1, what doctrine do we see?
48:39: The sovereignty of God. We see the sovereignty of God. God is described in the
48:46: Scriptures as all -powerful and all -knowing. God is outside of time.
48:53: He is responsible for the creation of everything. And these divine traits set the very minimum boundary for God's sovereign control in the universe.
49:06: And so that is to say this, that nothing in the universe takes place outside of God's permission.
49:15: God's sovereignty itself is a natural consequence of three of His incommunicable attributes, which are omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.
49:31: Still here in verse 1, do you see what I'm saying?
49:36: There's a vast mine of gold to be drilled, digged, pulled out, and you're still never going to reach the bottom of it.
49:48: And it's all who God is. Going forward, verse 1, where the psalmist
49:55: David declares, the Lord Yahweh says to my Lord, my
50:00: Adonai, John Albert Bingel in the 18th century said this.
50:05: He said it was a higher honor to have Christ for his son, concerning David, than to be a king.
50:12: Yet David does not say that Christ is his son, but rejoices in this, that Christ is his
50:19: Lord. He is his Adonai. He is his master. And he recognizes that he himself is
50:28: Christ's servant. Bingel went on to say, they who regard the Messiah only as the son of David regard the lesser part of the conception of him.
50:39: A dominion to which David himself is subject shows the heavenly majesty of the king.
50:47: And when it says the king, in his commentary he's talking about the Lord. It shows the heavenly majesty of the king and the heavenly character of his kingdom.
50:58: Still here in verse 1, notice the next phrase, until. The next phrase, until.
51:05: Now this is a conjunction, this connects words and phrases. So the
51:11: Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until.
51:18: I make your enemies your footstool. Until. This conjunction right here, it means, it can be referred to in terminology as, as far as, even to, up to, or while, or as far as.
51:35: So the Lord said to my Lord, sit here at my right hand until, while I make your enemies your footstool.
51:44: We're talking about the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord. He's not
51:50: Lord of some, but he is Lord of all. I'm going to stay within time too.
51:58: Jonathan. So, verse 2.
52:04: Verse 2, we see the term mighty scepter used. The Lord sent forth from Zion your mighty scepter.
52:12: And he says this, rule in the midst of your enemies, exclamation mark.
52:18: Not a suggestion, it's a statement of fact, it's a reality. The Lord sent forth from Zion.
52:25: I think about that old praise and worship song, right? He came from heaven to earth to show us the way.
52:34: From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay. From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky.
52:41: Lord, I lift your name on high. Right? Right? This is what's taking place here.
52:47: The Lord sent Christ from Zion's holy hill. And so he says, rule, and he says, send forth
52:56: Zion from your mighty scepter. Now this idea of the scepter, we see it throughout the
53:02: Scriptures from the Old to the New Testaments. We see this. It's a symbol of power.
53:09: It's a symbol of authority. And the imagery of the scepter goes all the way back.
53:14: We can go all the way back and see this to Moses in Exodus 4, verse 17.
53:20: As Moses stood before the burning bush, God commanded him to go tell
53:26: Pharaoh, let my people go. And what did Moses have? He had a staff in his hand.
53:33: Now staff is another word for a scepter. It's a pole. He said, take in your hand this staff with which you shall do the signs.
53:45: If you jump ahead to Exodus 14, I believe it is. Exodus 14, chapter 13, verse through 18.
53:53: The Scripture tells us, and Moses said to the people, fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the
54:00: Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.
54:08: For the Lord, boy this is good news, the Lord will fight for you, and you only have to be silent.
54:15: The Lord said to Moses, why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel just to go forward, lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, so that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.
54:34: And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, so that they shall go in after them. And the
54:40: Lord said, I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his hosts, his chariots and his horsemen.
54:48: And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. Jesus is
54:56: Lord. They will know that I am the Lord when? When I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.
55:05: We see this idea of the scepter, or the staff, or the rod, if you want to call it any of those things you want to call it.
55:12: Moving forward, in the book of Numbers, chapter 21, verse 7 and 9, the people came to Moses and said this, we have sinned, for we have spoken against the
55:21: Lord and against you. And they said, Moses, pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.
55:28: So Moses prayed for the people, and the Lord said to Moses these words, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, or on a staff, or on a scepter, and raise it up.
55:43: And everyone who is bitten when he sees it, he shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent, set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent, and he would live.
