How Much Did Satan Know About the Gospel? | Theocast

The Question of Satan, the Cross, and the Hidden Gospel

Every year around Christmastime, Christians love to fight about the song, Mary, did you know? The question really is, Satan, did you know? Did you know that when Jesus hung there on the cross, that that was actually him crushing your head?

How much did Satan understand of the mystery of Christ and of the good news, the gospel? He's smart, Satan is, he's powerful, he's deceitful, he's manipulative, but he is not omniscient. And we're gonna talk today about that reality and how Jesus won and was triumphant over the devil, triumphant over sin and the grave, and how we have an unshakable hope and confidence in Christ.

We hope this encourages you, stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word, it's called pietism. You ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy?

That you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what Christ has done for you? It's dread versus joy, really, that's pietism. Pietism causes Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

And we have a little book for you, it's free. We want you to download it, and we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism. Reform theology, really, how it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like?

You can download it on our website, just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims like you and like us to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a confessional, reformed, and pastoral perspective, at least that's the aim.

Your hosts today are John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and I am Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. And what we're gonna try to do today as we do on each of these shows is to clarify the gospel, take the clutter off of that thing, and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

And he is victorious, victorious over the evil one and over the one who has the power of death, who is the devil. And we're gonna rejoice in that today, not trying to just give it all away in the intro.

John's gonna tell us more about that here in just a minute. It is the new year. Now, pulling back the curtain as we record, this is still 2023 when we're recording this, but anticipating Yeah, the week before Christmas.

Yeah, so true, it was the week before Christmas. In anticipation of the new year, I am making a resolution today to help John bear the burden of making announcements because typically John makes all of the announcements and we love him for it and it's one of everybody's favorite segments of the show every week.

But I am gonna make a couple today. So again, this weird back to the future, past, present, all the things. By the time this podcast airs, God willing, it'll be January the 24th of 2024 if Christ has not returned.

And that said, a few days in the past, based upon when you're listening to this, our event out in Escondido will have happened, Suffering in the Hope of Christ's Return, a joint venture with Chris Gordon, our friend who is Abound in Grace Radio.

So Theo Kass and Abound in Grace Radio are putting on a one-day event on Thursday. We did at that point. Yeah, we are and we will have put on an event on January the 18th in the year of our Lord, 2024.

And so we hope that that event went well and we hope that the event was helpful to the people who attended. And if you're thinking, man, I wanted to go, but I just couldn't quite pull it off, I'd love to hear the audio from the event.

Well, just download the Theo Kass app, become a part of the Theo Kass community and all of the talks and the sessions will be made available there. And so we leave that to you. You can avail yourself of it.

So there we go. That was my attempt to make an awkward future slash past announcement about an event and about the Theo Kass community. So John, clean it up if you need to and then tell people what we're gonna talk about.

Comment, I mean, Lord willing, this happens and Dr. Godfrey is able to come, but man, I've had so much respect for his work. Robert Godfrey is wonderful. And the way in which, Justin and I got to hear him give a lecture, but man, the man just preached in tears the gospel last year and just honored to be able to, one, be in conversation with him, but to be able to have him on the podcast and do a conference with him, it's just a dear honor to be, the man has just been so faithfully preaching the gospel for so many years.

And obviously Chris Gordon is a dear friend. All right, Justin, this is a little bit different for us and really a direction that we're wanting to go in 2024, it's weird to say that, where we're trying to be more kingdom minded, speaking of the two natures of the kingdom or there's a kingdom of light, kingdom of darkness.

And I know in my own ministry and in yours, we're starting to feel it more. I would say the attacks of the evil one, the kingdom of darkness. And when you read scripture, it's everywhere. It's almost, I mean, Justin, you can't get three chapters in and you have the deception of the evil one in the story.

Right, he's right there. And we're gonna be talking about that. Genesis 3 .15, the serpent, a crushing of the head, the Messiah. And what's interesting about the story of the Bible is that it is about the coming Messiah.

