Colossians 1:14 - The Efficacious Ransom

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Pastor David Mitchell NOTE: Poor audio quality until minute 2:19

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Yeah, we had an extra question and answer session at Sunday school today, it's been about a year or so.
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Anyway, I don't like to cut it short, but I don't want to keep you forever.
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It's time to sort of see it. How's everybody doing? Excellent. Yeah, you look good for today, that's good.
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That's always a good sign. Great for Charlotte. Her blood pressure is too high for some reason.
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She had minor foot surgery on Tuesday. So probably tomorrow, it's not down in the morning, we'll get with the doctor.
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She doesn't want to get on the medicine, but she doesn't want to get on it for a little while and get down and get off of it.
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So great for her, she doesn't want to have to do that. She misses all of you, of course, and good to have you guys back.
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Some of us have been a little under the weather lately and lots of stuff going around. But we'll continue to pray for Burge as well.
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Do you know what he's going to have? Mr. Princeton? I wish he wouldn't even take that thing. I've heard him disappointed, but go look and see if you need to see it.
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I know the doctor. You made this, tell them
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I don't want to do it. I've known people who do it. You've had them, right? Yeah. They're not fun, the stress test.
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You ever do the one with the chemical stress test? Yes. It's horrifying. Very much so. Yeah. You don't have it in control.
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Yeah. I'm done. So Burge, you're listening. Don't do the chemical one. Great to be back.
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I'm going to get back into Colossians today. Last time, I had Burge a little bit when we talked about the prison.
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And so today, to remind you where we are, we're in Colossians 1 .14. And it talks about in whom we have redemption through his blood and forgiveness of our sins.
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And that word redemption, if you remember, in the Bible, in the Greek, it's not really exactly redemption.
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It's better translated ransom. It's the word for ransom in the New Testament. And so we're talking about the ransom.
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It is such an important aspect of all the different parts of salvation.
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If you want to just talk about salvation, it's a huge circle with a lot of smaller circles in it. I don't know how many even.
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I probably should know. But it's a bunch. It's a bunch of moving parts in there.
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And what's so fascinating is when God did that to us, the regeneration part happened.
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And I don't even know if it's even in time, really. I mean, I know we're in time, but it just happens so fast.
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It's just boom. And he saves you. He awakens you. And he does about 33 other things and gives you 33 other things and does things to you as he saves you, such as putting his love in your heart, such as putting his faith in your heart and on and on.
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So it's a big picture. And one of those aspects is the ransom aspect of it.
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And ransom, I think, doesn't get talked about enough in modern times. It was preached on more 150 or 200 years ago.
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If you read some of the old sermons by Spurgeon or Whitefield or people like that, it was the ransom was talked about a lot.
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But I can remember Lester Roloff talking about it a lot in the early 1980s before he passed away in a plane crash in,
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I think, about 1984 -ish. I was actually called to preach at his funeral, Lester Roloff's funeral, and ran from it for a year thinking it was emotional.
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But it wasn't. It was the real thing. But that was quite a man. You can still hear Lester Roloff on the radio, by the way.
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If you Google it, you can find him. You say, how does that work to Google it and find him on the radio?
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Well, because it won't be radio anymore, but it'll be on the internet. But you should listen to a couple of his sermons.
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You want to hear an old -time preacher. You're going to think he's a country bumpkin when you hear his voice, but he's a
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PhD in theology from Baylor University. But he never let anybody call him doctor.
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Anyway, I got off on Roloff. But he happened to be a great preacher from the past that my life crossed with his, and I got to know him somewhat and cherish that.
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Well, he talked about the ransom a lot. So let's talk about it a little bit more today.
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Now, this was before I was gone on our two -week trip. So just to remind you where we were, we were kind of in this passage in 2
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Timothy 2, verses 1 through 8. And we went down at least through verse 6.
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And we were talking about the little word all, because it's found many times in those six or eight verses.
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And the little Greek word all is pas, P -A -S, is how it looks in English letters.
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Just as in English, it can mean one of two things. It can mean all, as in every individual thing.
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Or it can mean all kinds of, which means some things in different types of bigger sets.
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So if you're talking about people, it could mean every man, woman, boy, and girl in the world that ever lived, if you said all people.
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Or if you said all men, as the scripture says, it means men and women. Or it could mean some men and women from all races, from every race.
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Some people from every race will be saved, which is what I believe it means. And if you were here the time before I left, you know why
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I believe that. And we went through that. I'm not going to go through it again today, but I'm going to pick up where we were. But we were going to look at it in three areas.
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One was in the context. You have to take everything in context. So what is that part of that chapter talking about?
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Who's it talking to? What's it talking about? And secondly, in other words, what's the whole idea that it's talking about?
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And secondly, we're going to look at it from the point of view of the grammar, but I'm going to do that last. I'm not going to do that today.
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And then thirdly, we're going to look at it, how does it relate to the whole of the Bible? Like if you look at every verse, rest easy, there aren't many.
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But if you looked at every verse where the word ransom is found, what does the Bible say about it?
