WWUTT 2397 Whom You Are to Fear (Luke 12:4-7)

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Jesus said to his disciples, I will tell you whom to fear. Fear him who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell.

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Yes, I tell you, fear him. So fear God and nothing else when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the word of Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.

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Find all our videos and other ministry resources at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel according to Luke, we come back to chapter 12 and picking up where we left off yesterday,

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I'm gonna start reading in verse four and go through verse 12. Hear the word of the Lord.

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I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do, but I will tell you whom to fear.

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Fear him who after he is killed has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

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Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies and not one of them is forgotten before God? Why, even the hairs on your head are all numbered.

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Fear not, for you are of more value than many sparrows.

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And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the son of man will also acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

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And everyone who speaks a word against the son of man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the

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Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. So we had read this section yesterday along with verses one through three, where Jesus has three lessons here.

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Yesterday, we looked at his warning to the disciples to beware the leaven of the

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Pharisees. In what we're gonna look at today, verses four through seven, Jesus encourages the disciples to have no fear.

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Don't fear them and what they can do to you, but fear God who not only can destroy the body, but even the soul in hell.

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And then the next portion, acknowledging Christ before men. And there, Jesus even says, do not be afraid about what they can do to you.

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Instead, the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say in that moment that you may be able to speak to the questions that they ask of you.

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And so here in both occasions, in both of these sections, four through seven, and then eight through 12, you have

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Jesus telling the disciples not to be afraid. If they fear God, then they have no reason to fear anything else.

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So coming back to verse four here, Jesus says, I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.

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Now, as Jesus is addressing them here, he calls them friends. That's very affectionate. That's very wonderful and comforting because consider what comes next.

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Verse five, I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell.

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Yes, I tell you, fear him. Now, this is very fire and brimstone, of course, but the reason for it is not to scare them into the kingdom of God because he's speaking to them as a friend.

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He's not trying to threaten them in any way or give them nightmares or make them

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Christians under fear of what worse thing could happen to me. You know, trying to coax them into a religion through fear.

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That's not what Jesus is doing. He calls them friends. He is speaking to them as friends. He is speaking to them as one who cares for their souls.

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I don't want you to fall into the hands of the living God. Remember, as it says in Hebrews, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God, and our God is a consuming fire. So he tells them this out of love for them.

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Don't be in fear of people. Don't be in fear of man. Can they hurt you?

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Yeah. Oh, sure. There are tons of things that wicked men can do to you.

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There's all kinds of suffering that happens in this world. And just because they're followers of Jesus doesn't mean that they were not gonna go through suffering.

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Remember, as we've considered going through the gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke thus far, that the disciples thought the

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Messiah was going to be an emancipator. He's going to come and assume the throne of David.

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He's going to throw out the Herods. He's gonna throw out the Romans, and then

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Israel's gonna become a superpower again. Just like we were the center of attention, we were on top of the world back when

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Solomon was king, and we're gonna be an even greater kingdom than that because the promise, the covenant that was made with David is that I will establish your kingdom forever.

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So they're like, hey, we're gonna get back on top of this thing, and no one's gonna be able to knock us off. That's the disciples' anticipation.

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That's what our Messiah is going to do for us, and the rest of the people that were looking for a Messiah as well, that's what they thought.

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Incidentally, Jews today, Orthodox Jews today, who don't believe that Jesus is the

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Messiah, and they're still looking for a Messiah, they're still thinking the same thing. Our Messiah's gonna come.

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He's gonna sit on the throne of David. We're gonna be the greatest country in the world. That's still their anticipation.

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So since the disciples were thinking this about Jesus, truly they believe that he was the one.

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We already had the confession of Peter earlier. You are the Christ, the son of the living God. So since they're believing that he is that Messiah who is going to assume that throne, they're probably thinking we're not gonna have to suffer all that much.

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Yeah, there might be a little fighting there in the beginning, but look whose side we're on. Look who's with us. So everything's gonna turn out right in the end.

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But Jesus here is telling them they're gonna suffer, but not to fear those who may harm you.

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Yeah, all kinds of suffering that mankind can do. You've probably known people who have made you suffer.

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It's probably not even a tyrannical government or something like that. It's just people near to you who just seem to wanna hurt you or ruin your life somehow.

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They want you to be miserable or they're just completely inconsiderate and self -centered and they don't care about the kinds of people that they hurt with their actions or going after the things that they want.

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Perhaps you've had an employer that just totally ruined your career or something to that effect.

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You've had family members that have tried to do you harm. Maybe you've even been the victim of a great crime or through some chain of events, some unspeakable evil or wickedness occurred to you.

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It may not have even been something personal. Nobody was going directly after you, but just through that series of self -centered events and people out for themselves, eventually the results or the ramifications of this whole thing falls on you.

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And now you're struggling. Now you're suffering as a result of some careless thing that some person did in the past.

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It doesn't even have to be directly at you. It's just a general carelessness that people have and then other people suffer as a result.

