Confidence and Endurance (Hebrews 10:35-36) | Adult Sunday School

Good morning, good morning.

I hate to break this up.

I know.

Go ahead and finish your conversations and just signal me when you're ready.

Good morning.

It's awful in here that you people like each other.

We can't be having that in this modern age.

Can you figure out how to cancel each other, please?

I can tell you where you can get info to do that.

It's called anti -social media.

Okay, I'm done.

I'll get on a different soapbox now.

Yeah, how do I really feel?

Welcome to Kootenai Community Church Adult Sunday School.

Remember me?

Okay, that's too bad that you remember me.

So, let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, as we take up this next subject before we get back into the book of Daniel,

sometimes labels and descriptions put us off.

But the most important thing we want to remember this morning is that everything we try, everything we want to do is to elevate you to give

glory to God, to lift up the Scriptures as even above your name, which is you have said.

And we want you, Lord, to be vindicated, glorified, and honored in all that we do.

So this morning, as we study more of your word, we look to you for illumination.

And Lord, your word is exciting.

It's relevant.

It's unbelievable.

And we are so grateful that you gave it to us.

For we have the very picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in this word.

And because of that, we want to serve you more.

Might that be what is in our hearts and our minds this morning as we look into your word.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So how many of you have studied a lot of biblical prophecy?

A few hands, yeah.

So that means that some of you are like I used to be.

You're not amillennial, you're not postmillennial, you're not premillennial, you're panmillennial.

Because you know, you've heard it.

You know it's going to pan out in the end.

Actually, the study of biblical prophecy is not optional.

Much to my surprise when I discovered this a few years back.

Eschatology does not save, but it is necessary.

Where is he going with this?

Why isn't he reading from Daniel?

I'll get to that.

We're counseled to properly interpret the Bible.

That includes eschatology.

And I'm going to give you some definitions.

Today is going to be of definitions and labels.

And I don't want you to be put off by that.

Because everything we do at Kootenai is to glorify God.

Is to lift Him up and to honor Him.

And so there's a reason for the decision to look into eschatology and prophecy

for a short little bit here before we get back into the book of Daniel.

And I'll give that to you.

I'm just going to pique your interest and I'll give it to you in a while.

Eschatology, a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind.

A belief concerning death, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humankind specifically.

Any of various Christian doctrines concerning the second coming, the resurrection of the dead, or the last judgment.

That's eschatology.

Blessings attend those who properly understand prophecy.

Revelation 1 .3 says this,

Do you believe the time is near?

Now I know it's been near for 2 ,000 years.

But there's a sense of today that it's really near.

And it could be.

I'm not going to set a date by the way.

So you can all rest assured of that.

Revelation 22 .7, Blessed is he who heeds the word.

Now we're not going to be getting into Revelation today.

Because we're going to get back to Daniel soon.

So did you know there are 62 books of the Bible that contain prophetic information of

the 66?

The only four that do not are Ruth, Song of Solomon, Philemon, and 3 John.

Almost nearly every book in the Bible contains prophetic information.

I want you to not get caught up in labels this morning.

If you can do that for me.

Often labels are one group's method of understanding another.

Thus we label things.

If I can remember right now.

If I've got this right.

I was going to look this up and verify it.

But the Ogallala Sioux and the Dakota Sioux named each other.

And they got their names from the other tribe.

One of them meant stranger.

I think it's Dakota.

But at any rate.

So that means when you go to North Dakota you're going to North Stranger.

And when you go to South Dakota you're going to South Stranger.

But at any rate.

We tend to label things.

That's just our nature.

You've heard some of the labels.

Calvinist, Arminian, Trinitarian, Republican, Democrat.

But I digress.

Many times labels are used to communicate simple information.

About the purpose of certain things or institutions.

So for example.

We understand the difference between a quarterback and a tight end.

Sometimes I think the teams don't.

The two labels when properly understood.

Within the context of the sport they are played in.

Give a clear distinction in the purposes of those two positions.

What does the quarterback do?

He throws the ball.

Right.

And what does the tight end do?

He drops the ball.

I mean he catches the ball.

Right.

And so those labels are useful to us.

Those with a history or interest in the sport I'm talking about.

Will have quite a bit of information about each of those labels.

You'll have your own favorite quarterbacks.

And your own favorite tight ends.

As opposed to wide receivers.

As opposed to etc.

And so there's all those labels that we use.

But they are useful in their own way.

Are they not?

Actually if you want to get paid.

And you're one of those guys.

They're very useful.

So it is with the labels of things we give to theology in Christianity.

This is so we can understand.

Or at least in our own mind.

Arrange a systematic understanding of a particular group.

A methodology.

A theology.

Remember that most labels only deal with a small part of the group.

Methodology or theology to which they are attached.

They only deal with a small part often.

So.

Essentially.

And here comes some labels.

Most reformed biblical Christians.

Look at those labels.

Simply seek to have a uniform consistent understanding of scripture.

So that we can apply it to our lives.

Would you not agree with that?

We want to understand what God is saying clearly.

As clearly as possible.

So that we know how to live that out.

And glorify Him.

And bring Him glory.

And honor to the Savior.

And delight God.

It actually delights God.

When we have a uniform.

A proper understanding of scripture.

And we obey it.

So we recognize that most labels describe only a portion of the person or idea.

So labels.

So we here at Kootenai.

Simply believe the Bible.

And as we study it.

We seek to understand it through an historical literal grammatical approach.

Now there is a description of a hermeneutic.

The historical literal grammatical hermeneutic.

And that is the lens through which we study scripture here.

And you probably all knew that.

Or you didn't know it.

Or you're like me.

And you've been doing that all your Christian life.

And found out that you were one of them types.

Oh well.

That's fine.

And I mean I didn't even know I was reformed.

Until I came here.

And I mean I used to have different kinds of discussions.

In the two other churches I belonged to.

Who were.

They didn't know it.

At the time.

Because they believed the doctrines of scripture.

We have labels for these things.

And I don't want us to be put off by the labels.

So this particular hermeneutic gives the correct sense of scripture.

And thus communicates to the readers.

The truth about God.

About history.

About faith.

And about the application of that.

To the lives. To all of our lives.

To all the disciplines and subjects in our lives.

So one of the things I thought.

As Jim and I were talking.

We were talking about the trajectory that Daniel is going to take us on.

In chapter 7.

Where we're going to be studying a lot of prophetic utterances.

A lot of prophetic doctrines.

And we thought it best.

As I've been studying this.

And I have not given eschatology the study.

And the attention it should have had in the 40 years of my journey.

In the Bible.

I mean I've studied it.

Because in that many years you just bump into it.

Whether you like it or not.

And so I've studied it.

But I haven't systematically studied it.

Which is what I'm doing now.

And man, the Bible's got a lot of stuff to say that I didn't know.

It is so deep.

It's not two inches thick.

It's two million miles thick.

And we're expected to get through that two million miles.

Well we're not expected to.

But it's a hope, isn't it?

For you.

That you'll get through it.

You'll understand.

You'll read Proverbs 21 the next time.

And you'll get new.

I guarantee you, you will get new information.

And new teaching.

And new theology.

Well not theology necessarily.

But new application.

When you study it for the 24th time.

Because God created a mine for us to mine all of our lives.

So I'm going to give you a term now.

How many of you know what the term dispensationalism means?

Okay.

A few hands.

That's part of the reason I wanted to take us through this study on the future.

How we hang our understanding of Scripture on a particular theological

framework that will give us the most correct understanding of prophecy.

And it's unfortunate that we have all these titles.

And we are put off by them.

And what ends up happening is we have misunderstandings about the titles and understandings about the titles.

What I hope to do in the next few weeks is give us an understanding of the framework from which

we will be operating here as we teach through Daniel.

And how that framework is designed and where it came from and what it means and what it doesn't mean.

Because there's a lot of myths and a lot of misunderstandings about this concept.

And I'm sure some of you have bumped into some of them.

And, you know, when we hear someone is a Calvinist, what does that mean?

Because every picture I've ever seen of Calvin, he's got a four -mile beard and he looks unhappy.

He looks like someone stole his dinner.

And I don't think they did.

I think that's just the way they...

Have you ever been in a Western picture where you get in a Western picture and they tell you not to smile?

Because they didn't smile back then?

And I'm thinking, you know, I was the Western rebel.

At any rate.

So we're going to be looking at how we understand the future.

And it's going to be an interactive commentary, an interactive study.

So I'm going to ask a lot of questions.

And we're going to get through this together.

Dispensationalism is...

Why couldn't they have named it something else so it didn't have 43 syllables?

Dispensationalism is a method of interpreting history that divides God's work and purposes towards mankind into different periods of

time.

Usually there are seven dispensations identified.

Although some theologians believe there are nine.

Others count as few as three.

And the overachievers count as many as 37.

In this bit of time, we will limit ourselves to the seven basic dispensations that seem to be found

clearly in Scripture.

And again, this is just a label to hang on...

To hang some of the historic periods we see in Scripture and what they might mean and how they interact with each other.

The first dispensation is called the dispensation of innocence.

Genesis chapter 1.

And I'm going to give you Scripture that you can look into.

Genesis chapter 1 verses 28 through 30 and 2 verses 15 to 17.

It covered the period of time with Adam and Eve in the garden.

In this dispensation, God's commands were number one.

Remember what they were?

What were they supposed to do?

They were to replenish the earth with children.

They were to subdue the earth, have dominion over the animals, care for the garden, abstain from eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge

of good and evil.

God warned of the punishment of physical and spiritual death for disobedience.

This dispensation was short -lived and was brought to an end by Adam and Eve's disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit and their

expulsion from the garden.

First dispensation, period of innocence.

The second is called the dispensation of conscience.

And it lasted about 1 ,656 years.

But who's setting time limits?

From the time of Adam and Eve's eviction from the garden until the flood.

