Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 12, 2017 | Route 66 - A Look Back

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March 12, 2017 | Route 66 - A Look Back · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that will be the last time you ever hear that sad.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you can go on YouTube and listen to it.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, but that's it.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's all she wrote.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: So sad.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we're gonna get into um we're gonna look back over Route 66 this morning.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Great to see you, by the way.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just visiting, we've been doing a Route 66 series, going through the 66 books of the Bible and 66 Sundays.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow that took us two years.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: But um anyway, so before uh we get into that, I want to mention a couple things.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I want to add to what Hang said about Blakey, little Blake Kazir.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly he has to be the most famous little boy in Kansas this year.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think uh I think on WWW, I think Christopher Jacquel may have said this last week.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: There were like 80,000 people hooked into his website.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Balloons going up, a walk for him, so forth.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you will remember that four months ago, Chris Jacqueline and Blakey were on stage here.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: We were praising God because there seemed to be uh, you know, a turn.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: The initial prognosis had just been terrible, but so somehow there seemed, we seemed to have hope uh on Thanksgiving.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then four months later the Lord seemed fit to take him.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the distinguishing marks, maybe the greatest distinction between Christianity and non-Christian religions has been and always is how they handle death and the afterlife.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Eastern religions, as you know, have you becoming less important and sort of dissolving into the molecules or part of the great being, oneness or something like that.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But Christianity has hope, Christianity is personal, Christianity, you know, uh uh talks about life after death and makes a promise so that Chris and Jacqueline could, you know, on TV say this last week, you know that they had hope and confidence and assurance they would see their little boy again.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and we do.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to mention that I was I ran down to the station after uh Larry Grandpa Larry gave me the call that he just passed away and was able to record a program down at 1069 that has aired uh in the days since uh his death and will air one of the days this coming week.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I wanted to mention to you is um uh our next series, our next sermon series.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're you know, I thought about just shutting down the church having finished Route 66.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's it, it's all over.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Can't follow that.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna do a short series leading up to Easter.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: That series will be called The Three Greatest Habits.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: The three greatest of all of the habits you could pick up in life, these would be, in my view, the three greatest, and we'll start that next week.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh Route 66.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So uh much to my chagrin, uh, this series has not made me famous.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It has not gone viral, you know.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I but there's part of this series, uh, the skit.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: We've done a couple of skits with a halfway cafe and flow and so forth, and that actually has become sort of a hit.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: She's become a bit of a minor celebrity.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: She's gone on the road, she's traveled a little bit, she's back here this morning.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Can you give me a warm give us a warm welcome for Flo?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Flo.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: How did Bacon Bible church?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love this place.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Great to have you back, Flo.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here you're on tour.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: We are, I am exhausted.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I tell you, we started in Bethlehem, we went to Nazareth, Capernaum, oh, Caesarea by the sea.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's beautiful, isn't it?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know you've seen it a few times.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'll tell you my favorite by far was Jericho.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: We brought the house down.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was on amazing.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: But oh, it's just been phenomenal.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh we have kicked off a website.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you ever want to see it, it's a www.halfwaycafe.com.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Halfwaycafe.com.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Halfway down.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do they see on halfwaycafe.com.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: If we come, then we get to see you or see the pictures of the food or products, all my favorite recipes, things like that, yeah.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And there are a few sermons that we've added in there, the good ones.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um so anyway, let me just show you.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just give you a little sampling of what we have.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, first thing, of course, are t-shirts, right?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because nobody can have too many t-shirts.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, okay, my husband said the walk-in closet wasn't walkable anymore because I had too many.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I made t-shirt quilts for every one of the grandkids, eight of them, and they were all king-sized, so I did have a few, too many.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um now, girls, if you don't want t-shirts or your man says he's gonna take you out to my diner, then let me just put this one out there.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Look at how beautiful this is.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Little Route 66 vest.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: You throw it, I know, isn't it good?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: You throw it on over your t-shirt, and you are ready for a night on the town.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: One size fits all.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it looks a little different on people, but you know, one size fits all.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit like a TV show that I've seen.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is church.