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So you are going to go through suffering in this world, but don't fear what it is that they can do to you.

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Don't fear those who can kill the body. And after that, have nothing more that they can do.

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You know, even apart from the people who might harm you, because that's definitely what Jesus is talking about here.

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He's warning them about what the Pharisees are going to wind up doing to them as they're going out and sharing the gospel to different people who are going to oppose the gospel as they preach it.

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But on top of all of this, there's kind of this renewed interest right now in demonology and angelology.

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So the study of demons and even the powers of Satan and what kinds of things they're doing in the world, what sorts of forms that Satan may take.

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The whole deliverance ministry right now, you know what deliverance ministry is?

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I say ministry loosely because they're not really ministering to people. But the whole deliverance thing is this belief that people are possessed by all kinds of demons and we're going to cast them out.

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But they're casting demons out of professing Christians. So the people who come to these deliverance things, what are they?

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Not conferences, concerts, I don't know. But anyway, the people that come to these deliverance things are all already believers.

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They know what they're going to when they go. This isn't demon possessed people going, ha ha, I'm going to go to this

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Christian thing and get cast out. No demon's going to do that. So the people that show up to this thing are

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Christians, or at least they're claiming to be Christians. And then they're possessed by all these evil spirits.

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So the deliverance ministers, and again, using that term loosely, are claiming to cast demons out of Christians.

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Demons don't possess Christians. Christians have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you.

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But the whole deliverance ministry is dependent upon Christians who already believe this stuff to come to our events and give us money and make us popular and do the act so we can video it and put it on YouTube and get those video streaming dollars and all this other kind of stuff.

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So they're marketing this to people who are already professing believers.

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But claiming that believers can have demons. And so professing

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Christians who may feel, you know, the burden of life or the weight of something or whatever, they'll go to these deliverance things.

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Maybe I've got a demon. Maybe that's why I'm so sad. Maybe that's why I'm struggling so much, whatever it might happen to be.

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And so the deliverance guy is casting this demon out of them, out of a Christian. Christians don't have demons because we have the

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Holy Spirit dwelling within us. There's no room for a demon to get in there. The Holy Spirit possesses us.

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Christ possesses us. And so these guys are pushing this whole narrative of the devil harming us in all these different ways.

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And I don't deny the fact that a person can be tormented by a demon.

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You wouldn't be possessed by that demon, but can we be oppressed by a demon?

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Certainly. And Satan may try all different kinds of tactics. Of course, the tactic that Satan is using first and foremost on us is to tempt us, to try to draw us away from the path of righteousness and go after the passions of our flesh.

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That's primarily the weapon of Satan and what he's trying to do. But even these things, even with the demonology, even with Satan, even if there's some sort of spiritual manifestation that happens in your bedroom late at night with the lights off or whatever else, these things can't harm you either.

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Satan can't do anything to you with this. Do not fear the boogeyman that Satan is throwing into your bedroom late at night.

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Don't even fear those things. Don't fear what Satan is doing in your dreams, trying to mess with your mind or whatever else.

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Those things can certainly be unpleasant, but there's no reason to fear them. He can't have you if you belong to Christ.

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As Jesus said in John 10, no one will snatch them from my hand. So don't even fear those things.

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Don't fear those who can kill the body. Don't fear those who can cause you any kind of discomfort on this side of eternity.

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Jesus says in verse five, I will warn you whom you are to fear. Fear him who after he is killed has authority to cast into hell.

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Every single person who dies, dies by the hand of God. He is the one who has authority over the life of every person.

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As Job said in Job 14, God has set a man's days and allotted the time in which he will live and set the limits that he cannot pass.

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He can't add one day to his life. He can't take away one day to his life. God is the one who has decided and numbered our days.

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And anyone who dies, it's because God has appointed that that was the day that they were supposed to die.

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You know, I'll hear from atheists and skeptics and these kinds of things so many times saying that, you know, when you go through the

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Bible and you really look at the Old Testament especially, God's killing a lot more people than Satan is.

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Yeah. I, you know, they'll say that to people and I guess who that's supposed to rattle are people who just don't know their

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Bibles well or don't have a high view of God knowing that every life is in his hands.

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Because every time I've heard a skeptic say that, I'm going, of course, of course he did. He killed the entire world except eight people in Genesis, in the global flood.

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So of course I believe, you're not telling me anything shocking. Every life is in God's hand. He's the one that cursed creation because Adam sinned against God.

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The reason we die is because we rebelled against God. It's because of sin.

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That's the reason we die. Death is the consequence for sin. Romans 6, 23.

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The wages of sin is death. What we deserve for our sin is death.

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But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So of course God does the majority of the killing.

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He does all of it, but he created us. Our lives are his, and he can choose what to do with us or not.

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And so Jesus says, here's whom you are to fear. Yeah, these people can kill you, but ultimately your life is in God's hand.

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Fear him who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell because where your soul is going is everything in the world.

