Is Jesus or Steven Furtick The One Whom the Prophets Longed to See?

Fighting for the Faith

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What I'd like you to do right now is grab a Bible. Grab a Bible and open up to Genesis chapter 3.

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Now, here's the deal. I might have to post all of the references that I'm using somewhere, but take notes.

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Just absolutely take notes on what it is I'm about to show you, okay? I want to tell you some good news, but first I need to explain to you the bad.

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And I'm going to do that from Genesis chapter 3. I'm going to start at verse 1.

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Now, understand the context here. I'm picking up, kind of, you know, leaving out some of the details of the story.

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In chapters 1 and 2, we see that in six days, God created the heavens and the earth.

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He created the earth, the moon, the sea, the animals, the whales, the fishes, everything.

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And He declared it all good. And then He created man in His own image, male and female, and it was very good.

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And God rested on the seventh day. I mean, this is an amazing story that tells us of our true origins.

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We are not a planet that came about as a result of random chance over billions of years.

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No. Our planet was thought up in the mind of God and was spoken into existence by His powerful and mighty word.

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He said, let there be light, and there was light. He said, let the seas team with fishes according to their kinds, and they were there.

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He said, let the earth produce vegetation according to its kind, and it did. It's an amazing, amazing story that tells you of the power and creativity of God.

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And at the beginning, He declared it all to be good. But see,

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God has an enemy. That enemy is Satan. And he came to the first human beings,

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Adam and Eve, whom God created. He actually formed Adam from the mud of the earth and then created

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Eve by basically taking one of Adam's ribs and forming Eve from his rib so that Adam was able to declare that she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

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Beautiful, beautiful thing that's going on here. It just absolutely boggles the mind and points us to the fact that as things were in the beginning, this is a picture of what is going to be at the end when

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God renews all things. A new heaven and a new earth. But Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan.

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In Genesis 3, we pick up the story. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the

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Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

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And the woman said to the serpent, well, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you will die.

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Now, what's referred to there is that when God put Adam and Eve on earth, he put them in the garden of Eden, gave them a job.

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Adam was a gardener. He had meaningful labor that he was to do, you know, literally as God's agent on earth, created in the image of God.

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And there was one command, don't eat of that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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That's all it is. Satan comes along and he tempts Eve with the deconstructing question that literally undermines

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God's word and his authority and questions it and basically impugns God. Did God really say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

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That's not what he said. So you may eat of any of the trees in the garden, but God said you should not eat of the fruit that's in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

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That's not exactly right. The serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.

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You will be like God. That's the temptation of the devil, is it not?

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You can be like God. You can be your own God. That's Satan's work.

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Making you God, the center of the universe, you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

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So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

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And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate and the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked.

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So they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths and they heard the sound of the

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Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the

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Lord among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you?

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And he said, I heard the sound of of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

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They're afraid of God after this sin. He said, who told you that you were naked?

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Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, the woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate.

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And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this thing that you have done? The woman said, well, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

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So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this curse are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field and on your belly you shall go and the dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

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I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So the bad news begins there.

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God created everything and it was good. God is the creator of heaven and earth.

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And he created man, Adam and Eve, and his image gave him one command and they disobeyed it.

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And as a result of that, they fell into sin and every human being descended from Adam and Eve via the normal means is tainted with and corrupted by this sin.

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But there was a promise. There was a promise given in the garden, a promise regarding one seed of Eve, a seed, an offspring who would crush the head of the serpent, right?

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And that offspring, that promise is regarding the Messiah and all throughout the scriptures.

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Then the Old Testament picks up from this story and begins to follow the lineage of a particular genetic line in the human race.

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And that genetic line takes us and points us to and leads us to like breadcrumbs on a trail that we're not familiar with.

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When we follow the trail, the trail leads us to Jesus.

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See, he was the one promised here by the Lord God in the garden, the one who would crush the head of the serpent and who would in the turn have his heel bruised, the one who would decisively defeat

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Satan. And so as you read through the Old Testament, along the way, you find bits and pieces of prophecy pointing us to Jesus.

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Some of these crumbs are bigger than others. In fact, some of these crumbs are so big that the best way to describe them would be like, well, we've got a full -blown slice there.

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And many people point to them as like clear prophecies regarding Jesus. Let me show you a few.

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In Deuteronomy chapter 18, starting at 15, God there as the children of Israel, having been brought out of slavery to the

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Egyptians and brought into the wilderness where a lot of them died because of unbelief. They're literally on the verge of being brought into the promised land.

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Moses is winding up his business because Moses isn't going to make it into the promised land.

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God has said, you know, nope, you can't go in there. And there's an incident that caused that to be his temporal punishment.

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Okay, so Moses isn't going to go into the promised land, but God continues to speak through Moses.

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And in Deuteronomy chapter 18, here we have a prophecy given by Moses regarding Jesus.

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Verse 15, for the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you from your brothers.

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It is to him that you shall listen, just as you desired of the

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Lord God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, let me not hear again the voice of the

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Lord my God or see the great fire anymore, lest I die. And the Lord said to me, they are right in what they have spoken.

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I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I commanded him.

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And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name,

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I myself will require it of him. So there's, you know, more than a crumb.

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I mean, that's a full blown slice of bread in this trail that leads us to Christ.

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And see, that's what's going on in the Old Testament. Again, we're following a particular genetic line in the human race through history.

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Okay. And the reason why is because that's the one promised by the Lord God in the garden, the offspring who would crush the head of the serpent.

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Moving forward, some more bread crumbs. Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah in chapter seven, starting at verse 10, tells us about this promised seed, this promised offspring.

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And here's what it says. And again, the Lord spoke to Ahaz, again, ask a sign of the

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Lord your God. Let it be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask.

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I will not put the Lord to the test. And he said here then, O house of David, is it too little for you to weary men now that you weary God also?

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So therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son.

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And you shall call his name Emmanuel. What does that mean?

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Here we have a prophecy regarding Jesus. Again, we're following this line.

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We're following the bread crumbs. And here's a big piece. This is more than a crumb. What do we know then about this coming promised one?

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That he would be born of a virgin. And most amazing of all, he would be called

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Emmanuel. Emmanuel. What does that mean? Emmanuel is

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Hebrew. And it literally means God with us, pointing to the fact that this

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Messiah, this promised one, this promised seed, the one who

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Moses said would be a prophet like himself, whom God would put his very words into his mouth, would be none other than God himself with us.

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Amazing prophecy. Move forward a couple of chapters in Isaiah to chapter 9.

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And we read, starting at verse 2, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

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Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them a light has shined.

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Verse 6. For to us, a child is born. To us, a son is given.

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The government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

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The prophet Isaiah continues giving us big pieces of the puzzle regarding who the

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Scriptures are about. They're really about this guy. The one who would be born to us, who will be called

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Mighty God. Amazing to think about it, isn't it?

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That here man has fallen into sin, and on the day in which man fell into sin,

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God himself promised this one, this one offspring, this one person who would crush the head of the serpent definitively.

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And as we read through the Old Testament, we run across these passages like this, following these breadcrumbs that are leading us to Jesus, and what do we learn about him along the way?

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That he would be born of a virgin. That he will be called God with us.

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That he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

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The prophets even told us where he would be born. Micah the prophet writes in Micah chapter 5 verse 2,

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But you, O Bethlehem, Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be the ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

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See, God spoke to his prophets and kept giving us more information so that we would know who he is and what he would do and where he would come from.

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And sure enough, where was Jesus born? He was born in Bethlehem. This is what we celebrate during Christmas, the birth of this promised seed, this promised

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Messiah, which means anointed one. The prophet Malachi gave us even a little bit more information about Jesus.