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: QVC?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, QVC.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm practicing because they want me to come on.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, okay.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Amazon has been bothering me, but I just think that's sacrilegious.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: So now, the other thing is your commemorative root 66 mug.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is another thing that you can't have too many of.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you're like me, you bring your coffee.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: You go up to the cabinet and you open it up and you go, hmm, which mug do I want to use today?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in our house there are lots of mugs that I have like hope, perfect, love.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I just look at them and I say, I'm not feeling it.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, so I just grabbed my Route 66 one because it reminds me to have my devotions, get into them 66 books of the Bible.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna want one of these.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just not feeling it.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you have grandchildren, this one is for you.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this looks like your normal little plastic dollar store basket, but this is called the multitude basket.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Feeding the multitudes.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you have grandkids, you buy them little dollar store things and like they're like those little capsules, and you put them in water and they spring open to some animal or something.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is way better.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: So now you do have to plan ahead.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: You put this out on your kitchen table, you put one fish stick and one roll in there.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Then you pray on it overnight.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: You will not have to cook the rest of the week.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, this one is for the grandchildren, the multitude basket.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: You might want several of them.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this one I just want to draw your attention to.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not something that you can purchase.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is near and dear to my heart.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is an actual piece of the road of Route 66 given to me by Governor Brownback.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, true story.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: I ain't lying about this one.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just saying that I really do believe it was kind of a peace offering because of all the road conditions in Topeka right now.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: But we love Sam.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: He comes by every Thursday night for my chicken fried steak and fried pies.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, you're gonna want to look that we have that on the website too.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can see that.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the last thing that I'm really, really excited about is my spaghetti and meatballs.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now, David was a regular at the Halfway Cafe.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: David gave me this idea because uh he really loved my meatballs.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: He said it was his secret weapon.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So now, what I really like is I it's a little bit of something for everybody.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're a vegan, you can strain out the meatballs.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Just use a sauce.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the great thing about straining out the meatballs is it gives you extra ammo.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I know a lot of you have conceal and carry in Kansas.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: So the great thing about this is it's portable.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Who's gonna know?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: You tuck it under your seat right next to your little thing, and then you pull it out, you got some sustenance, and you got some extra ammo, and who would ever know?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: There are five meatballs included in every jar.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the last thing is we do have a C D.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's got a C D, and it's got all the favorites of Route 66, and of course, you know, um, I'm kind of partial to one.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: You've been hearing it every week.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: The trailer.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all have a hard time finding the beats.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Whoever claps the loudest, we just clap on every beat, you know?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: So um, now we're just gonna put the words up here for y'all.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to sing along, you can.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm gonna show you where it's now.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have one of them little bouncing balls to show you which word comes which, but you'll just have to follow along.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Over here, I'm on a, we have been on tour all summer, all fall, and now winter.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is Jerry.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Give it up for Jerry at the keyboard.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna be starting us off here, so uh, why don't you just kind of give us a little intro there?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh dear.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Can you need home on gum?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Sug.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get the snappers out.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Here we go, come on.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, we gotta here we go.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody sing along?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you ever plan to live the best.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Try my way, take the highway that beats the rest.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is big part you just stick.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let's hear it.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Two root sixty six.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Good job! All right, here we keep going.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: It wines from the old to New Testament.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Sydney Patton's got the double over here.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: More than two thousand words in the print.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, samba! You just sticklets here, baby.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it starts at creation, goes to lamentation.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be flying high on the way to Malachi.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Here we go, and then breeze through the gospels up to Corinthians, Galatians and Ephesians.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Don't forget Colossians, Titus, Hebrew.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do the revelation, won't you?