Anchors of Truth

The Controversial Cross

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: John Bradshaw

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Series Code: AOT

Program Code: AOT000062


00:12 Welcome to Anchors of Truth from the 3ABN Worship Center.
00:17 The Great Controversy with John Bradshaw.
00:23 On last evening, my wife and I were driving home from
00:27 this auditorium, from these meetings,
00:29 driving down Thompsonville Road.
00:31 A long road with some twists and turns.
00:35 And there ran out of the bushes on the side of the road
00:38 a small white animal.
00:39 We didn't know what it was.
00:40 But it darted out so fast there was no time to stop,
00:43 no time to hit the brakes.
00:45 And of course, we hit it.
00:48 And you know, you feel that little bump under your tires
00:50 as you're driving along.
00:52 And Erma said, "Well, what was it?"
00:54 And I said, "I'm not sure."
00:56 Because it happened so quickly.
00:58 On the way back to work this morning, we discovered that
01:00 it was a fairly large possum.
01:03 And my wife has a particular sensitivity to hitting animals.
01:08 It just makes you feel bad when you feel that little bump
01:10 under your tire and you know you've taken a life.
01:14 The Bible says that the heavens declare the glory of God,
01:17 the earth shows handiwork.
01:18 But also in looking at the natural world,
01:21 we are given to understand that there is a controversy,
01:24 there is this pull between life and death,
01:28 good and evil, darkness and light.
01:30 I was jogging along our road, Paulton Road, the other day.
01:33 And someone had hit a fairly large deer.
01:37 And I had to jump over it to keep from
01:39 tripping over it myself.
01:40 You know, you see a beautiful animal like that lying on the
01:43 side of the road damaged by a car, it says something about
01:46 life and death.
01:48 I don't know what's going to happen in heaven.
01:52 I know there will be no more death.
01:55 I guess we won't be driving cars.
01:56 And when we're flying around, I guess we won't bump into
01:59 each other or bump into animals.
02:00 There certainly won't be any killing.
02:02 I don't know quite how that's going to work out, but I
02:04 look forward to a time when there will be no more death.
02:07 And I think one of the most traumatic things about
02:10 living on planet earth is the fact that the young get old,
02:14 the old get older, and the older die.
02:17 And even that reality is cut short sometimes
02:20 by accidental death.
02:22 Even the death of a small squirrel or an animal.
02:25 They are creations of God, so they must mean something to Him.
02:29 We know that Christ didn't die to redeem animals.
02:32 But if He cares about the sparrow,
02:35 He certainly cares about us.
02:36 And He cares about the death of those creatures
02:39 that He has made.
02:40 So we see a glimpse of the great controversy.
02:43 And that's what we're talking about this very week.
02:45 Our speaker is John Bradshaw.
02:47 He is the speaker and director for It Is Written.
02:50 He does a very, very fine job.
02:52 Just a nice guy.
02:53 When you meet him, he's someone that you like immediately.
02:56 He is a student of the Word, but he's also a student
02:58 of human nature.
03:00 And he lends himself to individuals,
03:02 and they are drawn to him.
03:04 So we are very, very pleased to have John Bradshaw
03:07 with us this week.
03:08 Tonight's particular topic is going to focus on the
03:11 controversial cross.
03:13 We will be dealing with the great controversy and
03:15 its aspects and ramifications throughout the course
03:18 of these meetings.
03:20 But tonight we will look at the controversial cross.
03:22 And I am quite sure that we will be blessed
03:25 as he comes and speaks to us.
03:27 And he shall do so shortly.
03:29 But we want to introduce to you now a couple that has
03:32 moved to our church in, oh, the past year or so.
03:36 We didn't know that they were as talented as they are.
03:39 He, Mike Berry, is a pianist.
03:41 His wife, Celestine, or if you would prefer, Celestine Berry,
03:45 is a singer.
03:46 He will play, she will sing, and we will be blessed
03:51 as she sings this song, You Alone.
