12-27-2020

Park Meadows Church

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All right. Well, while I'm messing with the technology, I hope you're enjoying these beautiful oil paintings.

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Got one here from Da Vinci and it's probably the most famous.

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But there's another one from Bernardino, who was near the end of Da Vinci's life.

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They studied together and it's beautiful, I think. Then one from a little bit later in time, in the 1800s, from an

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Austrian painter. It's interesting to see how they painted these things.

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They paint a Gentile Jesus and a lot of funny things that they did because of their different beliefs at the time.

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But the beautiful thing is they captured so much of the Christian story in the

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Bible stories of the Old Testament. You go to places like the Louvre in Paris and just look at the religious paintings.

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It's amazing. Of course, if you go into many of the great cathedrals all over Europe, you see these paintings everywhere.

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It's a blessing because they captured and recorded these things. As long as no one goes in and destroys them, which we have people that are moving into that part of the world from other parts of the world that hate

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Christianity, of course, especially in Paris and London. Europe's being taken over by Islamics and they will destroy these paintings eventually, in my viewpoint.

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They probably will attempt to do that and they'll probably get it done. But you know what? They can't destroy the things that are eternal, can they?

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Let's get going here. Last time, we were talking about experiential righteousness, and sort of ended the talk on this verse, which is beautiful.

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It talks about the fact that God, on purpose, put this treasure, and of course, the treasure is our new man, the born -again part of us.

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He put this treasure in earthen vessels, earthly, imperfect bodies that still are the old man and that will pull away from God and sin from time to time.

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An interesting thing about this verse is that it shows that God did this on purpose and it's his will that we exist this way.

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And I can't think of anything better to remind the old devil of when he comes to you or to me and he tries to tempt us into thinking, well, you can't be saved.

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Look what you just did. That's an old ploy of his to try to take away the security of the believer.

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He can't really take away the security, but he can try to take away the assurance of a believer. And we need to always remember that we are in an imperfect state in its own purpose.

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And look at the last part of the verse. It shows why it's God's will, why God did it this way, so that the excellency of the power may be of God, not of us.

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So when we do get it right and we do do a good work together with Christ, every good work we do is together with him, then

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God gets the glory, not us. And I think that's just a wonderful thing for us to always understand.

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The main gist of this is that we do not suffer these temptations and failures by accident.

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God chose or predestinated that we would live this way for his own glory. Think about it.

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If you didn't live this way, if Adam and Eve had not sinned, Christ never would have gone to the cross, and God never would have shown his greatest show of his enormous love for his people.

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But, of course, that never could have happened that way because God only has one plan, and this was his plan. It's the perfect plan.

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So we live in this struggle so that God may receive all the glory and not us.

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It is his will. He is sovereign God. Now, I understand this is hard to understand for a lot of people because a lot of us have sat under weak preaching or even false preaching so much of our lives that when we hear the truth from Scripture, sometimes it seems confusing.

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But this amazing verse, if it's properly understood, might be one of the greatest verses in the

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Bible to help free us from guilt, and that's important. We can't serve God if we're walking in guilt, and we need to always remember that when

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Jesus died for us, those of us who are called, those who are elect, those who

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God knew before the foundation of the world, we were in him when he died, and our old man has already been crucified.

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We were also in him when he rose, and we rose again to a new life through the new man, but it's still in this earthen vessel, right?

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And so we have to understand this, and when we fall, we don't sit there and allow

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Satan to tell us we're no good and we're useless, we're probably not even saved, et cetera, et cetera.

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We remind him, hey, this is God's plan. Now, what God wants me to do is go to 1 John 1, 9 and confess my sin, in other words, agree with him that it's sinful, and get up and go again and do better and try to go longer without sinning, try to not do that sin again, and that's how we live.

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So we need to understand that scripture teaches this very clearly, and it is the life that we live, and it's on purpose.

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Of course, the ideal is Jesus Christ, to be holy for I am holy. We should try to live a good life.

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We should try to be the best men and women we can be every day, and we should try to go, as my mentor,

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Dr. Irwin Freeman, used to preach. He said, you know, show me in the Bible where it says you couldn't go for long seasons without sin.

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It doesn't say you can't. It says you can. The new man will not sin. As long as you walk filled with the spirit, you won't sin.

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And he said, but you probably won't do it. You'll probably sin sooner than you want to. But, you know, his point was we can have long periods of time.

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As long as we walk in the spirit, we can be a good man or woman or boy or child, and that is

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God's will that we be holy as he is holy. Holy, remember, in the Bible language with regard to us never means perfect.

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It doesn't mean be perfect. It means be different, be separate, be different than the world, and we can certainly do that.

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We are different. So the ideal is Christ, but the reality is that we are not Christ.

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We are saved humans. We are treasure in earthen vessels, and that's what we talked about last time.

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So we were kind of talking about positional righteousness, which is one of the seven things that we have to understand if we're going to ever understand justification.

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But we took a little detour and talked about the fact that the Bible also teaches experiential righteousness, in other words, trying to live right.

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Positional righteousness is passive in the Greek. It's something God does to us. He made us righteous.

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He imputed Christ's righteousness to us. He covered us with the robes of righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that's why we're saved, and that's the cause of our salvation.

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That's why we are justified. We stand in the position of being justified because we stand in the position of being righteous before God the

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Father because he gave us Jesus' righteousness. That's called positional righteousness taught all throughout

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Scripture. But there is also a lot of verses, there are a lot of verses on experiential righteousness, in other words, us having the responsibility to try to live right and be the best man or woman, boy or girl we can be.

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But that's always an effect of the salvation, not the cause of it, and that is so important to remember.

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Yes, the Bible teaches experiential righteousness, but it never teaches that it causes the salvation.

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Here were the seven points that we talked about under experiential righteousness, don't have time to review those, but we saw seven important points about it that the

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Bible teaches, and there is an eighth point, and we'll get to that later today.

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But looking at this passage that we saw last time, Romans 6, 20, when we were the servants of sin, we were free from righteousness, and Paul is using this to kind of give an illustration of how experiential righteousness works, is that when we were lost before we were saved, we were free from righteousness.

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We just lived according to the world, the flesh, and the devil. We didn't have to serve righteousness, nor did we want to.

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But now, you see, that's after salvation. Now, we have been made free from sin and become servants of God, and we have your fruit unto holiness in the end everlasting life.

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Now, if you take just verse 22 and you don't take verse 23, in other words, if you try to pull that out of context,

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I mean, people have many denominations, use this verse to say, see, verse 22 teaches that you have to be fruitful, you have to bear fruit and do good works, and that leads to everlasting life, as if that's the cause of our salvation, and that is not what the verse is teaching.

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And if you have verse 23 right after it, you understand that that can't be true.

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In fact, as we talked about last time, oh, and by the way, this gift of God is the greatest

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Christmas gift ever given, don't you agree? Eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, that is the gift of God, the greatest gift of all, but it's important to note, just like we talked about last time, that even experiential righteousness, even living right, trying to live right, and all these things, even that stems from our position.

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We couldn't even have a chance at walking right if we weren't positionally righteous. If God hadn't already made us a new man or a new woman, we couldn't have a shot at it.

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So, in verse 22, the fruit does not cause the eternal life. And the first clue there is in verse 22, where it says you have your fruit.