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, here we go.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Get hip to this tiny tip.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, you got it.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, when you make that light change and trip.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Heather sprue, I don't see your snappers.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: You just stick.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, honey.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Two roots six six.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: One more time, make it in me, ready! Are you just stick?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Just kids! Just kids! Thank you, Jerry.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Are you glad you didn't marry me?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Life with her is so boring.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So um we are actually gonna do something serious.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look back over Route 66.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're gonna do.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and um what I decided to do is uh this is a kind of a struggle for me, trying to figure out exactly how do I look back over Route 66 and do it all in half an hour or less.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I thought, well, okay, well, maybe I'll do this, and then maybe I'll do that.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have several different parts of this message.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: The first one, for instance, is the theme of the Bible in ten words, and then I came up with a message of the Bible and less than 200 words, and so I'm gonna talk to you about the whole Bible and the message of the Bible, and my hope is simply this that somehow you will walk away from here, having in your back pocket a clear understanding of why the Bible was written, why the Bible was given by God, what its central message is, what it's trying to leave you with, and how that would apply to your life.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the theme of the Bible in ten words, and I've said something like this to you uh several times down through the years, is God will break in to establish his rule on earth.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now say those ten words with me slowly.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: God will break in to establish his rule on earth.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Every part of that is important, that it's God who's who does it, that it's breaking in.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Volcanoes erupt, uh, they go out from inside, but God erupts, I-R-R-U-P-T, he erupts in from without.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he started at the very beginning, you know, when when there was no universe, it was not organized, it was simply chaos, and he broke in from without and he spoke, let there be light, and then he created Genesis 1, cosmos, ordered creation, heavens and earth, out of chaos.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the height of his creation, he made man, but then man rebelled against him, and so God had to break in again to move him out of the garden so he wouldn't die eternally, and then you know, clothe him with lambskin, and then as man kept on moving away from God, God would break in, he would flood the earth, he would appoint, he would choose Abraham, he constantly was bringing his plan back when man had wandered off the tracks.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, he brings the Lord Jesus Christ to earth.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: He breaks in from without in that shocking way, in the incarnation, the Good Friday story, the Easter story, the ascension, and that's God again providing a way for his plan to work.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And one day he will break in a final time from outside to establish his rule on earth, which will be a fulfillment of the prayer that Jesus told us to pray.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Pray it with me.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about that last week, and how uh uh one of the greatest commentators on Revelation today says that's really the theme of Revelation.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: How God will establish his kingdom and will on earth as it is in heaven.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the turning point we said last week, the final turning point is when all looks lost.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh heaven will open.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And John, as John puts it, I saw heaven standing open, Revelation 19, 11, and 12, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: With justice, he judges and wages war.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, he will wage war, he will win the victory, and then he will break in completely to establish his rule on earth out of Jerusalem.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're looking forward to.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the message of the Bible in ten words, or the theme of the Bible: God will break in and establish his rule on earth.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I set myself as an assignment as well this week to write down the message of the Bible, the whole message of Route 66 in 100 words or less.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was completely unable to do that.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I then said, write it in 200 words or less.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to do that, and I want to share with you, it'll be on three consecutive slides.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to share with you the message of the Bible in 199 words.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Each of these words, each of these phrases is well thought out, and I will go over them a second time to show you why I picked the ones that I did.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the message of the Bible in 199 words is this the eternal God, who lived forever in fellowship with himself and in control of all things, created the universe.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: As his masterwork, God created us in his image to worship and converse with him.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: But we rebelled against our Maker, and despite his patience and kindness and anger, he put us away from himself.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Suffering and death entered the world, and we were forever doomed.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: But because love is of the very essence of his character, God took the initiative.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: He chose a people, Israel, through whom he would send his Messiah to deliver mankind from sin and death.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: When it was time, he sent his son Jesus as that Messiah to become human, to bear our just judgment on the cross, to die, and to rise from the dead.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: His son returned to heaven, and now God offers an eternity of happiness in his presence, in a new heaven and a new earth.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: The only alternative is to be shut out from his presence forever in the torments of hell.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: What men and women must do before it is too late is simply to come to God in faith, to believe in his Son Jesus as their savior.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: The message of the Bible in 199 words.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I chose as a sort of theme of the first third of that, God, because I think it's all about God.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is all about God.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with God, the eternal God, I wrote, who lived forever in fellowship with himself.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: God created us to worship him.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was our Maker.