Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 28, 2017 | Christianity 101: "Back To Basics" - How Can I Know Jesus?

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May 28, 2017 | Christianity 101: "Back To Basics" - How Can I Know Jesus? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: How are you today?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Happy holiday.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Just gonna be fun, games, hot dogs, chips, the lake.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: So it's just great to have you here.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming out.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series, Christianity 101.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: We're in the last week of the series.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Today we tackle the last two questions.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Why did Jesus have to die and rise?
0:25
SPEAKER_00: And how do I become a Christian?
0:27
SPEAKER_00: So before I get into that, let me mention that the previous four weeks, first of all, let me review those five weeks ago, who is God?
0:39
SPEAKER_00: And we concluded you can sort of grasp this concept in your hand if you think of him as really high up and really low down.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: That is, he is holy, which is the greatest single attribute, means he's totally different from us.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: He's high and holy.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, he wants us to call him Papa.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: He wants his children to say Abba Father, which is like Papa, to be intimate.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Then we ask the question, second week, who is man?
1:06
SPEAKER_00: And we conclude the same thing.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Man is is has a spark of divinity.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: There's dignity there because of the image of God.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, depravity, as low as you can go, and dust.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Week three, who is Jesus?
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: You can kind of capture Jesus.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Think of him really high as God most high and man most low.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 2.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: So those were the first three weeks.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: And then last week we branched into one of the most often asked questions, and that is why did Jesus have to die?
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Why did Jesus have to die?
1:40
SPEAKER_00: We pointed out this is a question that's been on the cover of Time News Week, U.S.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: News and World Report.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of questions about Jesus and his death, hardly ever about his resurrection, a lot of them about his death, and so uh a lot of answers to that question, but we concluded the reason last week, the reason Jesus had to die, is he had to die in my place for my sins.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: His death was a substitutionary atonement.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Because of his justice, just explaining this, we said last week God couldn't ignore our sin or its penalty, but because of his love, he chose to pay the penalty himself.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus substituted himself, took our place, and died for our sin.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Now seeing that slide reminds me that a number of people have come up to, Tim preached the first message, I've preached the other three, have come up to us and said, we sure would like, you know, we're writing as fast as we can, but is there any way you could put this on on the TBC website?
2:40
SPEAKER_00: So we did that this last week.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to get copies of the key slides from the previous four weeks and from this morning, go to discover TBC.com or just type Topeka Bible Church into your search engine and you'll and go to the sermons and you'll find it.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: All right?
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh little PR there in case you want this information.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: So um last week we uh we we dove into a little example or an illustration of of Jesus' substitutionary death for us when we went to the first book of the Narnia series.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: How many of you read The Line, the Witch in the Wardrobe?
3:18
SPEAKER_00: Good, good.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't, would you stand up right now?
3:22
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: So so anyway, in that first book, remember there's four Pevancy children, one of them not like the others.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: His name is Edmund.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: He's going through a teenage thing or whatever, but he's kind of a snot and a snit, and he doesn't like his siblings, and he actually betrays them to the evil woman who runs that world, the evil witch queen, the white queen who keeps the land of Narnia always full of snow and never Christmas, remember?
3:48
SPEAKER_00: And so uh he eventually, this is Edmund, he betrays his siblings and even betrays of the good animals and the best animal of all, Aslan, sort of the Christ figure, the great lion, betrays them to the queen, just because he likes her candy.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: And so as a result, because of the magic of that land, Edmund's life is now forfeit to the white witch.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: She gets to kill him.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: She owns him.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: So either he dies or Aslan has to die in his place.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, according to that story.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: So Aslan takes Edmund's place, goes to the stone table where the witch queen is and all of her horrible beasts, and submits himself to her stone knife, dying on the stone table.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: That symbolized for C.S.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, the two tablets of the law in the Old Testament.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Susan and Luce, now that's where he stopped last week, the idea that he died in Edmund's place.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, um, today we're talking about the resurrection.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Why did Jesus have to rise?
4:53
SPEAKER_00: So the rest of that story is that Susan and Lucy, Edmund's sisters, had followed Aslan, watched the murder, this horrible killing, and when the witch and her minions were gone, they came out and they hugged him and cried and wept over his body all night long.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Lucy and Susan did.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: And when they had run out of tears, it says, in the morning as it was dawning, they turned around and began to walk back into the forest.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: At which point they heard a roar, turned around, and Aslan had risen from the dead.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: And he was back more alive than ever.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: More alive than ever.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: And explained to them how did you rise?