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And you need to make it fit that. They can't contradict. There can be no contradictions.
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God doesn't make mistakes. We can make mistakes. We can misinterpret one or both verses if they seem to contradict.
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But they don't contradict. We're just misinterpreting one or both of them. So we have to get that right using the ten rules of proper
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Bible interpretation, which include all these things I just talked about, like context, the grammar, the word meanings, and so forth.
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And it has to fit the whole Bible. So where we were was we kind of went down through there.
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I'll just read it in case you don't remember it. I'm not going to cover it verse by verse again. I'll just read it. This is 1
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Timothy 2, 1. I exhort, therefore, that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, which the
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Lord had been dealing with me on that phrase just because I've been studying this. It's not what the sermon's about. But that little phrase of living a peaceable life in godliness and honesty,
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I'm going to get on a rabbit trail if I talk about that right now. So let's skip that and go to verse 3. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our
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Savior, who will have all men to be saved. Now, here is the question. I've heard some scholar.
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I need to try to dig up and remember who it was. But he said it is not important what the Bible says. What is important is what the
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Bible means. And that is so true because you can make it say anything you want it to if you take stuff out of context.
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That's what the scholar meant when he made that phrase. It's kind of an interesting phrase when he pauses there. And he says, it doesn't matter what the
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Bible says. And he paused. And you're going, wait a minute. And then he quickly comes back and says, it's important what it means.
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So does it mean that God will have all men to be saved?
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Because if it does mean that, then all men will be saved. Because God is sovereign. He's all -powerful.
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He's all -loving. And if it's his will for all men to be saved, they will be. You can't argue against that.
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You can try. But you can't argue against it. All right? So maybe it means something else.
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And it doesn't mean what it sounds like it means. And there are passages in Scripture. There are not many.
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But there are a few what we call difficult passages that, on the first reading, you'll get it wrong.
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Because you've got to have time to line it up with the whole Bible. You've got to have time to look at the Greek. You've got to have time to look at, in other words, the word meanings, the grammar, what the whole
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Bible says about the issue, and what this context is talking about, or you'll get it wrong. And this is one of those cases,
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I believe. So verse 4 says, And here's another one.
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And that's what we're talking about from Colossians, is this idea of ransom. So we're going to take a hard look at verse 6.
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We're in 2, I am ordained a preacher. I'm going to stop there because that's where today's message starts, is with verse 7.
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So now, just quickly, to go over what we talked about last time without going over it verse by verse, what we decided was, and if you disagree with me, it's okay.
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You should probably come to me in private and we'll talk about it. It's okay. But this is what
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I believe. And I believe, if you look at the context, in verse 2, it's talking about a type of person.
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There went my glasses. It's talking about a blind person, though. It's talking about a type of person who most people don't like.
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A king. Or a very, very rich person. And the reason the masses of population don't like kings and rich people is because they abuse people quite often.
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Hollywood wants to think all rich people are evil. That is not true. The wealthiest people in the
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Forbes 400 billionaire list give more billions of dollars to people in poverty across the world than anybody else.
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So they're not all evil. But there's this sense, and always has been in every generation, probably since not too far after Adam and Eve, where the people that had the most were resented.
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Would you agree with that? Alright, so when Paul is teaching his young preacher,
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Timothy, how to run a church and how to teach his people to be, he's saying, look,
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I want you to understand this. I know it's easy for you to pray for your family members.
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I know it's easy for you to pray for your pastor, your deacons, your friends. But it's not easy to pray for some people.
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For example, kings that abuse you and maybe even take your daughters away and bring them into the castle and turn them into cooks or whatever they want to turn them into.
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It's not easy to want to pray for them. And Paul says, but here's what I want you to do. I want you to pray for all men.
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Now, in that context, does he mean that he wants Timothy to pray for every human on the earth, which
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Timothy has no way of obeying that because he doesn't know them all? Or does it mean pray for all kinds of men, including kings?
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You see? And in a normal, just if you read it like you'd read a newspaper, which is a good way.
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I love how Dr. Ryrie says you should read the Bible. He says, don't interpret literally because you can't always do that because Jesus is not a door.
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He calls him a door. So there are allegories. But he said, read it plainly. Like if you're reading a book, a fiction book, you can tell when it's allegory, right?
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It does allegories. Oh, I know what that means. It's just relating this to that, helping me understand this over here from that.
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That's okay. Just read it plainly. So if you read this plainly and you understand how people are thinking and what
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Paul is telling him, trying to teach him, he's saying, you need to pray, not just for the people you like, pray for people you don't like, pray for all kinds of people.
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And another problem, you know, he has, because you got me for a preacher. If you didn't have me a preacher, you might not know this, but Jews did not think
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God would save a Gentile. You've heard me say it a million times. Maybe I know that because I had a
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Jewish Christian person who was actually my mentor in the ministry when
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I was in my twenties and thirties. Maybe that's why I know that, but I just know they didn't think
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God would even save a Gentile. And Paul was always telling them, look, you're wrong. He died for all men, but it doesn't mean every individual.
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It means Jews and Gentile men. That's what he means in those contexts. Well, this is very similar.
