Latest / Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX / Preservation / Pressing into Promise | Brother Owen Howard / Elder Mike Moseley | 09-20-2026

Transcript

Preservation / Pressing into Promise | Brother Owen Howard / Elder Mike Moseley | 09-20-2026 · Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX

• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good to be here with you guys and just to see you and feel your love and to hear your voices.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um just means the world to me.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um launch out of the 125th Psalm.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Just have some thoughts that have been brewing on my mind since June for a little while, and um want to bring these out to you.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're in Psalm 120, the 125th Psalm.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um just read it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: He says, They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Second verse.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um henceforth even forever.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um what's on my mind is uh this church's eighth article of faith.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um it says, um, and we all ascribe to this article of faith, I would say most primitive Baptist churches or people that believe the same we do will have a statement similar to this.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: But it reads, We believe that the saints of God are preserved in grace and shall never fall finally away.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: You might notice in the second verse, he says, as the mountains are round about Jerusalem.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you're reading that, it kind of sounds like Jerusalem is somewhat in the valley, right?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And round about it is mountains.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very, um, even from a military standpoint, that's a very strategic position to be in, to have a city that is settled in mountains.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard for things to come against that city when they are literally surrounded by mountainous terrain.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: You are very protected, and I want you to think about the fact that he says you're roundabout.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's fully enclosed, right?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: You're you are fully surrounded by this mountain.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I also love the fact that he says, so the Lord is roundabout his people.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: His people.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked about election, brother Mike has talked about election.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: You've heard that many, many times before.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one of the many thousands of places where you're gonna see this again, this idea of his people.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: God has a people.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: From henceforth, and you'll notice the psalmist writes from henceforth, he's gonna put a timestamp on how long these mountains are gonna be around the people of God.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: He says, hence about his people, from henceforth, even forever.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: This these mountains, do you know how complicated it is to move a mountain?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty complicated.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Would you agree with that?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: What happens when you're just just trying to remove one mountain would be a very taxing feat.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure humans at this point in their history probably could find ways of removing a mountain.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I can assure you that having to remove many mountains, that's not something we can do.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: God is as mountains circumventing his people.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um there was a time in my life when I would look at our doctrines, kind of theoretically, if that makes sense.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at them as mathematical theorems.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: You guys know that I love math, and I looked at them as mathematical theorems, statements, brother Bobby, that that have that can be proved, and I enjoyed the proving of those statements.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I enjoyed finding them, Sister Pam, in God's word.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed, I enjoyed just just looking at how one implies the other.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was all very, I don't want to say the word theoretical, but I do want to, I do want to stress that I felt kind of emotionally detached from these things.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly there are some things, right, Brother James, that are that are certainly that that there's more emotion too, you know, when I read our article of faith about the washing of the saints' feet, that that's an emotional one for me, right?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's something that is very beautiful to me.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's something that really enriches my soul.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: It humbles me.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's I know that I'm probably gonna get in trouble by our dear pastor for saying this, but that is my favorite part of the communion service.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's something very, very beautiful to me.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so I've always had this emotional response to that.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um obviously the taking of the um taking of the wine and and the communion part is incredible.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: I just love washing y'all's feet.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I could wash everybody's feet if it were appropriate in time we had it.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't look at these, the especially the first several articles of faith that we have, kind of in that way, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sister Pam, I looked at it more, just these are statements that we believe and we can prove.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: But the more I feel like I've matured in my faith, the more I've had a hard time not getting emotional when I read these doctrines.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: When we say we believe that the saints of God are preserved in grace, there's I I think I'm at a point now where I can say this with confidence.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: There should be an emotional response to when you understand that there's literally nothing.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's literally nothing, David, that anything or anybody can ever do.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think where this really drives home is there's nothing that you can do to take you out of that valley of Jerusalem, if I can say that.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: To take you out of being called God's chosen people.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um that song that you you you led, Brother Lloyd, sometimes I feel discouraged, right?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't, you know, if if you have the doctrine of preservation on your heart, I don't know that immediately that sounds like a song that fits that.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: But man, when you need encouragement, when you need to feel better, when you need to feel safety from your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, when you are being felt with burdens in your life and you feel saturated with despair, there's nothing more beautiful to understand about what God has done for you than to read and to understand and to know and to meditate on the fact that nothing that you feel can separate you from the love of Christ, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: That you are actually preserved in Christ Jesus, that we are preserved in grace.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I love what we wrote, um, or at least they wrote our um, I don't know if they wrote it, I'm sure they probably put pen to pen to paper on this one at some point.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I wish we still had it, but like every church, there's a fire that destroyed it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um that they wrote down that we believe the saints of God are preserved in grace and shall never fall finally away.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: That once you're preserved, obviously, that you can never be unproved.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can never fall away.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: So what do what do we mean, right?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: What do and I'm gonna say we, I'm gonna speak on behalf of this church because I'm a member of this church and I've ascribed to these articles of faith, just as you do, and I believe in them, and I hope that when I say we, I'm talking about us in this room.