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Explained to them that yes, the witch knew part of the deep magic that a traitor must die, but she didn't know the rest of the deep magic, which had to do with the resurrection.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: So that's that story, that's what we're talking about this morning.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: That is that Jesus rose from the dead.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Now, um, the first question that we have to ask is not why did he have to rise, but we have to really ask, did he rise at all?
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Because to be honest, this fact is the most denied fact.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've you've got what, 10, let's say, magazine covers, a dozen specials on TV about Jesus' death and what did it mean, and generally it's our example and it's to get us all to live the Sermon on the Mount and be nice to each other.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: But there's hardly ever, I only know of one cover that asks anything about Jesus' resurrection in the last 10, 20 years.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Time Newsweek.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: And and putting those covers out gets them double the income.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: So so there's a reason they don't.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to consider that the resurrection might be true, of course, because that is what sets Christianity off from every other religion.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: And the one cover that I do remember from about 2004 was basically new evidence about the resurrection of Jesus, which you open it up, and of course the new evidence is that of course he never rose at all.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: But there are basically, I think, I would choose eight standard arguments for the resurrection.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And I hope that if someone walked up to you, or someone on plane, you know, said, you know, uh uh you they found out you're a Christian, they said, do you really believe that Jesus rose?
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Why?
7:17
SPEAKER_00: That you could give at least a couple of these.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: You should know a couple of the reasons why you believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Let me list these real quickly.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Number one, the Gospels, the four Gospels have eyewitness accounts of the resurrected Jesus.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: Now that's a big deal.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: It didn't used to be because it used to be thought the Gospels were written a hundred years later, and so they could lie and nobody would know.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: But the Gospels we now find out you can date some of the Gospels like Mark into that first generation after Jesus, so they couldn't have lied without without it being known.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Second, 500 witnesses saw the resurrected Jesus, and as Paul says in Corinthians, feel free to go talk to them right now.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: They're still alive, many of them are still alive.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Three, Jesus predicted he would be resurrected.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Four, early attempts to discredit the resurrection failed.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: You know about those?
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Say that the disciples took his body, he swooned, whatever.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: And fifth, which ties into four, the empty tomb proves the resurrection.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Six, resurrection accounts lack signs of myth.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: This is a biggie.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know it, but when when um if you go to college and they discount the resurrection, what the way they'll do is say it's like the Greek myth of, let's say, the uh the god of the seasons, Dimeter and crops and so forth.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: He dies every year and rises, so this is just another one of those resurrection myths.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that those myths are clearly identifiable when you read them as myths.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: They're stories.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: But but the resurrection accounts lack all the literary signs of myth.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: They're like sober accounts, like news accounts.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Seventh, the apostles wouldn't have died for a lie.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: This is a big one.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Here are the apostles who doubted that Jesus rose, did not believe, did not expect he would rise, and all of a sudden, Shazam, now they believe it.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: None of them ever went back on that belief, and they went to their deaths believing it.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Eighth, non-biblical historians also confirm the gospel.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: So those are the arguments for the resurrection.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: I've dropped those on you, uh, at least parts of them before, at Easter time, once every five years or so.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll rehearse those.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: So now let's get that leads us to the question of the morning, which is well, okay, so maybe there's evidence he rose.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, why did he have to rise?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Why was it essential?
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, that question isn't really asked as much at all as why did he have to die?
9:36
SPEAKER_00: But it's a valid question, and I'll give you five, my five favorite answers to that.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: This is the picture you see on the screen before you is a picture of what's called the garden tomb, most popular resurrection site to visit in Jerusalem.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have actually been to the garden tomb?
9:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a beautiful place, isn't it?
9:53
SPEAKER_00: And in the last probably 15, 20 years, a beautiful sign has been attached.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: It's somebody paid and got it put up next to the garden tomb in Jerusalem.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: And it's a quotation of Romans 1:4.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ declared with power to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: The first reason, the first reason Jesus had to rise is to verify his claim to be the Son of God.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: That whole sermon I preached a couple weeks ago on who is Jesus, that he was high up, he was the Son of God and a low man, throw that sermon out, throw a lot of stuff out if he didn't rise.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, the resurrection, verified that claim.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, to prove his victory over death.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was in a battle with death.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: When he died, Jesus won that battle, as Peter said on the day of Pentecost to thousands of people, death could not hold him.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Third, to ensure our forgiveness and justification.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: So God says you're forgiven, God says you're justified.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: How do you know that's true?
11:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not true, says Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ was not raised.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: No, you're still lost in your sins, no forgiveness.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17, chapter 15 in 1 Corinthians, if Christ has not risen, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: The fourth of five reasons is one that we Christians don't think of often, but it's very important.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had to rise to bring us into a resurrection life now.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: What assurance do you have that you can break the bondage of those addictions?
11:39
SPEAKER_00: What assurance do you have that you can become a different person?
11:42
SPEAKER_00: That you won't have to be nearly as angry, that you can become nice, nicer.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Some of you need to become nicer, your wives have told me, so that you can become a, just kidding, you can become a nicer person.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, Romans 6, 1 through 11 says that Jesus Christ's resurrection brings us through the door into a resurrection life now, makes it accessible.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Romans 6.4.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Which leads us, of course, to the fifth and the one we think about most often.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: He had to rise to guarantee our own future eternal life, our own resurrection.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Since I live, you also will live.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: It's the one we think about when we're burying a loved one, right?
12:31
SPEAKER_00: That we know we'll see them again because Jesus rose from the dead.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: So I've just swept through those.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: The only other thing I want to do before I move into the final question, how do I become a Christian?
12:44
SPEAKER_00: I want to do something else here with the resurrection.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you a name that you need to know.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: And the name that I that I think you should know is the name NT Wright.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: A lot of Americans don't know that name because he's British.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, he's not a normal guy, he's a British scholar.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he's called the most prolific biblical scholar of our entire generation.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: And what they mean by that is he writes more articles and more books than anyone alive today.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: He's an Anglican bishop.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: And yet in Britain they say he's the most effective Christian apologist since C.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: S.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't think, you wouldn't think that a scholar who wears vestments could be a rock star.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: But in a sense, he is.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: He goes to universities in England, Oxford, Cambridge, and so forth, and literally hundreds, thousands of people will come to hear him.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: People who have no belief in the God or Christ of the Bible.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And what I love most about this person is how God's using him.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: That is, people who sit before N.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: T.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Wright, and I've gone to hear him, not in Britain, but he he visited Atlanta once.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: So um, that he'll start talking, and and college students who have no belief in the resurrection or any of this, by the end of the time will say, I see it.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And lives are transformed, being transformed by the hundreds overseas by this guy who writes another 500-page scholarly book every single year.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, my favorite, I disagree with a lot of what he says, frankly, but but the most important stuff he gets right, especially about the resurrection, it's what he says about the resurrection that is transforming lives.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me just give you one quote.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: And remember, he's a scholar, so his words won't all be short.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: The bodily resurrection of Jesus isn't a take it or leave it thing, as though some Christians are welcome to believe it, and others are welcome not to believe it.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Take it away, and the whole picture is totally different.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: Take it away, and Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring the problems of the material world.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Take it away, and Freud was probably right to say that Christianity is a wish fulfillment religion.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Take it away, and Nietzsche was probably right to say that Christianity is a religion for wimps.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: But put it back, speaking of the resurrection.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And you have a faith that can take on the postmodern world that looks to Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche as its prophets.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: You can beat them at their own game with the Eastern news that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Can you say amen?
15:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he doesn't get too many amens in post-Christian England, you know.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty uh stiff upper lip country.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: But God's using him in a mighty way, and you need to know that there's a great defender of the resurrection overseas.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: So let me summarize why did Jesus have to die and why did Jesus have to rise with a line that only took me, you know, that would have taken NT right about 34 seconds to come up with, but took me a couple of hours of walking back and forth on the beach last week in Oregon to come up with, all right?
16:06
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna want you to say this out loud with me after I read it once, okay?
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Why did Jesus have to die and rise?
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Jesus died so that we need not die and eternal death, and Jesus rose so that we can now rise to eternal life.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Now that's in T right quality.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: It just took a lot more time.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: So are you ready?
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Say this with me.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Jesus died so that we need not die and eternal death.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus rose so that we can now rise to eternal life.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first question of the day.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Why did Jesus have to die?
16:42
SPEAKER_00: That was last week, and rise.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Now the second question is how, sort of bringing the whole thing home, how do I become a Christian?
16:50
SPEAKER_00: That's not a question, by the way, that the Bible asks, or at least it's not the way the Bible asks it.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: The Bible would ask that question this way: How do I get right with God?