Genesis chapter 3 verses 18, excuse me, verses 8 through 8, 22.

Genesis 3, 8 through 8, 22.

This dispensation demonstrates what mankind will do if left to his own will and conscience, which have been tainted by the

inheritance of the sin nature.

The five major aspects of this dispensation are number one, the curse on the serpent, a

change in womanhood and childbearing, a curse on nature, the imposing of difficult work on

mankind to produce food, and the promise of Christ as the seed who will bruise the serpent's head.

That's the dispensation of conscience.

The third dispensation is that of human government, which began in...

What a mistake.

I didn't say that.

Which began in Genesis 8.

God destroyed life on the earth of the flood.

Oh, by the way, we teach the literal interpretation of the Bible.

There really was a flood, and it really did destroy all life on earth.

Just like that.

And all of the geologic columns and formations and information that we see is directly

related for us to that flood and to before if it was stuff that was deeper.

So the third is of human government, which began in Genesis 8.

God had destroyed the life on the earth of the flood, saving just one family.

To restart the human race, God made the following promises and commands to Noah and his family.

Number one, I will not curse the earth again.

And how does he show that promise?

With the rainbow, which has been hijacked, by the way.

Noah and the family are to replenish the earth with people.

Is that something people are aware of and are doing today intentionally?

Not with 63 million babies killed in this country since 1973.

Number three, I should quit commenting because you won't get all the information.

God will not curse the earth again.

Noah and his family are to replenish the earth with people.

They shall have dominion over the animal creation.

They are allowed to eat meat.

The law of capital punishment is established.

There will never be another worldwide flood.

The sign of God's promise will be the rainbow.

Noah's descendants did not scatter and fill the earth as God had commanded, thus failing in their

responsibility in this dispensation.

About 325 years after the flood, the earth's inhabitants began building a tower, a great monument to their

solidarity and pride.

Genesis chapter 11, verses 7 through 9.

God brought the construction to a halt.

He slapped a cease and desist order on that temple, and he created different languages and enforced his command

to fill the earth.

The result was the rise of different nations and cultures.

From that point on, human governments have been a reality.

The fourth dispensation, called the dispensation of promise, started with the call of Abraham, continued through the lives of the

patriarchs, and ended with the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt, a period of about 430 years.

During this dispensation, God developed a great nation that he had chosen as his people.

Genesis 12, 1 through Exodus in 1925.

The basic promise during the dispensation of promise was the Abrahamic covenant.

Here are some of them.

Jim's talked about this in Hebrews.

He's referenced the covenants.

Here are some of the key points of that unconditional covenant.

Key word here, unconditional.

What does that mean?

What does unconditional mean?

Pardon me?

No conditions.

That's what un means.

No conditions.

It will be fulfilled.

Number one, from Abraham would come a great nation that God would bless with natural and spiritual prosperity.

Number two, God would make Abraham's name great.

Number three, God would bless those that blessed Abraham's descendants and curse those that cursed them.

Number four, in Abraham, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

I know this is basic stuff to most of you, but Peter said it was okay to go over the basics.

Actually, he encouraged it in his epistle.

So, I'm going to go with Peter.

In Abraham, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

This is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and his work in salvation.

The sign of the covenant is circumcision.

This covenant, which was repeated to Isaac and Jacob, is confined to the Hebrew people and the 12

tribes of Israel.

The fifth dispensation is called the dispensation of law.

It lasted almost 1 ,500 years.

From the Exodus until it was suspended, and we'll talk more about that, until after Jesus

Christ's death.

This dispensation will continue during the millennium and with some modifications.

During the dispensation of law, God dealt specifically with the Jewish nation through the Mosaic covenant or the law

found in Exodus chapters 19 through 23.

Exodus 19 through 23.

This dispensation involved temple worship directed by priests with further direction spoken through God's mouthpieces,

the prophets.

Eventually, due to the people's disobedience to the covenant, the tribes of Israel lost the promised land and were subjected to

bondage.

The sixth dispensation, the one in which we now live, is the dispensation of grace.

It began with the new covenant in Christ, and that's not to say that there wasn't grace in the Old Testament.

We'll be dispelling some of those myths when we get to them.

So, one of the things that happens, and I'll get back to this, when you're teaching something and you

reference something that is in Lesson 7 and you're in Lesson 5, and people go away from that in the morning,

they go, he doesn't believe in God.

Yeah, I do.

Or, he doesn't believe.

Yes, just remember that, and if it doesn't come, you are welcome to ask the question.

If the teaching that you think doesn't address what sounds like a misstatement or may even be a misstatement doesn't come,

you're welcome to ask the question.

We're not afraid of questions here.

And if I can't answer them, then we'll be afraid of them.

Okay, so, the sixth dispensation in which we now live is the dispensation of grace.

It began with the new covenant in Christ's blood, Luke 22, verse 20.

This age of grace, or church age, occurs between the 69th and 70th week of Daniel 9,

verse 24.

So, you see one of the reasons why we're doing this, because when we get to Daniel 9, we're going to be talking specifically about

him predicting a new time.

And Daniel did predict it.

It starts with the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost and ends with the rapture of the church, 1 Thessalonians 4.

This dispensation is worldwide and includes both Jews and Gentiles.

Man's responsibility during this dispensation of grace is to believe in Jesus, the Son of God, John 3,

18.

In this dispensation, the Holy Spirit indwells believers as the comforter, John 14, 16 through

26, and it has lasted for almost 2 ,000 years, and no one knows when it will end.

And so, if someone sets a date to the end of the dispensation of grace, run from them, because they're wrong.

And if they end up being right, it was an accident.

And it will end with the rapture of all born -again believers from earth who will go to heaven with Christ.

Following the rapture will be the judgments of God, lasting for seven years.

The seventh dispensation is called the Millennial Kingdom of Christ, and it will last for 1 ,000 years as Christ

himself rules the earth.

This kingdom will fulfill the prophecy to the Jewish nation that Christ will return and be their king.

The only people allowed to enter the kingdom are the born -again believers from the age of grace, righteous survivors of the seven years of tribulation,

and the resurrected Old Testament saints.

No unsaved person is allowed access to this kingdom.

There is only one way for access to this kingdom, and it is through Jesus Christ.

He said that, and He is righteous and right every time.

Satan is bound during the 1 ,000 years.

This period ends with the final judgment, Revelation chapter 20, verses 11 through 14.

The old world is destroyed by fire, and the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21 and 22

begin.

So that's just a basic primer, and I got that out of, just so you can look it up.

I pulled that wholesale.

There's a website that's pretty good most of the time.

It's called gotquestions .org.

Seven dispensations.

So I felt it unnecessary for me to print this all out and do a PowerPoint when I could direct you to that

if you want to re -look at it.

It's a very good, concise definition of what most premillennial

dispensationalists believe.

There's another.

Why all these numerous syllable words?

We might just call it a PM, premillennial.

So there are a number of things that started the age of teaching this particular

theology upon which we hang the future of dispensationalism started in the

1840s.

Started about 1840, somewhere in there.

And one of the people who distilled it very well and wrote several books on it was a fellow named Charles Ryrie.

How many of you have heard of him?

Okay, yeah, he wrote a study Bible, and he was a teacher, a theologian, who came from

Dallas Theological Seminary.

His sign qua non, which that's a Latin.

Do you know what that means?

I had to look it up just to make sure I understood it because my last Latin class was almost 50 years ago.

It means absolutely indispensable or essential.

The essential is, number one, a clear distinction between Israel and the church.

The church is not Israel.

Israel is not the church.

Number two, the consistent.

What does that word mean?

Men, are you consistently faithful to your wives?

You better be.

I get such a kick out of these American Conservative Union ratings for consistency to the Constitution.

You know, this guy was 78 % faithful.

If I went home to my wife tonight, you know where I'm going with this, and said,

love, I was 78 faithful to you.

She knows how to use guns.

I wouldn't do that.

First of all, it would be a lie because I've been 100 % consistent to her by God's grace.

And that's what we attempt to do is we attempt to be consistent in our use of literal interpretation.

Now, that doesn't mean that rocks clap their hands, okay?

We know in our application of consistent literal interpretation that there are times when

symbology is used.

We are just careful about not making things that aren't symbols

into symbols.

If the New Testament says it's a symbol, then I'm going to call it a symbol.

But we've got to have some clear direction that it is a symbol.

Number three, a concerted emphasis on the glory of God.

On the glory of God, which, by the way, equals the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here's another label that you, did you know that, I know you did, but I'm going to pretend that you didn't, so you can all shake your heads.

Did you know that the word Trinity isn't in the Bible?

But you know what the word Trinity means, and it's a glorious truth that we understand and revere.

So, the Trinity gets the glory.

God gets the glory, which is the underlying, a concerted emphasis on the glory of God as the

underlying purpose for his actions.

When he acts, it is for his glory.

And we should celebrate that.

We do celebrate that.

That's in dispensationalism today.

The basic definition of dispensationalism includes six ideas.

Now, I'm going to be going through these ideas, and I can provide a study guide if you want.

And if there's enough interest in that, I'll do it.

I'll distill this down.

It's just that I wanted to make sure I had some information for you today.

And doing the study, typing it up, and then also providing a study guide

required more time than I had at this point.

And that's me whining, okay?

But I will get it done if you want it.

So, the basic definition of dispensationalism includes six ideas.

Number one, the Bible refers to multiple senses of terms like Jew and seed of Abraham.

And we will look at those.

Number two, an approach to hermeneutics, this is very important, that emphasizes that the Old

Testament must be taken on its own terms and not reinterpreted in the light of the New Testament.

David gave a great quote, and I'm going to try and get your quote accurate the other day.

He said, if you read the Bible from left to right, you will probably become a

premillennialist.

But if you read it from the right to the left, what was it?

All bets are off?

I want to get it right.

Yeah, you'll end up amillennial or postmillennial.