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It doesn't say you do your fruit, have is something you are. It's not something you're doing that's causing the salvation, it's something that you have because of the salvation.

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So, the fruits, the good works that we do, the fruit that we bear, and the everlasting life are both part of God's free gift package.

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So, Merry Christmas, everybody. This word, have, is echo in the

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Greek. The English word echo comes from it, and this is beautiful if you think about it. The good works that we do are just an echo of the true righteousness we are and have on the inside.

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The righteousness that we have because God gave us the gift of Jesus' righteousness the day that he saved us, the moment that he saved us, and made us to be righteous, that righteousness that we have creates the echo of the outward good life.

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And the outward good life is the echo. The real thing is the heart, the inside of us that causes us to live right or even have a chance to live right.

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So, as long as we're filled with the spirit walking in the new man, it will produce the echo of outward works and living right and all these beautiful things.

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Even the word itself is a picture of that. So, the logic is that the fruit unto holiness is positional in its origin.

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Something that you have, not something that you do, but it leads to things that you do.

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So, verse 22 means we have two things, doesn't it? We have fruit and good works, and number two, we have everlasting life.

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Both are part of the gift of God in his son, Jesus Christ, everlasting life.

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So, that's the best Christmas gift that ever happened. Right there is we get to live forever.

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Whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall never die. All right, so think about this.

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The Bible says that Jesus had the spirit without measure in John 3 .34.

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For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God. For God giveth not the spirit by measure unto him.

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So, Jesus didn't do anything or say anything that he hadn't seen the father say or do.

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So, he always was in the perfect will of God. He always served God perfectly and without sin.

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And he was able to do this. He was fully a man, but the reason he was able to do this was he had the

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Holy Spirit without measure. Without measure. He was totally full of the Holy Spirit every moment of his life on this earth.

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And we're not like that. We have the spirit, as Brother Otis used to say, by measure.

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And an example of that would be 1 Corinthians 7 .7, many examples. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, another after that.

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In other words, we're all different. We all have different gifts. We all have different strengths. And we have different weaknesses.

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But we don't have the Holy Spirit without measure. We have the Holy Spirit by measure. And we have the amount of faith and the amount of the

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Holy Spirit that God wants us to have at any given moment to fulfill our purpose in God's will.

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And that's something we have to always remember. Each of us have different strengths and weaknesses, gifts, or lack of gifts.

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And none of us have the whole package, as Jesus Christ did. But this life, even as it is, even though we groan, as 2

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Corinthians 5, 4, and 5 say, we groan waiting for the rapture when we get our new body, our glorified body, and we're awaiting the redemption of the body.

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Even in this life, this life is beautiful. I mean, if you don't believe it, look at a grandbaby, right?

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Look at your spouse. Look at the beautiful things in this life that God has given us.

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Look at the Bible that you hold. I mean, you think about this right here. I mean, this book is preserved.

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God wrote this book. He breathed it into the world. And it's preserved until the last generation.

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No man can burn it out of existence. No authors can build new versions of the

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Bible, New American Standard, NIV, all these things. They have perverted certain scriptures, over 2 ,000 mistakes in them.

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King James is the closest to the original that there is in the English language. They can't get rid of the word of God, no matter what they do.

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It's preserved. And think of the different gifts that we have. This life is a beautiful life, the sunsets, the waterfalls, the oceans, the islands, the mountains.

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Think of it. A lot of beauty shows through even after the fall. And it's God's will that we live the struggle just like Jesus and Paul lived the struggle when they were in this world.

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Acts 14, 22, in fact, is a promise. It says, confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must through, see the word must, we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

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So, yes, we have to remember it's on purpose. This is God's perfect plan, and it brings him the glory, and it shows us his love, and it gave us the cross of Christ, which is what everything focuses on in all of history.

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It gave us the birth of Christ, which is what Christmas is focused on. All of that is because it's part of this same plan.

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So, the last point I wanted to make on this experiential righteousness is to understand that good works that we do, we're also predestined.

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Not only was our salvation predestined, the good works that we will do were predestined. And that's why

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I say, yeah, even though it's our responsibility, we have to understand that it's the positional righteousness that makes it possible in the first place for us to even think about doing right.

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It is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and holding Jesus's hand and walking with him that even makes it possible for us to ever do a good work.

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And so all of that has to do with God working in us both to will and to do his good pleasure.

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It's not, even though it's our responsibility, we could never do any of it on our own. It's always holding the hand of Jesus, and it's part of God's purpose.

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So here we see it, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 are famous, and a lot of people don't read verse 10, but I'm going to read it this morning.

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For by grace are you saved through faith. Grace means it is free. It is a gift. You can't do anything to get it.

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It can't do anything to help keep it. You can't do anything to lose it. It is a gift, free gift.

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And you're saved through faith, which is also part of this gift that God gave us that Christmas is all about.

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And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

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But look at the next verse. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which

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God has before ordained. That's predestination, folks, that we should walk in them.

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And it's important to understand the word should here in the Greek and in the old English. If you ever pick up one of those really old, unabridged dictionaries about this thick in the

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English language, you'll find that the word should, the first definition of it is would, because in the old

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English, they would say, well, you know, we should go on a picnic or whatever.

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And they really meant we will go on a picnic. So in the Greek, it definitely means would.

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It is a little Greek word, hina, which means in order that something would happen.

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So it will happen. It's not should like I hope it happens. It's a fact. So read it understanding the word.

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For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained, predestined that we would walk in them.

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So remember, these good works, they are an effect of the salvation, not the cause of it.

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But you would have to ask the question, if you don't see any effects in the life of a person, has the cause ever happened yet?

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I don't know. It's something we have to think about. All right. So, oh, that's so messed up.

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I don't know why that did that. It messed up my seven points. I remember it did that one other time, too.

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Anyway, there are seven points. There you can see six of them as far as what we've been studying on the word justification, the whole idea of being justified.

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Remember, in time, in Romans 8, verse 29 and 30, it mentions two things that happen.

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We're called, the Holy Spirit comes and wakes us up and regenerates us, and we are justified.

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But you have to understand seven things to really understand what it means to be justified. I know what the first one is.

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The first one is you have to understand the depravity of man. Secondly, understand what grace means.

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Third, understand what propitiation means. In other words, Jesus died to satisfy God's holiness.

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And then what does imputation mean? It means He took our sins, put them on Jesus, took His righteousness and put it on us.

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It's something He did to us. He gave us the righteousness of Christ. And then that's the next one. You need to understand what positional righteousness means, which is what we just finished studying.

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And we threw in the part about experiential at the end because people have questions about that. And then the sixth thing, which we'll get to today in a minute, is what does it mean that Christ is just and the justifier of all things?

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And the seventh point is going to be, what does it mean when it says that we're saved by grace without works?

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We're saved by faith without the works of the law. So you got to understand those different things. I'm sorry that that thing on the left there didn't work right.

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So now we go into this part. What does it mean when it says that Jesus is just and the justifier?

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And we find this in Romans chapter 3, verse 26. To declare, I say at this time that Jesus, we're going to declare

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Jesus's righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus.

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Now think about this. We're talking about justification. And one of the things that we need to understand to understand what it means when we say we have been justified, it means we've been made righteous or counted righteous by God, something

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He did to us, not something we can cause, not something we have play any role in it. It's a free gift.