55:57: What does that have to do with the fact that Jesus is Lord? Well, if you go over back to the
56:02: New Testament, in John's gospel, John chapter 12, verse 28 through 32, the
56:09: Lord declares, Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven and said,
56:15: I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered.
56:23: Others said an angel had spoke to him. Jesus answered, and he said this,
56:29: Now is the judgment of this world come, and now will the ruler of this world be cast out, and I, when
56:38: I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself.
56:45: It is the scepter in which he rules with. Now the question is this, what is that scepter?
56:53: I humbly present to you this, the scepter in which the Lord rules with is the gospel.
57:01: The gospel is that scepter. As citizens of the kingdom of God, we do not wage war and we do not fight like the world.
57:14: Our weapon, the church's weapon, is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
57:22: The scripture, Paul told the church at Ephesus, Finally, brethren, be strong in the
57:27: Lord, in our Adonai, and in the strength of his might.
57:33: Put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
57:39: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against principalities, against the cosmic powers over this present age, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
57:55: Therefore, John, therefore, take up the whole armor of God.
58:02: Why? So that you will be able to stand in the evil day.
58:09: And having done all to stand, just stand. And stand firm.
58:16: Stand fast. Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and for your shoes have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
58:31: In all circumstances, taking up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the
58:43: Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the
58:49: Spirit with all prayer and all supplication to that end, keep alert.
58:56: To keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.
59:02: Again, the weapons of our warfare. Paul goes on to declare this back in 2
59:07: Corinthians chapter 10. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
59:15: For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but they have divine power to destroy every stronghold, to destroy arguments, and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought into the captivity of Christ.
59:36: How will we overcome the objections that the world gives us when we proclaim the gospel to them?
59:42: Good news is this. You don't have to figure out a clever way to overcome these objections. For the power of the
59:49: Spirit of God is able to turn, to change, to regenerate, to make new, to convert, to born again, as the old timers say, to make new creatures out of the old.
01:00:02: But we have the gospel as is the scepter with which Jesus rules this world.
01:00:10: Verse 3. The Scripture says this. Verse 2 and 3 still just a little bit.
01:00:16: Rule in the midst of your enemies. And then verse 3 we read, Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments from the womb of the morning.
01:00:26: The due of your youth will be yours. Verse 2 and 3. A 19th century theologian named
01:00:33: Albert Barnes said this concerning this statement, rule in the midst of your enemies. He's saying that the
01:00:41: Word of God is saying, set up thy power over them and reign in them.
01:00:46: My brothers and sisters today, we have one who is over us. We have one whom we are subject to.
01:00:55: The church belongs to Jesus Christ. And as members of His church, we are called to serve
01:01:03: Him, to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, all our souls, all our minds, and all of our strength, and to give ourselves unto
01:01:12: Him. But Barnes went on to say this. This is a commission.
01:01:18: This commission, as John preached to us last night, this commission to set up a kingdom in the very midst of those who were
01:01:24: His enemies, in the hearts of those who had been and were rebellious, His kingdom,
01:01:31: God's kingdom, it's important that we know this, is not set up by destroying them, but rather by subduing people.
01:01:41: By subduing them unto Himself so that they become His willing servants.
01:01:48: Consider yourself. If you're born again, if you're saved today, do you remember how stubborn and rebellious you were before you came to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ?
01:01:58: You wanted what you wanted and nothing else. The new birth took place in you.
01:02:04: God changed your heart and God changed your mind. And all of a sudden, you wasn't kicking against the pricks as the
01:02:10: Apostle Paul did. You were willingly submitting to the Lord Jesus Christ.
01:02:17: Very, very important that we know this. Barnes went on to say this.
01:02:22: They yield to Him and He rules over them. It is not here commissioned to cut them off, but one of much more difficult execution.
01:02:31: It was this, to make them His friends and to dispose them to submit to His authority.
01:02:39: I'm pretty sure that John in his gospel records the words of Christ, right?
01:02:47: You are my friends. If you do whatsoever, I have commanded you.
01:02:53: For greater love has no man than this. I know that's out of order. Greater love has no man than this, that a man would lay down his life for his friends.
01:03:01: That's where Jesus says, and you are my friends. So, continuing in verse 3, very quickly here.
01:03:09: Your people will offer themselves freely. So we see here a willing volunteering and a youthful service.
01:03:18: We see this from the womb of the morning and the dew of your youth will be yours.