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So whether or not you are actually a member or not, I think that if you don't believe in this, this is something you ought to believe in, because this is something beautiful.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that is emotional.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So without further ado, um I'm gonna part ways with with the writers of our articles of faith.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um they recite 1 Peter, and if I have time, I will go into 1 Peter.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, certainly that is a primary point where um one should be able to arrive at the fact that we are preserved in grace from 1 Peter.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: That is there's that is just wonderful place, but I'm gonna go off on a very, I'm gonna go off on a limb and say there's there's perhaps just a slightly edged out better spot.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's because it's the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that this is a wonderful place.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if you would join me in the 10th chapter of the book of John.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, so what do we mean, right, when we say we are preserved?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: What do we mean?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're with me if I can get there.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: We are in the 10th chapter of the book of John.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna eventually get to the 27th verse.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: When we think of the word preservation, the word preservation um is used in the is used in in God's word, at least it was translated, it was uh used by the translators to represent a thought.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um Jude, in the first chapter of Jude, so uh right before Revelation, you will find what in his uh opening remarks to um uh to whom he was writing, he he actually does reference um the fact that these sanctified that are in Christ Jesus and preserved in Christ Jesus.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So he he does use that word, and we'll get into that.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to be clear that just because a word is not frequently used, that doesn't mean that it's not a founded doctrinal point in God's word.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: So just because you, if you were to go and you were to go look up how often, you know, where's the word preserved in my Bible and how often that appears, you might at first be like, well, wait a minute, this doesn't seem to be something that I see reflected often.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that's just that's you bounce around from word to word.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's this idea that we have to understand that the writers of this article of faith mean, and what do they mean?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: They mean what's being written here.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: So here we have an account of Jesus Christ.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Prior to this account, he's um, and I really, oh my goodness, um I'm trying to save you as much time as I can, Brother Mike.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh 10th verse, so so if you go back up, this is the this is the whole shepherd verse, right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: So he's he starting the first verse, very I say unto you, um, he that entereth not in the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up from some other way, the same as the three from the waver, but he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So he's given this sermon.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna call it a sermon.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you call it a sermon.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: He's given this parable, I suppose.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um he's given it, and he gives this parable.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: We get to the 19th verse.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Skipping through this, he says, There was division among uh division therefore among um the Jews for these sayings, right?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Many of them said, He that hath the devil and is mad, why hear ye him?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Others say, This, um, these are not the words of him that hath the devil, can the devil open the eyes of the blind?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then, uh, 24th verse, then came the Jews round about him and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt if thou be the Christ?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us plainly.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, right, the setting here of the verse is I don't know if I want to say that he's just speaking sternly or is frustrated with whom he's having to speak with.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: But now he's at a point where he's about to speak very directly.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm my own poetic sense, I read what he's about to say as a very firm father.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes you just gotta speak to your children very firmly and very directly.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a moment where our Lord and Savior speaks words in a very firm way.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And even though he uses the word sheep in here, I don't think this is a parable.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that he is, this is a very literal thing.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So even though he does use a figurative sense of using the word sheep, I think we're beyond this idea of a parable.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And now he's just, he's, he's frustrated, right?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: He is tired of these Jews, and he's now going to speak to them very directly and very, very firmly.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, I told you, and you believe not, right?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I said things and you didn't believe what I said.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: But ye believe not.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: All right, because you are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, we're talking about preservation.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I want in your brains as we read through this.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: My sheep.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Whose sheep?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Remember we talked about God's elect, family of God?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Here again is just one of the many places.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: My sheep.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: These are the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ's sheep.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: He is the shepherd of these sheep.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Who do these sheep belong to?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: They belong to Jesus Christ.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: My sheep hear my voice.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: They hear his voice.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know about y'all, but when I read this part of this statement of our Lord, it reminds me of my grandmother's voice, uh, Marburg.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I could be in a very large crowd of, I can hear, she's um, she's one of the few people whose voices just really have resonated with me to this day.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: I know she was so near and dear to this church, and that y'all love her very much.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um but to this day, if I'm in a crowd of people, someone played a recording of her voice, I would know that voice anywhere.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because that was someone very near and dear to me.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know when our Father speaks to us, we know his voice.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: My sheep know my voice.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Regardless of the life that we have, regardless of whatever corner of this world you find yourself in, when the Lord speaks, you know it.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: I, sheep, hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow with me.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, follow me.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I notice I love all the eyes.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Man, this is one of those verses where you can, there's a sermon in every word.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's a sermon in every little thing our Lord and Savior is saying here.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is just hallowed words.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so thankful that we have this account of what he's saying.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I give unto them.