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And what he told us was that before Jesus would come, before the promised seed would come, that God himself would send a prophet to prepare the way for this promised seed.

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Here's what Malachi writes in Malachi chapter 4 verse 5, Behold, I will send you

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Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction.

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So there we go. God himself was going to send, well, the prophet

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Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord. And who did that turn out to be?

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None other than John the Baptist. David himself, who

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Jesus is often referred to as the son of David over and over again in the scriptures, he's referred to him.

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Yet David himself says of Jesus that he is his Lord. And in Psalm chapter 41,

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David, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells us that the Messiah, the promised one whom the scriptures are about, that the scriptures point us to, that he would be betrayed by a close friend.

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Here's what it says, Psalm 41 verse 9, Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.

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David, prophesying about Jesus, said that he would be betrayed by a very close friend.

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And who did that turn out to be? None other than Judas Iscariot. Zechariah gives us a little bit more of the details of this betrayal.

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In Zechariah chapter 11, verses 12 and 13, we read about the one who would betray the promised

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Messiah. Here's what it says, Then I said to them, If it seems good to you, give me my wages, but if not, keep them.

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And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the

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Lord said, Throw it to the potter, the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the

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Lord to the potter. This is an amazing prophecy, by the way, because when we read in the

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New Testament about the one who betrayed Jesus, Judas, he betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver.

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And then afterwards, had remorse, felt guilty for it, went to the temple priest and wanted to give the money back and they wouldn't accept it.

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He threw the money into the house of the Lord. And what ended up happening is they used it to buy the potter's field, which was a place to bury foreigners.

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Here's Zechariah, hundreds of years before this actually took place in history, prophesies about it.

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Now, some of the more amazing prophecies are actually regarding Jesus's crucifixion and his sufferings and death.

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One in particular was written by, again, King David, Psalm chapter 22.

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I'll read a portion of it, starting at verse one. And here's what we read. My God, my

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God, why have you forsaken me? I'm thinking, man, that sounds familiar. Yeah, that's what

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Jesus cried out on the cross. That was Jesus's cry of dereliction. When Jesus was being crucified, this is exactly what he shouted out.

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And yet these words were written and prophesied about long before Jesus ever walked the earth, penned by David himself in the

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Psalms. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning?

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Oh, my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

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Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. And you our fathers trusted.

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They trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued. In you they trusted and were not put to shame.

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But I am a worm, not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who seek me mock me.

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They make mouths at me and wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him.

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Let him rescue him, for he delights in him." You should be hearing what went on with the crucifixion here.

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The tauntings of the Pharisees are recorded long before they ever spoke them, right here by David.

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Verse 9. Yet you are he who took me from the womb.

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You made me trust. You at my mother's breasts. On you I was cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my

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God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.

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Many bowls encompass me. Strong bowls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like ravening and a roaring lion.

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I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax.

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It is melted within my breast. My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to my jaws.

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You lay me in the dust of the earth. For dogs encompass me. A company of evildoers encircles me.

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They have pierced my hands, my feet. Yeah.

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David, long before Jesus walked the earth, prophesied about his crucifixion.

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Talks about those surrounding him at his crucifixion and pointed out the fact that his bones were out of joint and they had pierced his hands and his feet.

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Description of crucifixion even before it was invented as a means of capital punishment. But what is also interesting is that King David also prophesied that Jesus would rise again.

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David writes in Psalm chapter 16 verse 10. He says, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let the

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Holy One see corruption. So as we read these prophecies, these breadcrumbs along the way that point us to Jesus, we learn who the

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Old Testament is really about. It's not a mistake. It is not a mistake.

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That Jesus's story in Matthew chapter one begins with a genealogy.

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And as you read that genealogy, you go, man, all of these guys are the old other people that we had read about in the

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Old Testament, right? Because we're following a genetic line to a particular person, the promised one in the garden.

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The prophet Isaiah gives probably the most startling prophecy regarding the

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Messiah, talking about his sufferings and death. Isaiah chapter 52 is where we're at now.

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I'm going to start at verse 13 and listen to how the prophet Isaiah describes the sufferings and death and the purpose of the sufferings and death of the promised

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Messiah, the suffering servant. Verse 13. Behold, my servant shall act wisely.

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He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

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Talking about he's going to be beaten so bad you won't even be able to recognize him. So shall he sprinkle many nations.

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Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see and that which they have not heard they understand.

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Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the

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Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of a dry ground.

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He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him.

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He was despised and rejected by men. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

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Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions.

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He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the punishment, the chastisement that brought us peace.

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And with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray and we have turned everyone to his own way.

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And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent.

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So he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

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And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgressions of my people?

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And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

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Here, not only does the prophet Isaiah prophesy Jesus' sufferings and death for our sins, also prophesies that Jesus would be laid in the tomb of a rich man.

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It's right there for us in Isaiah chapter 53 verse 9. We continue.

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Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief.

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When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring and he shall prolong his days.

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The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

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And by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted as righteous.

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He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and he was numbered with the transgressors.

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Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

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Wow. Was that 600 something years before Jesus walked the earth?

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Description and prophecy of his death, sufferings, where he would be laid with a rich man and what his death would accomplish, that many would be accounted righteous.

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Many. This is an amazing, amazing passage. And so when we look in the

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Old Testament and we walk through the Old Testament, there's this anticipation as we get to the end of it.

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Could it be time? Has the Messiah come? Will he be here soon? That kind of stuff, right?

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And so we get this amazing announcement. Now fast forward to Matthew chapter one.

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Verse 18. I'm going to skip the genealogy because I've already explained that genealogy is all the

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Old Testament people that we had read the stories of in the Old Testament. If you've read the Old Testament, when you get to Matthew chapter one, you're going to go,

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I know who all these people are, right? Matthew chapter one, verse 18.

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Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. Stop.

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Don't overlook this. Don't let your familiar familiarity with this phrase keep you from understanding what is being said here.

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Matthew was a tax collector, okay? This was a man who was a tax collector, who was despised by his own countrymen for being a turncoat and working for the hated, despised

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Roman government and extorting money from his fellow Jews, right?

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And Jesus called Matthew, Levi, to be his disciple. And he was, and he was an eyewitness to the very things that he writes about.

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And according to church history, Matthew wrote his gospel to tell the good news of Jesus to the

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Jews. And so when you see the phrase, now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way, you have to understand it from the point of view of a

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Jew, because they would read this and they would see the word Christos.

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In Hebrew, it would be Mashiach, okay? The Messiah. They would see this word and they would be dumbfounded because here,

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Matthew has dropped a bomb. He is making the claim that Yeshua, Jesus, is the promised

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Messiah of the Old Testament. Those passages that I just read leading into this passage and more, they knew these passages backwards and forwards and they knew the promises of the coming

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Messiah and they were anticipating his arrival at this time because they could calculate based upon the

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Daniel chapter nine and his prophecy as to when the Messiah would come, that they were right in this time period.

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And here Matthew now writes, now the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, the anointed one, the promised one of the

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Old Testament took place in this way. This has already happened, right? When his mother

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Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the

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Holy Spirit. And her husband being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

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But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take

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Mary as your wife. For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name

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Yeshua, Jesus. And here's the reason why, for he will save his people from their sins.

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He will save his people from their sins.

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This is what we read in Isaiah 53, because of his sufferings and death, he will cause many to be accounted as righteous.

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The promised Messiah who would save his people from their sins.

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The one who is talked about and promised by the Lord God in Genesis chapter three, who would crush the head of the serpent.