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So we went down through and we talked about that. So since it's talking in that way that don't pray just for your friends, but for your
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Kings, then in the re God, I think God through Paul gives the reason for that in verse four, he said, here's why
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I want you to pray even for Kings, because some of them are elect and God's going to save them. But you've got to do a couple of things on your part.
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You've got to give them the gospel and you've got to pray for them because God would have all men to be saved.
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Now, does he still mean, is he going to switch from all kinds of to every individual or is it still all kinds of men
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Kings? For example, I think it's still all kinds of men. God would have all kinds of men, some men from every race, from every order of life, from poor poverty to riches, to Kings, to the lowest person in the social strata.
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He's going to have some from all those groups saved is what I think this means, because if it doesn't mean what
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I think it means, then every person who was ever born will be in heaven when you get there and Jesus will be proven to be a liar because he said few there be that enter into heaven.
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So do you believe people that interpret this to mean all individuals are right? Or do you believe Jesus is right?
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Like is Jesus telling the truth when he says, no, there's not very many, really. It's just a remnant of the human race.
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It'll make it to heaven. And yet they're saying he, well, let's keep going. So let's go to verse six and he ransomed all.
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Now does that mean he ransomed every individual in the whole world? Does it mean that he ransomed some from every kind of race, every kind of walk of life,
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Kings, poor people, he ransomed some from everything, which does it mean? Well, if he did ransom all individuals, they will in fact be in heaven because the price got paid for their sins.
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And you say, oh no, no, no. Cause they got to receive the gift. Show me that in the Bible. Show me, show me that you get saved by something you do.
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Do you believe in works salvation? You say you don't. So now, now, if you want to say, well, but, but they got to reach out and take the gift.
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Well, there's a work. You say, no, no, that's just faith. What Jesus said when they said, what works must we do to enter the kingdom of heaven?
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He said, this is the work that you believe in me. So he said, belief is a work. So what we come to understand is that regeneration is a work of God and he does to us.
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And once we're awake, then the rest of it are effects, including the belief, the repentance, the baptism, the going to church, the tithing, the loving each other.
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All of those are effects of the salvation. None of them cause it. Now, once you get that down, then this all fits in place.
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But I will tell you this, everybody that's in heaven is going to be there by the blood of Jesus.
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Plus nothing because the blood was the ransom. Now let's just do this.
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Did you know William Webster was a born again, Christian man who created the Webster's dictionary that you had to use in school and hated so much, right?
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We did so much work with dictionaries when I was a kid, I guess they still do or they have to do word searches and learn how to use a dictionary.
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Maybe it's all on a computer now. They don't have to. I don't know. That's probably the case, but anyway, Webster's ransom. Here's what it means.
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A consideration paid. In other words, an amount of money paid or demanded for the release of someone or something from captivity.
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It's bigger definition that if you look at the big dictionary, so I'm going to keep going here. Another meaning to deliver, especially from sin or its penalty.
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Mr. Webster said that a third one to set free from confinement or danger.
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Another one implies releasing from bondage or penalties by giving what is demanded or necessary for the release.
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So when you ask, what is it that God, the father demands and considers necessary for you not to go to hell?
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It is that either number one, you pay for your sins by going to hell forever or number two, someone ransoms you and pays for the sins in your place.
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One of the two and that's why Buddhism doesn't work. Islam doesn't work. Nothing else out there works because they don't have a son of God who gave his life for them.
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They don't believe in that. They don't have anything but their own sin. They're going to die in their sins.
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In fact, the Islamic people I've talked to tell me that they all have to go to hell for a little while.
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The problem is the Bible doesn't say you go for a little while. It calls it eternal damnation. That's what they got that wrong. But anyway, naturally that's all
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I'm going to say about it. I don't want to get stabbed like the other preacher friend of ours that some of us listen to on YouTube.
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But anyway, I don't mind because I think probably before anybody made it up here, you would already be dead.
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So many of you have weapons in our church, including the one under here. But anyway, to free from captivity, captivity or punishment by a price that is paid.
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Now here's the last one. The ransom note explains this. This is where Webster gives an example of what the word means.
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You know how they do that sometimes like use it in a sentence. You had to do that in school. Webster does this. Here's the sentence. The ransom note explained the terms under which she would be released.
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That's just what it means. Universally is what it means. So in the Bible, it doesn't have a different meaning either.
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It literally means to be set free by the price appropriate price it's paid. And the only price that any
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Christian I'm aware of that I would respect or believe knows God at all, is that they believe it's the blood of Jesus that pays that price on our behalf.
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So you have to agree with me, that if God meant in this passage that he wanted all humans to be saved and that he gave himself a ransom for all individual humans, then they will all be in heaven because they're not saved by works.
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They're saved by him having died for them. And I know what the modern preacher says, because this is all he knows, but if he will go back and read sermons from 150 years ago, he will know more than this.
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But what the modern preacher in seminary coming out of seminary believes is that Jesus died to prepare a gift for you.