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible, if you boiled it all down, is all about God.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with God, it ends with God.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about him.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not primarily about us.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why, no matter what translation of the Bible you use, one of the first four words of the Bible is always God.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, God.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: In Hebrew, Bareshit Ara Elohim, third word of the Bible.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Amonfang Schufgot in German, the fourth word.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: God is the start and the end of the Bible.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I was interested, a little surprised, as I look back over the titles of my Route 66 messages to find out that out of the first ten books of the Bible, I used God as the subject of the title, which was also the summary of the book, and nine of the ten.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Everything begins with God.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus, the story of God drawing Israel to himself.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Moses means drawn out, drawing them to himself across the sea.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: God draws us to himself.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus, the book of holiness, God lives with holy people, numbers.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: God remains faithful even when in the wilderness we are fickle.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy, God gives us a second chance.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Deuterone, second law.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua, God gave it, meaning the land and victory.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now take it.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Skipping judges.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ruth, God's heart goes out to the few who stay true.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Samuel, God may pick you, Saul, but didn't use the word Saul in the title originally.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: God may pick you, but he'll binge you if you run your own plays.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Samuel, God has a heart for those who have a heart for God.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: God is the subject of the Bible.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: C.S.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis expresses his conversion this way.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I really like it.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's true that he trusted Jesus as his savior, but the way he puts it in his as talking about his conversion is I gave in and admitted that what?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: God was God.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a choice.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: You either admit that God is God and the way he runs things, sending his son, you have to believe in his son.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's his command.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Either God is God or you are God, and you choose your own way of being accepted and going to heaven.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I gave in and admitted that God was God.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Elsewhere, he writes, when you argue against him, you're arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like cutting off the branch that you are sitting on.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why we begin with God.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: The message of the Bible begins with God.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I added, who lived forever in fellowship with himself.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's important to realize that he was one, but he was also three.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's a Trinity, and therefore he models for us true fellowship.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: He lived in intimate and loving fellowship with himself.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: He needed no other person, no other being in the universe.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, he was sovereign.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: We expressed that today by saying he's in control.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was in control of all.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Things.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then he created the universe, but as his masterwork, he created us.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way Genesis 1 reads.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's at the climax of creation.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, if you've just grown up in public education in America and just watching certain kinds of media, you will not know this.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: You will not believe that there is a personal Almighty God.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: You will believe that perhaps nature is eternal, but certainly not that there is a personal God who is in control of all things.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you definitely will not believe that mankind is the apex of God's creation in his image.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, instead, what you would learn, perhaps from your science class, is that we are a nothing, that we are just a result of molecules that happen to get together with electrical impulses, that we're the development of other animals.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why sometimes, by the way, on one of some of my missions trips, and I don't blame the kids for this, but sometimes you'll be overseas, even in Haiti, and you'll have all of these starving children, you have all these poor children that's not running out of the nose and so forth.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll have a child who isn't looking at the children at all.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's feeling so much compassion for the dog that's running around in the street.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because what happens is when you grow up in a society that says that man is no more than an animal, and that we ought to be compassionate to animals.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you can get confused about those things, but the Bible doesn't allow that.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, no, man is the masterwork of God, created in God's very image to worship him and to converse with him.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is, of course, in Genesis 3 that Adam and Eve, and all of us in them, rebelled against our Maker, and despite his patience and kindness, in anger he put us away from himself, and as a result, suffering and death entered the world and we were forever doomed.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible could end there, and God would be just and we would all be doomed and we wouldn't be here this morning.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: But because love is of the very essence of God's character, God took the initiative.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because love is of the very essence of his character, God took the initiative.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then we read, He chose a people, Israel, through whom he would send his Messiah to deliver mankind from sin and death.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a sentence that some people would include, because they do not believe that Israel is important at all.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: They don't believe that the Jews are important at all.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: They believe that since the Jews crucified Jesus, that God threw them out on the trash heap, and it's only the church that God cares about now.