01:03:24: And it's important that we know that as we willingly serve God, having been made new creatures in Christ, that love to God, love to God is the affection that makes souls willing to serve.
01:03:42: Consider it in the familial relationship. If your children love you, they will want to do what you say.
01:03:49: But if your children are teenagers, and as all teenagers probably go through this phase as I did, and if you say you didn't,
01:03:57: I question if you're telling me the truth or not. But you hate your parents, right?
01:04:04: Your parents are stupid because they wear those shoes, or they dress like they do, or they go where they go, or they talk like they do.
01:04:12: But we see here a willing and a youthful service based on, grounded and founded in a love to God.
01:04:22: Why would a man love God? Why would a woman love God? Why would a boy or a girl love
01:04:27: God? Because God gave His Son for your sin. And you realize there is nothing greater in this world that will ever be done for you.
01:04:37: Stephen Charnock said this, Love is a commanding affection.
01:04:44: It is a uniting grace. It draws all the faculties of the soul to one center.
01:04:52: If you don't read the Puritans, I encourage you, get you some Puritan books and read them. Man, they had a way with words.
01:04:59: He said this, The soul that loves God when it has to do with Him is bound to the beloved object.
01:05:06: It can mind nothing else during such impressions. When the affection is set to the worship of God, everything the soul has will be bestowed upon it.
01:05:18: How beautiful that is. So verse 5, 6, and 7, I'm just going to give you one statement as we move to exhortation.
01:05:29: Verse 4, we see an unchanging declaration by God. The Lord has sworn
01:05:34: God's decree will not be changed. And His decree was simply this,
01:05:40: The Lord, that you are a priest, speaking of Jesus, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
01:05:49: In verse 5 and 6, what do we see? We see the decisive victory of Christ over His enemies.
01:05:58: Right? As the old hymn says, Victory in Jesus, right? My Savior forever.
01:06:04: He sought me and He bought me with His own precious blood. He loved me ere I knew Him. And all my love is due
01:06:11: Him. He plunged me to victory beneath that whelming flood. We see the decisive victory of Christ.
01:06:18: And in verse 7, Verse 7, we see the satisfaction of the Messiah.
01:06:24: He will drink from the brook by the way, therefore He will lift up His head. He has drunk deep, full of the wrath of God, taken upon Him the sins of this world, bearing the weight and the curse of that wrath of God, becoming the propitiation for our sins.
01:06:47: And how do we know He was refreshed? Because on the cross, He cried out, It is finished.
01:06:55: It is done. It is complete. The work is done.
01:07:01: Now, as we move into exhortation and encouragement this morning,
01:07:07: And again, Rob, Jonathan, I'm literally not going to go over.
01:07:15: I have made a feeble attempt today, I recognize this. I have made a feeble attempt to preach from Psalm 110.
01:07:23: And no doubt, any of these other men will do far better than I could have done.
01:07:29: But I must say this, I know that any passage of Scripture that I set to expound to preach on that I am incapable of doing justice to any passage of Scripture because, largely,
01:07:42: I am an unlearned and I am an ignorant man for the most part. But I can tell you this,
01:07:48: I can echo to you what the Apostle Paul said when he went to the Corinthian church. He said,
01:07:54: And I, brethren, when I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God, for my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but was in demonstration of the
01:08:11: Spirit and of the power of God, so that your faith will not stand in the wisdom of men, but that your faith will be found in the wisdom of Almighty God.
01:08:26: So, with that being said, preaching on Psalm 110, I have done to the best of my ability today not to preach this text with an angle or a bent toward any eschatological point of view, pre -meal, post -meal, or all -meal.
01:08:46: My aim and my goal today was to present to you a purely Christocentric point of view on Psalm 110 because it is
01:08:57: Christ who is to be worshipped. It is Christ who is to be magnified.
01:09:02: It is Christ who is to be lifted up. It is Christ that you must look to today to be saved from your sins.
01:09:12: So, our aim again today has been quite simply to do that and to say this, it's about Jesus, because Jesus is
01:09:20: Lord. Top to bottom, Jesus is Lord. Right to left,
01:09:26: Jesus is Lord. In the middle, Jesus is Lord. And this book,
01:09:33: Psalm 110, says to us, Jesus is Lord. These books, the book of Psalms, Genesis, the 66th book of the canon of Scripture that we have, people, today, it's about Jesus.