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And that gift is eternal life and that he's offering it, but you got to come up here and you gotta, you gotta decide right now your eternal destiny by taking that gift.
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And when you take, when you decide to take it, you save yourself. Now they won't add that last part yourself, but I will add it because that's what you're doing.
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If you decide I'm going to take that gift, then you're saving yourself by doing what that preacher told you to do.
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Would you agree with that? He's got a prayer formula. Dear Jesus, come to my heart and say, amen. Congratulations, brother.
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Let's baptize you. That is the gospel I grew up under. How many of you grew up under that gospel?
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Raise your hand. That's exactly what you were told. Now I have to be quick. And I learned this the hard way once. If you did that, it doesn't unsave you.
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Okay. Because it was your desire to go down that altar that showed you were already saved.
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You got saved in the pew back there when the, when the, when your heart changed and you wanted Jesus, that was regeneration.
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And the Bible says while we were yet in our sins as he quickened us, we didn't quicken us and the preacher didn't quicken us and the altar didn't quicken us.
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The Holy ghost did that when he called us after that, you wanted to do all the other stuff and you did.
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And those are effects, not the cause. And as Spurgeon so beautifully said an effect can never be the cause of the cause.
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So you already saved where you got up here. And so, but most people don't know that guys, your friends, if you told them that, they will go, huh?
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What are you talking about? Oh, well, brother David said, well, then he's a cult leader. That's exactly what they'll think.
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So you gotta be careful how you talk. You gotta take, give them baby bites. I was telling my kids this story when me and Charlotte first got saved.
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We were in a young couple Sunday school class and they were about 10 years older than us. This couple, Frank and Patty Ford, we still love them.
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We still go see them from time to time and their kids because we babysat their kids before we had kids. And he was a dentist and he had heard me.
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I was a new Christian, but I was zealous. And I was, I was, I believed in sovereignty of God from my first month as a
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Christian. I understood that. I understood that's how it was in the Bible that God was in control of everything. And there was the elect, there was predestination.
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All this was true from the Bible. I hadn't read Calvin. I didn't even know who John Calvin was, but I had read
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Romans chapter eight and Romans chapter nine and Ephesians chapter one and in Acts where it says as many as were ordained believed,
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I've read all those verses. So I just thought, well, that's how it is. And so I would start to teach that to some people at first Baptist Mahaya.
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And my, my Sunday school teacher, Frank, who was 10 years older, who was the dentist, he believed like I did.
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He, he understood it was that way, but he knew most of the church didn't see it that way. And so he invited me over to dinner.
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And now I know for lunch, I know it was just for this purpose. So I'm sitting at his table and he had a little baby that was still in the high chair.
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Couldn't even toddle yet. Couldn't crawl yet. A baby that young. And he reached over and took a piece of roast, which is what his wife had cooked us and cut it up a little piece and stuck.
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He said, watch this, David. And he stuck that meat in that baby's throat. And that baby started choking to death.
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Well, he was a dentist. So he had tools shaped like this where he could get in there and get it. And he knew it. He wasn't afraid of it.
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I didn't know it. It freaked me out. So he let that baby choke for, you know, maybe 20 seconds, which was way too long for me.
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Not even my baby, but I had babysat with that baby and he reached in and he gets that meat out and the baby's fine.
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He said, this is what you do when you teach that stuff to baby Christians. Whoa. So I never forgot that object lesson my whole life.
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And we have to be so careful how we teach things that people are not taught in church anymore.
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Even when they're true, we have to take it in little bits and wait and make sure their mind is open because you can't stuff stuff in a closed mind anymore.
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You can stuff beef into a baby's stomach, you know, it just doesn't work. But, but anyway,
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I mean, look at, look at this in first Timothy that we're looking at. How easy do you think it would be for a brand new
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Christian to get that out of there? This is the one reason the Bible says that preachers and evangelists and things like that are given as a gift to the church.
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You, you, like you need people that spend most of their time studying. You don't have time to do that. You're working.
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You don't have time. So you need to make as much time as you can to do it yourself, but you're not going to do all that kind of work.
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So someone has to do it. Now, what you do need to do when I stand up here and show it to you, you need to go home and verify that I'm telling you the truth, that I didn't make this stuff up, right?
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That's your job. So we believe that Jesus ransomed the elect, and this is the only verse in the
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Bible that makes it sound like he ransomed everybody. He died as a ransom for all.
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And they think that means all individuals. I think it means all kinds of people. And I will tell you this most time in Paul's epistles, especially because of his style of writing.
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And then you look at the context is talking about almost every time you see the
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Greek word POS, it would be better translated in English into all kinds of rather than all.
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Jesus died for all kinds of people is a better translation. Do your own study. You'll find out that's the case.
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Now that, that is really important there for verse six, but there's more, there's more proof to it than what
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I've already given you. And I haven't, I've only covered Roman numeral one, which is context. We've got two more major things to look at, such as the grammar, which we'll do that last.
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Cause I got to try to figure out how to cut that down where I don't want to make it where you're, it's, you're bored with it because there's a big study on the grammar that I've done.