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The one who is discussed by Moses, the prophesied as the prophet who would come after him, whom

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God would put his very words into his mouth. The one to whom we should listen. The one who Isaiah prophesies would be born of a virgin who would be called

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Emmanuel, God with us, mighty God, everlasting father. Whom Micah prophesied would be born in Bethlehem.

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Whom Malachi prophesied would have Elijah himself making the path straights in preparation for him.

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Whom David prophesied would be betrayed by a close friend in Psalm 41.

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And Zechariah prophesied that price of that betrayal would be 30 pieces of silver that would be thrown back into the temple and then used to buy the potter's field.

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The one who is talked about in Psalm chapter 22, who would have his hands and his feet pierced in Psalm 16, that he would not see decay, that he would rise again from the dead and whom

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Isaiah says he would be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.

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This is the one. This is the person whom all of history is waiting for.

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The one who would set us free and save us from our sins. Folks, this man,

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Jesus, the God man, is the one whom we're supposed to be preaching about because the

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Bible is all about this man's story. Because this is not just any old man.

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This is the virgin born son of God, God with us. Let me read a little bit more from Matthew.

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Back it up just a bit. She will bear a son. You shall call his name

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Jesus, Yeshua, for he will save his people from their sins.

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Now, all of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name

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Emmanuel, which means God with us. So when Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the

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Lord commanded him, took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name

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Jesus. In those days, now I'm fast forwarding to Matthew chapter 3, just a little bit here.

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I want to skip forward because I'm trying to tell the story rapidly, but you get what I'm doing.

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Matthew chapter 3, we learn about the one whom Malachi prophesied. The one who had the spirit of Elijah on him.

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Matthew chapter 3, verse 1, we read, in those days, John the

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Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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For this is he who was spoken by the prophet Isaiah when he said the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

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Lord, make straight his paths. Now, John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey.

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Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him. And they were baptized by him in the river

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Jordan confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the

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Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to his baptizing, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warns you to flee from the wrath to come bear fruit in keeping with repentance and do not presume to say to yourselves, we have

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Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

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But even now, the ax is laid at the root of the trees and every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

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I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals

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I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn.

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But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the

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Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying,

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I need to be baptized by you. And do you come to me? Jesus answered him, let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

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Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water and behold, the heavens were open to him and he saw the spirit of God like a dove coming to rest on him.

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And behold, the voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son. In whom

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I am well pleased. Which human being has ever had

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God the father say such words? He hasn't said that about me. He hasn't said that about you.

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But see, he said that about Jesus. Jesus is the one. Who is the beloved son of God with whom the father is well pleased.

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He's the one who the entire Old Testament is about. It's all about him.

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It's all leading up to him. The Old Testament is following the scarlet thread of the line of this king, of this promised

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Messiah, of the one who was promised who would crush the head of the serpent. We hear that it's all about him.

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I'll fast forward a little bit in the story. Read for you some of Jesus's doings.

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Matthew chapter eight, verse one. When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him.

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Behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.

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And Jesus stretched out his hand and he touched the leper, which is a no -no because lepers are unclean.

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He says, I will be clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a proof to them.

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So when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion, a Roman centurion came forward to him, appealing to him,

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Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly. And he said, I will come and heal him.

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But the centurion replied, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Only say the word and my servant will be healed.

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For I too am a man under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go. And he goes into another, come.

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And he comes into my servant, do this. And he does it. And when Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, truly,

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I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from the east and the west and recline at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness.

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In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And then to the centurion, Jesus said, go, let it be done for you as you have believed.

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And at that, the servant was healed at that very moment. And when Jesus entered

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Peter's house, he saw his mother -in -law sick with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her.

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And she rose and began to serve him. And that evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons.

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And he cast out the spirits with a word and heal all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet

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Isaiah. He took our illnesses, bore our diseases. Now, when

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Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side and the scribe came up to him and said, teacher,

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I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus said to him, foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests.

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But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Another of the disciples said to him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.

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And Jesus said to him, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead. And when they had gotten to the boat, his disciples followed him and behold, there arose a great storm on the sea so that the boat was swamped by the waves.

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But Jesus was asleep. And they went and woke him saying, save us, Lord, we're perishing.

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And he said to them, why are you afraid? Oh, you of little faith. So then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea.

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And there was a great calm. And the men marveled and saying, what sort of man is this?

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That even the winds and the sea obey him. And when he came to the other side of the country of the garadeens, two demon possessed men met him coming out of the tomb so fierce that no one could pass that way.

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And behold, they cried out, what have you to do with us, O son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?

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So a herd of pigs was feeding at some distance. And the demons begged him, saying, if you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.

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And he said to them, go. So they came out and went into the pigs and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters.

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The herdsmen fled going into the city and told everything, especially what had happened to the demon possessed men.

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And behold, all of the city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.

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And these are just some of the things that Jesus did. He healed the sick.

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He rebuked a storm. And when he rebuked it, there was calm.

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The demons recognized him and he had complete authority over them. He cast them into a herd of pigs.

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Who is this man? Well, he's the Messiah, the one who will take away the sins of the world.

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The one who will save many from their sins, whom the prophet Isaiah says that because of his death, many will be accounted as righteous.

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Chapter 12. Matthew. Some of the scribes and the

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Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.

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But he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except for the sign of the prophet

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Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the

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Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and they will condemn it.

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For they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south will rise at the judgment with this generation and she will condemn it.

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For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

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Yeah, that's right. Notice how Jesus is pointing to himself. And this isn't narcissism.

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Why? Because he's the promised Messiah. He is God. He is

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God with us, Emmanuel. And so he's pointing to himself and he's condemning the

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Pharisees because of their unbelief. They're demanding a sign and he says the ultimate sign of who he claims to be, the one who is greater than Solomon.

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The one who's greater than Jonah. He points to the fact that Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so will he be in the earth after he's crucified and rise again on the third day.

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That's the sign, his resurrection. Chapter 13.

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That same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Great crowds gathered around him so that he got into a boat and sat down and the whole crowd stood on the beach and he told them many things in parables saying, a sower went out to sow.

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And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil.

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Immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched and since they had no root, they withered away.

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Other seeds fell among the thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and they produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

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He who has ears, let him hear. So when Jesus taught, he taught in parables.

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Verse 10, the disciples came to him and said, why do you speak to them in parables?

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And he answered them, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

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For to the one who has, more will be given. He who will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

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

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

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You will indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, for their eyes have been closed.

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Lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.

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Verse 16, but blessed are your eyes, for they see, and blessed are your ears, for they hear.

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For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

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Now, I want to focus on Matthew 13, 16 through 17 for just a moment.

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Jesus said, blessed are your eyes. Whose eyes? The disciples' eyes. Why are they blessed?

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Because they're seeing Jesus face to face. They're seeing the promised

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Messiah face to face. He says, blessed are your ears for what they hear. Why? Because they're hearing

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Jesus speak the very Word of God in His teaching. Verse 17, for truly

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I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see.

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That's right. Moses, Isaiah, Malachi, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zephaniah, Hosea, Amos, all of these writers,

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King David himself as well, longed to see the day of the promised

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Messiah. Adam and Eve longed for it themselves too. They longed for it.

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They longed for the day when the promised offspring would come. So Jesus here is saying that they are blessed.

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And why are they blessed? Because they're seeing the fulfillment of the promise of God for our salvation.

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They themselves are hearing the teaching of God himself in human flesh.

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Emmanuel, the one who all of the prophets, all of the Old Testament is pointing to and telling us to look for.

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He's now here. Daniel longed to see the day of Jesus. And here, these common fishermen and tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners like me and like you, they saw him.

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They were there. They heard him speak. They saw the miracles. They saw him crucified and they saw him raised again on the third day.

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And Jesus said to them, blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear.