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At the moment the Holy Spirit called us and regenerated us, He made us to be justified. He applied

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Jesus's blood to our life. It had already been applied at the mercy seat in heaven by Jesus himself.

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And so now we stand in a position of being righteous. He gave us the righteousness of God the moment

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He saved us. We are justified. But another thing that really helps us to understand this, because the reason it's so difficult, the whole world teaches us that we're saved by works.

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So when the Bible comes in and says, no, it has nothing to do with your works, it doesn't make sense to us. And we always have to be reminded of it.

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I have very sweet Christian friends who'll tell me, I just sometimes, do you ever have doubts of your salvation,

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David? Sometimes I do. Truth is, I don't. Since the day Jesus saved me in my car driving to work that day,

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I've never doubted my salvation, but I immediately began to study all these doctrinal truths for hours and hours.

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The day, you know, very soon after my salvation for a year or two, I just studied every day and studied these doctrinal issues.

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But one reason is because Charlotte and I were teaching teenagers who knew more about the Bible than we did. So we had to study at that time in our lives.

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But He is just and the justifier. So that's two things. Number one, He is the person who makes us right with God.

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But number two, He's just to do it. It's right for Him to do it.

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It keeps God's law for Him to do it. And that's the part that's very important for us to understand.

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If Satan is going to come and accuse us, as he does accuse the brethren and try to put doubt in our minds about our salvation, we have to be able to come back and say, look,

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Jesus was just when He saved me and I am saved. He justified me. He was right to do it.

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Now, let's think about 1 John 1, 9 for a minute. This is overused, maybe.

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I don't know. As far as just quoting it, it's just quoted so much we don't ever stop and think about it and study it, do we?

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But we need to study every word in it because it's huge. It is that part of all of our

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Christian faith that causes us to get up and go again when we mess up. 1

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John 1, 9 says if we confess our sins, notice it does not say if we ask God to forgive us. And so many people get that confused.

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It says if we confess our sins, that means if we agree with God that what we just did was sinful.

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If we agree with God that what we just did is sinful. He is faithful, which means

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He will do this all the time and every time. And He is just, which means it's right for Him to do it. And that's what verse 3, 26 in Romans means when it says

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He is just and the justifier. He is just to save us. It's right for Him to save us.

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So He's faithful. He'll do this every time. And He is just. It is right before Almighty God the

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Father. It is right for Him to do this. And what is it He's going to do? He's going to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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That means even the ones you didn't remember to confess. It says all. So when we do confess a sin,

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He not only cleanses us from that one, but from all of them again, so that our conscience can be clear.

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That's about walking with a clear conscience, getting up and going again. When we were raising our five children, we had very good instruction as a young couple from Dr.

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Freeman and his wife on how biblical child rearing. And we followed it our whole lives and still follow it with the grandbabies sometimes.

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But and our kids follow it with their children. And when they would do something wrong, if it was, you know, a lie or disobedience to parents or, you know, bad attitude that's not honoring mother or father, or if they hurt one of their siblings or said something bad that wasn't edifying to one of their siblings,

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I said, hey, go to my Sam. My grandson, Sam, likes to do this.

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He puts his glasses down, acts like he's me and says, go to the study, because that's what I used to tell him.

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And they would go sit in my study maybe for 10 minutes before I'd come in there on purpose. I wanted to think about why they were in there.

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And then I would have them tell me what they had done wrong. And I would tell them, I'm about to have to spank you because the

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Lord says I have to, not because I want to. But the Lord says I have to. And I'm going to obey him because it's going to be the right thing for you because you did this thing.

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And do you understand that? And they would say yes. And they tried to talk me out of it.

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And I would explain why they weren't going to be able to talk me out of it. And I would put them over my lap.

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And I had a wooden paddle about that wide and about that long. So it made a lot of noise.

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And it kind of hurt. But it wasn't going to put permanent marks on them usually. And I would tell them, look,

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I'm going to spank you. And you can cry. But you can't fight and wiggle and pull away. Because as long as you're doing that,

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I won't stop. I promise you, I won't stop. And they knew I wouldn't.

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So they took the spanking. And they would bristle up. And when I felt them kind of loosen up and yield their will, that's when

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I stopped. And then I would hug them. And they would cry for a second, seconds, a few seconds,

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I don't know, 20, 30 seconds. I'd say, okay, that's enough. You know, that's enough. You can stop crying now.

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Let's pray together. You pray first. And you tell the Lord what you did wrong. And apologize for it.

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And tell him that you understand it was wrong. And then after that, I'll pray. And so they would pray.

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And then I would pray. And then I would hug them and say, okay, it's like it never happened.

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But I don't want you to do it again. But it's like it never happened. Let's go play. And I'd go play with them.

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Why? Because their fellowship was completely restored with me. That's what this is saying about our

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Father in heaven. When we agree with him that we sinned, he is faithful, which means every time he'll do it.

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And he's just because he died for us on the cross. And our sins were in him. And they've been paid for. You see, that's what it means.

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He's just to be the justifier. And he will always, not only he's already forgiven us, but he will cleanse our conscience.

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And we restore the fellowship. And we can get up and go play, so to speak. Or go work together. Or whatever we're going to do with the

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Lord, right? So important to understand that. Jesus Christ the righteous is just.

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In other words, it is right for him to justify or save us and make us righteous.

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It's right for him to do it. Why? Because his death was substitutionary.

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He died in our place. It was sufficient. It satisfied God. The Father was totally propitiated by it.

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And the scripture says he was. And number three, it's satisfactory. And the same thing is propitiated.

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But he satisfied God's wrath. He satisfied God's justice and holiness.

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And it's sufficient. And what I really mean by sufficient is you can't add or help it.

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There's nothing you can do to help it. And so many denominations that call themselves Christians say, well, yeah, we believe in Jesus, but you gotta.

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And when they add that, they're destroying the sufficiency of the blood of Jesus. And they don't understand the scriptures.

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And it doesn't please the Lord. I'll promise you that. I won't say they're not saved. Some of them saved. Some aren't. Just like Baptist or anybody else.

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Some saved and some aren't. And the called are saved. Those who are called are saved.

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And those who are playing church are not. But there's a lot of people that want to pretend that you're going to help

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God keep you saved by doing good works. And that's what this whole study we did on experiential righteousness was to straighten that out.

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It's not the cause. It's the result of the salvation, not the cause of it. It's an effect, not a cause.

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And as Charles Spurgeon said so beautifully, an effect can never be the cause of the cause.

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That's logic. It's good to study logic. So Jesus, what he did was perfect for us.

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Therefore, he is righteous to make us righteous. And he paid in full our sin debt.

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And so that's why he's just to justify us. It is right for him to make us as if we'd never sin in God's eyes.

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And that's what he did. Even the Old Testament says it, Isaiah 53, 11, he shall see the travail of his soul.

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That's the father shall see the travail of Jesus's soul and shall be satisfied.

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That is the doctrine of propitiation. God, the father's justice and righteousness and holiness was satisfied.

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And even his wrath was fulfilled and satisfied with the travail of his son,

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Jesus, as he was punished and crucified for the sins of all of God's people.