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Who's the giving?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Who is the giver?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Who what it's Jesus Christ, right?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one doing the giving.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Given to them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what I want.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: What do we mean when we say we believe that the saints of God are preserved?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: That right there is what we mean.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what we mean.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: We mean that who can literally lay any charge to God's elect, right?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Neither shall any man, he doesn't even propose this as a question.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is as a firm father or a father speaking firmly.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: He says this as an absolute.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's not talking, and I'm gonna say it this way, he's not saying that that I think he's, even though he is saying this about a man plucking, I think he's saying there's literally nothing that these people are literally in my hand.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: I, these are my sheep.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: They hear my voice.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I am the guardian of these people, and we are literally in the palm of his hand.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like no man can come and take them out of my hand.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, I'm so I'm so sorry.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm losing track of time.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: My father, which gave them me, I want to listen to this.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: My father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Guys, we are in our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ's hand.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Alright.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've ever played a game before.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I grew up in a house of just nothing but testosterone, so we would play games sometimes where you hold on to that thing and who can pluck it out of your hand, right?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Your brothers would try to hold you down, they try to, you know, wrestle you on the ground, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or sister, I suppose, in order for them to take the object out of your hand, would you agree that they would have to exert a force greater than the force that you have holding that object, right?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: They have to exert a force greater than that, than that, than the person's uh ability or the person's force in holding that object.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right, read this again.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: My father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: In order for you to lose the salvation that you have, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord, you something would have to be able to come and break open the hand of our blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: That means that they would have to exert a force greater than the eternal Lord, the eternal reigner of this entire world.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Who can do that?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: There is nothing, nothing that has that kind of power.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, for time's sake, I want to develop that more, but for time's sake, 1 Peter.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: We gotta go.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: We gotta go there because our church said this is where it's rooted.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go to 1 Peter with me.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: But keep that in mind of being in the Father saying, If I can get there.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna start in the third verse because I'm gonna get lost if I start in the second verse.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Who are kept, who are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation, ready to be revealed in that last time.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that word kept there has a very interesting meaning.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: The word kept there, um actually, if you were to go and look it up, has it has this, it carries this idea of being hedged up around.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when I first, I mean, it certainly does like being kept, being held in a state, but it it actually means something a little bit more beautiful than just even that, right?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: It keeps this thought, or I'm sorry, it means this idea of sort of like a um, and if you look this up, I'm I'm I kid you not, it means to be walled around.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: It means to be to be walled around.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Means um, do you remember what we read in the 125th Psalm?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: The mountains round about.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of got chills the first time I read that.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: It means that we're walled around, or it would mean the same thing as one who is keeping a watchful eye, sort of like a shepherd over his sheep.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: He says, who are kept by what?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: By the power of God.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: You are in God's hand.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be brought out of that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because you are being held by God's strength, God's power.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in that last time.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if I had more time, I would go to, but I'm gonna stop right there.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: I thank you so much for your attention.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love y'all dearly.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um come ahead.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_05: I know that if he uh wanted to take more time, he had plenty more to do.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_05: That is a wonderful subject.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, such a blessing to consider the preservation of God for his people.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_05: The uh one thing, and it needed no propping up at all.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, not a correction at all.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_05: But just so that there's no misunderstanding, when Brother Owen said he was going to deviate from our um forefathers.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_05: He didn't mean that he was gonna say anything different, and I think that became evident when he actually went to 1 Peter.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_05: He was just saying he was gonna use a text that was not what they wrote in the Articles of Faith as the proof text.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_05: Turns out he could have started in Genesis.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um, preservation goes throughout scriptures as do all the truths of God.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, they only for time like space's sake only listed one or two verses.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_05: They couldn't list them all.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_05: And we spend our entire lives preaching on them, and we can preach from many different places in the scriptures and still be talking about that truth that we are preserved in Christ.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, if Brother Owen had more time, he might well have gone to this uh Isaiah chapter 49.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_05: I would like to, and then um maybe move into things on that are on my mind this morning.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_05: I say you could continue to pray.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_05: Isaiah 49, verse 15.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_05: Isaiah, well, and start with verse 14, I guess it says, but Zion said, so Zion said this, not God.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_05: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_05: Do we ever sometimes feel that way?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_05: That we say, has God forgotten me?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_05: Has God forgotten?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, look at what's going on right now.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_05: And I know God promised to preserve his people, and and Brother Owen is talking about the uh doctrine of the elect or being preserved and not falling finally away.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_05: And we'll get to that verse, that word in a second.