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For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see and did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.

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This passage, Jesus is saying they're blessed because they are seeing the fulfillment of the prophecies of old.

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God in human flesh, Jesus Christ come to save us. This is the one whom all of the scripture is about.

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This is the one whom every Christian pastor is commissioned to proclaim and teach about.

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When you teach the full counsel of the word of God, every bit of scripture points us back to this man who's not just a man.

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He is the God man. He is the one who was equal with God but did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, made himself nothing and was found in the form of a servant and was obedient to God to death, even death on a cross for your sins and for mine.

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This is the man whom all of human history is about and who will come again to judge the living and the dead someday soon.

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He's the one who's offering us a full and complete pardon by his sufferings and death on the cross for our sins.

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He is the one who proved that he is who he claimed to be by raising himself from the grave on the third day after he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

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This is the one who we are to proclaim. This is the one who we are to preach. This is the one we are to teach about.

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This is the one we are obsessed about and we are to focus on him as if he is a

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God. Why? Because he is. He's not just a

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God. He is the God in human flesh, Jesus Christ, the

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Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, the son of David, our great

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God and King, who was high and lifted up on the cross for your sins and mine.

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He cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because when he said that he was suffering the wrath of God for your sins and mine.

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Because we all like sheep have gone astray. So I beg you, listener.

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Do not let the words of the prophet be spoken about you.

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That your heart has grown dull. That your ears can barely hear and that your eyes have been closed and you do not see.

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Do not harden your hearts against this man and his message. He has come for you and he's come for me to die for our sins and he beckons us.

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To repent and trust in him for the forgiveness of our sins.

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Now we're going to switch gears. I spent the time walking you through those passages and believe me, that was not an exhaustive treatment of the subject.

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I barely scratched the surface of it. When you really delve into the Old Testament, looking for Jesus Christ and how it points us to Jesus.

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Literally, men have written books about the subject because the depth of this subject is so great.

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It is absolutely amazing to see. When you really scratch the surface of the

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Old Testament, it's all about Jesus. But I wanted this teaching to be ringing in your ears.

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To be in the front of your mind. For you to see that Matthew 13, 16,

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Jesus is saying to the disciples that they are blessed because they are seeing the fulfillment of the ages.

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They are seeing the fulfillment of the prophecies regarding himself, Jesus. That he is the

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Messiah. He is the anointed one. He is the one to come to save the world from their sins. That's the message here.

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I want this ringing in your ears because when you understand that and this is front of your mind, then the blasphemy that took place last night at the

52:05

Code Orange revival will be that much more easy to spot.

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And all I can say is brace yourselves because what you are about to hear absolutely robs

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Jesus of his glory. It makes me ask the question, does Stephen Furtick really think he is the

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Messiah? I know you are saying, come on Chris, really? Well, here is Stephen Furtick introducing

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Perry Noble who is about to so -called bring us the word of God. But just watch what happens.

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Here we go. And tonight we are going to hear an incredible word from God. He called me, Pastor Perry called me around Christmas.

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We were preparing our Christmas sermons. I said, what are you doing? We're in the middle of each doing like 5 billion

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Christmas worship experiences for our churches. He said, I'm working on my message for Code Orange revival. I said, in the middle of Christmas?

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He said, God put something on my heart so hot just for your church. He said, he said, he said, but don't ask me what

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I'm preaching about. I'm not going to tell you. So as they come and get set up in the Amen corner,

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I want you to lose your mind at both our locations in all of the world and welcome my friend to the stage,

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Pastor Perry Noble. Come on, make it loud in this place. Let's get ready to receive a word from almighty God.

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Come on church. So we're going to receive a word from almighty

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God. Okay. Man, this is fun.

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You may be seated. That is exactly how my wife greets me when

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I get home. Every day, I tell her, you got to stop that.

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Hey, listen, I am honored to be at Elevation Church tonight.

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One of the fastest growing churches in the United States of America. Considering the fact that 85 % of church plants in America today do not make it.

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You guys, you guys are making it. And man, that pumps me up.

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I want to say thank you to your church and especially to your pastor. I'm going to say some things to your pastor and about your pastor in the message tonight.

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And I'm serious when I said I didn't tell him any of this stuff because he would have told me I can't say it.

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But right now I've got the microphone. And man,

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I love him. And I've seen your security, bro. I can take any of them. So who are you looking at,

55:53

Buck? Buck's nickname in college was Cupcake, bro. I'm not even making that up.

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I'm not making that up, Am I, Buck? Am I, Buck? Am I, Buck?

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Your nickname was Cupcake. Can I just point out something really quick?

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He's talking about Buck, who is part of Perry, not Perry Nobles, but Stephen Furtick's security team.

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Part of his bodyguards. When did pastors start needing bodyguards?

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How am I going to fear a security guard named Cupcake? Pastor Stephen, that's true.

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That's true. You didn't know that? We're going to have to talk later. Is it true,

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Buck? Tell Pastor Stephen it's true. Tell him it's true. Am I lying? Tell him it's true. You never agreed to that name.

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Was it given to you? That's right. That's right. Amen. You don't call the revival preacher a liar.

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You go to hell for that, Buck. Anyway, I love Buck. He is great. Listen, I am really honored to be here.

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I love Elevation Church. Seriously, if New Spring Church did not exist, I would move to Charlotte.

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I would move my family to Charlotte just to be a part of this church. And I'm not just saying that. I don't have to say that. I really do love this church.

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I've served actually in this church as a board member since you guys started. I've been a board member when you're about the size of a small

57:30

Mormon family. So I'm excited to see what

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God is doing here. Hey, listen, if you brought a Bible with you tonight, go to the book of Matthew.

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Matthew chapter 13 is where we're going to hang out. If you didn't bring a Bible with you tonight, I'm sure they'll put some scripture on the screen because they're all high -tech here at Elevation Church.

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And while you're turning there, I got to be honest with you. Pastor Stephen called me. I don't even know when it was, but he called me and he said, hey,

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I got this idea for Code Orange Revival. And he kind of walked me through it and he said, what do you think?

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And I said, hey, man, if you don't do it, we're going to do it. In fact, I'm still not sure that we're not going to do it.

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I mean, it's great, but our color is kind of green. So if we did like Code Green Revival, all the green people would show up.

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Get some granola and it'd be great. But anyway, I had no preconceived notions that he would ask me to speak.

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He was like, I'm going to bring him, you know, Bishop Jakes, and I'm going to bring in Jensen Franklin, and I'm going to bring in Craig Rochelle.

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And I was like, man, that sounds great. And he's like, and we're going to have you up there one night. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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And I mean, I was blown away. And so he called me and he issued the official invite. And I'm going to tell you something about speakers that speakers won't tell you about speakers.

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But I don't care what speakers think about me. So I'm just going to tell you the truth about us. All of us have what we call a candy stick message.

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And it's a good one. Like, it's like, I know where you're going to cry.

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I know where you're going to laugh. I know where you're going to get saved. There's somebody in the church to get saved every week.

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And I know what that person is going to get. I know everything that's going to happen in the candy stick message. And I got a few of those.

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And so I pulled out one of my candy stick messages. And God spoke to my heart and said, you're not preaching that one. Okay, now listen carefully.

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I want you to understand the magnitude of what Perry Noble is saying here. Okay, he's at this point saying that God, the

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Holy Spirit spoke directly to his heart. And told him not to preach a particular message.

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And you're going to hear him say that God, the Holy Spirit told him to preach a specific message.

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So according to Perry Noble, this message is from God himself.

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And if you oppose this message, if you challenge this message, if you question this message, if you critique this message, plain and simple, you are opposing

59:57

God himself. That's what's going on here. I was like, all right, all right.