01:09:50: I hope you believe that. I know you're saying, Amen, but I hope you believe that. I can prove it to you.
01:09:57: In Genesis, we see Jesus promised as the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head.
01:10:05: In Exodus, Jesus is the blood that is shed, put on the doorpost and the lentils when the death angel comes.
01:10:13: In Leviticus, He is the sacrifices that are set in order. In Numbers, we quoted it to you,
01:10:20: He's the remedy for those that are bitten by the serpent. In Deuteronomy, the Lord commanded through Moses that law of God that man is perfectly unable to keep.
01:10:34: Where is Jesus? He's the law keeper. That's where He is. In Joshua, we see the conquest of Joshua foreshadowed in the
01:10:43: Savior's victory over our sin. In Judges, Jesus is the judge.
01:10:49: For now, His judgment come into the world. He is the judge, and He is the law giver.
01:10:56: In the book of Ruth, we see the Gentiles being grafted into the vine. How does that happen?
01:11:01: Jesus is Lord. In 1 and 2 Samuel, God raised David up to be a king in type, which
01:11:08: God made His son to be in the lineage of David. The Lord said to my
01:11:15: Lord, Sit thou at my right hand. In 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2
01:11:21: Chronicles, we see the history of the Davidic line. Where does that point us? To Jesus. In Ezra and Nehemiah, we see the restoration of the worship and the broken down walls in Jerusalem.
01:11:33: What does that typify? Salvation in Jesus Christ, that He will continue to reign and continue to rule forevermore.
01:11:43: In Esther, we see God is always present with His people. For in the New Testament, Jesus is proclaimed as Emmanuel, God with us.
01:11:55: In Job, justice is met out according to the wisdom and the sovereignty of God. In the
01:12:00: Psalms, we read in Psalm 22, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
01:12:07: Who said that? Jesus. What was taking place? He was being the propitiation for our sins.
01:12:14: Jesus is Lord. I'll try to be as quick as possible here. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, all that is sought out in this life.
01:12:25: Tyler's been teaching on these over the past year. All that is sought out in this life, like wisdom and knowledge and love, are found in Jesus Christ and Him alone.
01:12:36: In Isaiah, by His stripes we are healed. In Jeremiah, the weeping prophet typifies and shows forth the long suffering and the fullness of Almighty God.
01:12:47: In Lamentations, loss and pain are restored to Israel by giving hope and prayer. Where does that hope come from?
01:12:54: Looking unto Jesus Christ. In Ezekiel, the Lord said, I will take the stony heart out of man and give him a heart of flesh.
01:13:04: In Daniel, we all know the story. Three men were thrown into the fiery furnace. And there's a fourth man walking around in the fiery furnace with them.
01:13:12: Who was that? Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is Lord over King Nebuchadnezzar.
01:13:18: In Hosea, God demonstrated His love to an unfaithful people. How did
01:13:23: He do that? By sending His Son. In Joel, we see the promise of His Spirit is coming.
01:13:29: In the New Testament, we see the Spirit come. How did that come? By the Father, by the
01:13:35: Son, and by the Holy Ghost. In the book of Amos, Amos' message was that the people should seek
01:13:41: Him and live. What is the message right now? Seek the Lord that you may live.
01:13:49: In the book of Zephaniah, we learn God is not distant and God is not uninvolved in human affairs.
01:13:56: In Haggai and Zechariah, we read the words holiness to the Lord and the words behold, your
01:14:03: King is coming to you. I wonder who that's talking about.
01:14:08: Jesus, He is Lord. In the book of Malachi, every eye shall behold
01:14:15: Him. Be certain of this, there is coming a day when every eye will behold
01:14:24: Him. In the New Testament, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, behold the
01:14:29: Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is Lord. In Acts, the power of the resurrected
01:14:37: Christ is put on display. Why? Because He is Lord. In Romans, the apostle
01:14:43: Paul said this early on, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why? Because it's the power of God unto salvation.
01:14:51: It is the scepter by which He rules all things. The book of Romans, or in the book of 1 and 2
01:14:59: Corinthians, if any man is in Christ, that's 2 Corinthians 5 .17, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.
01:15:07: In Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, to make this short, there is not salvation in any other person outside of Jesus Christ.