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But the next thing is though, what about the whole of the Bible? How is this word used throughout the Bible? We are going to look at that today.
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But now this path, the context isn't quite over yet because first what we saw was
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Paul used this idea of praying for all kinds of people, including
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Kings, that God wants all kinds of people, including Kings to be saved.
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And that Jesus died to ransom all kinds of people, including Kings who you hate and Gentiles who you hate.
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He ransomed some of them too, but there's more proof than that. Look at verse seven. He's got
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Jews in the room that are disagreeing with him on this. Just like I have Gentiles all around America and churches that disagree with me on this.
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But Paul is speaking to Jews and Gentiles and to the Jews in the room. Look what he does with verse seven as further argument for the case that Jesus ransomed all kinds of people, not just poor
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Jews, but rich Gentiles Kings. Look at verse seven, because of all this is what we're into means.
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So he says, Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all kinds of people to be testified in due time where into I am ordained.
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In other words, it's Jesus who ordained me. Jesus called me to be an apostle.
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Look what he says. Where into I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, and I speak the truth in Christ.
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I lie not. So then that tell you that they were having trouble understanding this passage that Paul's trying to teach even back then.
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But he said, look, I'm not lying to you. I'm telling you the truth and look what he says. I've been ordained a preacher and apostle and a teacher of the
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Gentiles in faith and in truth. I will therefore that men pray everywhere.
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Now there's an interesting phrase everywhere. Right there means and which is a little word in POS, which is all kinds of.
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And then let me think what the word is everywhere. Topos topos, which means different places in the world.
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So he means I will that men pray in all kinds of different places and countries in the world, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.
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So here we see that if you if you think that it doesn't include
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Gentiles and you're a Jew, he says, but I was called by God to be the apostle to the
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Gentiles. So, yes, Jesus ransom died to ransom all kinds of people, not just Jews.
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So he's talking about that, too, not just the kings. So all of that is in the context now.
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So Paul is exhorting Timothy to make sure that that he and his future church members and other pastors someday in the future give prayers and thanksgiving for all kinds of men in the world, not just people that are like them, same color as they are, for example.
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So. In the South, we had the same issues as Jew, Gentile, and it was white, black after the
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Civil War. Have you ever been into a Baptist church where they say they have closed communion?
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Raise your hand if you've been in one. Yeah, Ashton's got kin folks that are one.
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Why do they have closed communion? Historically, it's easy to prove. They didn't think that black individuals had a soul.
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So they did not want them taking the Lord's Supper. So they made a rule that said you have to be a member of this local church to take the
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Lord's Supper with us. So when visitors came who were black, they say, are you a member here? And I'd say no, because they didn't allow them to be members.
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Oh, well, if you're not a member, please abstain. And then they would do the Lord's Supper and they didn't get to do it. That's the history of it.
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That's where closed communion came from. It's not from the Bible. It's not in the Bible. In fact, it's anti Bible. But the blacks and the whites, especially in the south of the
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United States for years and years, it would be hard for white people to even think God would save a black person.
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And that is history. Go study it. It's sick. It's sick. And those people claim to be
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Christians. But that is history. Now, that's the same mistake the
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Jew made with regard to the Gentile. It's no different. It's called racial prejudice. And you bring it into religion and it's pathetic.
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Paul said, look, God is not like that. God died to save every kind of person.
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God saved to die. He died to save all kinds of people.
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Some people from every race. And that's what POS means throughout Paul's epistles. All right. So we see that he's talking about the kings and authority and all of that.
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Now, if you want, I want you to just jot this down because I don't want to read these. But if you want some biblical proof that people don't like kings and that that's what
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Paul is talking about. Look at Proverbs 29 too. But when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.
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Verses like that. Another one. Psalm 10 too. They secretly set up against the poor.
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These wealthy people. Psalm 37, 12 and through 14. Proverbs 27.
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I'm sorry. Proverbs 22 and verse 7. The rich ruleth over the poor. And then 1
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Samuel 8, 10 through 18 is really amazing because it's where it's where God's talking to the
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Jews where they say, oh, we got to have a king. We want a king. God says, it's going to be better for you if you don't have an earthly king. Let me be your king.
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Is it not? We want a king. And he goes there and tells them what the king is going to do to him. I mean, it's it's in detail there.
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He you know, he's going to take your kids away from you, your sons and appoint them to chariots and with weapons.
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He's going to take your sons and put them in his army, make him captain over thousands and captains over tens and fifties.
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He's going to make him. He's going to take some of your sons and make them work in his harvest.
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Make some of them instruments of war and on and on. He's going to take your daughters and make make them to be confectionaries in his castle and cooks.
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This is going to take him right out of the home at about the age of 12. And the king now owns them.
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And he goes on, talks about all this stuff. This is why Paul, the people understood what he meant when he said
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Jesus will die for all kinds of men, including kings. Oh, that's not a fly, was it?
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If you see a fly flying around me, you tell me. Don't just sit back there and say that's embarrassing. You even have permission to come up and swatting right off my head.
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No, don't do that. OK, so that's what we learned from from the context.