01:00:05

I mean, you're God. I'm not. So I pulled out the second one and I was,

01:00:11

I was going over it. And God was going, you're not preaching that one. I was like, all right. I pulled out the third one.

01:00:17

He's like, you're not preaching that one. I was like, come on, God, that one's good.

01:00:25

Come on, God, that one's good right there. That is good stuff. He was like, no, it's not. And so I was like,

01:00:34

God, what do you want me to preach? And I'm not even making this up. God took me to a passage of scripture that I've never preached on.

01:00:39

I said, God, I've never preached on that before. So apparently, you know, this was a conversation that he had with God.

01:00:45

And God said, I want you to preach on this passage. And this is what I want you to say at the Code Orange Revival.

01:00:51

So if you oppose this message, you are opposing God himself. To my knowledge,

01:00:58

I've never preached a sermon on this particular text. And God laid a message on my heart specifically for Elevation Church.

01:01:06

Now, a couple of things. If you're watching online, man, I'm so glad you're watching online. I honestly believe when the word of God is preached, that it goes out and it produces a harvest.

01:01:15

And so if you're not a part of Elevation Church, I do believe you're going to get something out of this message. I believe that God is going to speak to your heart and minister to you.

01:01:23

So God's apparently going to speak to your heart through this message. So, I mean, this is I mean, he's at this point preaching brand new word of God stuff.

01:01:33

I believe if you're a pastor, you'll be encouraged by this message. But I believe that if you're a part of Elevation Church, you're what is known as an elevator.

01:01:50

I believe God sent me here tonight to encourage you, to challenge you just a little. And we're going to have a lot of fun.

01:01:58

So I want to read this. The title of my message is very simple. You are blessed. If you're at this point starting to get that queasy feeling in your stomach going, oh, no, he's not going to do that.

01:02:11

Yeah, he is. You are blessed. In fact, turn to the person next to you and tell them you are blessed. Yeah, turn to the other person that you don't like as much and tell them you're blessed, too.

01:02:22

Yeah. I just I didn't say have a conversation.

01:02:27

I just said tell them they're blessed. Good Lord. Here we go. Matthew chapter 13, verses 16 and 17.

01:02:34

These were the verses that the Lord specifically, I'm telling you, specifically led me to for this church.

01:02:40

Here we go. Matthew chapter 13, verses 16 and 17 says, But blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear.

01:02:51

For I tell you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, but did not see it and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.

01:03:04

Elevation Church, you're blessed. Yeah. Only if Stephen Furtick is the

01:03:11

Messiah, only if he was the one promised in the Garden of Eden by God Almighty.

01:03:17

I mean, this is unbelievable, folks. This is a crime of the magnitude that I can't even begin to put a dollar sign to.

01:03:27

I mean, this would be like somebody literally being able to break into Buckingham Palace. I don't even know if that's where they're at and stealing the crown jewels of the

01:03:36

Queen of England. I mean, that's how bad this is. We've got a passage from Matthew chapter 13 that I spent the time showing you how what

01:03:47

Jesus is really doing here is making it clear that the disciples were blessed because they were seeing him.

01:03:57

Okay. Blessed are your eyes for they see, your ears for they hear. For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see.

01:04:06

Folks, which of the prophets longed to see Elevation Church?

01:04:12

Which of the prophets longed to see the day when Stephen Furtick would come on the scene?

01:04:19

Not one. What we are hearing here is blasphemy of the utmost magnitude.

01:04:27

I mean, literally, this is a false Messiah that has now emerged on the scene.

01:04:32

And Perry Noble blamed this on God. God laid it on his heart to basically take this passage about Jesus and make it about Elevation Church and Stephen Furtick.

01:04:44

This is, I'm serious, I fear for Perry Noble and Stephen Furtick at this point.

01:04:50

Because if they are not brought to repentance of this nonsense, they will burn in hell for this because they believe in a false

01:04:58

Messiah. And his name is Stephen Furtick. Let me back this up. This is unbelievable.

01:05:04

I tell you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, but did not see it.

01:05:11

And to hear what you hear, but did not hear it. Elevation Church, you're blessed.

01:05:21

You are blessed. Matthew's campus, you are blessed.

01:05:27

Elevators, watch it online, you are blessed. You are blessed, Elevation Church. And I want to, listen, listen, there's enough

01:05:35

Baptist in me to pull out three points in this message, okay? Really? And who are you going to make it about,

01:05:41

Jesus or Stephen Furtick? I want to share three reasons, and there's more. But I want to share three reasons why

01:05:50

I believe you're blessed. And then at the conclusion of tonight, I've got a special thing that I want to say to your pastor in front of everybody.

01:05:56

So it's going to be fun. Don't sweat. It's going to be all good. I believe you're blessed for three reasons.

01:06:01

If you're a note taker, you can write these down. If you're not a note taker, you should probably be a note taker because Pastor Furtick throws out some bombs.

01:06:07

You should be writing that stuff down. Here we go. I believe you're blessed, number one, because of what you have seen. The text said,

01:06:13

Jesus said, you are blessed. Blessed are your eyes because of the things that they've seen. Elevation Church, I believe you're blessed because of the, some of the things that you've been privileged to see.

01:06:23

This is unbelievable. I mean, this is, I mean, oh man, this is narcissistic eisegesis on behalf of somebody else like I've never seen.

01:06:34

One of the things I know about a church like this, and one of the things I know about you, whether you, no matter what campus you attend is if you've been attending

01:06:43

Elevation for a month or a year or three years or five years, you've gotten a little flack, maybe from some good friends or some family members over.

01:06:56

Oh, you go to that church. I mean, you, you, oh, you go, you go to, to that church.

01:07:04

Well, I've heard some things about that church that I've seen. I don't know. And they don't understand why you're so excited about your church.

01:07:11

Your family reunion turned into a family rebellion. I mean,

01:07:17

I mean, you showed up at Christmas and you got aunts and uncles talking about dance recitals and football games, you know, stuff that's going to matter in a hundred years.

01:07:26

And, and you got a smile on your face, look like you've been smoking crack and everybody wants to know why you so excited.

01:07:31

And you're like, my God, 3000 people got saved at our church at our Christmas services. Um, wow.

01:07:46

They're preached. He's taken this passage and made it about them. They're cheering themselves.

01:08:05

I'm crazy. Somebody say I'm blessed. All right.

01:08:10

Y 'all may sit down. Let me tell you why they think you're crazy.

01:08:16

Cause they can't see what you see. I went to, um, I went to Outback one night.

01:08:23

Cause I like Outback. Outback is going to be in heaven. I got people in my church from other restaurants.

01:08:31

They say, why don't you talk about our restaurant? I'm like, cause why don't you talk about Jesus? I mean, seriously, you've hijacked this passage about Christ and made it about Stephen Furtick and Elevation church.

01:08:41

You have got to be kidding me. I don't like your restaurant. I like Outback something, man, those cheese fries, man, when they bring those things out and I was there with some friends.

01:08:55

In fact, Jason Wilson, him, him and his family. He's our executive pastor at new spring. And his family was there and he has a little boy about my daughter's age named, named

01:09:03

Branson. And, and Jason was sitting on the other side. We were sitting in a booth and Jason was sitting here and his wife,

01:09:08

Kelly was sitting here. Branson was sitting in the middle and he's got the funniest laugh in the world. It's just one of those cute little laughs.

01:09:14

And if you're an adult, you'll do, you'll do stupid. Your IQ lowers 50 points just to make a kid laugh.

01:09:22

And so I'm looking at Branson and he's looking at me and I just went, he thought that was funny.