17:03
SPEAKER_00: How do I get right with God?
17:08
SPEAKER_00: This last week I was reading through, I don't know if is anybody still reading through the New Testament with me this year?
17:13
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you're reading through the New Testament.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: So last week, thank you.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: So we read, uh, if you're with me, we're reading the last, starting the last part of Romans.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: We finished Romans this week.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: We'll start 1 Corinthians.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: If you want to join us, either uh email me or email the office.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: You can get the order of chapters.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: So um, so anyway, I I'm reading, we're reading in Romans chapter 9.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, Romans chapter 9 is not a chapter that would think you'd think would answer this question.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: It's not not a chapter.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: The paragraph I'm gonna give you at the end of Romans 9 is not a paragraph that Campus Crusade or anybody else will ever suggest to you that you ought to use when you're talking to someone about how to get right with God or how to become a Christian.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: And yet it's absolutely perfect.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: I saw it and I said, this paragraph's amazing.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna share this paragraph with you today.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: The what this paragraph will say is the only way of getting right with God that works is the way of faith, not works.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: The only way of getting right with God that works is the way of faith, not works.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Now, that paragraph is a paragraph, the last four verses of Romans chapter 9, where Paul's trying to answer this objection.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: If this Christianity thing is so true, then how come Jews are not getting involved in it?
18:26
SPEAKER_00: How come Gentiles are just getting saved like crazy and buying into it and Jews are not?
18:30
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make sense if it's a Jewish religion.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says, well, and by the way, in the first, most of this chapter, his answer, this is a very famous chapter on the sovereignty of God.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: His first answer is, well, God's sovereign, he didn't choose them.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Divine election.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, very shocking.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, you want to get an argument?
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Go there.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: So, and then, but then all of a sudden he moves to man's side.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: He said, You know what?
18:56
SPEAKER_00: It's their fault as well.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Let me explain it to you.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: He says, What shall we then say?
19:01
SPEAKER_00: That the Gentiles, that's non-Jews, that's most of you, who Goyim were called in Hebrew, okay, who did not pursue righteousness have obtained it, a righteousness that's by faith.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: But here's the second group of people: Israel, two groups of people in the world.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: You have the Jewish folks, and then you have the non-Jewish folks, the Gentiles.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Israel, he says, who pursued a law of righteousness has not attained it.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Because they pursued it not by faith, but by works.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: That's Romans 9, 30 to 32, these two groups of people.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: And the ironic thing, notice, is that the people who didn't pursue, that word is a strong word.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: It's like hard swimming, it's like running after it, it's like wrestling, it's doing your best to get it.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Then you have this group of people who didn't care.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: They were sitting on their couch playing video games, they didn't care about this, they're worshiping idols, they're messing around, they're barbarians and scythians, and they didn't pursue it.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: And what?
19:58
SPEAKER_00: They found it.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: But Israel, who ever since the days of the Torah and the Law have been, you know, I mean, you see them today bobbing against the whaling wall, and they're working hard, and they have to wear those long curls and all that other stuff, and they work so hard pursuing it, and they've not attained it.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: How ironic is that?
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And it's not something small that they're pursuing.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: No, it's the most important thing in the universe.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: It's righteousness.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Gentiles didn't pursue righteousness, but that obtained this righteousness.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Israel is pursuing it.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, just think very clearly.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Righteousness is not the same thing as goodness.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Goodness, helping a lady across the street, right?
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Dropping money, you know, giving money to a bomb or whatever.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's goodness.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: No, this is something different.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: This is being right with God.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: There are people who are really good who are not righteous.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: That is right with God.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: And then there are a lot of people who are right with God who need to become better people.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really, and I'm looking at some of them.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm just kidding.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: But you're looking at one of them right now, okay?
21:02
SPEAKER_00: So we need more goodness.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: But there's a rightness with God.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: And the ironic thing is some people not pursuing it have found it, and others who are working for it, which reminds that's a theme in literature, isn't it?
21:16
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's the people who work the hardest to get something don't get it, and people just other people stumble on it.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: How many have you read The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit?
21:28
SPEAKER_00: What?
21:29
SPEAKER_00: What?
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Come on, folks, get it right.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: You read the Bible, then you directly move to the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: This is this is not an option.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: So in in the Hobbit, I'm sorry I have to explain this.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: So there's a ring of power.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: It's the most important single thing in the entire universe.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: You've got the most powerful, the strongest, the mightiest forces, both good and evil, everywhere in the Middle Kingdom are looking for this powerful ring.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Somehow, a little slime bulk called Gollum has it, but he dropped.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: So he loses it in the middle of a mountain.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: It's really dark.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Am I going too slow for you?