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And then it says, by his knowledge, by knowing Jesus. In other words, what that means by every person who comes to know

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Jesus, which can only happen if the Holy Spirit calls us and opens our eyes, opens our ears, opens our mind, shows us who

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Jesus really is. At that moment, we have knowledge of Jesus. And by his knowledge, shall my righteous servant, which is

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Jesus, justify many. Notice it does not say all. So, Isaiah teaches clearly, if you go on and read the passage in 53, that he didn't die for everybody.

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He died for the elect. He died for the ones who God knew from the foundation of the world as his own children and predestinated from the foundation of the world that they would be adopted into his family.

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That's who he died for. And every single person he died for will be in heaven. And nobody who's not in heaven was died for.

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I mean, think about it. If he gave his blood for them and they're in hell, then he failed. That isn't happening.

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Because he said, no man will come to me unless the Father draw him. And of them, I will lose nothing. So, people, listen, the hardest point of understanding salvation that people give up, it takes years of living.

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I mean, I lived, I probably was 40 years old before I understood this. But I didn't understand limited atonement.

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But it's true. And John Calvin didn't invent it. It was taught 1 ,100 years before that by Augustine. It was taught 400 years before that by Paul.

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Jesus taught it to Paul. I mean, it's all through the scriptures. Jesus died for his own.

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He died for many, not for all. And it may not feel good to you, but it's only because you heard false prophets most of your life.

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You've heard false teaching. All of us have. And when we hear the false teaching, then we see the truth.

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The truth confuses us, but we got to get over that, and we got to go with the scripture. And the

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Bible says that he will justify many, and it also, in the same passage in Isaiah 53, it says, he died for many, not for all.

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Why is that important? Because it shows you how special you are. When Satan comes to you and he tries to tell you you're not even saved because of that thing you just did, you need to come back and say, look,

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Jesus died for me by name. Jesus knew me by name and knew my face and all about me before he made the universe.

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And when I was in my mother's womb, he had already knew me. And he died for me.

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He took my sins away. So, Lord, tell Satan to leave. Tell this demon he can't talk to me right now.

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Rebuke him, bind him, and send him away from me because I don't belong to him. I belong to you, and he'll go.

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And that's the best way to live when you're having conscience problems. You need to confess the sin, agree with God that it's been done, and that it was wrong, and you regret it, and realize positional truth, and understand that Jesus died for you personally, not for the whole world, but for you personally and all of God's children.

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And he did die for the world in the sense that he put the universe back in order. And that's what

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John 3 .16 means. He died for the cosmos, the orderly creation of God to put it back in order.

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As it was taken out of order at the fall, he'll put it back in order. He's already done it, but he'll do that de facto in the thousand -year millennial kingdom.

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It'll be great to see that, won't it? So, now we have these... That is so messed up.

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I meant to fix it, and I'm sorry I didn't. That leads us to the seventh. Did that put all seven of them there for a second?

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No, it put them all but the first one. But now you can see we're down to number seven, understand why justification is without the deeds of the law.

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So, let's talk about that a minute. Why is justification without the deeds of the law? Well, this whole passage here,

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I won't read all of that, but this is the part of the passage that I took the seven points that you just saw from.

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They're all in this passage. The seven things we need to understand to understand justification are all found here.

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All right, but look at verse 27. Where is the boasting then? It is excluded. By what law?

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Of works? Are you saved by works? No, you're saved by faith, by the law of faith.

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Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith. Now, look what the next word says.

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The next word says, without the deeds of the law. Now, that word without is very interesting.

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I'm going to take a look at it in a minute, but look at the Old Testament. It echoes the same thing. It says in Isaiah 64, 6, but we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

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And we all do fade as a leaf, and our sins, our iniquities like the wind, have taken us away.

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So, how are we going to do works or do good things that are going to make us be saved if from a holy

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God's vantage point, even the righteousness that we do is like a filthy rag? You see, that's

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God's viewpoint. Man's viewpoint, humanism teaches man is God, elevates man to God, right?

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But God's word puts man in his right place as a sinner that needs to be saved, that's part of a fallen race.

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And so, a sinner thinking that he can do five good acts and undo the 5 ,000 bad acts he's already done and then go to heaven, that's called a doctrine of demons.

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That's what Satan teaches works. It doesn't work. Every religion of the world is based on that except biblical

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Christianity. Every one is based on it. And even some Christian denominations add works as part of the cause of salvation to their own demise and the demise of their people.

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And there is none that calleth upon thy name, the Bible says in Isaiah. Now, look at that.

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How are people going to get saved with the modern gospel? It says, all you got to do is pray, dear Jesus, come to my heart and say amen, and you'll be saved.

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When the Bible says no one will do that, there's none that seeks God. So, the only way a person can be saved is if the

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Holy Spirit comes into time, into your life on your spiritual birthday, which God had foreordained and predestined when that day would happen.

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And God sent the Holy Spirit to you, in my case, to my car when I was going down the highway and said, call that person now, wake them up, show

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Jesus to them, and they will respond. And so, that's how salvation works.

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And there's none that calls upon the name of the Lord that stirreth up himself to take hold on God.

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You see, that's the modern gospel. Doesn't work. It doesn't happen because of the depravity of man. It just doesn't happen.

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For thou has hid your face from us and has consumed us because of our sins. So, we can only be saved by grace.

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We can only be saved by the calling of the Holy Spirit because of God's grace and mercy.

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So, you have sins of omission, there are sins of commission, you have the original sin, the depravity of man, all of those things are in the way of us being saved by our own works.

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Excuse me a second. That's better.

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All right, so we can't be saved by our own works. Now, when we go up into that Romans chapter 3 passage in verse 28, where it says, we're justified by faith without the deeds of the law, that word without is really, really important.

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And here it is. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

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The word without means at a space from or separately or apart from.

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And it comes from a little Greek word, kora, which means an empty, vast, empty expanse.

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And so, think about it. It's the same root word that is found in Luke 16, 26.

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And beside all this between us and you, there's a great gulf fixed. When it's talking about Lazarus and the rich man in Lazarus and the rich man was in hell, and he asked

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Father Abraham to go and tell his brothers that were still on the earth, you need to get saved.

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And Abraham said, look, if they won't listen to the word of God, they won't listen to me. They have the word of God.

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And besides that, there's a great gulf fixed. So, that word, great gulf, that's fixed so that they that would pass from hence to you cannot, and neither can they pass to us that would come to us, that great gulf is the same word.

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So, in Romans 3, 28, when it says you're saved by faith without the deeds of the law, it means there is a huge gulf, a vast empty space between the concept of faith and the concept of works, and works has no role in the salvation.

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Justification, being made right with God happens without the deeds of the law. It's as if there's a gulf in its way over there in hell, and the heavenly part is here, and that's faith, and that's what saves us.

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The other is not even part of it. It's gone. Do you see that? But so many denominations don't understand it.

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They want to say, well, yeah, we believe in Jesus, but you still got to get baptized. Oh, but you got to attend church regularly, or you'll lose it, or you got to, you know, you simply, you've got to keep the sacraments, or you'll lose it.

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And there's so many but you gottas that different denominations add because they don't understand the scriptures.

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All right. Galatians 4 .21, tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?

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And then it gives the story of the bondmaid and the free woman from Abraham's two sons.

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We all remember that story. And it says in verse 24 that that is an allegory. What does that mean? It is a life example that God gave to teach us spiritual truths who live in the end of the age.