01:09:31

So literally about every five to 10 minutes, I would look at Branson and I would go and he laughed so hard all night long.

01:09:43

He just laughed and thought it was the funniest thing in the world. We are all cracking up. We got up from the booth. We're getting out.

01:09:49

And this lady at the, at the other booth was staring at me and she saw Branson get out of the booth and walk away.

01:09:55

She went, Oh, thank God. I said, excuse me, are you hearing

01:10:05

God's word preached here? Nope, you're not. Not unless this apparently he's spinning stuff out of his heart that God put on his heart.

01:10:12

That's the new word of God. Excuse me. She said, I thought you were crazy. I was like, why'd you think

01:10:19

I was crazy? She said, because I couldn't see him. And I thought every five minutes you were looking at me going,

01:10:33

See people think you're crazy when they can't see what you see.

01:10:42

But when you see what you've had the privilege to see over the past six years, you got to be just a little crazy about your church.

01:10:53

Why in the world is it okay to be crazy over a basketball team? Why in the world is it crazy to be, is it okay to be a crazy about a football team?

01:11:03

Why in the world is it crazy? Okay. To be crazy over a 21 year old girl that shows up with an acoustic guitar named

01:11:10

Taylor Swift that plays in arenas all over America. But we can't be crazy about something that's actually going to matter in 1000 years.

01:11:19

You should be crazy about what you have seen in this church.

01:11:32

I started, I started listening. I sent chunks of email, email me back. He always emails me back.

01:11:37

I like chunks. And you've seen, many of you have seen the documentary, but think about the things you've seen in this church.

01:11:46

2005, Pastor Steven and, and, and his wife, Holly moved here with seven families to start.

01:11:52

Now notice he's telling the gospel of Stephen Furtick at this point, the Messiah. Church, not because Charlotte needed another church.

01:11:59

Charlotte didn't need another church. Charlotte needed a move of God. And I love what

01:12:06

Pastor Matthew said. Revival is happening. Here's the cool thing. Pastor Steven kind of deceived you a little bit because he thinks he's he, you think he's scheduled the revival.

01:12:17

No, he just put it on the calendar to inform everybody of what's already happening in this church.

01:12:26

Sometimes we lose sight, don't we? Hey, yeah. Cause Stephen Furtick is the one whom

01:12:31

God, the father is well -pleased. I was in Charlotte, honestly, two months ago.

01:12:37

I was in Charlotte two months ago. I came up here just to get away by myself. I'm hanging out and talking to this girl about church.

01:12:43

I was like, and I was like, you go to church anywhere around here? I said, she said, no. I said, you need, I said,

01:12:48

I said this question. I said, have you ever heard of elevation church? She looked at me and she said, my God, who hasn't?

01:13:01

Look at what you've seen. Oh my gosh. Some of you, about 200 of you were around for it.

01:13:08

And the rest of you have heard about this thing called the egg drop. If you don't know pastor

01:13:14

Steven and the staff. Now, here we go. The litany of miracles that Stephen Furtick has performed.

01:13:20

This isn't about Jesus. I had this idea to take a helicopter up in the air and drop some plastic eggs out of the helicopter.

01:13:27

And they said, people will show up and they'll trample each other and kids will be trampled to death, but that'll be okay. Because, because it's an outreach event and people called them crazy and people said, it'll never work.

01:13:37

And 2 ,500 people showed up for the egg drop. And then the very next Sunday, when there were 200 people in the church, pastor

01:13:44

Steven said, we had 2000 people at the egg drop next year for Easter. We're going to have 2000 people in our service and people called him crazy.

01:13:52

But the next year, 2000 people showed up for Easter service. Yeah. Cause he declared it.

01:13:58

He's the man of God. He's the Messiah. You should be crazy about that right there.

01:14:08

You should celebrate that right there. You should be excited. By the way, are you hearing anything about Jesus?

01:14:27

They're not cheering Jesus. When you guys decided to launch a second campus, you did it in 30 days.

01:14:36

Another miracle apparently. And there were people that thought that was crazy. People said, nobody's going to show up and watch a preacher on video.

01:14:41

Now, do you know that most likely more people watch pastor Steven every

01:14:46

Sunday by video than they do live? I'd rather see an excellent preacher on a video screen than a bad preacher live.

01:14:53

You know what I'm saying? For those of you sitting at the

01:15:00

Matthews campus right now, you're sitting in a building that you were told you could not get. That's right.

01:15:06

And then Steven Furtick cursed Sofa Express, and then they got the building. The one thing

01:15:15

I've learned about God is you don't tell him what he can't do. Yeah. And who's God in that sentence?

01:15:20

Apparently, Steven Furtick, I think. We serve a can -do God, Matthews campus. And if you're on the

01:15:26

Matthews campus, you should be on your feet right now, seeing what they have seen.

01:15:39

Yeah. The prophets of old were looking. They were really waiting for the days of Steven Furtick.

01:15:46

Forget Jesus. He was just a speed bump. I mean, the real show is Steven Furtick.

01:15:59

And in less than five years, you guys had an Easter service at an arena that had over 10.

01:16:05

Notice the litany of miracles. These are all the Steven Furtick miracles, none of the miracles that Jesus performed.

01:16:12

Thousand people show up. Of course, you're crazy about your church.

01:16:20

It's okay to be crazy about your church. You're crazy if you're not crazy about your church. But it's because of what your eyes have seen.

01:16:30

See, when you see the people get saved that you've seen get saved, when you sit here and watch over 200 people get baptized on a screen tonight, it's hard.

01:16:38

Listen, you got to have a hard heart to not get excited about something like that.

01:16:45

But I want you to hear - Yeah, what's weird is that rarely hear the biblical gospel preached. And of course, Steven Furtick is making sure that the biblical gospel that was preached just a few days ago at the revival delivered by Matt Chandler, he's making sure that got suppressed.

01:17:00

So why should I be excited? What gospel are they really hearing here? Here's something, Elevation Church. God has done something.

01:17:07

I want everybody, if you don't hear anything I say tonight, I want you to remember this about you. God has done something great in here because he wants to do something great in here.

01:17:18

Don't forget that. God has - Notice he's not preaching a biblical text.

01:17:24

Done something great in this church. Oh, wait. Yeah, he's trying to preach a biblical text. The one that's about Jesus and make it about Steven Furtick.

01:17:31

Show you that he wants to do something in your life that's great. And you are blessed in this church because of what your eyes are seeing.

01:17:40

Number two, you're blessed because of what your ears have heard. You're blessed. Yeah, I hate this message because it's blasphemy.

01:17:47

Because of what your ears have heard. Now you've all heard rumors about this church.

01:17:56

You know what a rumor is, don't you? A rumor is something that a stupid person says when they don't know the truth.

01:18:05

You just call my grandma stupid if the shoe fits. So now all of the criticism has been brushed into the big broad category of rumor.

01:18:18

And anybody who criticizes this move of God, because blessed are their eyes because of what they've seen.

01:18:26

Blessed are their ears because of what they've heard. And if you criticize it, well, that just falls into the category of rumor.

01:18:33

And you're stupid. One of the rumors

01:18:40

I've heard about Pastor Steven, he's like my little brother. And I'll take a swing at somebody for saying junk about him.

01:18:49

Is that he don't preach the Bible. No, he twists it.

01:18:54

And I've actually demonstrated that on this program. If you don't believe me, go to fightingforthefaith .com.

01:19:01

We've got an entire category entitled Steven Furtick. We also have a category called

01:19:06

Code Orange. Click on it. Listen to the sermons I've reviewed. I demonstrate clearly in context full sermons that Steven Furtick mangles and twists

01:19:17

God's word. He is the king of the narcissistic eisegetes who steals glory away from Christ.