22:03
SPEAKER_00: So, and so what happens is you have a hobbit, a nobody, a hobbit who's not looking for the ring, doesn't even know there's a ring.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: He's lost, he's scrambling on his hands and feet in the middle of a dark mountain.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: He comes across the ring of power.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Is he pursuing it?
22:16
SPEAKER_00: No.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't even know what it is.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Changes all of history in the Middle Kingdom.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's not a perfect illustration because the ring is kind of a scary, bad thing that needs to be thrown into the lake of fire.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: So let's move to a better illustration.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Because we're talking about righteousness, this thing that some people pursue and other people don't, and the people who don't pursue it get it.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: So let's go to another famous story, and this is the story of the sword and the stone.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: You know the story.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: Story is that England was laboring under the lack of it, had no king, and so the all of the key people of the kingdom get together and they all get into a church and a cathedral and they pray and they pray for hours and they pray, go, God, give us the king, give us the king.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: And they hear a noise outside.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: They open the door, and there all of a sudden, Shazam, God has dropped from heaven this huge stone with a sword in it, with a little insignia on the stone saying something about the sword X caliber and who can pull it out or something, I forget.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's a great story.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh T.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: H.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: White or something like that.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: The once in future king.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: So, so anyway, so they're going, oh yeah, I want to be king.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: All the lords and all the strong men of the kingdom, they come and they try to tug and they try to pull it out.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Can they pull it out?
23:25
SPEAKER_00: No, they can't even budge this thing.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: And they try for the whole day, they try for the whole week, they try for the next week, they try for the whole month.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: They come in, they all want to be king, and they can't budge this thing.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Two months, three months, four months.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Number of them are giving up.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: What happens is in London they decide to throw a tournament.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: They throw a tournament and people come from miles and miles away, and one of the knights who comes from miles away is named Kay.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Sir Kay comes and he brings his squires and he brings his other people, including a 15-year-old named Arthur, who's a who's uh who's a servant boy.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: And and Kay, as he's in the tournament, he's jousting, he breaks his sword, he turns to Arthur and says, run back to the tent, which is a ways across London, run back to the tent, get a backup sword.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: I got an old sword, I need a sword.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: So Arthur runs and he can't find the sword in the tent.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: He's desperate.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: He suddenly remembers, oh yeah, when we were running into the tournament this morning, we went by a church, I saw this sword, I'll get that one.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: He runs, he runs to the church courtyard, nobody there, and like warm butter, he slides that sword right out.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: And he takes it to the tournament, he hands it to Sir Kay.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's like you push the stop button or the pause button, you know, in the movie.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, Sir Kay doesn't move.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: He stares at the sword, X caliber.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows the sword X caliber.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, a pause button on the whole tournament.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Everybody goes, that's the sword X caliber.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: They all gather around him and they say, We're going back to the courtyard.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Take him back to the courtyard.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: They say, You put that back in.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: He puts it back in.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: They all start tugging.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Nobody can tug it out.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Pull it back out.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: It's warm butter.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: Just slides it right back.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Put it back in.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: They keep trying this, keep trying this until they realize this boy, King Arthur, is God's chosen.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: There's a sword from heaven.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't even looking for it.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't even trying.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: He didn't care.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to be king, but he got it.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And so you come to the story and you have, no, this whole ironic thing of not pursuing and pursuing and getting it is as old as the gospel, Romans chapter 9.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Gentiles, people like you and me who really weren't all that religious.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: People, they've found it, obtained it.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: But Israel hasn't.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: What's the story here?
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Why of lots of Gentiles who weren't even trying to get right with God?
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Did.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: And still do.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: But Israel, who was trying to get right with God, didn't.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And Judaism, rabbinic Judaism still doesn't.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
25:44
SPEAKER_00: And why not?