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the Jews have no future, and Israel was a sort of a mistake in God's plan because they rejected God, God has completely rejected them.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Israel is from beginning to end a huge part of Scripture, and so we must include them, through whom he would send his Messiah to deliver mankind from sin and death.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: So God brought Israel out of Egypt.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: God showed himself to Israel with a flaming, you know, pillar of fire and a cloud of smoke, and in the Holy of Holies in the Shekinah glory.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: But then finally, when it was time, God sent his son Jesus as that Messiah to become human, to bear our just judgment on the cross, to die and to rise from the dead.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus did for us what National Geographic relates that a father did for his little boy.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: They were out in one of those national parks out west, took a canoe out on the lake, only had one life jacket.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when the canoe capsized, the father was able to put the life jacket on his son, pushed him towards shore, and in his last words, I love you, he said to his son.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like what the Lord God did for us.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I love you, and he died on the cross to provide salvation for us from our sins.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: His son returned to heaven, and now God offers an eternity of happiness in his presence in a new heaven and new earth.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: The only alternative, dear friends, is to be shut out from his presence forever in the torments of hell.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's tempting to leave that out.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's so negative.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, if there is no hell, if, like some people are teaching today, everyone will eventually make it to heaven.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: God is too loving to leave anybody in hell.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then, of course, you have to not only cross out many of the things that Jesus said, but you have to ask, why is it that we preach the gospel?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we need to witness if everybody will eventually make it there?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Better not to tell people.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: So there are two options, and what men and women must do before it is too late is simply come to God in faith, believe, and his son Jesus as their savior.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very personal.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible has a very personal message to you and to me.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: In Family Circus, little girl sitting by her brother in church, and it pictures her singing, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a witch like me.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And she's got the picture, sort of the message of the Bible.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was created as a precious, you know, child of God, but then I wandered away, utterly lost, damned, or doomed forever.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was a witch.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: My heart was dark, but then Jesus died for me, and in his amazing grace, he saved me.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the message of the Bible in 199 words.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then I thought, you know what?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's still too long.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's reduce that.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I've reduced that to seven short sentences.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the message of the Bible in seven sentences.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: God created, we rebelled.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: God chose Israel, God sent Jesus.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus died for our sins, then rose.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: God now offers eternal life.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: We must believe in Jesus.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now you might think that everybody would agree with that summary of the Bible, but that's not true.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Even some excellent Christians, some that I admire, have a whole different sort of a list of what the Bible is about.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And their statement would go like this: they would say, that's way too man-centered.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what we must do is look beyond that.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: The whole story of the Bible is really about God and Satan and God's plan.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I say to them, I love that story.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's a true story, but that's not the story of the Bible.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I would call the backstory of the Bible.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is, it's behind the scenes.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible just gives us hints about this backstory, which I'll share with you in just a second.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's sort of like if you read The Lord of the Rings, and then you go to a book called The Silmarillion that J.R.R.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tolkien wrote.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's the backstory of the Lord of the Rings.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a backstory to Star Wars.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you read all those other books that you can buy in the bookstore, there's a backstory to some of these stories.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the story that I'm about to share with you is not clearly taught in Scripture, but I believe it.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it's hinted clearly.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it's actually true.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: I believe we should worship God because of it and say amen.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not actually the message of the Bible.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: The backstory of the Bible is number one, God created the angels.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, one of them, Lucifer, we call him Satan or the devil, rebelled.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, God created the earth, the universe, but Satan deceived mankind.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, so God sent Jesus.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, Jesus' death was Satan's victory.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: He helped bring it about, his deceit.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: He rejoiced at it.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: He thought he was the victor, but then Jesus' resurrection turned that victory into defeat.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Number six, Satan still prowls the world, but no longer has a chance to win.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Number seven, Christ's return will doom Satan forever and achieve the success of God's plan.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you should say amen to that.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's a wonderful story.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you will find it hard to find passages in the Bible that discuss this.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is a theological conclusion based upon hints in the Bible.