I mean, Jesus is promised to us in Genesis 3 .15. We don't know his name. We don't know when he's gonna be born, where he's gonna be born. We just know that he is. And from the nature of it, because it's the seed of Eve, we know that it's a virgin birth.

That's about all we know. And what's amazing is to watch the story unfold. But there is the Paul, Peter and Paul both mention the story of Jesus in this way. They call it the mystery of Christ, the mystery of the Messiah.

And so I've been preaching Peter. He's been preaching through Romans. And this concept comes up. And so we're gonna talk a little bit about today because it's really powerful. This is the question we're gonna be answering.

Why did God keep Christ, the Messiah, his, you know, when he was gonna be born, where he was gonna be born, and what he was gonna be actually doing? Why did God keep it a mystery? Why did he withhold that information?

You're gonna have to keep listening to the pod in order to get to the answer to that. But we're gonna set it up first. So I'm going through Peter. And as Peter is writing this letter to encourage those who are suffering, he says concerning, this is 1 Peter 1 .10, concerning the salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully.

Like they wanted to know who this is. I mean, their salvation's dependent upon this man. So they're like, who is this guy? Feel free to jump in. Just a brief observation. This is related, I trust might be helpful to somebody.

You hear people talk about the original authorial intent, like as far as the writers of Scripture are concerned. What did the original author mean to communicate? And that's how we should preach texts.

Well, this is one of several places that I would point people to, to demonstrate that in particular, in the era of the Old Covenant, the writers of Scripture had a true knowledge of what they were writing, but they did not have an exhaustive knowledge of it.

Because the prophets knew some things by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but they did not know everything. And so if we limit ourselves in the preaching of the Old Testament in particular to what the original authors understood, then we won't preach Jesus the way that we should from the Old Testament.

Just an observation, because the prophets themselves are looking into what they have written, trying to discern things pertaining to the Messiah. Just very interesting. Well, Peter goes on to continue with your point.

Peter goes on and says in verse 11, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, listen to this, verse 12, it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you.

Meaning that they would not come to this conclusion. What they were offering, the information, wasn't for their time, it was for our time. Not that they didn't have salvation. Listen, they were saved by faith in the Messiah.

They just didn't know who he was yet. That's right. So what's interesting about that is when you start looking at other passages and scriptures, another powerful one that is very similar to this is going to be talking about the mystery of Christ.

I'm not gonna take time to read all these, but Ephesians 3, 4, Paul even uses this exact phrase, the mystery of Christ. Romans 16 literally says, I'm just gonna read it real quick. It says, verse 25, now to him who was able to strengthen you according to my gospel in preaching Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages.

So Paul and Peter are agreeing that this was actually a secret designed, we're gonna learn here in a minute, by God's eternal plan. It wasn't like, oh, plan B, I've gotta come up with this rescue plan, can't tell anybody about it.

Before the world began, this was a secret that was designed to be kept. And we'll talk about the culmination of it before this episode's over. That's right. So who was it hidden from? This is the question.

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time reading the backstory on this, but we're gonna go over to 1 Corinthians 2. And Paul is talking about how he came to them. It's important because he says, look, I didn't come to you with all of this flowery language.

I came to you in simplicity, like that of a child can understand. Why? Because the gospel is that simple, yet it's complex. Why is it complex? He goes on to say this. 1 Corinthians 2, verse six. Yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away, but we impart a secret, a hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

So there we go, we have it in there. But there's a couple of characters and a couple of comments I need to make. First of all, the concept of age, not something we really use, Justin, in our modern day language, but what he means by that is that when the Bible talks about ages, there's the common age, the age that we're in right now, this is between the fall and the return of Christ.

He says, this is the age, the rulers of this age, and then the age to come is the return of Christ. Right. It's the kingdom of Christ coming down and established on the earth in its consummated form. So not the age of this time period of history, as far as this 30 years, but the entire section of history.