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That's us. So it's an allegory, a physical life, that if you look at the lives of these people, it teaches a spiritual truth.

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And what is the spiritual truth that's taught by the bondwoman and the free woman? Verse 25 says, for this

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Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answers to the Jerusalem that now is and is in bondage to her children.

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Now, you think about this. This was the servant of Abraham that his wife told him to have relations with, and a child was born.

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And that child leads to the Arabians, to the Islamics in that part of the world today, not the

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Jews, right? So it's not God's chosen people. But it also gives another allegory.

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It looks at Jerusalem as it is now. Now, what if you look at Jerusalem now? Do they think, like the

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Jews that are over there now, do they think they're saved by grace or by works? They think they're saved by works. So they're under bondage.

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And now it says in verse 26, but Jerusalem, which is above, that's talking about the four -square city that's going to come down in the book of Revelation, the new

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Jerusalem, that one is free, and that's the mother of us. You see, so we're of the free woman, not the bondwoman.

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Now, we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. The Abrahamic promise comes to us.

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It's unconditional. It does not go out to the children of the world. It comes only to God's people.

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And that's how God brings us in and justifies us and makes us holy is through that promise.

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And it's beautiful. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit.

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If you remember the two brothers, they fought one another. It's the same way now.

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Those who are part of the world fight against those of us who are part of the promise. They don't like it. They don't like that you're saved by faith, by grace.

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They want to add works to it. They want to say all manner of bad things about you if you don't agree with them on that issue.

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And that's just how it is. It's always going to be that way. Nevertheless, what does the scripture say?

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Cast out the bondwoman. Now, let me ask you this. If the bondwoman picture salvation by works and God is telling us in the holy scripture, cast it out, get rid of it.

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What do you think we ought to do? When we hear our friends say, well, yeah, I believe in Jesus, but you got to.

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What should you do? Should you just quietly kind of laugh and be nice? Or should you point out that they're incorrect? You need to show them that they're supposed to cast out the bondwoman and her son.

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Now, that was a harsh thing that Abraham did because Sarah told him to do it. Take her and put her out in the desert.

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If she dies, she dies. Now, we know God took care of her and that child and raised up the great

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Islamic nations of today from them, but they weren't part of the promise and they still aren't unless they come to the

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Lord Jesus and get born again. They're not part of the promise because they're all about works salvation.

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And any denomination that calls themselves Christian that's all about works, they're forgetting to cast out the bondwoman and God won't be pleased with them.

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Now, some of them are saved, some aren't, but they're teachers. I don't know about the teachers because they're teaching such false doctrine.

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It makes you wonder, doesn't it? For the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.

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You cannot have salvation by faith plus works. You can't even have the maintenance of your salvation by faith plus works.

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All of the book of Galatians talks about it. It's faith only. Say by faith and you walk by faith.

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The works are just an effect of it. They have no role in the cause of the salvation.

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So then brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith

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Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Why did the apostle

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Paul say this? Because there's such a great temptation to allow Judaizers to come in and say, yeah, but we need to add some righteous works with this and you'll feel better about yourself.

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Sounds so good. Sometimes, I mean, you look at Mormonism, it's elegant. I mean, they've got people on every block that'll give you food.

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If you run out of food, they take care of each other. But I've known some Mormons personally and they weren't so great when you got down, you understood what they did when they weren't out in the light of the world.

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They were a whole lot like what Jesus said the Pharisees are. They're white in sepulchers. They look great on the outside, but inside they're full of dead men's bones.

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Trust me. So, I mean, maybe you've had experiences too. But I've had business experiences and I've had experiences of them coming in my church office wanting to debate me and then finding out from someone they rented their apartment from that they were watching pornography and tearing up her furniture and throwing it out the window and seemed to be demonic and different things like that.

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So, they're not all that they look to be. And anytime they entangle themselves in the bondage of legalism,

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God is displeased and nothing good will come of it. Behold, I, Paul, saying to you that if you be circumcised, now, what do you think about this?

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Now, he's talking to a crowd of people, Jews and Gentiles, but he always speaks to the

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Jew first, then the Gentile in the room. And he's telling these Gentiles who believe, yeah, we believe in Jesus, but you got to do the stuff of Moses, too.

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And look what he says. And understand, try to think of this through the Jewish mind. It'd make a lot more sense to you if you think how a

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Jew thinks. Paul said, if you get circumcised and in the context of this passage, he means if you do that thinking it's part of your salvation, that it contributes to the cause of your salvation.

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So, you go get circumcised. So, you're keeping the law plus having Jesus. And you think that's going to save you. Then Paul said,

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Christ will profit you nothing. Now, I want to ask you a question. If Jesus Christ and his work on the cross profit you nothing, where are you going to go when you die?

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Answer the question, because Paul said, if you add works to your faith and you say it's faith plus any kind of good works, then

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Jesus won't profit you anything. Well, let's keep reading. For I testify again to every man that gets circumcised to save himself that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

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So, he said, okay, if you want it that way, you got to keep the law perfectly. And if you miss in one point, you go to hell.

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Christ has become of no effect to you if you add any kind of works to the faith and the regeneration that the

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Holy Spirit did to you in the blood of Christ. And you add anything to that, then Christ has become of no effect to you.

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Whosoever of you are justified by the law. If you think you're made right with God by doing stuff good, then

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Jesus has no effect on you. And you got to do it all on your own. You're not going to make it. In fact, it says people that believe that way are fallen from grace.

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And the ironic thing is down here in the South, Church of Christ, the way it is down here in the Bible belt. There, you know, there are some,

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I've met some that are saved, some sweet little ladies that I talked with, some I met that are lost as a goose.

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But they're preachers and their doctrine is from hell. I mean, I'm telling you, because it's all about salvation by works.

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In fact, one of their greatest doctrines is they teach that you can fall from grace and they get it from this verse.

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They pluck Galatians 5, 4 out of context and say, see, you can fall from grace.

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And they don't understand. If you just go up to verse 1 and just read down to verse 4, it's teaching the opposite. It's teaching that a person who added works to the faith never was saved in the first place.

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Jesus doesn't avail anything. There is no grace for them. There is no salvation by faith because they're doing it by works.

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Those are the ones who have fallen from grace because they chose to totally have nothing to do with it.

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They chose to be humanistic. They chose to be Arminian. That's humanism in religion.

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And they chose to let man be supreme or to have a huge part in their salvation.

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And now they fall away from grace. They don't get any benefit from grace. Where is their end? I have a lot of friends that believe this stuff, and I am concerned about them.

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I pray that the Holy Spirit will call them into the glorious light of Jesus Christ.

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Now, this next verse is really the most profound one that has to do with this, especially last topic where we talked about experiential righteousness and how

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Satan can bring guilt feelings and all this. Look at this with me. Galatians 5 .5,

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for we through the Spirit wait. Now, does that mean we have this already or we're waiting to get it?

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Well, that's clear. We wait for the hope. What is the word hope means? It means the joyful expectation of a certain future event.

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It doesn't mean we hope it'll happen, but it probably won't. It's a joy. It's a stronger word than that in the

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Old English and certainly in the Greek. It means the joyful expectation of a certain future event, but it's future.

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So we're waiting for something that's going to happen in the future. And that thing that this verse says we're waiting for is righteousness by faith.

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Now, you know what's interesting about that is the Bible has already taught us that we already have positional righteousness.