01:19:24

In fact, he's the only person I've ever heard preach from Luke chapter 24, from the road to Emmaus and made it about himself.

01:19:33

Yeah, he might read biblical passages, but he doesn't teach the

01:19:39

Bible the way the Bible was meant to be understood, the way God the Holy Spirit wanted us to understand it.

01:19:52

I don't even know where that one came from. I'll tell you something about your pastor that many of you will never have the opportunity to know.

01:20:04

And some of you probably wondered this, but I'm going to say this because I've known your pastor when he didn't have a church.

01:20:13

He didn't have six campus going on 17 campuses and eight squillion staff members.

01:20:18

And what you see on this stage is what you get at a dinner table.

01:20:27

Now, he's not a fake. I'm telling you, and he didn't ask me to say if I'd have told, like I said, he's not fake.

01:20:35

I can't stand fake preachers. So he's the real deal.

01:20:42

That narcissism you hear in his preaching and in his presentation, that's the real deal. He ain't faking it.

01:20:48

That's the genuine, authentic article. Got it. Okay. You can't either. You grew up with him, didn't you?

01:20:54

They got on the stage and they cranked up their fake attitude and their fake voice.

01:21:00

And they were like, You are going to hell if you don't repent of your sin and receive

01:21:10

Jesus in your heart. I always wondered who

01:21:24

Jesus was. You know what I'm saying? I'm like,

01:21:32

I bet they don't do that when they go to Outback. Sir, what would you like to eat?

01:21:38

I would like a blooming onion. Bring me a steak. Cook it medium rare.

01:21:44

Put some butter in the potato and a sweet tea with a lemon in it.

01:21:51

Just a reminder, he's not preaching the word of God. This message is not from God, despite what he said.

01:22:15

But people want to roll up on this church and talk about how this church don't preach the

01:22:21

Bible. But you have never walked in the doors of this church where Pastor Stephen didn't say,

01:22:30

Open your Bible. Yeah, that is not the test as to whether or not somebody is teaching the

01:22:36

Bible. The test as to whether or not somebody is teaching the Bible is if they are accurately handling the biblical text.

01:22:45

It's not as if wolves out there say, Close your Bibles. Wolves come to us in sheep's clothing.

01:22:55

They try to appear like sheep. The question is, when we open the scriptural text and the pastor begins preaching, is he rightly handling the word, or is he twisting it?

01:23:07

The test of whether or not somebody is teaching the Bible is not whether they say, Open your Bible.

01:23:12

It's whether or not after opening it, they rightly handle the word of God, or do they twist it to their own destruction?

01:23:24

Never. Most of the time, he makes you stand when you read it.

01:23:33

Yeah, that's not the sign either. Dang, I hope he don't read the whole chapter.

01:23:38

I'm tired. Read the whole book of Psalms today. I had to stand up.

01:23:51

People say he don't preach the gospel. Yeah, actually, he twists the gospel.

01:23:57

He makes the gospel into this basic idea, God is able, or nothing is impossible with God, but that's not the gospel.

01:24:06

The gospel is Christ and Him crucified for our sins and raised again for the third day for our justification.

01:24:12

And it's important to note that we can actually document now and have documented the fact that when the gospel was preached there by Matt Chandler, the folks at Elevation edited out the sermon and didn't want it to get out.

01:24:26

And they're even working now to keep that sermon from getting out. That's important data.

01:24:32

So the question is, what is the gospel he preaches? And that requires somebody to listen carefully to his gospel.

01:24:40

Notice that Paul in Galatians chapter 1, rebuking the churches in Galatia, says to them, you know,

01:24:47

I'm shocked that you're so easily believing a different gospel, not that there is one.

01:24:54

And then he says, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one already preached, let him be anathema.

01:25:03

See, the idea is there are false gospels and false Christ. The question is not whether or not Stephen Furtick preaches a gospel or calls it the gospel.

01:25:11

The question is whether the content of the good news that he preaches lines up with the biblical gospel as preached and taught by the apostles that's recorded for us in God's Word, or is he mixing it with other things that is not the gospel?

01:25:26

Is he mixing it, adding to it, subtracting from it? What is the gospel that he preaches?

01:25:33

And I've shown on this program, again go to the archives of Fighting for the Faith, that this man does not accurately preach the gospel.

01:25:39

In fact, he's got his own version of the gospel that's different in the details than what's recorded for us in Scripture regarding what the gospel is.

01:25:49

I'm like, then how in the heck have over 15 ,000 people met Jesus if he ain't preaching the gospel?

01:25:55

Which Jesus, because I think one can argue at this point that Jesus and Stephen are at this point being mixed together in such a way that there's elements of, you can basically say that he's messianic.

01:26:21

This is what we call pastor worship, and your pastor is not

01:26:27

Jesus. So notice he's pointing to the numbers.

01:26:33

The numbers prove it. The numbers prove that he's right on.

01:26:39

No, they don't. The numbers don't prove anything. There's over 2 billion Muslims. Are we to say that that's a move of God?

01:26:46

No. All the numbers prove is that, well, he's grown rapidly. The question as to whether or not he's teaching the truth and preaching the biblical gospel is in the details of his preaching.

01:27:01

Blessed are you because of what your ears have heard. There we go again, taking that messianic text from Matthew 13 and making it about Stephen.

01:27:13

So I made a list. I made a list of stuff that you've heard over the past five years.

01:27:19

Some of you heard a series called F -Bomb. Yeah, great name for a Christian sermon series.

01:27:29

Some of the best teaching on the subject of forgiveness that I've ever heard.

01:27:34

And there were people in this church. You're here tonight. You're here in Matthews. You're watching online. You were able to release bitterness and anger in your heart that you've held on to for years that has held you back in your relationship with Christ because your pastor was bold enough to stand on this stage and declare the word of God to you about what the

01:27:51

Bible says about forgiveness. You've been taught to pray for the sun to stand still.

01:28:02

Which is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible does not teach that the sun stands still.

01:28:08

A historical event that's recorded for us in the book of Joshua is a prayer that we're to pray.

01:28:15

When Jesus taught the disciples to pray, he taught them to pray this way. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

01:28:24

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

01:28:35

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever.

01:28:43

Amen. Jesus taught his disciples to pray. It's interesting to note that the Messiah, Stephen Furtick, the anointed one, well, he taught his people to pray too.

01:28:53

And his prayer that he taught them is the sun stand still prayer, which biblically is not a prayer for us to emulate.

01:29:00

And it's not how Jesus taught us to pray. So here we got a competing Messiah with a competing prayer.

01:29:08

You've been taught to pray for the sun to stand still. Because listen,

01:29:13

Christian prayers are a joke. You grew up in church. It was nothing more than gossip, wasn't it? Dear God, we know that Cindy's pregnant and you are so awesome that you could probably actually let us know who the father is.

01:29:40

You're that holy. And pastor

01:29:50

Stephen has taught this church how to pray bold, audacious prayers. Sun stand still.

01:29:59

It's not a biblical prayer for us to emulate. We're not taught to pray that way by Jesus. He wrote a book about it.

01:30:08

It's pretty good. Sun stand still. I listen to some other things.

01:30:15

He taught a two week series called The Dip. I love how people talk about how this is a feel good church.

01:30:24

I'm like, what's the option of feel bad church? Am I supposed to walk out of here every week feeling bad that I showed up?

01:30:39

How was church today? It sucked. Suck the life right out of me.

01:30:48

Notice he's not dealing with the content of the sermons biblically. He's just at this point mocking those who have provided substantive biblical criticism.

01:31:01

And yeah, Stephen Furtick's message is a feel good message. God was there.