25:46
SPEAKER_00: And the answer, I don't know if you saw it in Romans 8:30 to 32 mentioned twice, is that key five-letter word faith.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Faith.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Because Gentiles didn't pursue it, they just took it by faith.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Israel pursued it not by faith, but by works.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Paul underlines that in the first four verses of the next chapter when he says, My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is they might be saved.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm Jewish, I want them.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is not their zeal.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: I bear them record, they have a zeal of God.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 10, verse 2, but just they're ignorant.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: It's not according to knowledge.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: For being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that there it is.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Faith.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: Belief.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the world can be divided, not just into Gentiles and Jews, it can be divided into people who will work for salvation, and people who say, no, I can't make it.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: I can't do it.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: But still, am I right that the majority of the world will look at you and say, good people go to heaven, don't they?
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Don't good people go to heaven?
27:12
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that how to get to heaven?
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the natural view?
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the view of Time Newsweek, U.S.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: News?
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: That is the common view that we've got to climb the ladder a rung at a time with our behavior.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: We've got to be better than some of those people who misbehave in our neighborhood and we've got to do good works and accumulate them.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: I like to hand out a little book that Andy Stanley wrote called How Good Is Good Enough.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: He has a line in it.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Smart, educated, accomplished men and women from just about every nation on earth are banking their eternities on a theory that doesn't hold up under even the slightest scrutiny.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: That theory is that you can be good enough to get to heaven.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Good enough for God.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Good enough to be right with God.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: And Andy's point is that's just not bad Bible.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: That's bad common sense.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: But of course, the Bible makes it clear over and over again that it's by grace you've been saved.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: It's through faith.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And this is not from yourselves, it's the gift of God, not by works.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: And partly so that God doesn't want anybody being able to clamber into heaven and say, look, I did it myself.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: How do I become a Christian?
28:30
SPEAKER_00: How do I get right with God?
28:32
SPEAKER_00: The answer, friend, is the only way of getting right with God that works is the way of faith not works.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've got your Bible open, you may have noticed that there's a verse I left out, the last verse of the chapter, where he adds, you know what, if you take the path of works, not faith, then you're going to stumble over Jesus.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: Why are you going to stumble over Jesus?
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, because your path is all about you.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Right?
29:02
SPEAKER_00: So he says, they, Israel, stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: Look, I'm putting a stone in Jerusalem, in Zion, to stumble over and a rock to trip over.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: And yet the one who believes on him will not be put to shame.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Friend Jesus Christ will be your stumbling block or your stepping stone, depending on whether or not your salvation is something that you earn through good behavior or hard works or lasting until the end.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Because it's really that simple.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: There was a substitution that went on at the cross.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Jesus climbed on the cross, the perfectly righteous man, but God declared him sinful on the cross, turned his face away from his son, stamped our sins on him, so that you and I, who are sinful, could be declared righteous.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's really almost as simple as taking a sheet of paper, as I've done sometimes, and on the left hand side putting my sin, and on the right hand side putting Christ's righteousness, and all that the Bible is saying is that the moment you believe in Jesus as your Savior, God takes Christ's righteousness and he moves it over underneath your column.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: And from that moment on, when he looks at you, he looks at you as having the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: At this moment, God either looks at you as having the righteousness of Jesus Christ or as having your own inferior righteousness.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Which is why, friend, if you've trusted Christ as your Savior, even if you live for another 50 years, you will never be a bit more righteous in God's eyes than you were the moment you trusted his son as your Savior.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, hopefully you'll be a little bit of a better person.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you'll be a little bit of a nicer person.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you know, hope you will have improved a little bit as you allow the Holy Spirit to change you.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: But as far as being right in God's eyes, having right standing before God, you will never be more righteous.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Because good people don't go to heaven.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Forgiven sinners do.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Good people don't go to heaven.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Forgiven sinners do.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: What if I told you you're trying too hard?
31:50
SPEAKER_00: Yes, for some people you tell them the gospel and it's just too simple.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I tell you that, this is just too simple.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Just too simple.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: I say, you know what?
32:00
SPEAKER_00: If God told you you needed to be baptized twice, go to church three times a month, regularly celebrate four of the sacraments, and for the next five years go over and help Mother Teresa's thing in Calcutta, you know what you would do?
32:19
SPEAKER_00: To go to heaven?