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God sees us as righteous. He sees us as glorified already. But as far as experiential righteousness, where we walk right and we never pull away from the

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Lord and we always only do what pleases Him, that is a future event in our life. And there it is right there.

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It says it is. We through the Spirit, we're living this life right now as a new man and an old man.

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But with the real us is the new man. The old man just hangs around because we live in this body. And it's bad if you think about it.

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It's a fight, a struggle that goes on all the time, almost like Isaac and Esau.

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And it's the same type of battle going on within us. We're like schizophrenics. We walk holding

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Jesus' hand and we're perfect. Then we let go and we sink just like Peter did. And we have this existence.

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And yet this is God's will. But there comes a day at the rapture when we are glorified and we are made new and whole.

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And we have a glorified body. And at that point, we don't pull away from God. Even our body doesn't. All of us loves the

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Lord and wants to do right and never wants to sin and never will sin after that at that point. And that's what we're waiting for, the hope of righteousness, the hope of experiential righteousness.

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Right now, we live it by faith. Someday we will have it by experience. Isn't that cool?

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For in Jesus Christ, now it goes back to this theme of salvation by faith without or with a great gulf between that and works.

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For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision. It doesn't matter if you get circumcised or not.

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It doesn't matter if you keep this law or that one. It doesn't matter if you worship on Sunday or Saturday. None of that matters.

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The only thing that matters towards the cause of your salvation is faith, which works by love.

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God loved us first, and we loved him back. He called us, and we responded and said,

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Lord, yes, I want you. That's all that matters. And works play no role in any of that.

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The works are the effect of it. They come later. Now, Paul ends this conversation with this weak, carnal

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Galatian church, which has gone back into legalism after Paul left. And a legalizer came in and taught him this false doctrine.

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Paul's dealing with it. He says, you know, you did run well back when I led you to the Lord and taught you the true doctrine, and you were doing so well.

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Who hindered you that you should not obey the truth, he says to these people. This persuasion does not come from him that called you.

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Who called us? The Holy Spirit. So it's not the Holy Spirit that taught this doctrine. So that only gives one other option.

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They are doctrines of demons. And he says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

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If you let just one of these legalizers come in and teach in your church, then that sin will permeate the whole church eventually, and it'll be false doctrine eventually.

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One more generation, they'll be teaching false doctrine. And this is what's happened to some of these denominations.

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So I do not understand how that's so messed up. Anyway, we have these seven ideas that we have to understand to understand justification.

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And we've looked at Romans 8, 29 through 30, for whom he did foreknow, he also predestinated.

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That happened before time began. Then time comes into place, and those who he predestinated are the same group of people that he called.

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So the calling happens while we're yet in our sins as Christ quickened us. The Holy Spirit quickened us.

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That's the cause of the salvation, the quickening. And those who he called, he justified. Part of that meeting that we had when the

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Holy Spirit called us that day was he made us right with God. He made us to be righteous.

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And that same group that he justified, those he also glorified.

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And notice that's in the past tense. In the English, in the Greek, it's in the aorist tense, which means without regard to time, which means it's just the way the

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Father sees us. He sees us as foreknown, which means foreloved. He sees us as predestinated to be adopted into his family.

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He sees us as already having been called and saved and made righteous and justified.

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And he sees us as already perfect. Isn't that cool? So in this little passage from Romans 8, 29 through 30, we see the whole scope of predestination and election.

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We see the breadth of God's love and predestination and election. We start from before time began and we come into time and we're called and justified in time.

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And we go out the other side into eternity future and we're glorified. Now, it's interesting because that word glorified is in the aorist active indicative.

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And that means that it's already done by God. It's active, which means he's done it.

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And indicative means it's a fact. You can't change it. And so let's look at this just for a minute.

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And we will have completed Romans chapter 8 for Christmas. How about that? Romans 8, 16 says the

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Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.

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Notice the suffering has to do with this life and this body, that treasure that's in earthen vessels.

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We go back and forth. We have to stumble. We confess our sins. We get up, we go again.

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And we continue that process of trying to be a better person because we are made righteous on the inside.

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That's who we are. We have righteousness. So we need to try to live righteous. And that struggle goes on and on and to the point when

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Jesus comes back for us, we are changed in the air. We have a glorified body and we're glorified together with Christ.

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So think about the glorified state for a minute, because in the Father's eyes, he already sees us this way.

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For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time, see that shows again, we're not going to be a perfect life.

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We're going to sin. We're going to have to get right with the Lord, just like get a spanking, get hugged and say, now let's go again together.

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That's going to go on and on over and over. You're not going to reach a state of perfection in this life until the rapture happens.

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It's God's will so that he gets the glory when we do walk with him. And so the sufferings of this present time, look at this.

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They're not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us at the rapture.

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That's the glorification point. For the earnest expectation of the creature, that's us, waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.

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You see, you have to understand part of our salvation has not been accomplished yet. We have a past, present, future of our salvation.

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Yes, we've been made righteous. We've been justified. We have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

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We were bought and paid for with his blood and set free from the slave market of sin and Satan and the world system in our own flesh.

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All of these things that we've got, God's righteousness imputed to us and our sins have been imputed to Jesus and he paid the sin debt, the substitutionary death.

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All of that has been accomplished on our part and our soul is as clean as it will ever get.

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The new man does never sin. It can't sin. It's perfect. And to the extent that we hold Jesus' hand and walk spirit filled, we won't sin even in this life.

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But then when we let go, we do sin. All that's part of God's plan, but we expect and wait for the manifestation of the sons of God, the entire salvation of our body too.

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That's the glorification moment that happens at the rapture. This word manifestation is interesting.

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The manifestation of sons of God, it's the same word that the book of Revelation is called apocalypsis.

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It's the apocalypse, the revelation. At the revelation, when Jesus comes and returns at the second coming and the rapture happens immediately after that or with it, you might want to say it happens with the great resurrection at the end of the age, at the end of the seven -year tribulation period.

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Then the second coming happens and the rapture happens and we are manifested fully as the sons of God.

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Even our body is glorified at that moment. There's nothing in us at that time and for all eternity future that will pull away from God or want to sin.

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So we have this and it says even the creature was made subject to vanity not willingly.

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Now look at that. See, when Satan comes to us and says, well, look what you just did. You can't possibly be saved.

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You need to remind him, hey, God put this treasure in earthen vessels on purpose. I was made subject to vanity, not by my will.

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I was born this way. It's God's will that I was born this way and by reason of him who's subjected the same, that's

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God. He subjected us so that we had to live by hope, by faith rather than by sight.

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It's all brings such great glory to God and the whole plan of salvation stems around the fall and the fact that Jesus was crucified before the foundation of the world.

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All of God's love is shown this way. There never could have been a different plan. We're in the perfect plan.

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It includes the fact that we mess up sometimes and we have to confess it and get up and go again and be stronger the next time because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

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Even this body is going to be delivered someday and probably the not so far future.

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For we know that the whole creation, all of the entire universe, this is what John 3 16 is about when it says

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Jesus died for the whole creation. It's for the cosmos, not just for us, not just for the elect, but for the whole universe back in order.

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The entire universe groans and travails in pain together until now. All right.

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So Jesus said this in Matthew 24 22 and except those days should be shortened.