Right, and Jesus uses this, I'll just give you one example, Matthew 12, 32, and whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, will not be forgiven, I'm sorry, will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or the age to come.

That's where you hear Jesus using this concept. So it's not a period of time. All right, so here's where it gets interesting. Rulers, rulers. He says the rulers of this age. Now, a lot of commentaries like to take this to be the actual local rulers who are humans.

I would agree. Human authority. Human authorities. I would agree they played a role. Yeah, of course. You're gonna give us an example of this, even with Judas. They played a role, but they were not the powers behind what was happening.

There was a greater power behind it. How do we know this? Because we keep reading. 1 Corinthians 2, 8. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God had prepared for those who loved him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the things of the depths of God.

There's the answer, guys. The reason why Christ was kept a mystery was to hide it. We're gonna learn here in some other passages. We'll look at it down the road here in a minute. But if you look at how ruler is used, archon, you're realizing that Paul is meaning the principalities of the air, the rulers and authorities of the heavenly places.

So he kept it a secret. So I'll just say it as plainly as I can. He kept it from Satan. That's who he kept it from. And once, because we know when he raises from the grave, who does he put to open shame?

The rulers and authorities. The principalities and powers. Yeah, it's Satan, little g gods, fallen angels, et cetera. I mean, that's who he kept it from. And I'll go ahead and say this at the outset, and I trust this will become plainer as we go.

There are various levels of agency involved in how the plan of God unfolds. So for example, Acts chapter two, Acts chapter four, the murder of the son of God was done by wicked people who did what wicked people wanted to do.

So that's important. And underneath that, along with that, there is of course the work of the evil one in the kingdom of darkness and the influence, the powerful influence that that kingdom presents in this age and even on people.

So there's a lot of stuff going on. And having said that, Satan, kingdom of darkness is at work, wicked humans doing what wicked humans wanna do in killing Jesus. But all of that is according to the foreknowledge and the plan of God that had always existed.

So that's really helpful for us to see how none of this that we're saying today means that God was just kind of throwing things against the wall and hoping something sticks. This was always his plan. And yet, responsible, culpable, moral agents in terms of the kingdom of darkness and humans are involved doing what they wanna do, yet God's will and purposes are always accomplished.

Amen, amen. Yeah, I mean, just to go quote it again, Colossians 2 .15, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them. And again, when you read it in Ephesians talks about principalities of the air, archon, princes, the idea, as you're saying, is that there's a whole category of system of people at work.

And well, I'm getting ahead of myself. So Justin, I'll let you hop in here because I was about to go to the whole sovereignty part. We'll save that for later. Okay, so what I would like to do is something that I did in a sermon, I don't know, six weeks ago in the end of Romans 11.

People are familiar with the doxology there and just how Paul proclaims that effectively the ways of God are so above us and his knowledge is unfathomable. Right, and just to behold and consider God's plan as it's unfolding, it should produce awe and we should marvel at how he's done these things.

And so you already picked up on Ephesians chapter three. You know, at the end of Ephesians two, there's the whole thing of how God's plan is to save both Jew and Gentile into one body in the church and how this has always been God's design and how through the salvation of mankind, Jew and Gentile alike, through what Christ has accomplished, God is going to declare his glory, this is verses nine and 10 of Ephesians three, to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

So God declares his glory to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places through the church and how he has saved one people into the one body of Christ. So when we hear that language of rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, it is precisely principalities and powers and Satan and all those things, that's what's in view.

So God is flexing and declaring his glory to those entities in what he has done in saving a people through the mystery of Christ. So let's consider for just a minute, let's trace this out through the scripture.

This will take a moment that I trust it's gonna encourage us all. Like how God declares his glory through Christ even to Satan himself. So Satan, of course, shows up in the Bible for the first time in Genesis chapter three, he manifests himself in the garden as a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve, to ruin God's good creation.