32:20
SPEAKER_00: You'd get baptized twice, you'd go to church three times a month, you'd celebrate four sacraments, and you'd buy your tickets for Calcutta.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: You would.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what he said.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't want you to do any of that stuff.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: It's really, really simple.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Stop working.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Start trusting.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: Best illustration that I could think of about this is maybe the most remarkable letter that I've gotten in my tenure here.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: It came from a 15-year-old girl whose name back then was Terry Thompson.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: She's known today as Soteria Thompson.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: She works in Cambodia with, she went over to help girls who were who had been caught in sex trafficking.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: So she does a phenomenal, phenomenal job, Soteria does.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: But uh when this story developed, she was 15 years old, and uh, and uh so she actually typed the letter to me.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: This kind of a girl she was.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: She's just, she's just this remarkable, remarkable person, Soteria is.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Those of you that know her know that she is.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: So she writes this letter, and I read it through, and then I read it through again, and I read it, I've been reading it ever since.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: And the letter uh goes like this uh written August 29th, 1998.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Dear Pastor Jim, last Sunday afternoon on the 23rd of August, my dad, my friend Jamie Myers, and I encountered death.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: It all started when we headed out to go fishing at the Kansas River.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: It was a beautiful day for fishing, the south wind was blowing strong.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: We settled down by the weir.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: If you've seen the river, you know where that is, where the water pours over, sort of a dam.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: It's a concrete thing with rushing muddy water pouring over it near the water plant.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: We were fishing off a sand dune where the current was super strong.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there was a whirlpool swirling underneath that was invisible to the naked eye.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: I won't read the whole, it's a page and a half letter, but I'll share some more with you.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: She says that she and Jamie were trying hard.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Her dad caught fish there before.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: They were having absolutely no luck, and it was a hot day, and they decided to go swimming.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: So uh so they jump in the water, staying close to shore, because you know they knew there were some currents, and they certainly didn't want to get too near to where that water was pouring over the weird uh that was dangerous.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: So they're swimming, they're swimming, they can feel sort of an undercurrent, so they're starting to stay close to shore, and they don't realize that this sort of a uh kind of a riptide thing is pulling them out a little bit, and they don't want to get to where there's a drop-off.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: So they plant their feet and the sand gives way, and all of a sudden they find that they are um um that they are in deep water.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: And so they're swimming as hard as they can and they're not making any progress.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: In fact, that current is uh uh the harder they work, it's it's it's moving them toward the dam and toward uh death by uh by the flood of water coming over.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: And and uh and then so they yell out and yell out, and Frank, her dad, you know, hears them, and and so he comes over and leans over with a fishing pole trying to catch him and falls in.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Falls in with his shoes on, with his pants on, they both become, oh, in fact, in fact, I'll just read it from her letter.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: However, he slipped and slipped and fell in the hole too.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: So now my Jamie, my dad, the fishing pole, and I are flailing and drifting close to the overflow as a result of the current two feet under the top of the river.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: My dad's pants and shoes are water soaked, and he had fishing line wrapped about his legs, which made them very heavy, and he was trapped.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: And I kept yelling for them all to hang on because we're all getting very tired.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: And then she says, I remembered one of your sermons where you'd uh done this series and I'd told a story.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: She says, anyway, where did you talk about a man and his son?
35:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember that much about it.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: That part offended me.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Kind of bothered me.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: I put it down, then I picked up the letter again.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: I thought, oh, okay.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: I guess, you know, she was busy trying to save her life.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: I can't forgive her.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember that much about it.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, they were in the ocean, man, and son of the ocean.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Father told his son to float on his back and they'd be okay.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: And so they flipped over and they did for several hours and they survived.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: So I flipped over on my back and I started swimming backwards, urging my companions to do the same, but it was too loud, so they couldn't hear me, you know, and so and then I got some headway, God sent a strong, you know, wind that carried me straight.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: And so she comes out on the sand.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: And as she looks back in, she's getting, she uses the word hysterical, you know, close to hysteria.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: She says her daddy, she sees her friend Jamie, and they are they're losing strength.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: She runs to her purse, she's got a ball of string in her purse, she carries it out, and she starts throwing it to Jamie, who sees her.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: Jamie's able to attach it around her wrist.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: She pulls Jamie into shore.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: But then she says, um, she's very desperate about her dad.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: The current, she says, had pulled him about four feet closer to the to the dam.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: We called, and you can hear that call happening right now on that cell phone.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, we called, but he couldn't hear us.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we tried to get my dad, but it didn't work.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: He was he was near the dam and he was losing his energy, he was losing his strength.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: I was screaming at him.