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These listen, this pandemic is by no accident. This is not something caused by man, really.

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And man can't stop it. And the governments are so pathetic and they're rising up and say, oh, we will stop this.

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We will stop this pandemic. They're going to stop it when God stops it. That's all there is to it.

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And it's so interesting to me that our country has killed as many millions of babies through abortion as any other country.

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And so God sends this retribution. He sends this disease and it doesn't hurt babies or children.

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Isn't that amazing? It only kills adults who make the laws. And it's perfect justice.

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And it is sent by God to chasten this nation and the other nations of the world, especially the nations of the

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West that once knew God. And so now it's upon us. And God said there's even more tribulation coming.

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He mentioned, he didn't call it a pandemic, but he mentioned pestilences and earthquakes and wars and rumors of wars.

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And he says, and that's not quite the end yet. These other things are going to happen. And then the

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Antichrist is going to rear his head and fix the economy and cause you to have to have something in your forehead and right hand that shows you've had the

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COVID shot or whatever it is they're going to prove you had before you can go into a grocery store or a hospital for that matter.

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And at that point, it's going to be times of tribulation. And God said for if he hadn't shortened those days, that seven -year period, if he hadn't shortened it, made it be only seven days, there would no flesh, not one human being left saved on the earth.

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And that's what the New Agers and the governments of the world was talking about, the green movement. They want to save the earth.

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They're not going to save the earth. They're destroying it. I mean, they're putting man -made windmills all over the place, destroying the beauty of the land.

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And that's so funny and ironic to me. You go to Hawaii and you just see this man -made junk everywhere.

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And that's going to make, they don't stop to think that it costs more money to create the electricity that way.

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You know, it's just insane. They're going to save the world, right? No, they're not. In fact, if Jesus hadn't come right when he does come, all humanity would be lost and there'd be no humans left.

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But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened. The elect will be the ones who are raptured.

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And then even after the rapture, there will be millions of people saved because you've got thousands of evangelists going around on the earth, humans.

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And then the Bible says he even sends angels to evangelize the earth at the end of the seven -year period. So many millions of people be saved and go right into the millennial kingdom saved.

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And so the human race is saved by the elect being saved. And the first people in the millennial kingdom are 100 % sheep, not one goat, but they start having babies.

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And some of those will be goats. And at the end of the thousand -year millennial kingdom,

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Satan will rise up again and those people will rebel against God. So it shows humanity is just depraved, even in a thousand -year period with Jesus Christ ruling over man, he still messes up.

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But the good part is by that time, you and I will be in our new bodies and we'll be ruling and reigning with Christ over those people.

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So if he hadn't shortened this time, no flesh would survive, there'd be no humans left.

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But there will be humans for age and age and age in God's plan. For as lightning comes out of the east and shines even into the west, so shall also the coming of the

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Son of Man be. Now, this is Jesus talking. He said, look, it's not like these professors have taught that I'll appear before the seven -year period invisibly and secretly, no one will know about it.

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And there'll be a rapture and then seven years later, I'll come. He said, it doesn't happen like that. He says, when I come, everybody's going to see me.

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It's not secret. It's like the lightning shining from the east to the west. That's how the coming of the

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Son of Man will be. And wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be. He said, here's an allegory.

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If you see a dead body, the good old Texas buzzards flock to it.

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He said, that's a picture of the fact that when I come in the heavens, the elect are going to flock to me. They just have to.

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They will come up and rise up and come to me. There will be the great resurrection of all those who had died in Christ, even in the

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Old Testament, by faith in the coming Messiah. They will rise up and start heading right straight to Jesus in the air.

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And we will not prevent them. We won't come before them. We'll come after them. That's what proves that the rapture happens at the end of the seven years, not at the front end, because we can't be raptured.

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Paul said, clearly, we won't prevent them. We will come after them and with them. And then we go up with them.

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We're changed in the air. Immediately after the tribulation of those days is when

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Jesus says this happens. Not before it, after it. Shall the sun be darkened and the moon will not give her light and the stars shall fall.

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Those things don't happen until well, way into the seven year tribulation period, way into the second three and a half years.

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And the powers of heaven will be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the son of man in heaven.

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And then shall all tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

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And he shall send his angels. Here's the rapture after the second coming happens. Here's the rapture or with it as it happens.

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Not seven years prior to it. When it happens, he will send his angels with great sound of the trumpet.

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There is the seventh trump and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, the four corners of the earth and from heaven and all over the earth.

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When does that happen? It happens after the tribulation, Jesus said. And he goes on and he says, there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars and upon the earth, distress of nations.

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Think about this prophecy. Perplexity of nations, distress of nations with perplexity and the sea and the waves roaring.

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You know, this thing about global warming, I don't deny it. I mean, it used to snow here every year.

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It snows here every decade now and where I live in Texas only snows about once every 10 years. There is global warming.

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The falsehood is saying that man caused it. Man is not causing it any more than man caused the pandemic.

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Any more than man causes the economy to do anything. The Democrats think they're God because they think they can control the things that only

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God can control. And this perplexity of nations is created by a socialist who promised the people they will give them everything.

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And then such big catastrophes happen that they run out of money and they simply can't keep their promise.

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And then you have blood in the streets because of it. The leaders of these nations are perplexed over COVID.

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They don't know what to do. First, they shut everything down and they open it up. Then they shut it down. Some do, some don't.

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It's got to wear a mask for an airborne virus. It's one micron and the holes in your mask are 500 microns.

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That makes no sense. It's all a hoax. It's man trying to fix stuff that man can't fix.

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And they're perplexed. This is a fulfillment of prophecy of Jesus Christ of the end times.

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The sea and the waves roaring. That's two things. It's literal as the sea coast rise and start to cover up certain parts of the cities.

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It also pictures people groups. The oceans and the waves picture people groups.

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And they will be roaring. That is a sign of anarchy where the government leaders are no longer trusted.

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And the Antichrist rises up, says, well, I can take care of it. And they'll trust him for a while. But then he'll turn on everyone and begin to kill

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Jews and Christians everywhere and so forth. You know the story. Men's hearts will be failing them for fear.

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That's already happening now, ladies and gentlemen, 2020. 2020, you've got a good piece of seeing what this is like.

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And for looking at those things which are coming on the earth. I mean, all we've done, if you listen to the news, which I try not to.

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If you listen to the news all the time, then all you're doing is living in fear. Because they're trying to figure out how to look after the things that are happening.

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And they don't have the power to do it because God's sending those things. And the powers of heaven will be shaken soon.

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And one of the next things that you're going to see, ladies and gentlemen, is you're going to see some powerful major earthquakes that kill a lot of people.

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But you're also going to see some meteorites hit the earth, big ones, and destroy sections of the earth and put clouds of dust in the air and kill crops.

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That's coming next. So what are you going to do? Well, we're going to trust the Lord. He said he will end it at the right time.

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And he will be with us through it. And we have to use wisdom and follow what the scripture says. For one thing, it says don't be in the cities.

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Flee to the mountains. There's a clue. And then shall you see the Son of Man come in a cloud with power and great glory.

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He will end it. There will be an end to it, to the tribulation. But look at this. When you see these things begin to come to pass, have you seen them begin to come to pass this year?

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Then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws nigh.

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What redemption is that talking about? You've already been redeemed. Your soul's been redeemed, but your body hasn't.