Now, are those heretical positions?

No, they're not.

I think that they're uninformed, but they're not heretical.

We've got to separate that.

We're not going to be talking about doctrines that if you believe differently, you will not go to heaven.

That's not what we're talking about.

If you believe differently about some of these things, then we need to sharpen iron on one another.

And you're not going to be looked down on.

You're not going to be shamed.

You're not going to be avoided.

You're going to be in this place.

Can you imagine people avoiding you?

You might get 17 less hugs in 300 years, but that's about it.

And you won't notice.

So feel free.

Understand that this is not about heresy.

This is about a different method of hanging the future on a theology that seems to make the most sense so we can

give the most glory to God.

So we have two ideas.

The Bible refers to multiple senses of Jew and seed of Abraham, and it is a hermeneutic that emphasizes that the Old Testament be

taken on its own terms and not reinterpreted in the light of the New Testament.

So the meaning of Old Testament passages lies in those passages and that the New Testament

harmonizes with them and builds upon them.

There is no need for one passage to have priority over others since all Scripture is inspired by

God and makes its own contribution.

You have your favorite verses, and that's fine, but just remember that your favorite verses aren't necessarily the best.

My favorite verses are.

No, I didn't say that.

All the verses are God's favorite, all of them.

All Bible passages complement and harmonize with each other, but no passage overrides

the meaning of another passage.

It doesn't override it.

It may add to it.

It may complement it, but it will not override it.

It will not change it.

It will not make it, if it was unconditional, it will not change it to a conditional promise now.

If God made the promise and He said that it was by His name, then it's just as

true then, I mean just as true today as it was then.

It's not made conditional.

So those two.

Number one, the Bible refers to multiple senses of Jew and Abraham, seed of Abraham, and an approach to hermeneutics that emphasizes

the Old Testament be taken on its own terms.

Number three, a belief that the Old Testament promises will be fulfilled with national Israel.

If they were made to national Israel, God is not, oh, I know this is

not proper in the current culture, but when we were kids, we would say, God is not an Indian giver.

I don't mean anything unkind, but that's just a colloquialism.

It means He doesn't go back on His word.

He doesn't go back on His word.

Does He?

You can say yes or no.

Belief in a distinctive future for ethnic Israel.

Belief that the church is a distinctive organism.

A philosophy of history that emphasizes not just the teleology and spiritual issues, but social, economic, and

political issues as well.

Teleology, by the way.

I looked up these terms, and I wanted to get current definitions so that we would, you know, when I use 14 -syllable words,

we all have an understanding.

It means the philosophical interpretation of natural phenomena as exhibiting

purpose or design.

Natural phenomena exhibit purpose or design.

They didn't evolve.

Nothing evolved.

I think you could probably say that there is within each organism the ability to micro -evolve to survive a

harsher climate, but it will still be the same kind that it was.

That's an example.

And so everything exhibits a natural order.

Exhibits a purpose, excuse me.

Everything God created, everything, even the mosquito, has a purpose.

Everything.

Did that upset you?

Well, that's my job.

It's a belief in or a perception of purposeful development toward an end, as in history.

So everything God did in the Old Testament, and everything he has done in the New Testament, and everything he's doing today,

is an orderly progression towards his sovereign decision as to how history will culminate.

Everything.

Nothing escapes his view.

There are people who, in the Christian church, who believe that God didn't expect that.

No, he didn't expect that.

He planned it.

He planned it.

So he did expect it, in a sense.

A belief in the perception.

Okay, I already said that.

So those are the six.

And then there are eight common features of dispensationalism that occur throughout the

modern iterations of dispensationalism, of which there are quite a few, as you might guess, that whenever

something interesting and appropriate comes up, we can find ways to change it.

So that's why there's 23 different ways.

There's probably only one way to bake a good set of brownies, but I'll bet you there are 23 different recipes in here.

And they all work, don't they?

Or some of them work better than others.

Let's face that.

Sometimes it's who's doing the baking.

I'm glad God did the baking here.

Eight common terms, eight common features.

Number one, and, again, we're going to be going through, this is going to be book -like.

I apologize for that, and I don't apologize for it.

I think it's information that we're going to need.

Number one, the authority of Scripture.

Scripture first, Scripture second, Scripture always.

Number two, dispensations.

Number three, the uniqueness of the church.

Number four, the practical significance of the universal church.

God didn't create the church just because he needed filler for this book.

Number five, the significance of biblical prophecy.

Number six, futurist premillennialism.

Futurist premillennialism.

Number seven, the imminent return of Christ.

Are you living like he could come today?

Plan like he's going to be 100 years, but live like he's coming today.

That's the idea.

Number eight, a national future for Israel.

Those are eight distinctives.

Now, I'm going to distill these for you and flesh them out.

I think we have time today to get through some of them.

And then, do you want me to provide some sort of a syllabus that would be?

Okay, I'll figure out a way to do that.

I'll get her done.

I'm not really good at that.

I might enlist some help from a guy.

I won't give you his name, but his initials are Jim.

Yeah, and he's only too busy.

Six distilled essential beliefs of dispensationalism.

What I mean by distilled is we've just looked at the basic overview from Got Questions.

We looked at all of the different possibilities that exist within that, that are

lined out in six or seven different positions.

Now, we're going to distill them so that they make sense for what we're about to dive into in

Daniel.

So, here's some of the distinctives that are distilled.

Progressive revelation from the New Testament does not interpret the Old Testament passages in a way

that cancels the original authorial intent of the Old Testament writers as

determined by historical grammatical hermeneutics.

When you read the New Testament and it comments or illuminates an Old Testament passage,

it does not cancel the original intent of that author.

Whether it was Moses or Jeremiah or Ezekiel or Zephaniah or any of the prophets or any

of the Psalms or any of the...

There are other places where prophetic writings are.

The New Testament may examine and elucidate and illuminate and add to that, but it does

not cancel the original intent.

Because of it...well, I'm going to steal my own thunder.

It just doesn't.

Trust me on that.

Number one, it's foundational.

The Old Testament is foundational.

Number two, the Old Testament understanding starts with the Old Testament.

So, and all of us have done this.

I've done it myself.

I've read a New Testament verse, and I went, there's something in Hosea that talks about that.

So, then I turned back to Hosea, and now I've got a new, hopefully a new, added understanding to

Hosea.

But it didn't change Hosea 11 .1 or whatever you were looking at.

It added to it.

It illuminated it.

It made it even more dear to me.

But it didn't change the original Hosea's intent.

Old Testament, progressive revelation.

Excuse me.

New Testament, progressive revelation.

That word progressive has a bad taste in our mouths, doesn't it?

But it's a good thing.

So, we've been building a house.

And some of you go, yeah, sure you are.

You're just standing around.

We started on it three years ago.

And I've got the outside done.

And the concrete poured.

And I've got my camper moved into it.

And we're living in a camper.

And my wife is a sweetheart, letting me make her live in a camper.

And then we stopped because the world ended and lumber went through the roof.

Well, yesterday I bought a load of lumber that two months ago would have cost me $1 ,600.

And it was $450.

Woo -hoo.

So, when she got home last night, she saw progress.

This building is progressive.

So, there's good terms.

Progressive has good connotations when it's used properly.

New Testament, progressive revelation may shine a light on Old Testament passages, offer commentary, or

add additional applications or reference, but they do not override the original intent

of the Old Testament writer.

I know you guys are with me on this.

And so, some of this is so basic.

And I'm going to get that verse in Peter so that you can see I'm justified in doing this because the New Testament says so.

Promises made to Israel are not nullified by the New Testament.

There can be no question that the prophets meant to communicate the promise of a national return of Israel to its land.

To the extent that our hermeneutics are regulated by the principle of authorial intent, we are given ample reason to accept this

literal rendering of what God through the prophets originally promised to the people of Israel.

That's Bruce Ware in the New Covenant and the prophecies of God, prophets of God.

Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to

bring them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.

But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

I will put my law within them and on their heart.

I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

And they will not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord.

For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more.

And then in Hebrews, chapter 8, verses 8 through 18, Paul says, or

boy that was a Freudian slip.

Whoever wrote Hebrews said, I actually don't think it was Paul.

For finding fault with them, he says, God found fault with them and he said this.

Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not

continue in my covenant and I did not care for them, says the Lord.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.

I will put my laws into their minds and I will write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

And they shall not teach everyone his fellow brother, his fellow citizen, and saying, everyone his brother, saying, Know the

Lord, for all will know me, from the least to the greatest of them.

For I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.

Who's he talking to?

Who's the writer of Hebrews talking to?

He's talking to the Hebrew congregation, the church.

It doesn't nullify what Jeremiah said.

It may add to it.

It may add the church into the blessings.

But it doesn't nullify.

That's what I'm talking about.

Here, for example, the new covenant has a both and element.

Both Israel and the church, well, one commentator said this, The additional inclusion of someone

in the promise does not mean the original recipients are thereby excluded.

The expansion of promise need not mean the cancellation of earlier commitments God has made.

God made that commitment.

The realization of new covenant hope today for Gentiles does not mean that the promise made to Israel in

Jeremiah 31 has been jettisoned.

It does not mean that.

Non -dispensationalists believe the promises to Israel are more or less spiritually fulfilled in the church.

Not all of them, but many of them.

See, that's another thing about labels.

And I will make that mistake.

I promise you, I will make that mistake.

I will apply wholesale something to a particular label, and I will be wrong.

And you are welcome to raise your hand and say, No, that's not quite right, and I won't be offended at all.

And even if I am offended, you will be right, so it's okay.

Did you get all that?

My wife says I talk too fast.

She just doesn't listen.

No, I didn't say that.

It's been nice knowing me, huh?

Yeah.

Stand back.

He got me.

Okay, I'm back on the wagon now.

Non -dispensationalists often believe the promises to Israel are more or less spiritually fulfilled in the church, and one

should not look for a future inclusion of national Israel into the covenant.