And then having done that, having tempted man and man falls, he takes his place as the God of this world, right? The great adversary, the prince of the power of the air, the evil one, this is what he's known as, the ancient serpent who is the devil.

The fallen angels along with him, right? Satan and the kingdom of darkness, these entities, these beings reign as the gods of the nations. This has been happening, it happens still. So there's always been this great war, right?

Between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. Well, Satan shows up in Job chapter one and Job chapter two. Many people are familiar with this account. We see how crafty he is, how sinister he is, how manipulative he is.

But even there in Job one and two, we see that in spite of how Satan is wise and crafty and powerful, and he intends evil all the time, the Lord foils his plans and how Satan himself is a servant of God and how Job is kept and protected and preserved by the Lord.

That's important for us to see. But then fast forward a number of years, centuries and centuries, Satan shows up again most pointedly where? In the early chapters of the Gospels. That's right. In the temptation of Jesus.

Now, this is not the pod to talk about the parallels between Genesis three and Matthew and Luke four. We're not gonna do that right now. But Jesus is the new and better Adam, right? But Satan shows up to tempt Jesus in the wilderness.

And you wonder what is going through the mind of the evil one at this moment? Like he doesn't know everything. He's smart, he's crafty, he's deceitful, but he is not omniscient. And we know that Jesus was victorious over him in his temptation.

We read in Luke four, verse 13, these words. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. Now, this is fascinating. To me, this is just all kinds of cool.

In Luke's Gospel in particular. So Satan, having been defeated by Jesus, Jesus did not fall where Adam had. Jesus was victorious. Satan leaves Jesus and he's gonna come back and he's gonna come for him again at an opportune time.

Okay, that's Luke chapter four. Luke chapter 22. Three years later, we read these words from Luke 22, three to six. Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the 12. He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him to them.

And they were glad and agreed to give him money. So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd. So here is the opportune time, right? And we know that on the night when Jesus was arrested, Judas would betray him with a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane.

So that goes down and just a few verses after that, this is the end of Luke 22. Jesus says this, he said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and the elders who had come out against him, quote, have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs?

When I was with you day after day in the temple, you didn't lay hands on me, but this is your hour and the power of darkness, close quote. It's pretty striking, right? Like how the opportune time and Satan and power of darkness and this is your hour.

All of those things, of course, this leads to the cross. And you wonder again, as Jesus hung there on the cross, dying, what does Satan think? Does he think that he's won? Right? Yeah, there's no doubt that he has bruised Christ's heel, but he does not know that this is exactly how Jesus would crush his head, right?

It's so incredible, like this is how Christ will triumph. So Jesus gives up his spirit, he's buried in the tomb of a rich man, he then descends into hell, not to suffer more, but to conquer. And he binds the strong man and plunders his goods, he sets God's people free, and he rises triumphantly from the grave, victorious over the evil one.

Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions. So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources?

We have started something called the Theocast Community. We're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like-minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there, and you can share it and ask questions.

You can go check it out, the link is in the description below. So we can say that Jesus was born under the law that he gave, he lived to fulfill its requirements, he's our representative, he died to endure its curse as our representative, he died and rose, this is Hebrews 2, he died and rose to conquer the one who has the power of death, namely the devil, so that we might no longer be enslaved to the fear of death, and this has always been God's plan.

Now the question is this, how does it all end? I'm happy for you to jump in, John, before we consider how it ends. Just a couple of thoughts. Epic. Yeah, I mean, even this, Jesus in the garden is weeping before the Father, is there another way?

That's what the great adversary provided. Like you want another way, here's another way. And Jesus is like, I'm not doing that, that's not the way of the Father. So Jesus knew exactly how to get at Jesus.

I'm Satan, sorry, Satan knew exactly how to get at Jesus. And that's just a powerful, you know, when you're understanding the battle between the two kingdoms. He's offering Jesus the kingdoms of this world, which technically he didn't even have the right to do, which is, he thieved them and then said, here, do you want them?