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So that's talking about the rapture. The rapture is near. When you see these things start happening, the very things

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Jesus lists here are some of the things happening now. Lift up your heads and be ready and live right.

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You know, if there's ever a time to have the attempt to walk a good walk, if there's ever been a time to have experiential righteousness, if there's ever been a time to exercise the responsibility to stop the little secret sins that you're doing and that I'm doing and the overt sins and the covert sins and stop doing them and ask the

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Lord to take them away and ask the Holy Spirit to keep you clean. It's now. Now is the time because we should be looking up, lifting up our heads.

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The Lord's coming is soon and our redemption draws nigh. 1 Corinthians 15 40 said, and I'm going to end with this thought on what it means to have a glorified body.

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There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial is one.

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In other words, there's stars in the sky. There's beautiful mountains on the earth. The glory of the stars in the sky is one thing.

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The glory of the mountains and the oceans is another thing. There is one glory of the sun.

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If you tried to stare at the sun, you couldn't. It would blind you, right? But there's another glory of the moon. You can look at the moon and it's gorgeous, but nothing compared to the glory of the sun, right?

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And another glory of the stars. They're beautiful. For one star differs from another star in glory.

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This is all an allegory to tell us the difference between the body we live in now and the one we're about to have, the glorified body.

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So also, in other words, just like those things is the resurrection of the dead.

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Now, listen, the rapture won't happen until the resurrection. So anyone that says it happens before that is wrong.

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And anyone that says there are more than two resurrections is lying. They are lying and deceiving. The Bible says there are two.

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There's one at the end of this age, and there's one at the end of the thousand year millennial king. That's it, only two.

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So the first one has to happen at the end of the seven year tribulation period. And the rapture happens with that.

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We don't come up before them, we come up with them. And so the resurrection of the dead is sown in corruption, but it's raised in incorruption.

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So when we die, if we die before the rapture, our body is corruptible. But at the rapture, even those who are in the grave will come up and be incorruptible.

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This body is sown in dishonor. We're sinners, we disappoint one another.

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All of this life is such a mixed metaphor, so to speak. Schizophrenic, the new man, the old man, the battle always going on.

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But this body will be raised in glory. It is sown in weakness.

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It'll be raised in power. You won't have weaknesses of the flesh at all. It is sown a natural body.

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It is raised a spiritual body. Now don't let that fool you. It is spiritual, but it's a body. It's physical and it lives in time and space in the four square city.

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And we'll come and go to the earth and serve on the earth with the humans that are there. I mean, we're human too, but we're already raptured.

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We're already changed, we're glorified humans. But the people living on the thousand year earth, we will come among them and help rule and reign over them.

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They'll see us, we'll be in bodies, but we'll be a spiritual body. There's a natural body. There is a spiritual body.

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There are both. We'll get the spiritual body at the rapture. And verse 45 says, and so it is written, the first man

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Adam was made a living soul, but the last Adam, that's Jesus, was made a quickening and life giving spirit.

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How be it that was not first, which was spiritual. In other words, the physical had to come first. That's why

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Jesus said, whosoever is born and whosoever liveth, you're born into this world, have a physical body and believe within me shall never die.

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You have to have the physical and the spiritual. So that which was first was not the spiritual, but it was the natural.

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So that's why we have this battle. And afterward, that which is spiritual, we get born again, we have a spiritual self, which is the real us.

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And then someday this body will be changed to fit and we'll all be a powerful spiritual body.

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Always working with the Lord, never pulling against him. The first man is of the earth, earthy.

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I know some earthy people, don't you? There's even earthy people in churches. But the second man is the

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Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy.

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I don't like Adam, right? But as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

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So the new man, that treasure that's in this earth and body is heavenly like Christ is.

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This body will be made to match that soon. Isn't that wonderful? And as we have born the image of the earthy, we shall bear the image of the heavenly.

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It's a promise. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed.

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We won't all die a natural death because some of us will live until Jesus comes back. We'll be raptured in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed.

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So the people who died before us will be raised first and made incorruptible.

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And then we will be raptured and changed in the air, Paul teaches. So we can't have that happen until immediately after the resurrection or with it.

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For this corruptible must put on incorruption. This body must become incorruptible and this mortal body must put on immortality.

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So when this corruptible body shall have put on incorruption and this mortal body shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying, which is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

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Oh, death, where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law.

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

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

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Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. That's talking to those of us who live in the end times to not give up, be steadfast, don't be moved by the ways of the world and the fears that come upon the world and stand fast because the

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Lord is coming back. And the work that we do, we can't grow weary in well -doing.

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We have to keep doing it. We're the salt, we're the light, and we're part of what God uses to make the timing be perfect.

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Armageddon can't happen till the day it's gonna happen. God already knows the day. Ephesians 2 .5,

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even when we were dead in our sins, he has quickened us together with Christ.

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By grace, you are saved. And he raised us up together and made us to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

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All of that's in aorist, which means it's done in God's mind. In God, the Father's mind, you and I can stick our heads up and look around heaven right now because we're seated with Christ right now.

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When things get too bad down here, we just need to do that and sniff that celestial air for a few moments and then we'll be better off down here.

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And he raised us up together and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace.

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That's why this is God's perfect plan. The treasure in earthen vessels, God's perfect plan.

01:17:42

So that in days to come, in ages upon ages of time, eons by our time in the future, he will show us off his church, he will show his bride off, which will show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. We were made to sit, aorist, active, indicative. It's a fact, God did it, and it's without regard to time.

01:18:08

Well, that's it, ladies and gentlemen. We have finished Romans chapter eight and we did it at Christmas season.

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And I don't know any greater doctrinal chapter in the whole Bible than we just finished.

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And if you weren't here for all of it, it's archived out there at parkmeadowschurch .com. You can catch every sermon, start with Romans one.

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It'll only take you three years to get to where we are now, but you can catch up. So we love all of you guys and we just hope that you have a wonderful remaining part of your

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Christmas season together. And we love you.

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We wish we could be in a physical room together, but we can't really do that.

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I'm glad we were able to meet together. We think about you often. We see your names and pray over you and our whole church, the physical group there in Corsicana thinks about you and prays a lot.

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And we hope some of you can come and visit during 2021 and be with us there physically.

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That would be awesome. So have a great time together. I'm gonna close this with a word of prayer.

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Lord, we just thank you for your word and how it lifts us up and carries us into the heavenlies, literally allows us to look around a little bit and realize that we're seated in the heavenlies with Christ, even now spiritually.

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And Lord, we thank you that you put us here on this earth, though, with a purpose. And even though we are imperfect in this walk, we are going to accomplish perfectly that which you sent us to do, because you've given us exactly the amount of power we need to do it.

01:19:50

You've given us exactly the amount of the filling of the Holy Spirit that we need to accomplish each work.

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And you are with us anytime we're sent to do a work for you.

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We don't do anything by ourselves, but always with Christ. And we thank you that you created the first family business and made that as a model.

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And Lord, we just ask you to move us into the right places in the coming days and help us be that salt and light that we're supposed to be and be with our families as they do extra traveling, our church family, and our individual families give us protection and guard us and watch over us.

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And we thank you most of all for Jesus Christ and the gift that you gave to the world when he was born into this world.

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We thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. All right. We'll see you guys soon.