God's unconditional covenants with Israel are not abrogated by the New Testament illumination of

Old Testament promises.

If an Old Testament prophecy was made unconditionally to Israel, then it will be fulfilled to Israel.

If the New Testament applies it to the church, then it will also still be fulfilled in Israel.

But it will also be applied to the church.

Covenant theologians often and dispensationalists disagree on the nature of progressive revelation.

Dispensationalists believe that the Old Testament promises are not cancelled by New Testament illumination.

If they are, one has to wonder about God's faithfulness to Israel.

One also has to wonder about the trustworthiness of God's promises.

One theologian has likened progressive revelation to a building in progress.

The superstructure does not replace the foundation.

It is essential in dispensationalism to maintain the original authorial intent of the Old

Testament passages.

And so that is what we will do when we are studying through the prophetic passages of Daniel.

Ryrie points this out, he says,.

The New Testament does not contradict the meaning of Old Testament texts.

He asserts new revelation cannot mean contradictory revelation.

Later revelation on a subject does not make the earlier revelation mean something different.

Later revelation on a subject does not make the earlier revelation mean something different.

If this were so, God would have to be conceived of as deceiving the Old Testament prophets when he revealed to them a nationalistic

kingdom.

Since he would have known all the time that he would completely reverse the concept in later revelation.

And God, if anything, is not a deceiver.

I will speak to some strong points here, and I mean no disrespect to anyone,

but these are connotations that come from some of these ideas.

Number two, and this is all we will get through today, actually we won't get through all of this, but I'm going to provide you with a syllabus.

Types exist, and we will talk about some of them.

But national Israel is not a type that is superseded by the church.

Adam, for example, is a type of Jesus.

We understand that.

And you know why we understand that?

Because the Bible calls him that.

Romans 5 .14,.

Now the question is, who was him who was to come?

Clearly from the context reading earlier and later, it's Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15 .45,.

Who was the last Adam?

Jesus Christ, the last Adam.

Adam is a type of Jesus.

So types do exist.

Recently, through Jim's teaching, we learned or were reminded that the Levitical priesthood of the Mosaic

covenant was a type of the better priesthood.

Well, it's not up there anymore.

I love the mathematical symbol, Jesus is greater.

Got the greater, Jesus is greater.

The new covenant, the new priesthood that Jesus initiated is greater than

the Old Testament.

So, we learned that the Levitical priesthood of the Mosaic covenant was a type of the better priesthood in the new covenant of the Lord

Jesus Christ.

Typology is significant in eschatology.

Typology is important in future things.

Let's put it that way.

Non -dispensationalists often believe, and I have to put that in.

I didn't put it in in my original.

I'm going to make that correction.

Often, because it's disrespectful.

I don't know what people's hearts.

Often believe that national Israel was a type of the New Testament church, and once the anti -type, and anti -type means

the fulfillment, the fulfillment of the type, the church was revealed.

Israel's place as the people of God was transcended and superseded by the church.

That is what most often the non -dispensationalists believe.

National Israel, however, this is all we'll get through, is not an inferior type that is replaced by the church.

And this was said, the unconditionality of the promises to Israel guarantees that the New Testament does not even implicitly

remove those promises from Israel.

Old Testament civil and ceremonial laws and institutions are shadows and are explicitly removed in the New Testament, but

unconditional promises are not shadows, nor are the peoples to whom they are given.

So, we will talk more about types next week.

Before I close, Jim.

Right.

Very important.

Thank you, Jim.

I didn't come to Scripture.

No.

We need microphones for the audience.

Well, okay then.

How do you really feel, Jim?

I didn't come to Scripture with a Trinitarian framework.

I just discovered that there was somebody in the Old Testament who claimed to be God, and there was somebody in the New Testament who made that

same claim, and either, as Josh McDowell put it, he was God, or he was someone on the order of a guy with a stewed

tomato in his tennis shoe, and he was God.

And there's also a third person who is described as God, and what I ended up with was an understanding that there are

three persons who claim to be God, and therefore the Trinity is the term that has

been used to describe that.

And I think that's basically what Jim was saying there.

We don't come to Scripture.

Hopefully we don't come to Scripture with things we're going to prove.

What do they call that?

Confirmation bias.

But we discover in Scripture, and most often for me, I discover in Scripture things that change what I thought

and make me behave in a different way than I used to because I was not understanding or applying Scripture properly.

That's how Scripture will change you.

If you come to it with an open mind and heart to God, you don't want your mind so open that your brains fall

out when you bend over, but you want it open to the Word of God so that He has, and He will,

He will regenerate your every thought as you go through life.

That is sanctification.

Any other questions or comments?

So hopefully this won't be too dry, and hopefully I'll figure out a way to provide a syllabus that isn't also dry,

but we'll get that done.

Let's pray.

Lord, it is essentially, ultimately, and most importantly, Your Word that is true.

And You have elevated it above all the universe, above Your name, You said.

It is that important.

And so we come to it awestruck, reverent, fearful, and

hopeful that You will illuminate us, that You will give us Your teaching, and that what I say here this morning,

or any morning, is filtered through Your Word so that people feel free to remind me of

things as has been done, that people feel free to correct, because no one of us is

Jesus Christ.

Only Jesus Christ is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And He is the only one with perfect knowledge.

And so we look to Him, and we thank You for that.

In Jesus' name.

The

announcements

that

I

would

have

are

stated

in

your

bulletin.

And just repeats of what I've had in weeks past, so I would just turn your attention to the bulletin if you need to be reminded of the

membership class and fellowship dinners and Bible studies and things of that nature.

Turn with me, will you please, to Psalm 46.

Psalm 46.

Psalm 46.

This describes God as our refuge and our strength, and we're going to read together the entire psalm.

Psalm 46.

The prescription says, for the choir director, a psalm of the sons of Korah set to Alamoth, a song.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her.

She will not be moved.

God will help her when morning dawns.

The nations made an uproar.

The kingdoms tottered.

He raised his voice.

The earth melted.

The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Come, behold the works of the Lord, who has wrought desolations in the earth.

He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth.

He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two.

He burns the chariots with fire.

Cease striving and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Will you stand with me as we pray?

Let's bow our heads.

Truly, our God, it is our desire that you would be our stronghold and our refuge.

As this psalm describes, the nations are tottering.

All the kingdoms of this world are being shaken, and they are shaken.

And wickedness and evil is triumphing in this day in so many ways and in so many

corners of this globe.

We thank you that we are not even seeing right now the end of the story, but we will see ultimately truth

and righteousness and justice triumph.

And we pray that you would fix our hearts upon this hope, that you are our refuge and you are our stronghold.

You are the one who keeps us safe, who accomplishes all of your purposes for us.

You have ordained all things that come to pass in our lives and the lives of those whom we love.

And we thank you that you are a faithful and trustworthy God.

We thank you that you have called us out of darkness and into light.

And we thank you that you have given to us the kingdom and ultimately the nations and ultimately the inheritance that is

reserved for us in heaven.

We thank you that our hope is not in this world.

Our hope is not in the kingdoms of this world, in politicians, in the power structures of this

earth and this planet.

But all of these things will one day be done away with, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of

our God and of his Christ.

And you will rule them with a rod of iron.

We look forward to that day when truth and righteousness and justice triumph.

In the meantime, we pray that you would keep us faithful, keep us bold, keep us temperate, prudent,

wise in this world.

Help us to be faithful to proclaim the truth, faithful to walk in obedience to you,

faithful to love one another and hold fast to your word in all things and in all times and in all circumstances.

That you would be glorified in and through your church, through us as your people, as we gather here together today.

Fix our hearts and our minds upon you, your nature, your great grace, and your word we pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,

knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

Amen.

Please

turn

in

your

copy

of

God's

Word

to

Hebrews

chapter

10.

Hebrews chapter 10.

And we're going to read together verses 32 through the end of the chapter.

Verse 39.

Hebrews 10.

Beginning of verse 32.

But remember the former days when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made

a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have

for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay, but my righteous one

shall live by faith.

And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

Let's pray together.

Our Father, we pray that you would use your word today to strengthen us in our hearts and in our minds,

and to give us courage and boldness.

Help us today to be encouraged by your word, and to be strengthened and equipped to live

faithfully in this age and this time, that we may be faithful servants, that we may receive

the reward for enduring the reproach of faith.

We pray that you would be honored through your word as we study it together, as we reflect upon it, we think about how

these things apply to us and what you have commanded us to do.

We pray that you would encourage our hearts together in these things, and that you would be glorified through us.

Grant us that understanding and illuminating work of the Spirit, we pray, that can only come by your grace and by

your work in us through your word.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

I want to open up with a question for you to consider.

What role does our future and eternal reward play in motivating, encouraging,

strengthening us in our service and our obedience and our endurance?

Just in case you couldn't hear that, let me give it to you again.

What role does our future and eternal reward play in motivating, encouraging, and strengthening us

in our service, obedience, sacrifice, and endurance, ultimately our perseverance?

What is the connection between our eternal reward and our perseverance in the faith?

How much of a role does our eternal rewards, what we are promised in Scripture, how much of

a role does that play in encouraging us and strengthening us to be faithful?

Is it okay for us to fix our hearts and our minds and our meditation upon our eternal reward and the

blessings that are going to come to us in the future?

Is it okay for us to be reminded of and to remind others of what yet awaits us

and allow that to motivate us?

It's a good question because there are some in Christianity who would teach and suggest that those

eternal rewards should never be a motivation for us.

They would say that we should serve without ever thinking about what we might get in return for that.

In other words, the Lord has done enough for us that that should be motivation enough for us to serve faithfully and

obediently and to endure without ever really looking at what is to come.

Isn't what he has done enough of a motivation?

Shouldn't our service and our love and our perseverance be motivated by just a pure

affection and love in our hearts for the Lord?