01:15:18: In 1 and 2 Timothy, Paul, in endotitis, Paul writes to the preachers,
01:15:24: Paul says this, preach Christ and nothing else. Spurgeon, I'll echo
01:15:29: Spurgeon, Spurgeon said there's no Jesus in your sermon, then go home and never preach again.
01:15:36: In the book of Philemon, Paul makes mention of his love and his faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ on the basis for sharing his love to Onesimus, his runaway slave.
01:15:50: Love is found in Jesus Christ. In the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, it's one of my favorite passages.
01:16:00: Long ago and at many times, Jacob, you quoted this last night on the way home. Long ago at many times, and in many ways,
01:16:08: God spoke to our fathers by the prophet, but in these last days, He has spoken unto us by His Son, whom
01:16:15: He, whom Yahweh, whom the Father appointed the heir of all things, through whom also
01:16:22: He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.
01:16:35: In the book of James, faith in Christ Jesus will inevitably produce good work.
01:16:40: Not everybody is sanctified at the same speed, but my friend, there is sanctification, and sanctification of the
01:16:47: Holy Spirit does produce good work in the life of the believer. In 1 and 2 Peter, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, we're reminded to arm ourselves with the same mind so that we should not live our lives in the lust of the flesh, but for the will of God.
01:17:06: In 1, 2, and 3 John, He is the propitiation for our sins.
01:17:12: In the book of Jude, we hear this, to those who are the cause, those who are sanctified by God the
01:17:20: Father and preserved in Jesus Christ. Jesus is
01:17:25: Lord over all. And in the book of Revelation, He's the King of kings, and He is the
01:17:32: Lord of lords. He is Jesus Christ. It's all about Jesus.
01:17:41: Jesus is Lord. He is king today. Do you know this? Jesus is king.
01:17:48: He's not going to be king. He is currently, presently, and eternally king.
01:17:56: Not only is He the capital K king of all the lower case kings, but if you can think of anybody, anybody you want to, that has ever held a high position in society, know this, be they kings, be they presidents, be they princes, whoever they be, that Jesus is better.
01:18:18: Unequivocally, Jesus is better. Kings and the kingdoms of this world are passing away and continue to pass away, but Jesus stands.
01:18:29: Jesus remains. Jesus continues. The apostle
01:18:34: Paul, in writing to Timothy, said this, to the king of the ages. I wish we used those terms more as believers.
01:18:42: What God do you believe in? I believe in the king of the ages. I believe in the immortal
01:18:48: God. I believe in the invisible God. And some people, the atheists would say, an atheist asked
01:18:57: Augustine one time, show me your God. And Augustine, in wisdom, responded like this.
01:19:03: He said, I cannot show you my God, for you do not have eyes to see Him. But my friend, to those whom
01:19:10: God has opened your eyes, you know this king immortal, you know this king invisible, you know the only
01:19:17: God, and unto Him be glory and honor and praise for how long?
01:19:23: Randy Travis put it this way, forever and ever. Amen. Let me close.
01:19:28: Let me close. I literally have five minutes, guys. So, very importantly here, what is in view in this passage?
01:19:39: To summarize, I'm going to make a strong statement. I propose to you today, that are here, young and old, that salvation is in view.
01:19:53: Not just salvation, but damnation. For both salvation and damnation are set before you today.
01:20:04: For you are either believing in Christ for your salvation, or you are denying Him unto your own damnation.
01:20:13: So, how should you respond? You might ask, what do
01:20:18: I need to do about that? All I can tell you is what the Bible says. Repent.
01:20:25: Turn from your sin. Look unto Christ and be saved today.
01:20:33: And cling to the cross. Hold it with everything you had.
01:20:39: For the gospel is this, Jesus died for your sins. He was crucified. Himself being guiltless and innocent of any sin.
01:20:48: He who knew no sin, the Bible tells us, became sin for us. That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
01:20:56: And He, Himself, bore the wrath of God on that tree for our sin.
01:21:05: He was buried on the third day. He arose again. I hope that never grows old to us.
01:21:12: You say, we hear that all the time. Hallelujah. How often do you need to hear the gospel? Every stinking day.
01:21:20: Because guess what? If you lose sight of what Christ has done, that's a bad place for you to be,
01:21:28: Christian. Going on, this is what sets Jesus apart, that He arose. Because when
01:21:34: He arose, He arose and ascended to the Father unlike anybody who has ever professed to be raised from the dead.
01:21:41: He never died again. Poor Lazarus, all he did was got resuscitated.