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_05: But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_05: Now, this is now God speaking in verse 15.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_05: He says, Can a woman forget her suckling child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_05: And if we just pause for a moment on that one, I think we all can will feel the same pain and weeping that I just felt when I read it.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_05: Because sadly, the answer is yes.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um we would think first, no, of course not.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_05: God says, can a woman, can a mother forget her child?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_05: And we're like, no.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_05: Wait.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_05: If God was going to hold up mothers, earthly human mothers, as his example of himself, which it sounds like he is, then we would actually have reason to fear.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_05: God says, yea, they may forget.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_05: It is true.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_05: While most of the time, and is it seems natural that a mother would never forsake her child, we all know that there are times when that just becomes true because there are no mothers who are not sinners.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: Not a single one.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_05: My dear mother, who I love so dearly, she's a sinner.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_05: Every one of you, you know, you have mothers.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_05: You you we honor our mothers.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_05: We should honor our mothers.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, we should honor our fathers and our mothers.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_05: It's actually a commandment, one of the ten.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_05: It's the first commandment with promise, God said, that that the it the your days may be long in the land that He gives you.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_05: There's actually an earthly consequence to this commandment that you honor your fathers and your mothers.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_05: But as saintly as we think of our mothers or our grandmothers, they were sinners.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_05: They were sinners.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_05: They're not the example.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_05: God is above that.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_05: God says, yea, they may forget.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yet I will not forget thee.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_05: And as Brother Owen was teaching, showing us and talking to us about the power of God that holds you in his hand, and the only way to get you out, pluck you out of Christ's hand and the Father's hand, he says, the only way to pluck you out is to overpower God.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_05: You have to have more power than God.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_05: And it's really, if you think of the imagery of being in the Father's hand and being in Christ's hand, it's like this.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_05: You're doubly covered.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_05: Visualize that.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_05: Now let's read this next verse.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_05: Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_05: Graven thee is like etching it in stone.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_05: You're not just sitting in the hand of God, being held and double held.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_05: You're actually carved into the palm.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_05: That's the imagery God gives us here.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_05: How preserved are you in God?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_05: You are carved in and covered up.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_05: And he says, so even if, and it's impossible, but even if you could open the hand of God by overpowering his fingers, you're still not going to uncarve.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_05: You're not going to get uncarved.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_05: Okay?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_05: Then he says this thy walls are continually before me.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_05: Brother Owen talked about being kept like walled around, being almost like inside a fortress, a military stronghold.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_05: You are kept, you are preserved.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_05: You are never going to fall finally away.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_05: Now, I do think that our forefathers, when they pinned this down over a hundred years ago, and let's be honest, it was most likely already pinned before that because those that founded Grace Church came from other churches.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_05: Okay?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_05: The church didn't start in Texas, right?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_05: It started on the East Coast in America, and it came from the across the ocean when people came to America because the church started on the banks of the Jordan River when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_05: That's when he began to build his church.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_05: We didn't start.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_05: This local church body was constituted in 1913, but it didn't start here.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_05: And this article of faith was probably pinned before that, right?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_05: But why did they use the word preserved?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_05: Because of what we just talked about it means.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_05: It's kept, it's preserved.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_05: Why did they use the word finally?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_05: They shall not fall finally away.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_05: It does not say that they shall not fall away.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_05: And that is a distinction we must remember because it provides something for us as a warning, and it provides for us a guard against a certain heresy that says that if you are a child of God, you will never stray from the truth.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_05: That is a heresy.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_05: It's a heresy that does two things.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_05: It shakes the faith of God's people because they think that if they stumble, maybe they're not preserved in Christ.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe they're not one of his.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_05: Or it shakes the faith for when we look at other people and we say, well, since they fell away, or since they never came in the first place, then they must not be his.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_05: And it gets us to looking at the outward appearance rather than looking to Christ, who is the one that we should look to.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_05: He's the one, he's the savior, he's the preserver, he is the all in all.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_05: So they wrote, they shall not fall finally away, because there is an ability to fall away.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_05: You will never fall out of the hand of God.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_05: You will never not be his child.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_05: And you, if you are chosen before the world began, and if Jesus died for you on the cross and he paid the price for your redemption in his blood, he will not lose a one.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_05: Christ said he will not lose one.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_05: Another place we want to go to the words of Christ and get them directly from the source himself.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_05: He said, I came to do not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_05: This is the will of the Father that sent me, that of all that the Father hath given me and engraved in his hand, of every one that he had before the world began given Christ, he said, I will lose nothing but raise it up again the last day.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_05: But will we lose?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_05: Can we lose our way here?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_05: Can we lose the rest?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, we can.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_05: Now, how do we avoid that?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_05: It's still by grace and mercy and the promise of God.