And if we are looking for what we are going to get at the end, doesn't that pollute in some way or

distort our motive?

Is that really a pure motive if we're looking at the reward?

There are some who would suggest that it is.

Shouldn't you sacrifice without any thought to the reward and endure without any reward, any

motivation other than just a pure love for the Lord?

Shouldn't your faithfulness be out of love for him and not hope for what you might get in the future?

Hasn't he really already done enough for you?

Isn't what he has done enough that you would be motivated by something that is to come?

That's a good question.

People that raise that question and suggest that looking to the future

for our reward or for some hope of what we might get in the future, they would

suggest that that pollutes our motive, that we should just be motivated out of a pure heart of

nothing but love for the Lord and affection for him and no anticipation of what is to come.

I would like to answer that question.

I wish you had a week to go home and think about that.

Maybe some of you already know what the answer to this is.

But I would like to answer that question with another question.

I love answering questions with questions.

Here's the other question.

Why can't it be both?

I mean, we are complex creatures, are we not?

Is there anything you have ever done in your entire life that has just one motivation?

Can you think of anything?

The ladies when you cook a meal for your husband or you do something nice for somebody else, is it just one

motivation that you have?

Or are there all kinds of things that play into that?

Isn't it possible for us as complex creatures to have more than one motive for what we do?

Why would we think that just because I'm looking forward to and anticipating a future reward

that there is not at the very same time a love and affection and gratitude for what he has already done?

And really, can we even divide these things?

Can these things be separated?

Is it even possible for you and I to reflect just upon what God has already done without at the very same

time connecting that to what he is also going to do?

Can you really contemplate the glories of your justification?

You're being declared righteous in him because of his death on the cross by virtue of your faith in him.

Is it possible for you to contemplate your justification without also at the same time recognizing,

as Romans 8 says, that all of those who are justified will be sanctified and all of those who will be

sanctified will be what?

Glorified.

You cannot even contemplate the glories of justification without following that golden chain of redemption all the way

through to your glorification and ultimately your final reward.

Is it possible for you and can you even really separate the meditation on the forgiveness

of your sins while ignoring what the forgiveness of your sins means for you in eternity?

You cannot really even think about forgiveness of sins without at the same time thinking, because I am forgiven,

there is therefore no condemnation in Christ and because that is true, I will be able to stand in God's presence

completely righteous and completely forgiven with no condemnation and be glorified on that day.

It is almost impossible to think of present realities without connecting them to future promises

because they are all tied together, they all go together.

My love for the Lord, I do love the Lord and I desire to be with him and I desire to have that future reward

because guess what?

The future reward is him.

So I look to the future reward, how can I look to the future reward without reflecting upon the fact that my reward is him?

It's being with him and enjoying pleasures at his right hand forevermore.

It is being in the courts of God forever and ever and ever and enjoying his glory and being with the people that he has

redeemed.

And when we are with the people that he has redeemed and having received our eternal reward, guess what we are going to see in the people that

he has redeemed?

It's not just we see each other as we are here but we see each other as we are glorified so what we see

in each other then is the glory of God.

So even my longing to be with the saints of God in eternity is a longing to be with a God who is

reflected through the saints that he has redeemed for all of eternity.

So it is really impossible for me to be motivated just by present realities without also seeing

how they are connected to future realities and it is impossible for me to be motivated by just future realities without also being

motivated by a love for Christ.

So I really don't think that these two things can be separated at all.

And for those who would suggest that having our eye fixed and being aware of and

contemplating the rewards that are to come, that that is an illicit motivation, I would suggest to you

that somebody should have told the author of Hebrews that that was an illicit motivation because in Hebrews chapter 10 he holds out the

promise of a great reward.

He says in verse 34, we have a better possession and a lasting one.

Verse 35, a great reward.

Verse 36, we are going to receive what is promised.

And verse 39, we have faith to the preserving of the soul.

These are the rewards that are held out for us.

And all the way through chapter 11, by the way, it is a chronicle of those under the old covenant in the Old Testament who

obeyed and who were faithful and who had faith and trusted what God promised even though they did not see the fulfillment of

those promises in their present, but they looked forward to the future fulfillment of those promises and

persevered in light of what they would receive at the end, motivated by a proper faith.

Paul focused upon his reward, didn't he?

When he said, There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all those

who have loved his appearing.

Paul said, I fought the good fight.

I finished the race.

I've kept the faith all the way to the end.

And guess what?

There is laid up for me a heavenly reward.

Peter encouraged his readers by reminding them, you have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, preserved in heaven for you who

are kept by the power of God.

There's an inheritance.

All the way through the book of 1 Peter, that inheritance, that reward is held out as a motivation for endurance and faithfulness all the way to the

end.

John described in Revelation our eternal home and the glories that follow it, and Jesus himself described the reward and the giving to those who are

on his right hand, saying to them, Enter into the glory and the joy prepared for you.

He described the blessings and the rewards and the joys that he is going to give to those who are his own.

So Jesus, Peter, Paul, John, and the author of Hebrews all held out rewards for faithful

service as a motivating factor.

So if that is an illicit motivation, somebody should have instructed the authors of Scripture.

And you know that I'm being somewhat sarcastic and snarky when I say that.

Rewards are featured prominently in Scripture, aren't they?

All the way through.

We look forward to something that we have not yet received, and that is not an illicit motivation because we know that our

service in the faith is not in vain, that God will accomplish what he has promised, he will fulfill his every promise,

he will reward adequately, and so no matter what it is that happens in this world and in this life, whatever it

is that God has called us to endure, to persevere through, to face, and to be faithful in, he will

adequately and abundantly reward us at the end for that faithfulness.

And it is not wrong to look forward to that because in looking forward to that, we are glorying in what he has done,

and we are looking to him to make us faithful in that so that us in being faithful then will receive

the reward that he has promised to us.

And we're in this warning chapter in Hebrews chapter 10, and the idea of reward and promise and blessing in his future hardly

sounds like a warning, doesn't it?

But it's actually part of this larger passage that started back in verse 26.

In verses 26 through 31, he described those who would not bear the

reproach of faith, but instead would turn away.

Ultimately, he says, to the destruction of their soul.

They would receive the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries, verse 31, being unwilling to bear the

scorn of the world or to face the hostility and opposition of the world.

There is a group of people who profess faith in Christ, but then when the going gets rough, they get going, and they're

not the rough ones or the tough ones, they're the weak ones who have no true and genuine faith.

So they go on sinning, continuing in their sin, their rebellion, turning away from the Lord, ultimately are destroyed in that, for that

decision.

But then there is this second group whom he is convinced have faith to the preserving of the soul.

That's the end of verse 39.

This second group is really addressed in verses 32 through 39.

We've seen in verses 32 through 34 that he is encouraging them to look back to the reproach of faith, what they

had endured and being reproached, and the tribulations and during this great conflict of sufferings because of their faith.

They're to reflect upon that.

Then in verses 35 through 39, he encourages them to look forward to the reward of faith, that those who

endure the reproach receive the reward.

Endure the reproach of faith and be faithful in it, do the will of God, and you receive the reward that comes to those who are faithful.

It's a real simple statement.

Those who endure the reproach of faith receive the reward of faith.

And we're looking today at verses 35 and 36.

Verses 35 and 36.

We're going to see in verse 35 an exhortation and in verse 36 an encouragement.

The exhortation is this.

Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

The encouragement is this.

You will receive what was promised.

That's the end of verse 36.

There's an exhortation that we are not to throw away our confidence, but that instead we are to be faithful and to do the will of

God, knowing that we will receive the reward.

You'll notice that verse 35 begins with a therefore, indicating that he's in the concluding thoughts of this warning passage

that goes from verse 26 to the end of the passage.

He's wrapping this up.

He's bringing this to a conclusion.

He is saying, therefore, since these things are true, and remember he has built a case beginning in verse 26, since you have

endured a great conflict of sufferings, since you have suffered reproach, since you have endured tribulations, since you

have become sharers with those who were so treated, since some of you have become prisoners, since some of you have had the

seizure of your property, suffered through the seizure of your property, since these things are true, and since it is true that you have

a lasting and a better possession, in light of all of that, therefore, what are you to do?

Do not throw away your confidence.

Now, what does that mean?

What does it mean to throw away your confidence?

Probably, if you're like me, when you first read that, you think of confidence in the sense of assurity or a

certainty, an assurance or certainty of something.

I am confident of something.

I'm standing before you today.

I'm exceedingly warm, and I'm sweating prolifically.

I'm absolutely confident of that.

I am assured of that.

I know this for certain.

I know this for certain.

As much as I know that I am living and breathing in here today, I'm certain of these things.

I have a certain confidence there that these things are true.

That is typically how we think of confidence, right?

It's something that we are sure of or certain of.

Or we use confidence to describe a certainty of conviction, a belief that something is true, a

belief that something is certain.

Is the author then saying, don't lose your assurance?

Or is he saying, don't cast off or throw away your certainty regarding these things?

Don't start to doubt what you know to be true because these things have a great reward?

Actually, that's not what he's describing.

That's not what he's describing at all.

Before I tell you what the word translated confidence means, the word cast off is used three times in Scripture.

It means to throw off, to leave, to throw aside, to lose, to do away with, or to reject.

It has the idea of setting something aside, turning away from it, walking away from it, throwing it away from yourself, losing it entirely.

That's the idea.

It's used three times in the New Testament.

Once here, once in the Gospels, Mark 10, verse 50, it describes blind Bartimaeus when he heard Jesus walking alongside

the road.

You remember what blind Bartimaeus did?

He cast aside his cloak, threw his cloak away from him.

That's the word that's used to describe Bartimaeus throwing off his robe and running through the crowd trying to get to Jesus.

It's also used in Romans chapter 13 when Paul says, lay aside, that's the word, lay aside the deeds of darkness and

put on the armor of light.

Those deeds of sin and darkness and corruption and wickedness, you cast those off, you throw them aside.