01:21:50: That little, that mama's boy that got raised up when Jesus touched the coffin as it passed by, just resuscitated.
01:21:57: He had to die again. Talitha Kuma, damn still arise, resuscitated, but she still had to die physically.
01:22:07: But Jesus never died again. And guess what? He is alive today.
01:22:15: Amen. So what do we say to this? Well, I can say it in the form of a song. Hallelujah, what a
01:22:21: Savior. Man of sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came, ruined sinners to reclaim.
01:22:29: Hallelujah, what a Savior. He bore my sin and shame, bore my scoffing rude.
01:22:35: In my place condemned He stood, filled my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah, what a
01:22:41: Savior. Guilty, vile and helpless, we spotless Lamb of God was
01:22:46: He. Full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah, what a
01:22:52: Savior. Lifted up, He was to die. It is finished was
01:22:59: His cry. Now in heaven He's exalted high. Hallelujah, what a
01:23:06: Savior. And when He comes, our glorious King, all
01:23:12: His ransomed home to bring, this anew, this song we'll sing.
01:23:21: Hallelujah, what a Savior. I hope that you understand and I hope that you realize today, as Rob tells us as we close out every podcast, live in the victory of Christ.
01:23:35: Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Would you care to stand with us this morning?
01:23:42: And I want to ask you to do something as we close here. If you're saved here today, you ought to be able to do this with joy of heart and gladness.
01:23:54: If you're lost, you won't want to do this. So I want to ask you if you're saved today just to raise both your arms in the air as we sing the doxology together in closing.
01:24:10: Praise God from... Praise the
01:24:31: Lord. Well, praise the
01:24:50: Lord, church. Amen. Let's give God glory. Hallelujah. There's an old country saying, it says, if that don't get you wood from fire, then you're probably wet.
01:25:02: Okay. Praise God. I want to encourage you to call somebody and share that message with them.
01:25:12: Amen. It's going to be online. It's going to be live. You've been challenged and encouraged.
01:25:19: Thank God for that. Brother Claude, thank you so much. Praise the Lord. Can we just give God praise one more time?
01:25:26: Honoring the man of God. Glory to Christ. Amen. Glory to Christ.
01:25:33: So we're going to break out now. Have some conversation about that. Our speakers have prepared to give some more information to you, but there's also supposed to be a
01:25:46: Q &A time in these sessions as well. And so that's a safe place to ask questions.
01:25:52: If you have questions about Christ or if you're online and you have questions about Christ, please ask.
01:26:01: There's no greater question that could be asked, right? It's to know Him and to know
01:26:07: Him more. And if you're a believer, guess what we are still learning of? He just said it.
01:26:13: We'll never mind deep enough to know all the things of Christ. So even as believers, we still raise our hand and we ask questions.
01:26:23: Keep asking questions. Keep digging. Amen. So our goal would be for you to be back in your seats here.
01:26:32: I'm going to back us up just a touch to give time for those traveling to First Baptist and coming back and try to carpool together.
01:26:39: Let's be back in our seats in here right at 1115, okay? Does that make sense? So that gives us an hour, or I'm sorry, just make it 1120.
01:26:47: It gives us one hour, okay? So that gives us 45 minutes in our sessions and gives us about 15 minutes for transition, okay?
01:26:56: So it's just backing us up just a little bit and then we'll go from there, okay? Everybody good?
01:27:02: Robert? It's 030506777.
01:27:22: They're trying to get online over there. 030506777.
01:27:34: Sorry, I know that's weird. The guys in the podcast room in the back, my computer had locked itself and they couldn't get my code to get it open.
01:27:41: All right. God bless you. I love you. You're dismissed. Hello, 1212.
01:32:38: Hello. All right, we're back. We are back.
01:32:43: All right. Can you guys double check it on your phone real quick? John, can you check it on your phone real quick?
01:32:52: Just double check. Sorry about that, guys. We had technical difficulties. We're still trying to figure it out.
01:32:59: Let me see. Double check this. Hello, 121212. Hello, 12.
01:33:06: Hello, 121212. I can hear. Yeah, I think so.
01:33:11: All right. So right now we're having, let's call it another session.
01:33:17: Breakout session. I think Tyler's up. Yeah. Tyler is speaking.
01:33:27: Here on defeating sin individually and culturally. Defeating sin individually and culturally.