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's a backstory of the Bible.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: You need to know that it's there, but it's not the message of the Bible.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the message of the Bible, I think, is expressed very nicely by a guy once brought here to church.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was one of my favorite doctoral professors.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: His name is D.A.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Carson.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he put it simply this way: if God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he sent us a Savior.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the message of the Bible.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's a personal message about God's plan, about our rebellion, and God's solution to that plan, which leads us to a choice in which we must believe on him to enjoy happiness with him forever in a new heavens and a new earth.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Two months ago, Carrie Fisher made her fame at age 21 as Princess Leah.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or Princess Leah in Star Wars.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Carrie Fisher died.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: What was really weird, strange, maybe unfortunate, is that she had just given an interview to Rolling Stone magazine.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: And a magazine came out just hours after Carrie Fisher died.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: A magazine was on the shelves with an interview with Carrie Fisher.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: One of the questions when something like this, Carrie suffered, you've struggled with alcohol, struggled with a lot of things that have nearly killed you over the years.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've gotten close to death.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about you and death.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Carrie's response was sad as you read it, knowing that she had just the day before passed away.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I'm not going to enjoy dying.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's not much preparation for that.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: I fear dying.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they can say with utmost assurance, because they know Jesus Christ, they know that they will see Blake again.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: You see, your religion or what you believe or your faith doesn't do you much good.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't do you any good at the point of death.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity has an answer for that.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the message of the Bible.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the invitation of God to come to him in faith.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Faith in his Son Jesus Christ, who solved your sin problem by dying on the cross and praise the Lord, rising again to give you eternal life.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let's bow our heads in prayer.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: As we come to the Lord's table, Heavenly Father, we say thank you for the message of the Bible, which is so practical because at the most critical moment of our life, when that life is slipping away, at the most critical moment in the life of our family, when our loved one is slipping away, we know we have an answer for that.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: We have a solution that there is something beyond the end of life on earth.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it is life eternal in perfect bliss and happiness with loved ones and with your Son Jesus Christ, who died in our place.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's in his name that we pray.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's so appropriate that we celebrate the Lord's table at this moment.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: For here, as you know, in the Lord's table, you have the bread, as Jesus said, this is my body broken for you.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: You have the cup, as Jesus said, this here, this is the new covenant in my blood.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, as often as you drink it, as often as you eat it, do this in remembrance of me.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning remembrance of his death.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have that line added in 1 Corinthians, but let a man examine himself and so take of the bread and the cup.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And do this until he comes.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in a sense, every time you take the Lord's table, you ought to think three things.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: You ought to look inside, you ought to look back, and you ought to look ahead.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: You look inside and you examine yourself.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: You look back and you look with the sanctified imaginations at the cross and Jesus hanging there.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: You look ahead until he come.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even so come, Lord Jesus, looking forward to eating even a bigger meal with you at that time.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's an interesting thing about this examine yourself.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is to Christians.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is to you who've trusted Jesus Christ, but something very interesting has happened over the last couple thousand years.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what's happened is that sometimes persons who are not Christians have come in to a service and they've examined themselves and suddenly realized their problem is not needing to repent of sins.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Their problem is they've never actually trusted Jesus as their savior.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: They've been trusting themselves.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's really weird, but but you have this is be this has over the millennia been a time when people came to Jesus Christ.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Puritans were uh were uncomfortable with that.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and they refused, and some churches still do refuse to let people participate unless they can sort of prove that they're Christians.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I've been invited several times.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've preached in churches where they have not allowed me to take communion, because even though they trusted my salvation apparently enough to let me interpret the Bible for them, they did not have a sign statement from one of the elders that I was a true Christian.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's always been kind of a funny thing.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: But but what I'm saying is simply this though this is for believers, as you examine yourself, if you suddenly realize, you know, I wonder, I wonder, have I ever believed in Jesus alone for salvation, trusted him in faith, or have I always been thinking it's because of the fact that I'm a pretty good person?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's true of you, let this be kind of a weird communion.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: A communion where you become a true born-again Christian.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then eat and drink with the rest of us.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy and assurance.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the bread and for the cup.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Bless them to us as we think back, we think ahead, and as we look inside.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.