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Now, what I'd like to do is wait until next time on the grammar, even though that was my second
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Roman numeral. But let me let me get you to think about this a minute.
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How do we know that this means that it's God's will for all kinds of men to be saved rather than it's
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God's will for all individuals to be saved? How do we know that? We know it from the context and we know it from the fact that Jesus said not everyone will be saved.
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And it has to fit the whole of the Bible. And this sermon that I'm preaching now is not the sermon where I would demonstrate that if it meant
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God's will was to have all men saved, meaning every individual, then they would be saved.
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This is this is not that sermon. Because it would, in this case, be
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God's will and God is sovereign. So now this is not that sermon, but I have to splurge a little bit on that topic.
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So just listen to this if you don't believe that statement is right. The statement that if it is
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God's will that all be saved, they will all be saved. If you don't think that's right, listen to Psalm 115 and verse three.
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But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he has pleased. Now, there's more to the context of that, but that's the gist of it.
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Like God, whatever God pleases to do, that's what he does. So if it's his will to save everybody, he will do it.
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Ephesians 111. God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. So if it is God's will to save all human beings, he will do it.
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Lamentations 337. Who is he that saith it comes to pass when the
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Lord didn't command it? Now that puts it in the negative, but that asks the questions, who of you think that anything on the earth happens that God didn't command it to happen?
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God is sovereign. I mean, these verses are everywhere. People don't want to believe them, but listen to that. You show me any event that happened in time and space, and you tell me that happened without God commanding it, you don't know
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God. You're worshiping the wrong God. A different one you invented in your heart, or that America invented in their churches.
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It's not the God of the Bible. Ecclesiastes 713. Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight which
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God has made crooked? Isn't that a funny one? So if God wants something to be crooked, you're not going to make it straight.
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If God wants all men to be saved, they will all be saved. Isaiah 1427.
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For the Lord of hosts has purposed something, and who will disannul it?
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So if it's God's will that all individual humans be saved, who can stop that from happening?
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Not even the individual. No one. No one can disannul it. And his hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?
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So these people would say, well, God stretched out his hand and he offers a gift. Now you make the decision, will you take it or not?
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The Bible would say, well, who can turn back from that if God willed it? If God willed that you would be saved and that is offered to you, how will you turn away from it?
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You won't. You can't. Because you are not sovereign. God did not give you the ability to birth yourself physically.
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And Jesus said, spiritual salvation is like being born the first time. We call it being born again. So spiritual birth is like physical birth in almost every area.
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It's the same. The baby has nothing to do with his birth. In fact, he's the problem, ladies, right? He has nothing to do with it.
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He just enjoys the benefits when he comes out. And your spiritual birth is identical.
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While you were yet in your sins, the Holy Spirit birthed you. He brought you alive. It says he quickened you.
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He brought you from death to life. You woke up and you got all the benefits. And you desired the milk.
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And he gave it to you. And you didn't cause that desire to desire the milk.
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God made you that way. If you're elect, God made you, where when the Holy Spirit showed you
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Jesus' faith, where you could actually see it the first time, then he's irresistible to you.
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If you're one of the ones he ransomed. And that's just how God's plan works. No one can disannul it.
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If God's hand is stretched out, who will turn it back? No one. Isaiah 43, verse 11 says,
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I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Savior. Your church can't save you.
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The Catholic church can't save you. The Babto Catholic church can't save you. The altar can't save you. The prayer formula can't save you.
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It won't send you to hell, but it doesn't save you. I have declared and have saved.
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I have declared and have saved. I have shown when there was no strange
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God among you, therefore you are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.
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Yea, before the day was, I am. What day?
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Genesis 1, 1. Before the day existed, I am. And there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
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I will work, and who shall stop? Who shall stop it? So if God has an aim, that not one of his foreknown, foreordained children should go without salvation, who can stop that?
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If God has ordained that every sheep that he knew, in Ephesians chapter 1, which is before the day, he said, before the day
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I am, at that point he already knew you. And if that is his desire to save all of them, like Jesus said, of them
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I will lose nothing, at the end, who will stop that? You can't show me a preacher strong enough to stop it, even when he preaches false doctrine.
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Oh, you can lose it. You need to come get baptized again. Get sprinkled every Sunday if you're going to Catholic church.
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And if you don't, you lose it. They can say everything. They say, well, Buddha's God. But you know what?
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If you're a sheep, you won't follow that shepherd, because he's not your shepherd. And sheep don't follow but one shepherd.
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They follow the true shepherd. Real sheep, I'm talking about. And that is a beautiful object lesson of you and me.
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We can hear those things. I knew a wonderful woman that went to our church when it first started,
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Elnora Allen. She grew up, and she would always say it this way, I studied with the
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Jehovah's Witnesses, which meant she went to that church. Then I studied with the
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Mormons, which means she went to that church. She said, and then I got saved, and now I listen to Rocky Freeman.
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She had Rocky Freeman tapes. That was my mentor. She had cassette tapes, hundreds of them on her table.