No, he is called the God of this world. He is, he is. But to your point, you know, I'm just, I'm thinking right now of, you know, Acts 2 .23, when he says, Peter, you know, he says, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

I'm gonna say, you know, your question is, what was Lucifer thinking? He's like, he won. But now, he learns later, I was totally used as a tool by God. I was totally, which has to make him so angry. I gotta read more and more verse, Justin.

Yeah, please. Because this one has just been one that blows my mind. When I preach the gospel now, it changes how I preach it because I realize, well, I don't wanna give it away. It changes how I preach it.

Listen to this. It doesn't change the gospel. It changes how I preach it. Ephesians 3 .9, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for all ages in God who created all things so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known, pay attention to this, to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

When the church preaches the gospel, the heavenly places learned about what God has done through dirt people. Yeah. Through people who are lower than the angels. It's just, it's unreal to think about how God continues to humble the proud and gives grace to the meek and humble.

Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty cool thought. I've said this in certain contexts. I don't know that I've ever said it as publicly as this, but I think it's appropriate that we would consider when we gather on the Lord's day that the angels themselves are thrilled and rejoice at what they hear and what they observe.

So Peter says they long to look into it. Yeah, I mean, and it's, I mean, I know when I pray for our services, when I pray for our people, certainly, and I pray that the Lord would be honored in how we worship and cast ourselves upon Christ and all of those things, and that he would be exalted and that Christ would be extolled.

And I'm like, I pray the angels would be encouraged and thrilled. Yeah. By what we do and by what we preach and by how Jesus is exalted in this service. Well, I love how Spurgeon put it when he was talking about First Peter.

He's like, look, the angels are fascinated. We're fascinated by the angels. It's like, oh, how cool it'd be to meet an angel. They're fascinated by this. And they're like, how cool it is to know the gospel.

Oh my gosh, I know. That's the point Peter's trying to make. It's like this thing, when you preach it, the world, the spiritual realm around you is affected by it, not just the listener of the people, but the spiritual realm is affected by your preaching.

I mean, the angels quite literally, I think, have their popcorn out and they're on the edge of their seats. So Jesus says they rejoice. Right, because of the preaching of Christ. That's right. The extolling of his power and his grace and his love and his sufficiency.

I mean, for all of this, the reason why we mentioned all this, and I'll throw it back over to you, is that in Peter's context, First Peter 1 .13, right after he says all of this about the prophets, the angels longing to look to it, this amazing salvation, he says, First Peter 1 .13, therefore, prepare your minds for action and be sober-minded.

Well, if you're understanding that Satan didn't quit, the rulers and authorities in this age didn't quit working once Jesus rose from the grave. They understand they're defeated, but they're angry now.

It's a wounded animal thing. That's right. Right. And so Peter's saying, hey, look, you still got work to do, so prepare your mind for actions. And sober-minded means don't let Satan, don't let this world intoxicate you with its lies.

Right. I love this, Justin. What do we do then? Set your hope fully on the grace that will be revealed to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Bro, so good. I mean, it's the, how do you prepare yourself for the battle?

That's right. How do you continue on in the fight? Well, it's by, I mean, to use even the language of Ephesians again, it's like that we would be reminded of the hope to which we've been called. Yeah.

That we would know the riches of Christ's glorious inheritance in the saints and know the greatness of the power of God that's at work in us. You know, or like to use Peter's language, that we're gonna be mindful of the glory and the grace that awaits.

I mean, this is all throughout the New Testament, this otherworldly perspective and living from the end of the story backwards, which is where we're going as the Lord would have it. In this show is we're gonna talk about the end and may this bolster and strengthen us in the present to live intentionally and thoughtfully, to fight sin, to pursue righteousness, to love each other and above all things, to point each other to Christ and preach Him to all people as we seek to see more people come to know Him and cast themselves upon Him.