03:54 We will have prayer, we will hear the ministry
03:56 of the Berry's, and then the next voice that you will hear
03:58 will be that of our speaker, our friend, Pastor John Bradshaw.
04:03 Shall we pray.
04:04 Father God, we just praise You and thank You
04:07 for this, another opportunity, to lift up the name of Jesus.
04:11 We are thankful, Lord, for the fact that Christ came,
04:15 Christ lived, Christ died, Christ rose again,
04:21 Christ now ministers for us.
04:24 And that one day soon, and very soon, the great controversy
04:29 will be over.
04:32 Father, may we be found ready and working,
04:37 and as it were, waiting, for the coming of the Lord.
04:43 Speak now to our hearts this night.
04:45 Bless the speaker, bless those who hear.
04:50 May Christ be glorified.
04:52 In Jesus' name, amen.
04:55 I'm C.A. Murray.
04:56 It is my pleasure to introduce now Michael and Celestine Berry.
05:29 I lift my eyes when I am troubled.
05:36 I lift my hands, I lift my heart.
05:43 And there I stand knowing nothing can defeat me,
05:49 just as long as I know where You are.
05:56 In You alone is where I find my comfort.
06:03 In You alone, You're my only hope.
06:10 In You alone my heart has found a resting place.
06:18 In You alone, in You alone.
06:27 So I won't fear though darkness hides me.
06:34 No, I won't let my courage sway.
06:42 For You are near, and at the brightness of Your glory
06:48 the shadows of the night melt away.
06:54 In You alone is promise I can cling to.
07:02 In You alone, You're my security.
07:09 In You alone my soul has found a dwelling place.
07:18 Only in You alone.
07:25 What could separate me from Your love?
07:31 Neither life nor death, nor anything at all.
07:38 Anything at all.
07:42 In You alone is where I find my comfort.
07:49 In You alone, You're my only hope.
07:56 In You alone my heart has found a resting place.
08:04 Only in You alone.
08:12 Only in You alone.
08:19 Only in You alone.
08:42 Well, all I can say is thank the Lord and thank you.
08:45 Good evening, everyone.
08:47 A blessing to see you tonight, a blessing.
08:48 A blessing.
08:49 It's always a blessing when we can gather together
08:52 to share the Word of God together.
08:53 Isn't that right?
08:54 Every single solitary time.
08:57 I have a feeling that tonight we're going to be blessed.
09:00 We're looking at a subject very dear to my heart.
09:02 It's the great controversy.
09:05 Dr. Herb Douglas calls the great controversy theme,
09:09 the grand theme of the Bible.
09:12 I'm inclined to agree with him.
09:13 I think he got that right.
09:15 The grand theme of the Bible.
09:19 This great theme works its way through the Bible
09:22 like a golden thread.
09:25 And it helps us pull together the various subjects and
09:29 thoughts of the Bible and compiles them,
09:32 if I can use that word, in a way that helps us make sense.
09:35 Sense of, if I can say this, the Word of God.
09:38 Sense of this crazed world.
09:41 We can make sense of the questions that trouble us,
09:44 and stir us, and cause us to lie awake at night.
09:49 There is a big picture.
09:51 We sort of introduced ourselves to that thought last night.
09:54 We'll go back to last night and retrace our steps
09:57 ever so slightly.
09:59 And then press forward and entertain some new thoughts
10:04 this evening.
10:05 I just want to say how very thankful I am
10:10 to be able to be here and share with you.
10:13 And I just can't resist the opportunity to encourage you
10:16 to get our It Is Written "Daily Devotional."
10:21 It's 60 seconds long.
10:23 Now there are sometimes that we go nuts and really
10:27 blow it out big.
10:28 We go from one minute to two minutes.
10:31 And we figure that's not going to be too hard
10:34 for people to take.
10:35 Every day there's a brand new daily devotional.
10:38 It's either on our website or we can email that to you,
10:41 email the link to you.
10:42 You just click the link and then it pops up.
10:44 "Every Word" is the name of the devotional.
10:46 Perhaps you've heard of it.
10:47 If you have, then good.
10:48 If you haven't, now you have.
10:50 And you can get that every single day by going to
10:52 our website, itiswritten.com and subscribing to it.