01:33:34: Wow. Yeah. What a sermon. I know. Right. He's going to pack all that into about 20 minutes.
01:33:40: 20 minutes? Yeah. No way. We'll see how he does. I believe he can do it. He may have to use some shorter words than normal, but he'll be able to get it done.
01:33:48: Wow. Individually. Defeating sin individually and culturally. What are your thoughts on that?
01:33:56: He'll probably just be repeating Claude's message. That's about all there is to it.
01:34:03: If sin is to be defeated, it's going to be defeated through the one who died on the cross for sins. The only one who could go into the grave and come back out again.
01:34:13: It's funny how culture doesn't really take sin seriously. Or they're not taking it seriously, and then some people redefine sin as, oh, it's just a mistake.
01:34:26: Sin are just mistakes. Sin is what makes us human. You ever heard of that one?
01:34:33: Sin just makes us human. It's all right. That's just completely backwards, because we weren't always sinful.
01:34:40: Sin isn't something that defines us. If we're not sinning, we can still be human.
01:34:48: Let me look at Christ. Christ was fully man and still never sinned. Sin isn't definitional of who we are.
01:34:55: Really, it's something that mars who mankind is. Something that needs to be taken away.
01:35:01: Something that would need to be cleansed of. Something that would need to be reconciled to our Creator for.
01:35:07: Absolutely. Sin is the problem. Jesus is the solution. We are great sinners, but God is a great
01:35:15: Savior, like John Newton would say. Amazing grace. That's why grace is so amazing, because Christ is that perfect remedy for sin.
01:35:27: He resolves that sin. Sin breaks everything, doesn't it? It breaks societies. It breaks families.
01:35:33: 100%. Churches, even. Sometimes, it'll get to the point where, even for believers, they can get so deep into sin or feel evil creeping in around them so much that they don't feel like there's a way out.
01:35:48: You're going to want to look out for Jeremy's breakout session. He's doing one of those, too, right now.
01:35:55: His is patience, living in the victory of Christ when evil surrounds me.
01:36:02: Patience, long -suffering. Right. It's real easy when you have a problem to try to rush out and fix it yourself instead of being patient and waiting where you know the solution is.
01:36:15: If you go somewhere other than where Christ is, you're not going to find freedom from evil. You're not going to find forgiveness of sins and healing, because there's no healing to be found outside of Christ.
01:36:25: What are some of the ways that even Christians do, that Christians are tempted with, to not be patient?
01:36:33: What are some of the things that we could fall trap to, to be like, we're not patient.
01:36:39: Let's do it this way or let's do it that way. A lot of people will come up with extra rules. If they can somehow white -knuckle themselves through a situation, they can somehow get free from a sin, not realizing that the only way to break free from sin is through faith in Christ and having his forgiveness.
01:37:00: Patience in the victory of Christ when evil surrounds me. How do you know when evil surrounds you?
01:37:08: Sometimes you don't know it until it's too late. Okay. You get kind of just going down the road and look around, all of a sudden it's dark.
01:37:16: Okay. But sometimes you kind of plant yourself in it. You let yourself drift little by little.
01:37:26: Hebrews 2 says that we need to be much more careful not to neglect our salvation unless we drift away from it, unless we drift away from the one who has the power to save.
01:37:41: Because if we drift away from Christ, where do we find ourselves? We find ourselves separated from him.
01:37:46: Well, the currents of the world is strong. It is strong. It would be naive to say that the world doesn't have any power or influence because it does, even with the victory of Christ.
01:38:00: The temptation and the currents are still real strong. So what would be indications of evil surrounding you for somebody out there?
01:38:14: What would be a red flag? What would be a sign? Well, one would be if you are not hearing the gospel somewhere in your sphere.
01:38:25: Okay. So not hearing the gospel. That's one. Another one is just you can see it.
01:38:32: If sin is surrounding you, if it's pressing in on you to temptations, to do things wrong, there's a whole bunch of different ways.
01:38:41: It will be flaunting itself. Sure. Like a parade going down the street. Would that be like a sign?
01:38:47: Yeah. That's a pretty clear sign. Yeah, when your culture is celebrating things openly that should be condemned.
01:38:56: Yeah, okay. Or that have been condemned, not that should be. That have been condemned by Christ and his word. Okay. That should be a red flag.