You have nothing more to do with them.

That's the idea.

Don't lose, don't throw away, cast off, toss away your confidence.

What does the word confidence mean?

The word confidence means a freedom of speech, a free -spokenness, an openness,

frankness, license of tongue, a boldness or a courage.

That's what the word confidence means.

It is used a number of times in Scripture to describe something other than speech, but it is used an

abundant number of times in Scripture to describe speaking and how we are to speak.

Do not cast off your freedom of speech, your free -spokenness, your openness and frankness,

your boldness, your courage, your bluntness, your publicness about your confession.

That's what it is.

You say, what does the word confidence have to do with that?

There's a connection there between what you say and what you are assured of and believe in your heart, right?

If you're assured of something and believe something in your heart firmly, then you will be confident in the way that you say this.

Just as today I said quite confidently a few minutes ago that I was sweating profusely and it's warm in here and that

I'm standing before you today because I know these things to be true.

So I would say this openly and publicly before you, even though it paints a rather grotesque picture in your mind probably, but I

can say these things openly and publicly to you because I am confident and assured of them in my heart.

So there is a connection between what I know to be true, what I am assured of and certain of,

and how I would describe what it is that I am assured of and certain of.

That's the connection here in this context.

So he is not talking about, in our context, assurance or certainty regarding something, though that is

connected.

But he is rather describing our speech and how we are to speak, how we are to proclaim the truth.

I'm going to give you a list of verses in Scripture where you see how this word is used to describe people speaking.

First, it's used three other times here in Hebrews.

I'm going to give these to you so you can see how the author is using this idea and then you'll see exactly what I

think he means here in this context.

Hebrews 3, verse 6 says, Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are, if

we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.

We are to hold fast our boldness, our confidence, our publicness, our declaration of these things,

and our boast firm until the end.

You can see even in that context, it's describing something of our proclamation of these things, our boldness in these

things, our confidence and our openness regarding these things.

We're Christ if we hold fast to these things.

Then it's used in Hebrews 4, verse 16, and this paints a picture, I think, for you.

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.

That's the word.

Confidence to the throne of grace.

See, that's the word for boldness, courageousness, openness, unhinderedness, a plain

-spokenness.

He's saying in chapter 4, because these things are true of Christ and his priesthood and what he has done, he has given us, therefore, access

to the throne of grace, and we are to walk in with boldness, plainness of speech, frankness

and openness right to the very throne of grace.

Hebrews 10, verse 19,.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place, there it is again, a boldness and a frankness,

an outspokenness, a bluntness, courage, freeness, plainness in speaking.

It's used over and over again in the New Testament to describe speech.

I'm making the case that I think that is what it is describing here as well.

Acts 4, verse 13, it's translated confidence.

Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and began to recognize

as having been with Jesus.

Now what did they observe about Peter and John?

The fact that Peter and John were just kind of walking through the marketplace with their chin held high.

They seemed to have an air of assurance about them.

It wasn't what they just saw.

When Peter and John got up and preached the gospel plainly, boldly, openly, unhindered, with a freedom of speech,

they said, man, those guys are bold.

They must have been with Jesus.

That's what they saw.

Acts 4, verse 29,.

And they pray, O now, Lord, take note of their threats and grant that your bondservants may speak your word with all

confidence.

Boldness, plainness.

It's also translated plainly or plainness in Scripture.

Mark 8, verse 32,.

And he was stating the matter plainly.

John 10, verse 24,.

The Jews were gathered around him, and they were saying to him, How long will you keep us in suspense?

If you're the Christ, tell us plainly.

John 11, verse 14,.

Then Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

His disciples said in John 16, verse 29,.

Lo, now you're speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech.

See how it's used to describe just an openness, a frankness, a clarity there?

You're speaking with confidence.

A plainness or a plain spokenness about them.

It's translated as boldness in Acts 4, verse 31,.

And when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with

boldness.

2 Corinthians 3, verse 12,.

Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech.

Ephesians 6, verse 19,.

And pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.

It's translated openly or openness.

John 7, verse 13,.

Yet no one was speaking openly of him for fear of the Jews.

And see, there it's contrasted with kind of a quietness, a real gentleness.

We'll talk one -on -one about it, but nobody would stand out in the marketplace and just speak openly of Jesus because they feared the

Jews.

Nobody wanted to have any kind of opinion about him publicly, openly, boldly, out in front of everybody.

They didn't want that.

Instead, it was very quiet.

John 7, verse 26,.

Look, he's speaking publicly, and they're saying nothing to him.

There it's translated as publicly, out in the open.

John 18, verse 20,.

Jesus answered him, I've spoken openly to the world.

I've always taught in the synagogues and the temple where all the Jews come together, and I have spoken nothing in secret.

Acts 28, verse 31, describes Paul preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all

openness and unhindered.

That's a lot of references, isn't it?

It is translated as confidence, plainness, plainly, openly, boldly, publicly.

It can describe something other than speech.

I'm standing before you quite publicly, openly, confidently, right?

Even if I were to stand up here confidently and not say anything, I can stand here confidently and openly and publicly.

So you can do things other than speak openly and publicly, but in Scripture so often this word is used to

describe the preaching or the speaking.

It means a boldness, a plainness, a bluntness.

It describes a manner of courage and openness and confidence in the

open and public and blunt and frank, and I am running out of words in the thesaurus, to

describe how it is that we speak the truth of the gospel.

Don't lose your boldness, your frankness, your openness about the truth.

He is saying you have plainly spoken, you have openly spoken, you have boldly spoken and courageously

and frankly spoken.

Do not toss that aside.

Don't stop doing that.

Now why is that command so necessary and so fitting for the context?

What is the unique temptation that we face when we endure a great conflict of suffering,

hostility, persecution, tribulations, reproaches, imprisonment

and the seizure of our property?

What is the unique temptation that you face at that moment?

It's to just be quiet.

It's to think to yourself, if this thing that I am teaching and believing and

communicating and that I'm standing for this, if this is causing all of the fire and the

heat of opposition, persecution, the tribulations and the reproach, if that's the cause

of that, my believing that and teaching that and holding fast to that causes all of this, then maybe

the best thing for me to do is to simply step back and be quiet and not do X.

Or at least if I'm going to do X and believe X, to do it quietly and privately and maybe just with people who

also affirm X.

Maybe we could just get together and have these discussions with people who agree with me on this and not do it

publicly, openly or plainly.

That is the unique temptation, to pull back at the very point where we are rubbing the culture raw

with our testimony.

At the very point where they hate us because we are faithful to some truth, it is there that we are tempted to pull

back on that truth.

And we do this in a number of ways and you see it happening in pulpits all across the country.

There is an attempt to sometimes soften the message and make it less offensive to the culture or to the world.

This was on public display recently when the current president of the Southern

Baptist denomination in a message said that God shouts about sins like gluttony

and greed and selfishness and idolatry, but he whispers about sexual sin.

Whispers about sexual sin.

No, God does not whisper about sexual sin.

God doesn't whisper.

I read that somewhere.

He doesn't whisper at all about anything, particularly sexual sin.

And I don't know where I read that and I don't mean to plagiarize.

Speaking of plagiarism, that message that Ed Linton preached in which he said that God whispers about sexual sin, it

wasn't the statement that God whispers about sexual sin that caught the national headlines.

It was the fact that he plagiarized the entire message from the previous president of the Southern Baptist denomination, J .D. Greer, and

he did so, taking the illustrations, the introductions, the quotes, the outline, and the points of the message, point

for point, all the way through the thing, preached it as if it were his own, telling nobody that he'd actually plagiarized

the entire message.

Now, that got everybody up in a tizzy about it.

Everybody got upset about that.

And I sat back and wondered, why are you upset about that?

That's been a cottage industry in the Southern Baptist denomination for decades.

That's been going on for 40 years, people plagiarizing one another, encouraging plagiarizing one another, selling your plagiarism,

buying plagiarism.

It's all part of that whole culture and has been for decades.

And yet, if the Southern Baptist denomination were not on the quick slide into apostasy, then even the most uneducated Christian in

every Southern Baptist church in the country would have been able to say that the real issue here is that statement that

God whispers about sexual sin, because that is nothing more, and there's nothing less, I should say,

than an attempt to soften the message of the church and of Scripture concerning

moral issues at the very point that right now is rubbing our culture raw with the

church.

Our culture, every cultural institution, every academic institution, every entertainment venue,

all has the same message.

They all walk in lockstep.

And whenever an alternative morality or the biblical truth about any of the issues of human sexuality or gender

are even proclaimed from the church or from a Christian, the world hates it.

They jeer it, they mock it, they reject it, and they pour out their hostility upon us for it.

And it's at that very point, then, that somebody, the president of the largest denomination in our country, the

Southern Baptist denomination, stands up and says, no, God really whispers about sexual sin.

That is an attempt to soften the message.

And it makes people think, well, maybe then God really isn't concerned about my sexual sin.

I mean, if he's not concerned to really be clear about it or bold about it, if God's not gonna be bold about it, why should I really be

concerned?

I should probably be more bold about the things that God is bold about.

And so then they would do what?

They make a list of all the things that God is bold about, and guess where sexual sin is on there?

It's so far down the list that they're never gonna get to it in this lifetime.

That's how that works.

Or people not just attempt to soften the message but attempt to be coy about the message.

This is a really clever way of just trying to get around the truth by using different language.

So you hear this sometimes, they won't talk about sin and unrighteousness, transgression against God's law.

Instead, they use words like, we've all made boo -boos.

We've all made mistakes.

We all wish we could go back and get a mulligan in life.

You've done a few things that you regret.

You've done a few things that might be ill -advised.

Maybe they were unwise in your past.

You regret them, wish you could go back and do them over again.

Instead of talking about God's wrath, they talk about a broken relationship.

Don't you feel estranged from God right now?