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_05: And brother, oh uh, I the text I want us to look at is Luke chapter 12.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm gonna go ahead and announce the text and turn to the text so that I'll maybe get the text.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um Brother Owen mentioned now he's a math guy, so he'd look at things through that math lens, and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_05: Because God has given each of his children, we all are individuals.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_05: We have our own personalities, and the word of God is a thorough furniture.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_05: The word of God can give us a view of God through our own mind and the way it works.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_05: There's nothing wrong with someone who has an analytical mind looking at the scriptures analytically.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_05: There's nothing wrong with a word nerd like myself looking at the word of God and finding the truths in a way of describing things work through words.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm a history guy, and we're gonna go maybe if we have time, look at some history.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_05: That's all good.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_05: And however it is that you, your mind approaches things, God has that for you in His Word.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_05: Now, a good brother challenged me once to try to get outside my own comfort zone and look at things differently because y'all be able to see facets I never saw before.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_05: And since I'm tasked with preaching the word of God, to try to preach it different ways and not just one way all the time.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_05: But we um but don't think that there's only one way to do study of what God's Word and how you view things, it's appropriate to bring that to.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_05: The apostles all wrote in different manners because they all had different personalities.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_05: Paul is extremely organized, like an attorney.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_05: He's a lawyer, he he writes in logical progressions.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_05: Peter seems to have a little more of a kind of a rough emotional appeal because that guy was a fisherman and he just, you know, he was brash and bold, right?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_05: So you can do that too.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_05: But um, so I'm gonna look at things today through some words, and I like um the alliteration.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_05: So so for today I want to look at uh some P words.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_05: We already talked about preservation, so it kind of fit right in.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_05: I'd like to talk about the promise and the provision and the presence of God, and that we should be pressing into that.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, pressing into the promise of God, remembering his provision and his presence.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_05: Chapter 12 of Luke.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_05: Luke chapter 12.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_05: And not I can't read all of this, um, but as you're reading through, he gets to a place where he's talking about how in chapter verse 22 that you're not to worry about the natural things that we should take some precautions for and some concern for, but not to have the anxiety.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_05: So when he says, take no thought for your life, he does not mean to be reckless, he does not mean for us to um give no concern to the things of life.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_05: He goes on to say, what you shall eat, neither for the body what you shall put on.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_05: The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_05: So he is again not telling us not to go to work, pay your bills, uh, make dinner for your kids.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I heard someone once say that um parents should never feed their children frozen meals.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_05: And sorry, it's it's a joke, but I'm gonna say they should always put them in the microwave first, right?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_05: But I mean, it's not about how you feed your kids.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_05: We don't make at my house um home cooked meals all the time.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_05: We don't have the time right now.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_05: My my wife would dearly love that if she could, if that's all she is able to do nothing but um the way like our great-grandmother did all the time.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_05: But that great-grandmother probably woke up cooking and kept cooking all day long until she went to bed, right?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_05: That's about how you had to do it then.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_05: It's not so much how you do it, but we are told to take care of our families, and you have to provide for the food and raiment and clothing and and shelter.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_05: We have to provide for that.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_05: He's telling us not to worry about it, not to be overly anxious about it, not to take thought about it means not to let it consume you as if that's all there is in life.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_05: What is that uh thing that was uh crocheted and it's hanging in the uh um there's more to life than cotton?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_05: Is that how it went?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_05: And that that was a phrase that said, because it's all wrapped up in the doing of the daily tasks.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_05: There's a blessing in our daily life and the work that we do to provide for our families, but if that's all we're consumed with, then we're losing sight of some beauty and some rest.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_05: He goes on to say, God will take care of those things.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_05: He knows you need those things.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_05: He says, look, consider the ravens, consider the lilies of the field.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the ravens, the birds, they they don't have to um work and toil and labor to eat, and God feeds them.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_05: And and the flowers of the field, they they're more beautiful than Solomon in all of his majestic raiment.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I I would say that if uh Jesus was talking here today, it'd be considered the blue bonnets, right, on the side of the road.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but that that's my favorite flower.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_05: But if God takes care of the grass of the field that is just gonna wither in the sun or be burned up, then how much more will he take care of his people?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_05: The provision of God is being talked about here.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_05: Not only has he preserved you in Christ, but he's gonna provide for you.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_05: He's not going to leave you comfortless.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_05: Jesus said, I will not leave you orphans.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then we get down to verse 31.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_05: Because he's like, Don't seek this, don't seek this.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_05: This isn't what you should be wrapped up in.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um and in verse 30 he says, For all these things do the nations of the world seek after, and your father knoweth that ye have need of these things.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_05: And your father will provide for his people these things.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_05: But then he says, verse 31, but rather, so this is something we should spend our time in.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_05: This is something we should invest in, we should strive for and diligently work at.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_05: Not that we should have fear, because the next verse is gonna say fear not, but that we should have all of our effort in this thing.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_05: He says, but rather seek ye the kingdom of God.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_05: And he says, and all these things will be added to you.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_05: Now I want to point out that he's not saying, seek the kingdom of God so you can get all these things.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_05: He's not saying seek the kingdom of God or else God won't give you any of these things.