01:39:02: Yeah, that's definitely one of them. Okay. So when you turn on the TV and you see blasphemies and atrocities through the
01:39:13: TV, through movies and stuff like that, are those considered signs as well? Or is it just like entertainment?
01:39:21: It doesn't matter. I think all of the above. All of the above? Yeah. That's a lot of red signs.
01:39:29: Yeah. But the thing that we have to remember is that since Christ is Lord, we can remember the promise that we have in Romans 4.
01:39:39: Romans 4 says that if we have a faith like Abraham, we are heirs of the world. If we're heirs of the world, that means that the world is
01:39:47: Christ. So the evil that's surrounding us is going to only be temporary because all of the evil that surrounds us is being put down, put away, and put under the feet of Christ.
01:39:58: How many forms of evil are there? Because I think R .C. Sproul would say something.
01:40:05: I think he preached on this one time at a Ligonier conference, and it was something to the effect that I think he defined evil as a non -personification, like the emptiness and absence of God kind of thing.
01:40:20: I'm trying to remember, actually. But I think it went something like that. It's not really a personification.
01:40:28: It's more of just the absence of God would be evil. Right, absence of God, presence of sin.
01:40:35: Presence of sin. So is there certain levels of the presence of evil, do you think?
01:40:44: Like some cultures have it more than others? Well, sure. Okay. Yeah, sure. Anytime that sin goes unchecked.
01:40:51: One of the purposes of the law of God is to restrain evil. So if we don't have a solid understanding of the law, whether it's from God or people just use
01:41:04: God's law unknowingly, then, yeah, if sin runs rampant, it can lead to a…
01:41:14: How can a society let sin go unchecked? How does that happen? Societies let sin go unchecked when they don't trust in Christ.
01:41:25: Okay. Our society, do you think, trusts in Christ or don't? No. But our money says, in God we trust.
01:41:33: I saw a license plate. Sure. It says that, in God we trust. Here in North Carolina, they got them. I saw the license plate in North Carolina, in God we trust.
01:41:42: So I'm thinking it's a safe place. We should have checked sin. Well, we should trust in God.
01:41:49: There's arguments that at one point our nation has made an oath to God.
01:41:59: Okay. But as it stands now, no, I don't see much evidence of trust as we see it.
01:42:05: Okay. So those are just formalities or traditions or just cute little things that we put on license plates and money?
01:42:14: It can be. Okay. It can be. It doesn't have to be. We can, as a people, trust in Christ in terms of our sin.
01:42:22: For me, it seems like it's just basic theism. In God we trust.
01:42:28: Well, a lot of it's cultural too. A lot of it is we like the idea of saying that we trust in God.
01:42:35: We like the... Like a security blanket, right? Right. It feels good. I want to say that I trust in God because my grandpappy and his grandpappy before him said that they trust in God.
01:42:46: It's part of my culture and my DNA. So it's part of the family saying? Sometimes. Sometimes it's not.
01:42:53: Wait a minute. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it is. But sometimes...
01:43:01: It's kind of like the glue for society? Well, it's also kind of a, what would they say, a vestigial phrase.
01:43:09: Something that's left over from a time that was different. Okay. Because there was a people that did trust in God a lot more previously in our country.
01:43:18: And they did bring in a lot of principles and stuff when they came to found our nation.
01:43:24: One of those was trust in God who bestows people with inalienable rights. We'll get more into that in a little bit.
01:43:33: Then talk about government a little later. So tune in to the podcast every
01:43:39: Thursday night. Subscribe. Hit the like button, the little bell for notifications. And the conference is going to continue.
01:43:47: We're talking about pretty much all the issues we can. All the biggies. We're trying to cover everything.
01:43:52: We won't cover everything, but we are trying to. We talked about Jesus is
01:43:58: Lord from a crystal centric perspective on Psalms 110. Right now,
01:44:04: Tyler is talking about how to conquer sin, defeat sin individually and culturally.
01:44:14: And then Jeremy is covering patience in the victory of Christ when evil surrounds you.
01:44:23: We're going to be talking about the government. We're going to be talking about politics, discipling the nations.
01:44:30: We're going to be talking about the Christian. What is the Christian, right? And we're going to be talking about sanctification a little bit through suffering, seeking unity among the brethren.
01:44:43: So it's a lot of great topics ahead. You don't want to miss it. And if you do, you could catch these on the
01:44:49: Rewind. So anyways, let's go ahead and see if we could tune in to Tyler.