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She had a Strong's Accordance, Unger's Bible Dictionary, and a King James Bible. Same as me when
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I got saved, and there she was. The Jehovah's Witness couldn't cause her to go to hell. The Mormons couldn't get her, because their shepherds, you know, when they called her, she didn't hear their voice.
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This is how God does his business. This is how he operates.
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John 6, 39, and this is the Father's will which sent me, Jesus said, that of all which he has given me,
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I should lose nothing, but shall raise it up again at the last day. So you're gonna tell me that where it says that he died as a ransom for all, that that means every individual, and a huge, like 98 % of them end up in hell?
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Because that's what preachers are preaching in every church in this town today, just about, except for a couple. Every 98 % of the ones he died for, and desired to, because he said he's not willing that they should perish, that he wants all men to be saved, and 98 % of them don't get saved.
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Jesus only saved 2%. Is he successful, or is he a failure, even by business standards? Is he
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God, or is he omnipotent, or is he somewhat, lacks power, lacks love?
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He just doesn't know what he's doing. Has no control over human beings. You say, well, he shouldn't have control.
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We have free will. Otherwise, we're like puppets. Well, listen, I got five grown kids, and they and their spouses, and their spouses love me and Charlotte like they're parents, and they all work with us in our business, and do you know that their whole life we raised them so that that would happen, by loving on them, acting like we knew what we were doing?
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Starting businesses that they might like better than the oil business, and doing all these things that we were manipulating these children.
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Katie, don't listen right now. And, you know, Ben's not in the room.
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That's good. Don't tell him, Ashton. But we were manipulating these children, and guess what? When they grew up, they turned out pretty good.
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Now, was I an evil father for doing that? Oh, they had free will. You should have just thrown them out and done that.
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And I know what their children are doing now. A lot of their children are dead. So if it's okay for human parents who use wisdom to manipulate their kids, you don't think
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God does that with his kids? That's not the same as making them be a puppet. Right?
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I mean, Katie, did you want to marry Dave, or did I make you marry Dave? Answer that, please, out loud.
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As a testimony to the church, she was not a puppet. Ashton, did
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I make you marry Ben? Yes. Let's see. Emily, did
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I make you marry Matt? Yes. She was a puppet. All right.
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So, God has his ways of drawing people to himself.
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There's not a young woman in this room who's married who that husband didn't do some things to draw her to himself before she said,
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I do, or I will marry you. And the men know that. That's God's plan.
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It's a picture of Jesus drawing his bride. And so this is how it works. And Jesus said, of them
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I will lose nothing. Isaiah 46, 8, remember this and show yourselves men. Bring it again to mind, oh, you transgressors.
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Preachers don't preach like this anymore, do they? Remember the former things of old where I am
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God and there is none else. I am God and there is none like me. Declaring the end out here from the beginning and from ancient times declaring the things that are not yet done.
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Saying my counsel shall stand and I will do my good pleasure. And he died for every individual person and 98 % of them go to hell.
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Make that work. Can you? Can you do that with a sovereign
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God? Can you do that with an all loving God? In other words, he sent 98 % of the people he loved to hell.
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Would you send your kids to hell? He didn't send one of his kids to hell and never will.
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Of them he will lose nothing. They're not his kids. The Bible says very clearly they are tares.
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They are not wheat. And that Jesus said himself, I did not put them on the earth. Satan put them here.
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Now you go figure how he did it. And if you're nice to me,
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I might tell you what he told me, but he got it right. But Jesus didn't put them on the earth.
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And if you want interesting information, the people surrounding you everywhere you go on the highway, in the grocery store, at the movie house, 98 % of them,
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I'm making that up. I mean, I don't know what percentage. The vast majority of them are tares.
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They will never be saved. They don't morph into sheep. Now you can have an unsaved sheep, which is what
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I was till I was 24. And I ran with the goats, but I was not a goat. And same with you.
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So I mean, this is just, this is how it is. You cannot explain the evil in the world any other way.
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How are you going to explain that? How can a good God let bad things happen? Well, because he lets the tares live. He puts sun on their crops.
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He gives them rain on their crops. So like he loves them like he does the rest of his creation, but he doesn't love them like he loves you.
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They're not his children. Oh, God made all humans and he loves them all.
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It's not what the Bible teaches. And if that is true, God is awfully bad because he sends so many of the ones he loves to hell if that's true.
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I don't believe for a minute that that's true. I believe he died to ransom his own children. I believe he wants his, all of his own children to be saved.
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And I believe everywhere where it says he's not willing that any should perish. If you look at the context, the whole chapter is talking about the elect and says that it's talking about the elect and then says
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I'm not willing that any should perish. In that context, does that mean I'm not willing that any of my elect should perish?
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Yes or no. That's what it means. Because if it meant I'm not willing that any human perish, they won't perish because everything
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I'm reading you tells you everything that I will happens. Everything that I will happens.
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There's more. Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, the things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.
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Yay, I have spoken it. I will also bring it to pass. Oh, well, wouldn't that make people puppets on the string if God brought it to pass?
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I don't think so. My kids aren't puppets. But I influenced their thinking process their whole life.