You're kind of lonely?

You feel isolated?

You feel this need to belong to somebody?

Well, just take a step back toward God because that comes from a God -shaped hole in your heart, and

God has a you -shaped hole in his heart, and if you could just come together, you would fill the you -shaped hole in God's heart, and God would

fill the God -shaped hole in your heart, and like the little lockets that go together, you just come together, and everything will be full

and right again, and they won't use language like, repent, turn from your sin, walk away from your sin.

They won't talk about the wrath of God.

Instead, they talk about giving Jesus a try, coming back to the Lord.

Just take a step toward God.

He'll take 10 steps toward you.

That's the kind of language that is used.

It's just another way of being coy about the message.

Or they will try to attempt to avoid the offense altogether and never talk about controversial issues, never talk about

controversial doctrines, never speak in exclusivistic terms.

They'll say, well, we're just preaching the positive things right now.

We're really trying to emphasize the things that Scripture emphasizes like love and justice and

belonging and community and our meta -narrative and the story of our life and the story of your life and a whole bunch of

stories, and the Bible's just a story about stories, and we can all just fit together into God's story and God fits into our

story, and we're all just storytellers.

This is just so beautiful and loving.

You say, well, what about the hard things?

What about the controversial things?

What about the things that divide people and make people angry and would make the world mad at you?

What about those things?

They say, I mean, those things, sure.

There are things like that in Scripture.

We're not sure exactly how they fit with the overall message and the whole theme of Scripture, but we'll get around to those.

And by that, they mean we'll never get around to those.

That's what they mean by that because they never end up do getting around to it.

They want to avoid at all costs the offense of the cross and the offense of Scripture, or if

you want another example of it, they will change the message altogether and give the world exactly what it wants, and this is your Joel Osteen's

of the world.

Give the world exactly what it wants, a self -help message, an easy -believe -ism, a message that is really

about you and how you can become fulfilled, how you can be a better this or a better that, how you can receive these

blessings.

That is the message that the world wants.

Or to change it in another way, to present to the world a message of social justice, political

ideologies, liberal philosophies, a non -judgmental and non -confrontational

self -help Christianity.

That's how the message is changed.

So soften the message, avoid the hard topics, be coy about the message, or even outright change the message.

And all of these ways of not being bold, not being open, public, and forthright about the truth, all of that is brought to you

by the seeker -sensitive movement.

The seeker -sensitive movement today doesn't wanna say these things because it is unpopular in the culture.

The seeker -sensitive movement is probably 40 years ahead of its time because they started this back in the 70s when

some of these truths that we would proclaim and we see as essential and confrontational actually were part of the

zeitgeist of our country for the most part.

The seeker -sensitive movement was 40 years ahead of their time, so they started compromising on this a long time ago, and I would actually lay a

lot of the societal and cultural degradation of the church and of our culture at the feet of the seeker -sensitive movement

because if they had been preaching the truth like they should have been preaching the truth, instead of 90 of the churches in our country not doing that for

the last half of a century, I would suggest to you that the church in America would look a lot different.

If every man was a John MacArthur, things would be different.

Let's put it that way.

Things would be a lot different in the culture and in the church.

These compromises brought to you by the seeker -sensitive movement, the church marketing and PR campaigns, and there are a plethora of those,

cowardly pastors and worldly hirelings and a Christian media that is all too

happy to take a dollar in exchange for compromise.

And what is the motivation of this?

Why is it that people step back and toss aside their confidence, their boldness, in the face of hostility and

opposition?

It is never actually stated.

The motivation is never actually stated for what it really is.

You see, unfaithfulness is never marketed as unfaithfulness.

It's always marketed by a desire to reach the lost.

Compromise is never just openly called compromise.

There's not a seeker -sensitive pastor in this country who is standing behind their pulpit right now today saying,

look, for the last 20 years, I've been compromising the message, capitulating to the spirit of the age, and I've been faithful to Christ, and I

want you to know I'm gonna continue to do that as long as I possibly can.

There's not a seeker -sensitive pastor in the country that would say that.

Cowardice never goes under the banner of cowardice.

Unfaithfulness never goes under the banner of unfaithfulness.

It always markets itself as something different.

Instead, they will say, well, we need to do this if we want more people to hear the gospel.

We wouldn't want everybody in the community to be upset with us and think that we are an irrelevant church that is caught in that

morality of a bygone era and believes those archaic truths.

We wouldn't want the community to think that.

We want the community to think that we are on the cutting edge of societal evolution, that we are on the cutting edge of

cultural progress.

And so we want to be just like the culture in order to draw people in from the culture so that we can give the truth

to them in slow, little segments.

And by slow, I mean a frozen sloth in tar, slow progress

toward the truth.

We want to give it to them in these tiny, little pieces, just a little bit at a time, and just sort of

inoculate them to the truth.

No, sorry, not inoculate them to the truth.

We want them to come around to the truth.

What they're actually doing is inoculating people to the truth.

See, that is really what they want.

They want people to, they say that they want people to hear.

They say that they want more people to receive the message, and so they try and make the message palatable to the audience

so that the audience will embrace it because most pastors view themselves as a salesman and the

gospel as a product and the audience as the market, and they do everything they can to package the

product in such a way that it will receive the widest acceptance amongst their audience.

Rather than seeing the gospel as a message that must necessarily offend the sinner so

that when it is proclaimed, the sinner is left guilty and speechless before the

throne of God, naked and bare and exposed before God's law, and then seeing his need for a savior.

They think that the role of the gospel is to somehow creep its way into people's lives if we can just sort of

camouflage it enough that people will accept it, and what they end up doing is camouflaging it enough

that the non -elect don't even know what they're rejecting because it is no longer the gospel at all.

What we don't need, and I know that everybody here would agree with this.

At least I think most of you would.

What we do not need is more cowards, more compromise, and more concession.

The church is full of that.

The church in America is full of that.

Cowards, compromise, concession, and capitulation to the spirit of the age.

That's the trend.

This is what apostasy looks like, and so the author, in light of the hostility that they would face, says do not

throw off your boldness, your bluntness, and your openness about the gospel.

That confident, clear, bold, public, unapologetic, blunt,

and frank, plain -spokenness about the truth of the gospel is what got you into this mess of

public spectacle, reproaches, tribulations, imprisonment, and the seizure of your property, and the author says

double down.

Keep going.

Do not throw aside your boldness, your confidence.

Now this does not mean that we should be unloving and uncharitable and

bitter and angry and acerbic and acidic in our personality and our demeanor and our

approach to people.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

We are ambassadors for Christ, so we ought to be the most winsome, charitable,

loving, engaging, encouraging, and joyful people on the face of the planet, and when we present the

gospel to people, we can do so with a sobriety and a joyfulness that is evident at the same

time.

So I'm not suggesting that we be acid in everybody's eyes, but I am suggesting that we

lovingly pour the acid of the gospel in everybody's eyes, that we do this and we make sure that the offense is

with the gospel and not with us.

We can be loving and endearing and charitable in our character and our demeanor without ever compromising

the truth, so we are to be these things and at the same time bold and

uncompromising and plain spoken and clear about the truth of the gospel, not in

any way attempting to soften the message, to be coy about the message, to change the message, to

market the message, or do anything else that might in any way alter the truth of scripture.

We can be loving and we can be bold at the same time.

That is what the author is encouraging.

The very thing that we are tempted to do, he is telling us not to do, and so you can see how just counterintuitive this is.

You would think at this point in the epistle, after talking about their being made a public spectacle, the great conflict of sufferings, the tribulations, the

reproaches, the imprisonment, the seizure of the property, you would think that at this point he would say, now look, here's my advice to

you.

Just dial it back a bit.

This has made people really angry.

Just pull back.

Just be silent about it.

Get together and meet.

Talk about it amongst yourselves.

Let the fires of opposition die down out there a little bit and then when everything calms down, then we can all go back to it again

and maybe see if they'll be more receptive next time around.

He doesn't say that.

He doesn't tell them to find a better way of saying it, to cool off a little bit till things get better.

Do not cast aside your boldness, your plainness, your frankness.

Don't stop being blunt about the gospel.

It is what it is and it is not your job to make it palatable in any way at all.

And we don't apologize for the unpalatableness of the gospel either.

We don't present the gospel and then say, ah, really hate to tell you this.

No, it is the truth.

And we ought to, with joy and gladness, speak the truth without trying to make it palatable for the

folks of our age, times in which we live.

We have this confidence that if we do not throw away our boldness, that it has a great reward.

That's the end of verse 35.

It has a great reward.

There is an immediate reward and an eschatological reward and I am well aware that our time has gone and we're not going to

get to verse 36, but it actually goes better with verses 37 and 38.

We speak about the encouragement of the reward that is to come.

He describes or states the reward here in verse 35.

Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

In verse 36, he describes again that we will receive what was promised, having done the will of God, if we endure.

When we endure, we receive what is promised when we've done the will of God and been faithful.

In verse 35, he just says you have a great reward.

There's two senses in which we can speak of the reward for the very confidence and boldness that he is describing here.

The first is an immediate reward.

There is a sense in which when we are bold and straightforward about the truth of the gospel, it is true that in that

moment and at that time, we can expect and enjoy the blessings of God's power and his presence in the

proclamation of truth.

We can know that we have an immediate reward when we understand that obedience is really its own reward.

When you are faithful about the truth and you say what needs to be said at the time that it needs to be said and you

say it with a love and a grace and a charitableness and a kindness and gentleness that is appropriate

at the time and yet you are straightforward about the truth of the gospel, you can lay your head on your pillow at night and

sleep quite soundly knowing that you have been faithful to do what God has called you to do, that you took the opportunity that the

Lord presented and you carried it through in obedience and you said what had to be said at that moment.

There is an immediate satisfaction of reward as well as the confidence that God is with me in this, God strengthens

me in this, and I know that his blessing rests upon me because he by his grace gave me not only the opportunity but

also the boldness and the character and the faithfulness.