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_05: This is not a the way the world teaches a prosperity doctrine that if you'll just seek the kingdom of God, he will load your bank account.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_05: He's saying, seek the kingdom of God and leave it to God to provide for you the things you stand in need of that he knows you need.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_05: It's not a pre quid pro quo.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_05: It's not this, so you get this.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_05: It is this is where you put your effort and you leave all these things being added to you, the food, clothing, shelter, right, all that, to God that he'll provide.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_05: Again, don't think Brother Mike is saying you don't have to go out there and work.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_05: Scripture is very clear.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_05: If a man does not work, he should not eat.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_05: There are so many scriptures that will tell us that we should put in the work, the effort, but we should do all things as under Christ.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_05: When I'm at work, I should be working the way that an ambassador of Jesus Christ would work.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_05: I should be a diligent, um, employee to my natural employer, right?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_05: Because that's how we should be as Christians, we should be examples to people that work diligently in the things that we stand in need and that we have to do, but that's not where my concern should be.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_05: He said, seek the kingdom of God.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_05: And then verse 32 says, Fear not, little flock.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_05: For it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_05: Let's look at those two verses again.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_05: He says, seek the kingdom, and then he says, the father will give you the kingdom.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_05: There's a promise listed here, and it's because of the pleasure of God that he's going to give you the kingdom.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_05: But we're told to seek it.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_05: And this is why I'm wanting to lay this out in the and view it as pressing in to the promise.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_05: It's not the seeking that gives it to us, it's the pleasure of God.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_05: God is pleased to give the kingdom.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_05: But we are told to seek it.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_05: And Jesus is very clear on this.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_05: He says, seek and ye shall find.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, knock, and it shall be open to you, you know, ask and it shall be given to you.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_05: There is something promised by God here, and it is the kingdom.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_05: Now, this is not referring to heaven and immortal glory, which we now we know from this morning, this first sermon today that we're preserved in.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_05: You will be in heaven if you're a child of God that he died for on the cross.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_05: That's without question.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_05: But here it's talking about something we need to seek.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_05: But it is his pleasure to give it.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_05: We can seek and fear not.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_05: Like I might seek some things and be afraid that I won't find it.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_05: But in this case, if I'm truly seeking the kingdom of God, I don't have to fear that I will miss it.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_05: Because he says it's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I want to go back and look at some history.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_05: I said, let's go on back.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_05: Let's go back to Joshua.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_05: Joshua is a book that is written for the time that the children of Israel were going into the promised land.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_05: It was the land of Canaan.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_05: I don't have the time to go through all the history that I would love to do.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_05: You know I love the history.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm going to be really brief on this.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_05: The children of Israel had been in Egypt in bondage, hard bondage and labor.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then through Moses, God leads them out of Egypt, and every single Israelite came out of Egypt.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_05: And last week we talked a little bit about types and shadows and figures.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_05: We need to remember that there's always some flaws in those and not to go too far.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_05: But we can be really comfortable on this one.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_05: Egypt was a type of death and sins.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_05: Okay?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_05: And everyone that came out of Egypt, at least my math tells me this, everyone that came out of Egypt was born there.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_05: There were people that went into Egypt.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_05: Children of Israel walked into Egypt on their own.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, when Joseph was in Egypt, that was a providence of God that it preserved their lives, it saved them from famine.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, but they stayed there long enough that everyone who walked into Egypt died.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_05: And everyone who came out of Egypt was born there.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_05: Okay?
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_05: And that's a picture of our death and sins.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_05: Every single child of God was born in sin.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_05: Started naturally dead in sins.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_05: But every single child of God came out.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_05: By the power of God and without their own work.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_05: You notice that none of the children of Israel that came out of Egypt lifted up one weapon.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_05: None of them did anything to help the situation.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_05: They just came out because of the power of God, by the mighty hand of God.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_05: They, in fact, they were standing at a place where they were at the Red Sea.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_05: And in front of them was death in the sea, and behind them was death by Pharaoh, and they were trapped, except that God parted the sea and they came across.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_05: And then God brought the sea back and destroyed the enemy.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_05: They were delivered from Egypt by the power of God without their belief, without their works.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, not only did they not have to believe to get across the Red Sea, they didn't believe, and they still went across the Red Sea.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_05: But then we spend some time in the wilderness, and again, I fast forward all the way through.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_05: No, I can't fast forward.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_05: I must, must stop in Numbers chapter 13.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_05: We have to pause for a second.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_05: Because historically, they went to Mount Sinai and God gave them the law.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_05: They broke every single one of the commandments right after God gave them to them.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_05: Immediately.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_05: They just broke them all.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_05: But God is so merciful and gracious.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_05: And because God promised, He did not just strike them all down dead for their sins, mercy and grace.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_05: And then they came to, they went straight away.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_05: Like it was Egypt, Mount Sinai, Canaan.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_05: Okay?