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That is something that every person has to think about. What happens after we die? Where am

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I going to go when I die? The time that we have here on this earth is so short and so limited.

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The older I'm getting, the more I'm realizing how short my days really are.

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It is really not something that I was thinking that much about when I was in my 20s. I was foolish of me.

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I mean, I was still a believer. I was still a Christian. I knew that if I died, I was going to go to heaven to be with my

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Lord and Savior. Nonetheless, I really was not thinking much about my own mortality when

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I was in my 20s, despite the fact that I had a few near -death experiences from the time that I graduated high school until I wisened up a little bit.

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But our days here are so temporary and compared with eternity minuscule, like the room that you're sitting in.

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If the room you're in represents the entire space of eternity, then the life that you're living right now is about the span of time of a period on a page.

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By comparison, we're spending very little time here on this earth compared to where we're going to end up in eternity.

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So we do need to be thinking about these things. And this needs to be on our minds as well when we share the gospel with somebody else.

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I know that there is an eternity that you're going to spend somewhere. And I would like for you to be with Christ, not perishing in hell.

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And so we share the gospel with them so that they would know Jesus and be saved from hell.

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"'Yes, I tell you, fear him,' Jesus said." Verse six, "'Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies, and not one of them is forgotten before God?

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Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows.'"

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Again, Jesus is not saying this to his disciples to scare them into joining his religion.

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He is saying this to his disciples because he cares about them. "'You are of more value than many sparrows.

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God will keep you. He will protect you even when these people want to kill you.

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He knows how many hairs are on your head, and you are of more value than many sparrows.

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So fear not, fear not their schemes, fear God and fear nothing else.

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As Paul said in Romans eight, "'If God is for us, who can be against us?' There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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You are of more value than all of these other things that God by his providence is working out to the end that he set before eternity began, before time began.

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When I met my wife, we both had flip phones. Remember flip phones? Yeah. I even, at one point

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I had one of those old Nokia bricks, you know, that thing was practically indestructible. It really was.

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I could drop that phone just about anywhere. It was probably the phone I dropped the most and did the least amount of damage to, even though I dropped it so many times.

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But anyway, we both have flip phones. And on her flip phone, she had this message.

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Sometimes you can personalize the message would come up when you open the phone. And the message that she had on her phone when you opened it was

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God feeds birds. And it was a continual reminder to her every time she flipped open her phone.

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That God cares for her. He feeds the birds. He cares for the lilies of the field.

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He even gives the birds food in their season. He cares for the mountain goat giving birth out there in the wilderness.

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I mean, these are things that are talked about in the book of Job. God saying to Job, do you care for these things? Do you handle all of this?

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Do you tell the sea that it can only come this far and no further? God is the one who by his hand is in control and over all of this.

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And yet God who has created the entire universe from the farthest star to the absolute smallest atom in the particles that are even tinier than that that make up our atoms.

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God made all of this. He is controlling all of this. All of this is in his hand.

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He is upholding everything by the word of his power as talked about in Colossians 1. And yet he cares for us.

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He cares for every one of us. The universe is as big as it is, or even as small as it is when you're looking microscopically, so that we can see how vast these things are that God has created.

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He is so big. He is such an incredible designer that he has detailed everything to even the most microscopic level that we can't even get our microscopes to look at.

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We can't even get our minds down to that level. And yet God has created these things and holds them all in his hands and he cares for us.

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It's so that when we would explore these things, when we would look at them and we would see the vastness of all of this, we would see that God is even greater than this and he created it for us.

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When God created Adam and Eve, set them in the garden of Eden, he said to take dominion over creation.

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He set us over all of this. But of course, it was because of our sin against God that then everything was cursed and we live in this corruption that we do now.

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But the promise for us is that in Christ Jesus, who is making all things new, that we will enter into a perfect kingdom that has no end.

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And we will be with him forever in that place, in that paradise that he had originally created for Adam and Eve, we will be restored to and the eternity that we will receive is even better than the garden of Eden that God created because there was corruption that came into that garden, right?

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Not so with eternity. We will be holy and good and incorruptible forever with our

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God in glory. And so let us keep those things in view.

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Let's keep that in mind. Fear God and fear nothing else. I hope that's a comfort to you today.

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Heavenly father, we thank you for this word that Jesus gave to the disciples. It's a word for us as well.

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And I pray again that there would be a warning there for us that we not venture into sin.

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We not stray from God. We not go after the passions of our flesh. We not try to please too many people.

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We don't fear man and what man may do to us, but we fear God who has the authority over our lives, over our very souls, who determines where we're gonna end up in eternity.

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It is you whom we fear. That reverent fear that we may bow before God and worship, turn from our sin and desire to be made righteous in Jesus Christ.

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And then uphold us in that righteousness. May we walk in that righteousness, knowing that in this relationship we have with God through our savior,

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Jesus Christ, you care for us. You are upholding us. And you have promised us a forever place with you in glory.

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It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

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You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word, when we understand the text.