God gave me the grace and the faithfulness to do what he gave me the opportunity to do and then you can walk away from that with your heart

filled with joy knowing that I have done what God has called me to do and even if I am hated for what I just did, there is an eternal

reward that is sure and certain that I know that I shall receive.

That's an immediate blessing but there's also an eschatological or end time blessing and this

is what I think is described in verse 36 when he says you will receive what was promised and this eschatological blessing

that we are going to receive is described in verses 37 and 38 when he talks about the one who is coming will come and he will

not delay and his reward is with him to give to every man.

We know that there is a reward that is coming and we're going to have to look at that next week.

There is no reward for cowardice, for compromise or for concession or for

unfaithfulness.

Let me say it again, there is no reward for cowardice.

You cannot, we are going to have as a church, as a people, I speak this about all Christians,

in the times in which we live, we are going to have to get out of our minds and out of our hearts any thought,

any consideration that we are going to be able to navigate life in this world and be

faithful to the truth and avoid the hatred of the world.

You will not be able to do it.

If the world loves you, the world loves its own.

If you're chosen by Christ, you're chosen out of this world and the world is going to hate you because it hated him first.

You cannot love God and this world.

If you are a lover of this world, you are an enemy of God.

You cannot be double -minded.

You cannot have one foot in both kingdoms.

You cannot play your cards in such a way as to avoid the hatred of the world if you are going to also be faithful to

do what God has called you to do and the pressure is going to be ratcheted up in every segment of our culture to the

point where this conflict is unavoidable.

This conflict is unavoidable because there must be a conflict between the kingdoms of men and the kingdom of God.

It must happen.

This cannot be otherwise.

There has to be a response of hatred from the world if we are going to be faithful to the truth.

So you can't compromise the message or change the message, be coy about the message and still expect a reward from the King of Kings.

Do not lose your boldness, your plain -spokenness, and your openness about the truth.

I think a perfect example of this is the Apostle Paul.

When Paul got to the end of his life, he said, I have kept the faith.

I have finished my course.

I've run my race.

I've done all of this.

He describes the faithfulness with which he has lived and the reward of stepping into that heavenly kingdom.

In writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, Paul described in somewhat

enigmatic terms his first defense before Caesar.

Now, you remember Paul in the book of Acts, he appealed to Caesar when he sensed that the Jews, that Hephaestus or Felix was

trying to throw him under the bus and turn him over to the Jews so the Jews would kill him.

Paul, as a Roman citizen, had every right to appeal to Caesar, which he did.

He said, fine, then I appeal to Caesar.

And so Hephaestus said to Caesar, you shall go.

And Luke ends the book of Acts with Paul in prison in Rome.

Well, after that, Paul was released and then rearrested.

At the end of his life, while in prison, he writes 2 Timothy 4, and he describes here his first

defense before Nero.

Now, keep in mind, the apostle Paul, the most well -known Christian of the era, bar none, there was no close second,

the apostle Paul stood before Nero, the Roman emperor, and presented his case, the gospel.

And here's how Paul says it.

At my first defense, no one supported me, but all deserted me.

May it not be counted against them.

But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished.

And that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was rescued out of the lion's mouth.

The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and listen, here's the reward, and will bring me safely to his heavenly

kingdom.

To him be the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

He stood before Caesar, preached the gospel.

And then he said, the proclamation for which God had called him has been fully accomplished, that all

the Gentiles might hear.

He preached to Nero, and then he said, I know that the Lord will gather me safely into his kingdom.

Now if you're standing before Nero, and your life is on the line, then you know the stakes are high.

And Paul at that moment did not cast off his confidence or his boldness.

He accomplished the proclamation that God had called him to, and set his eyes firmly on the prize of

being brought safely into God's heavenly kingdom.

May God grant to us that same boldness, an uncompromising, unhindered,

open declaration of the truth, and the gospel.

Let's pray.

Father, we are so grateful to you for the strength that you give to those who are yours.

We're thankful that the gospel that we preach and proclaim is worthy of our lives, all of them.

The gospel that we proclaim and preach is the truth, and we have no reason to be ashamed of it for it

is the power of God unto salvation to any and all who will believe.

We thank you that you are accomplishing your purposes in this world.

We know that every amount of opposition that the world is throwing at the church right now, today, not

only in our own country, but also in all the countries around this world where your people reside, that the truth is hated

nearly universally by unbelievers.

And we pray that you would strengthen the church and strengthen us.

And we know that you are accomplishing your purposes in bringing all of this to an end.

You are going to gather us all safely into your heavenly kingdom and give to us the crown of righteousness, which

belongs not only to us, but to all those who love your appearing.

And we wait for that day, we long for that day, and we pray that you would grant us the strength to be confident and

bold and open and blunt about the truth until you call us home, however

it is that you would do so.

Keep us faithful, make us faithful, and keep us faithful for the glory of your great name, we pray in Christ's name,

amen.

The aspect that we've been talking about here at the end was the faithfulness, or sorry, the eschatological promise of a

faithful God who has promised to gather us into his heavenly kingdom and to come again.

And it is described in verse 37, for in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.

This ties into our communion meal because one thing that we do in communion is we remember the death of the Lord Jesus Christ

until he comes.

So there is an aspect of celebration of the Lord's Supper where we look forward to the consummation of all

things when he comes, and we look back to what he has done for us.

And as I said at the beginning, these two things are inseparably connected.

We cannot separate what he has done for us on the cross with the reality that he is coming again and his reward is with him,

and he will give to every man exactly what he has earned.

And so we anticipate that future and heavenly reward, that eschatological blessing, the coming at the end times, his

coming, and with him, all the saints in glory, we anticipate that and look forward to that because of what he has

done.

So in communion, when we are praying, we confess our sin, but we are doing this recognizing that there is going to come a

time when we will have no more sin to confess to the Lord.

We'll have no more sin to repent of, to turn from, to be meditating about because we will be finally delivered from

the very presence of sin, ultimately.

Being delivered now from the power of sin, delivered in the past from the penalty of sin, in the future we are delivered from the presence of

sin.

And we will be made righteous and we will stand before him and we will eat and drink with him and rejoice with him.

That is our future hope.

That is a future blessing that belongs to all those who are in Jesus Christ.

If you are here today and you have never trusted Christ for salvation, I would encourage you not to partake of communion because in

doing so, you're just eating and drinking judgment to yourself.

Scripture describes that.

If you've never trusted Christ for salvation, this is not for you.

You need to recognize that you are a sinner, repent, turn from your sin, and be born again before you partake of the

elements because you do not want to eat and drink judgment.

You are basically saying this was done for me when you are not bowing the knee to Christ at all, not embracing him or trusting him as Savior

at all.

This is not for those who are outside of the faith.

For Christians who are here, we want to make sure that when we partake of communion that we have examined ourselves.

We've looked at our own hearts, confessed our sins, acknowledged our sins, confessed them to the Lord, and that we are turning from those sins.

So if you are a believer here and you're living in unrepentant sin, I would first call you to repentance for that sin

and encourage you not to partake of communion if you are not turning from your sin.

The Christian life is a life of repentance.

We are always turning from sin as often as we see it, turning from it to God, to his righteousness, and to his

grace, seeking his grace continually because of what he has done for us on the cross.

So I will bow my heads.

We'll have a couple moments of prayer.

I would ask the ushers to come forward at this time and stand with me up here.

We'll bow our head and have a couple moments of silent prayer, and then I'll lead us in prayer.

Let's bow our heads.

Our great Father, we recognize our sinfulness.

We are thankful that you have justified us even though we are in a sinning state, even though we continually

struggle with sin and wrestle against sin.

We hate it, and we long to be righteous and to be made righteous in practice entirely.

We thank you that there is forgiveness in Christ because of what he has done for us on the cross.

And so without focusing too much on ourselves and our own sin, we always then turn

our eyes and our hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ who offers forgiveness and righteousness no matter what our

sin, no matter how abundant our sin, no matter how powerful our sin remains.

We thank you that you wash us from all our sin and our stains.

We thank you for our positional righteousness in Jesus Christ, for our justification, and we know that that

is inseparably tied to us progressing in holiness and growing in sanctification.

So as we acknowledge our sin, we turn from it and pray for grace to live in holiness and righteousness before you, thanking

you for your provision of righteousness in Jesus Christ and your provision of forgiveness because he

has borne the shame and the sin and the reproach that our sin deserves.

We thank you that he has died in our stead and taken all of that away on behalf of all who will trust in

him.

And we pray that if there are any here who have never trusted Christ for salvation, that they would see their sin and their

waywardness and their need for that Savior and turn in believing, trusting, and abiding faith

to him so that they may have their sins forgiven and be made righteous forevermore.

Be honored through our time here as we reflect upon your goodness and your grace, we pray in Christ's name.

On the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord took the bread and when he had broke it, he said, Take, eat.

This is my body, which is broken for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same manner, after supper, he took the cup and said, This is the new covenant written in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

Let's pray together.

Our Father, we thank you for the precious and atoning and perfect sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We thank you that in his body he has borne our sin, taken away our condemnation, and brought us eternal life.

We thank you that by his death, he has saved and secured everlastingly a people for his own glory.

And we thank you that by your grace, your providence, your sovereignty, and your choice, that we are included in that number.

We praise you for your goodness and we praise you for your provision.

Thank you for making us righteous and are standing before you and we pray that you would sanctify us fully

and completely until the day of Christ Jesus.

Accomplish that good work in us, we pray.

In his name.

Please stand.

He

sent no

sin to harm, but sent him

from your side.

By Jesus Christ,

the

captains scorned

him as he died.

They did not sacrifice the Lamb

of

Christ, the Lamb.

I should have died to your

side, but

sadly he

called

the just of his

precious blood.

Till I am just the Lamb.

Have a great week.