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_05: When they get there in Numbers chapter 13, God tells Moses to send 12, one from each tribe of Israel, over into the spy out the land, to just go bring a report back of the land.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_05: Now, God had promised they would take this land, they would inherit this land, God would give them this land, and it would be a land of milk and honey, flowing with milk and honey.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_05: It would be houses that they could live in that they didn't have to build.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_05: It would be vineyards that they could eat from that they didn't have to plant.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_05: This was going to be a land of rest.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_05: God promised it that He would deliver it to them.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_05: When they get there, read in Numbers chapter 13, the spies go over the land, over in there, and they come back.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_05: And they come back with a report that it is true.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_05: This is a good land.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_05: They come back with a report that says it is true that it's flowing with milk and honey.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, they brought back the evidence that the land was that way because there were a cluster of grapes.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_05: You like grapes over there, Maddie likes grapes.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_05: You know how they come in a bunch, like a cluster?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_05: There was a cluster of grapes so big that it took two people to carry it.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_05: They had proof that this is indeed a good land, just like God promised.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_05: And then they said, Nevertheless, we cannot go over there because there's giants in that land.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_05: There are big people in that land.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_05: The enemy is too strong.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_05: They have walled cities.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_05: We cannot overcome this.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_05: But there were two of the 12 men who said, No, God promised it, and we will, he will deliver it.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_05: And their names were Joshua and Caleb.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_05: So when we get to Joshua chapter 14, we need to remember that there were two people, Joshua and Caleb, who pro who believed the promise of God and said, Let us go, for God will deliver it.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_05: God was angry with their disobedience and their unbelief.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_05: And God swore they will not enter into my rest.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_05: And this is found in Hebrews chapter 3 and 4.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_05: And the rest he's talking about in Hebrews chapter 4.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_05: I am gonna, I'm gonna, you don't have to turn there.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna turn there briefly because I want to tell you what verse.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_05: I want you to look at it at some point, and I want you to, I really want this to be known.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_05: Chapter 4 of Hebrews, verse, well, really it starts with the beginning of it.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_05: Let us fear lest a promise being left to us of entering into his rest.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_05: Any of you should seem to come short of it.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_05: We are not talking about entering into the rest found in heaven.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_05: The eternal rest in heaven is, you're not going to come short of it.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_05: This is talking about the rest that Canaan is a picture of, a type of, a shadow of.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_05: And then when we and then he starts to talk about how they didn't believe, and so they didn't enter into the rest.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_05: It happens, it starts in chapter 3, it goes on to chapter 4, and then he talks about how it was quoted in the Psalms.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_05: Today, if you'll hear his voice, it talks about the enter into his rest.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um, seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter in, and they to whom it was first preached did not because of unbelief.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_05: Again, he limited the certain days, saying to David, today, after so long a time.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_05: Meaning the psalm in David, what David wrote was way after all this happened, and God is still talking about entering into rest.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_05: They were, when David was there, they were a kingdom established in Canaan.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_05: Why is he still talking about a rest?
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_05: If that's the only thing God was ever talking about was entering into Canaan.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, there must still be a rest.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_05: There must be.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_05: Not a single time.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_05: Because Joshua is a Hebrew, it's the English version of a Hebrew name.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_05: Jesus is the English version of a Greek name that is the same name as Joshua.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_05: Okay?
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_05: It means deliverer.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_05: That's why his name is Jesus, our Savior, because He saved his people from their sins.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_05: This Jesus is Joshua.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_05: If Joshua, he's saying, Paul is writing in Hebrews, if Joshua had given them the rest, the only rest, if the only thing God was talking about was the promised, physical, promised land of Canaan, then he wouldn't have talked about a rest later in the Psalms.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_05: That's what he's saying.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_05: Now we'll go back to Joshua there and see what he says here.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_05: In chapter 14, and this is when Joshua is dividing up the land by lot to all of the tribes of Israel, and saying, This is your side, this is where you go, this is where you go to live and to establish and to settle.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_05: Verse 6 says, Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua and Gilgal.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_05: And Caleb, the son of Jephuna, the Kizite, he's from Judah, by the way, the Judah tribe.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_05: And he said, and Caleb says this to Joshua.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_05: He says, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God, concerning me and thee in Kadesh Barneah.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_05: That's back to when God said, Israel is not coming into the promised land.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_05: And you know they spent 40 years out in the wilderness until everyone that was over the age of 20 died, except for Joshua and Caleb.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_05: And God promised they would go in, but no one else over the age of 20 would go in.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_05: Here, Caleb says, you know what he said about you and me.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_05: 40 years, he says, 40 years was I with Mo when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me to spot the land.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_05: I was 40 years old when we went over there, and I brought him word again as in my heart.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_05: Nevertheless, my brethren that went with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_05: And Moses swore on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance and thy children forever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_05: And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_05: It's been forty-five years since then.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_05: He said, And unlike all the other people who died in the wilderness, you and me, Joshua, we're we're old, but we're still here.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_05: God has kept me alive, as he promised.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_05: And then he says, and lo, I am forty and fourscore and five years old.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_05: He's 85 years old.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_05: He says, Yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_05: As my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to go out and to come in.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_05: Verse 12, he says, Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_05: For thou heardest that in that day how the Anakims were there, that's the giants.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_05: Okay?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_05: There were giants in the land.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_05: It says, And the cities were great and fenced.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_05: If so be the Lord will be with me, I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_05: So what do we take from this story?