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: She says, I started bargaining with God, but she said, I remembered that very morning and preached about not bargaining with God.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: So she said, God, I'll just love you and you love me.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll trust you, Lord.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And so she's yelling, and she said, and and the line that caught me in the letter right here that did cause me to stop for a little while for other reasons was I thought I was losing my daddy.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: And he ran out of energy, ran out of strength, he gave up.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: And by doing so, he lay back and he floated, and then they were able to throw a string out as he lay there, and they were able, he was able to grab the string and pull himself out where he collapsed on the sand, he passed out for three or four minutes and then had nausea, getting rid of water and so forth.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: And she she concludes by saying, you know, we figure we were in the water for about 15 minutes.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: I've never felt so scared or helpless in my whole life.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: I've been praising the Lord all week long for his miracle of life.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, thanks a bunch for your sermons.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh, though I wrote back and said you need to listen a little more carefully.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, she uh she signed it, Terry.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: That's how she used, she goes by satiria now.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: See, it's Terry, and then she enclosed that's so cute.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: She cut off a little bit of the string and enclosed it in the letter.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: But here's, I thought this is a wonderful illustration, isn't it, of what happens is that we're in a whirlpool of life, we're in a desperate situation, and it's the natural thing is to want to be as good as possible in a fight.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: I want to go to heaven to be with my grandmother, you know, something like that.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: I want to go to be with God.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: I this life is, I want a better life, and so you struggle and you try your best, but you find that you are helpless and you're getting more tired, and and you see people around you giving up.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: You see people around you drowning.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: And then the Bible speaks up, and Paul and Jesus they say, stop.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: What you need to stop what you're doing, it's not by works, it's not by effort, it's by faith.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: You simply trust me for salvation and simply by faith, then you can access my righteousness, and heaven will be yours.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: You need not struggle any longer.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: A few months ago, a woman learned that at Jews for Jesus, I worked with Jews for Jesus, we had a big campaign in Hungary, Germany, former Soviet Union.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: I put a video on several months back on YouTube, Facebook, accessed by over 200,000 people, Eastern Europeans.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: 700 callers.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: One of them called in was a Jewish woman named Ruth, a volunteer, our volunteer, the guy who was helping, his name was John.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: And so Ruth said she'd seen the ad she wanted to talk about, and he said, Well, what do you think of Jesus Christ?
40:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know that much about him.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: What well tell me how do you understand the gospel?
40:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that is.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: So he explained to her the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And she said, This is why I'm telling you, this is a reliving of today's sermon.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: She said, I don't understand why Jesus had to rise from the dead.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: So he gave her like the same reasons I gave you today that Jesus had to rise to to verify his claims, to cinch our forgiveness, to give us new life forever.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: And she said, But I'm Jewish.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: It just didn't seem right for Jews to believe in Jesus as our Messiah.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I might be less Jewish.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: He said, Ruth, I'm I'm a 60-year-old Jewish grandfather, and I can tell you there's nothing more Jewish than to believe in Jesus, Yeshua, as your Messiah.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: And then she said, so much like today, she said, but I've done some things in my life.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: I haven't lived the way I should, and I don't think that I deserve forgiveness.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: And so he went just where we went today, talking about how forgiveness is free, that good people don't go to heaven, that forgiven sinners do, that it's a gift of God accessed merely by faith.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: It is that simple.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: She said, I need to think about that.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, that's great.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for calling.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't think about it too long.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Well, let's stay on the phone a little bit longer.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: And so they talked for another 45 minutes, and then finally she said, You know, I see it.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: I think I see it clearly, and I do believe it.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: And they prayed a prayer where she told God that she had come to Him.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's sort of the progress that almost any person on earth takes, where they move from sort of trusting in themselves to a place of in, I believe, by faith alone, in Christ alone.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: And that's the moment when they access salvation.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: There's an old hymn that goes, only trust him, only trust him, only trust him now, he will save you.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: You know this, he will save you, he will save you now.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: And I want to give you a chance, I want to give you a chance to talk to God about that.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: If there's any confusion about this at all, I want you to take a moment and talk to God.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: If you've understood things a little more clearly, I'll give you that moment as Jeremiah comes out and sings a new song that I've been listening to all week that I really like that expresses the same thing.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: And the chorus will go like this.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: So come to the altar.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: The Father's arms are open wide.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness was not earned, forgiveness was bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: Bow your head with me for a second.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for those here who might be a little like Ruth, who are not sure that they're good enough to go to heaven, but they're trying, and they're actually quite good people.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: Lord, if they've seen things a little more clearly today, if your spirit's been whispering to them, I pray that they would sing the words in their heart of this song and access your forever forgiveness in Jesus' name.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Amen.