01:31:07

It's awesome. But I love how

01:31:14

Pastor Stephen broke down the scriptures for those two weeks and said, you know what? Sometimes in your Christian life, you hit a dip. You hit a place in life that you don't want to be.

01:31:22

But God is God in that dip. Just like he is when you're on top of a mountain. I praise God for what you've heard.

01:31:30

Thank God for the Messiah, Stephen Furtick. Because who's the sermon about? Stephen Furtick. It ain't about Jesus.

01:31:39

And for those who says he doesn't preach the gospel, he did a series called the gospel.

01:31:45

Yeah, that doesn't prove anything. The question is, what's the content of the gospel he preaches?

01:31:54

Where over a thousand people gave their lives to Christ. And that's not how Christians are made.

01:32:01

Giving their lives to Jesus. Jesus gave his life for us.

01:32:07

Big difference. By the way, this is Pelagian pragmatism.

01:32:14

At its worst. Blessed are your ears because of what they have heard.

01:32:26

He did it. There we go again. There's the blasphemy again. A series called Awakening. It's the first time you guys ever have done.

01:32:33

It's the first time you ever did spontaneous baptism. You've baptized hundreds today at Elevation Church.

01:32:40

You've baptized thousands. I could go on and on and on.

01:32:47

He did this series on favor recently that was. Blasphemous. Flat out blasphemous.

01:32:53

False teaching regarding the favor of God. That's all

01:33:05

I got to say about that. Who's he preaching about? Stephen Furtick.

01:33:13

How is revival supposed to break out when the content of this sermon is about Stephen Furtick, not

01:33:20

Jesus the Messiah? Blessed are your ears because.

01:33:27

There goes the blasphemy again. Because of what they have heard. Your ears in this church have heard the word of God.

01:33:35

Twisted and mangled and narcissistically eisegited. Preach. Now I'm curious.

01:33:44

I'm curious. I'm going to ask you to do something in just a second because I want Pastor Stephen to see this with his own eyes.

01:33:52

And I want you to be as honest as you know how to be. If you're an elevator. And you can do this at Matthews too.

01:33:59

And somebody at Matthews like. Twit picket or something. All right. You're Twittering right now.

01:34:05

Anyway, you should be listening to the message. God's going to kill your phone. OK, I'm going to stop.

01:34:23

It only gets worse from here. The points made. That's not revival going on there.

01:34:32

In Charlotte, North Carolina. We're not hearing about Jesus. We're hearing about the new

01:34:38

Messiah, the one who performs new miracles. The one whom the prophets long to see.

01:34:45

Stephen Furtick and Elevation Church, who Christine Kane said Elevation was like the

01:34:50

Temple of Solomon. The new Messiah, Stephen Furtick, who reads himself into the scriptures like you wouldn't believe whose mentor and good friend.

01:35:04

Perry Noble claims God, the Holy Spirit told him to rip this passage out of context and take it away from being about Jesus, whom the prophets longed to see and make it about Stephen Furtick, apparently whom the prophets longed to see.

01:35:23

And you're left to ask, answer one question. Is Stephen Furtick the Messiah?

01:35:29

Is he really, really the one whom the prophets long to see or is

01:35:35

Jesus? If Jesus is the one whom the prophets long to see, then why isn't Perry Noble preaching about Jesus?

01:35:43

Why is he taking this text about Jesus and making it about Stephen Furtick? This is flat out blasphemy, the kind of which people burn in hell for.

01:35:57

The focus is off. I mean, so far off, I mean, you couldn't get any more off if you tried.

01:36:04

And this is what is wrong with Stephen Furtick, Perry Noble, and other preachers like him.

01:36:11

They think the Bible is about them. And yet, Matt Chandler's words that he preached on Friday night still ring in there.

01:36:20

This book, the Bible, is not about you. It isn't, and reading yourself into it is to miss the whole point.

01:36:28

And yet, they unrepentantly and rebelliously, REBELLIOUSLY read themselves into these passages and hijack clear texts about Jesus Christ and make it about themselves.

01:36:42

This isn't Christianity. This is not the gospel we're hearing. We're not hearing Christ proclaimed and God glorified as a result of it.

01:36:50

What we're hearing is Stephen Furtick and Elevation Church, the new Temple Mount there in Charlotte, North Carolina, shining forth the glory of Stephen Furtick.

01:37:01

There's something seriously wrong in Charlotte, North Carolina, and there's a bunch of accomplices in this crime, the crime to steal the glory away from Jesus Christ and put it on a man who is not virgin born, who didn't rise again from the grave, who will die someday and have to give an accounting for all of this nonsense, narcissistic nonsense that he's preaching and blaming it on God.

01:37:29

This is what it means to take God's name in vain, and it's happening in spades in Charlotte.

01:37:38

The Apostle Paul prophesied regarding these days. In 2 Timothy chapter 3,

01:37:44

Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said this, Understand this, in the last days will come times of difficulty, for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self -control, brutal, not loving the good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power, avoid such people.

01:38:29

Paul here was prophesying about Stephen Furtick, Perry Noble, and all of their ilk.

01:38:35

These men are disobedient, proud, arrogant. They don't have self -control.

01:38:41

They're swollen with conceit and lovers of themselves, and they prove it over and over again by daring to read themselves into the passages in Scripture about Jesus Christ.

01:38:57

They will have to give an accounting for this if they do not repent. But the good news is this, our great

01:39:03

God and Savior Jesus Christ, whom the Scriptures are about, He bled and died even for those sins, and He is calling them to repent and be forgiven for their recklessness, for their arrogance, for their disobedience, for daring to exalt themselves above Jesus Christ.

01:39:24

Pray for their repentance and pray that God would open the eyes of the people there in Charlotte. They have come under the slavery of wolves and think, sadly think, that they're serving

01:39:38

God, but they're not because they're not hearing about Jesus. They're hearing about a mere man, and they're worshiping a man named

01:39:47

Stephen Furtick. This is no revival going on in Charlotte unless, of course, the revival we're looking for is the revival of man worship.

01:39:58

This is not the biblical gospel. This is not the Spirit of Christ. This is not the

01:40:04

Holy Spirit that's at work here. These are dark forces, dark days, and this...

01:40:10

Sorry, folks. This literally is satanic preaching, satanic at its best, and that's saying a lot.

01:40:19

Pray for their repentance, and if you know folks who go to this church, to Elevation, this is no church unless, of course, it's the church of the

01:40:28

Antichrist because Stephen Furtick is being held up as the one who's the miracle worker.

01:40:33

Stephen Furtick is being held up as the one whom their eyes are blessed to see and their ears are blessed to hear.

01:40:41

This is blasphemy. It's idolatry, and this is what sends people to hell. These people are in flat -out rebellion against God.

01:40:49

They are in flat -out rebellion against the gospel, and they have closed their ears, shut their eyes against the truth, and they are enemies of it, and that's all

01:41:00

I have to say on the matter. If you don't believe me, then provide for me an in -context analysis of what it is that we just heard that shows me that this is somehow pointing us to Christ.

01:41:14

It's not. It's pointing us to Stephen Furtick. Well, there we go.

01:41:20

We're at the end of another edition of Fighting for the Faith. I need to remind you all that this is listener -supported radio.

01:41:26

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01:41:35

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01:41:42

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Donate button, or you can make your gift payable to Fighting for the Faith and send it to Post Office Box 508

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Fishers, Indiana, ZIP Code 46038. So what did you think?

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I'd love to get your feedback. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com, or you can ask to be my friend on Facebook.

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It's facebook .com forward slash piratechristian, or you can follow me on Twitter. My name there, Pirate Christian. Until tomorrow, may

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God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.