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_05: This story is a true event, but it is a picture of pressing into this promise of God, this promise of the kingdom that he told you to seek after, that it's his pleasure to give.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_05: Well, we have to understand is first of all, Caleb is not saying I deserve this.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_05: He's saying God promised it.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_05: He's not saying that because of my own strength I can go.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_05: And he is saying I have all the strength I need, but he's saying it's if the Lord delight in me, I will, if the Lord delight in me, I will be able to overcome.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_05: Because God promised it.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_05: He is saying, though, that I want to press in.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_05: He's saying I want to seek after.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_05: He said, I want this inheritance.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_05: I want this land that God promised me.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_05: I want it for my children.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_05: I want to inhabit this rest, this place that God said there'll be building homes you don't have to build.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_05: My friends, we have a doctrine in the church that we didn't build.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_05: We didn't have to build.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_05: Our forefathers have done it.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_05: Brother Owen mentioned, they wrote it down what the Bible teaches.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_05: We go by the scriptures.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_05: The articles of faith just tell us in a real brief way what the scriptures teach.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_05: But it's been the same truth since all the way back to when the apostles preached it.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_05: I want to live in this house that I didn't have to build, but I want to take up my abode there.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_05: I want this inheritance to be for my children, but I have to come seeking after it, and you have to press in.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_05: Jesus said in another place in Luke, I don't want to turn to any more places, but he said, the kingdom of heaven is preached, and every man presseth into it.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_05: That if you're going to come into this mountain, this mountain of the Lord's house, this mountain that Isaiah chapter 2, verse 2 says, In the last days shall the mountain of the Lord's house be established in the top of the mountains.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_05: Brother Owen mentioned the mountains that are round about Jerusalem in Psalm 125.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_05: Those mountains that are round about Jerusalem.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_05: Jerusalem is in the mountains.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_05: It's in the top place, but that's the physical.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_05: But the picture is that God's house is an elevated place.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_05: God's rest is a place where we go up to the place where God is, his kingdom.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_05: The kingdom that he has promised to give, this place of rest from our own labors, our own worries, our own doubts, our own fears.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_05: And instead, we rest in the promise of God.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_05: Not just the promise of eternal life that we have preserved by Christ, but the promise of even the daily rest.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_05: And most of all, a kingdom is a kingdom because a king is there.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_05: The presence of God.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_05: The presence of God is there.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_05: So it's God's pleasure to give you that which he's promised to you, a place of rest.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_05: Okay?
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_05: Where his presence is found in his kingdom.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_05: But we have to press in.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_05: Caleb said, give me this mountain.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_05: Give this mountain to me that God promised.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_05: I will go in and I will inhabit it.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_05: My friends, he said, I'm just as strong now as I was back then.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_05: Now that physically was by a blessing of God for Caleb.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not as strong as I used to be physically.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I know we all feel the same way, those that are older, we feel I can't do what I used to could do.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_05: Well, maybe physically you can't do what you used to could do.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_05: But there are things in you that are just as strong as they've ever been.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_05: And that is, your soul is able to worship God just as diligently and strongly as it's ever been.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_05: Your prayers are just as effectual as they've ever been.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_05: You have just the same spiritual strength that you've ever had.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_05: You might say, but I'm young.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not as strong as some of the others.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_05: I can't lift up everything.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_05: I can't do everything.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_05: My friends, the youngest among us, your soul is just as mature as the oldest.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_05: Your born-again soul is perfect and ready for heaven right now.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_05: If it can offer up praise in heaven, acceptable to God, it can offer it up right here and right now, just as much.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_05: So it's not about who's old or who's young.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_05: We all have the ability to press into this mountain.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_05: But it does take some seeking, some pressing, some work.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_05: What is the work we have to do to press into this kingdom?
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I mean, there's some physical things we've got to do around this building.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_05: That's not what he's talking about.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_05: We got to do it.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_05: That's not what he's talking about.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_05: He is talking about the prayers, the praise, the meditation, the study, the fellowship, and the communion.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_05: Now I'm going to close with this last point.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_05: This mountain that Caleb wanted to give me this mountain.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't Mount Zion, though that is usually the picture of the church that we use.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_05: That was the one in Psalm 125.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_05: Okay?
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_05: But it was right there nestled in the same mountains in Judah.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_05: And this one, this peak, this mountain he wanted was called Hebron.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_05: Mount Hebron, the word Hebron, it means fellowship or association, communion.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_05: My prayer is that God would give me this mountain.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_05: Give me this mountain the rest of my life.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_05: It's his pleasure, it's his promise, where his presence is, but he's not going to give it to me if I don't press in.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_05: Caleb wasn't asking for an easy place.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_05: He was asking for the place where there were giants to fight.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_05: And he was ready to go and fight them.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_05: And I've got giants hindering my pressing in, but God will deliver them.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_05: Press in.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_05: But I want the place where there's fellowship.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_05: I want the place where there's association.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_05: I want my inheritance and my children's inheritance to be with you and your inheritance.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_05: I want us all together pressing in and going up to the kingdom of God.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_05: Close with that.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_05: May God bless this message.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_05: And with all its faults, and God bless you.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_05: Anything else you lay at my charge, we'll stand, we'll sing a hymn.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_05: If anyone wants to join the church, you just have to ask.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_05: Just say, give me this mountain, we'll wait upon you.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_05: Number?
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_05: 557.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_05: Number 557.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus, my Lord, my share.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_05: The uh before we dismiss, we'll have uh per requests and announcements.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um, if you all will please press for um, we mentioned my aunt Liz, um, now has to go for one to one as well.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_05: My aunt Liz has a fit strip rose.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um I don't say either of those one, but yeah, 100% positive.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_05: What was it yesterday?
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_05: Or can you have one?