So we'll talk about the end a little bit and then we'll just talk some more and then we'll close this thing down. The end of the story, the book of Revelation, we're familiar enough with it, many are anyway.

You know, the epic scene around the throne of God that begins in Revelation chapter four, and there's this scroll that nobody's worthy to open. Like that scroll we would understand contains in it, I mean, again, this mystery of God, this plan of God from before the foundations of the world, how this is all gonna unfold and its accomplishment is contained in that scroll.

And so if that scroll isn't opened, this isn't good. All of the plans of God will not be fulfilled. That's what's hanging in the balance. And there's nobody worthy. And John, who's having the vision, is weeping.

And then he is told to weep no more, right? One of the elders says, weep no more. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered. And so what does John hear about? He hears about a lion and then he looks and what does he see?

He sees a lamb slain, right? And this is the one, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the lamb of God who was slain for the sins of the world. He is the only one worthy to open the scrolls. And they sing a song about how he's worthy, right?

So then he does. He takes the scroll and he opens it. Fast forward a couple of chapters to Revelation 7 and there's the 144 ,000. But again, what did John hear? He heard about 144 ,000 people. But then what did he see, right?

This is good, this isn't a podcast on eschatology, but he heard 144 ,000 and then after this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every tribe and nation and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.

So he heard about 144 ,000. He saw a great multitude that no one could count from every tribe and nation and language and people around the throne of God. They're dressed in white robes, by the way, that were washed and made white in the blood of the lamb.

It's that wedding garment that you need to enter the wedding banquet that the Lord gives you, right? So we're standing there with palm branches in our hands, praising the Lord around the throne of God.

And effectively, what we wanna say for this show today is that in those scenes alone, we haven't even gotten to the Lake of Fire yet. We'll get there in a moment. But in those scenes alone, we see that Jesus won and he wins and Satan lost.

And we keep preaching that message, that Jesus is victorious, that he is enough, he's mighty and able to save, he's conquered all of our enemies. He has cut the head off of the great champion of the enemy of God's people.

And we need not live in fear, but we can live with boldness, in faith, trusting Christ, running to the throne of grace to ask for mercy in our time of need. Because we know the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, what does Peter say?

Don't count my long forbearance, don't count me holding back my wrath. He's like, this is me showing grace and the enemy has its time coming. He does. And he definitely has his time coming. And then that's it, it's encouraging.

That's why often the writers will point to, listen, justice will be served, but while we wait, there's work to be done. And I love how having a two kingdom perspective about scripture has been so healthy for me, Justin.

I don't get, you know, when Jesus says seek first the kingdom of God and Peter tells you how that's done, like set your hope fully on the grace that is to come. Right? So really the Christian is safe in the arms of the Lord.

We're clothed in the righteousness of Christ, but there's work to be done. And that's where the enemy comes in and gets us off track. He gets us before the train has left the station, man, we're off the rails, right?

And so the writers of the New Testament keep offering us Jesus and the hope of Christ so that we understand within us, right? We become the temples of God. We become the ambassadors. We become a sweet aroma.

We become, I mean, all these images, right? We become a light. We become a sweet balm. We're living sacrifices. We're living stones being built into the household of God. So Peter, when he says, so that you're effective, effective at what?

Caring for those who are weak and rescuing those who are lost. You can either be effective at that or you could be taken out and you're ineffective and you actually are hurting the kingdom of light instead of helping it.

And I just want to go on record saying that theocast absolutely believes in obedience. And I think that the obedience needs to be focused on our king and the advancement of his good name amongst the world that is desperately in need for him, not you trying to enter into his kingdom and find some kind of rewards.

Your entire inheritance is wrapped up in Christ. So the reason why Justin and I say these things is for two reasons. One, if you feel the weight of evil around you, that's because it's real. If you see the darkness that comes to you in the mouths of this world, that's because it's real.