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Still do a little bit. Not much, but some. Yay, I have spoken it.
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I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I will also do it. Now you take that idea of a father and you make that father all powerful and you make that father
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I'm not present where he's everywhere at once and you make that father all loving where he's not going to lose one of his kids because he loves them so much and you get the real true gospel when you understand these things.
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Hearken unto me, God says, you stout hearted that are far from righteousness. In other words, people that disagree with this statement, the statement that he just made.
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Whatever I desire, whatever I will, I will purpose, whatever I purpose, I will do it. And if you don't believe that,
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God says you're stout hearted. What does that mean? Do you doubt the
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Bible? You think you understand the nature of God? Stout hearted.
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Daniel 435 says, and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing.
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And he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
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And none can stay his hand or say unto him, what are you doing,
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God? What are you doing when you decided you wouldn't save every individual human? I would have.
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What are you doing, God, when you just save a remnant of the human race when all of them deserve hell but you decide in the goodness of your heart to save a few.
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What are you doing, God? This is not how I would do it. I would either kill them all and start over or I would just save them all. I don't like how you're doing it,
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God. Verse 37, now I, Nebuchadnezzar, who was a worldly king and the law would stop that from happening because he was the law and he came to know the
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Lord and he said this after he came. He's Gentile, came to know the
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Lord. He said, now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the king of heaven because I'm a king on the earth.
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I honor the king of heaven all whose works are truth, all whose ways are judgment, and those that walk in pride he is able to abase, including himself.
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And so he acknowledges and he did decide to do it this way where he would save a few from a totally fallen race.
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That is okay because he is just and he's truth. Wow, the pagan king knew that.
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Isaiah 40, half the preachers, 90 % of the preachers today don't know this. Isaiah 40, 21, have you not known?
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Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundation of the earth it is
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God that sits upon the circle of the earth. And the inhabitants thereof are like grasshoppers.
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Humans are like grasshoppers compared to God. That stretches out the heavens as a curtain
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God does and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. That bringeth the princes to nothing, the human kings, he brings them to nothing.
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Look at Hitler, he's in hell now. He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
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Where's John Kennedy now? What a romantic story.
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Where is he now? To whom then will you liken me,
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God says, or shall I be equal with any man, saith the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on high and behold who has created all these things, that bringeth out their host by number.
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He calleth them by their names by the greatness of his might for that he is strong in power and not one thing that he purposes fails.
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Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth faints not, neither is weary?
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There is no searching of his understanding, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
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They shall mount up their wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
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In chapter 41, verse 4 says, who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations
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I the Lord the first and with the last I am he. He says,
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I'm the one who has called my people through all the generations. I called them to myself from the beginning and I am the one that did it.
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And what did Jesus say? All men will be saved or did he say some men from every race will be saved.
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So Jesus said in Matthew 7, 14, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that findeth it.
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Isn't it interesting that Jesus said that? And then the very next verse, he said after that, beware of false prophets who tell you
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God loves everybody. Jesus died to save everybody and all of these things. They come to you in sheep's clothing,
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Jesus said, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Jesus had something else to say about who would be saved.
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He said only those that the father willed will be saved in John 5, 19. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, truly, truly,
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I say unto you, the son can do nothing by himself but what he sees the father do.
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For what things soever the father does, that's what the son does likewise. For the father loves the son and showed him all things that himself doeth.
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So Jesus saves exactly the people the father tells him to save the
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Jews pick up stones and try to kill him when he says things like that. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our savior who will have all men to be saved or does it mean all kinds of men?
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I mean, to me, we'd all been better off if we'd lived 150 years ago because you'd walked into almost any church and heard this type of preaching.
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You would have heard this preached. You would have heard these scriptures used a lot. And nowadays, you don't.
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So that's kind of tough. Well, I've lost you at this point. We're a little over time today on everything.
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So I'm gonna save the last part of this for next time where we talk about all the places where it mentions this word ransom and there are not many but it's too much for you at this point because you've about had all you can take and I don't blame you.
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So let's stand and have prayer together. Let's watch this little study. I think if you and your friends and family that you have influence on can understand what ransom means, they will be a lot closer to understanding the true gospel than they are with what they know now.
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Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We ask you to keep it in our hearts that we can use it when you call us to use it with friends and neighbors, family at different times and Lord we praise you for your plan of salvation.
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We don't wish there were another. We don't wish it were any other way and we are so happy that we have been awakened and not because of any good thing we ever did or would do but because you birthed us and we were always yours.
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We were always your children and you didn't have to make a decision to love us and to save us and protect us and keep us.
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It was a decision that was already made. We thank you for that. We ask you to go with us into this time of fellowship and bless the meal.
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Amen. By the way, normally we would have done the Lord's Supper today because Passover is tomorrow but we'll do it next
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Sunday because I didn't want to do it with Dave Huber not here. He had to leave early and go to a funeral and I like to try to hit the
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Sunday closest to Passover but we're on the other side. We'll be five or six days past it and that's close enough
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I think because it commemorates that in my view. All right, we'll see you at lunch here in a few minutes. Sure.