10:56 I'll tell you why this can be a helpful thing for you,
11:00 not just a blessing in your own life.
11:02 A friend of mine told me about a person he met
11:05 through a business dealing who said to him,
11:09 "I wish you would tell me how it is that you
11:12 can be so positive every day.
11:15 What is it that makes you so positive?"
11:18 And my friends said, "Well, I have found that if I start
11:21 my day with a spiritual thought, then that will really be a
11:25 good thing that will really help.
11:27 So here's what I do."
11:28 And he pulled out a little card and he gave it to him.
11:30 It was one of the Every Word cards.
11:31 He said, "I watch this spiritual thought every day."
11:35 Now you know, this was just his opening
11:38 discussion with this man.
11:39 He couldn't open up the Bible to the book of Revelation and
11:41 take him to some heavy prophecy.
11:43 He had to start somewhere, so he started here.
11:45 "This is what I look at every day.
11:47 I find it a real blessing."
11:48 Two weeks later, the man came to him and said,
11:49 "You won't believe how blessed I have been
11:53 by getting that devotional every day.
11:55 I get it, 60 seconds long.
11:57 I watch it and I just feel so much better about myself,
11:59 about life, and I'm closer to God."
12:01 And so on.
12:02 So it's something you can share with others too.
12:03 Not just for you, but for others.
12:05 Now I believe that it's going to be a real help
12:08 in your life and in the lives of others, as it is in mine.
12:10 I make sure I watch it every day.
12:12 And there are times that I am blessed.
12:14 So I hope you can be too.
12:16 If you want it again, I'm just going to repeat it;
12:18 itiswritten.com, that's where you go.
12:19 It's our little website.
12:21 And you'll find it right...
12:22 Now it use to be big in front and center.
12:25 Now you have to look for it a little bit because we've done
12:27 the Paris theme for our meetings in Paris, France coming up.
12:30 But you find it there and subscribe to it,
12:33 and that will come to you regularly.
12:35 Every Word, a one minute daily devotional.
12:37 And you'll be blessed. Good share as well.
12:41 Well, let us pray now.
12:43 And not just ask God to bless us, but expect God to bless us
12:48 as we study the Bible tonight.
12:50 Let's pray.
12:53 Our Father in heaven, we thank You that we can come to You
12:56 tonight in the name of Jesus.
13:01 I am thankful to know that there is a God on heaven's throne
13:07 who's heart is full of love towards this
13:09 erring sinful world.
13:12 I thank You that Your Spirit is with us tonight, and I pray that
13:15 You will be merciful towards me, a faulty human vessel.
13:22 I pray that in spite of the limitations of fallen humanity,
13:25 Your Spirit will still work and touch our hearts.
13:29 So please Lord, would You guide us and bless us.
13:33 And see to it that whatever Your will for these next few
13:36 minutes is, that it is done.
13:40 We thank You and we love You, and we want to love You more.
13:45 And we ask that You would work now.
13:48 I pray that over these next few minutes, our focus will be
13:51 sharp, distractions will be minimized or not at all,
13:55 according to Your will.
13:58 Thank You for gracing us with Your presence
14:00 and this opportunity to gather around Your Word.
14:02 We thank You for it and we pray in Jesus' name.
14:07 Let us say amen.
14:13 My wife, Melissa, is fond of taking photographs.
14:19 And she had never really had a decent photograph taking camera
14:26 until a couple of Christmas' ago when an especially nice man
14:31 bought her a camera for Christmas.
14:36 I won't tell you who that was.
14:40 And standard on the camera is a 28 to 55 millimeter lens.
14:48 Now if you have an SLR camera or a...
14:51 I don't know enough about them to tell you
14:52 too many other kinds of cameras.
14:53 But a half decent camera.
14:55 It likely comes with something like a 50 millimeter lens.
14:59 A 50 millimeter is standard.
15:00 If you have a 50 millimeter lens and you look through a
15:03 50 millimeter lens, then what you see is normal.
15:06 It's not zoomed in, it's not pushed out.
15:09 50 millimeters is about normal.
15:13 Now my wife has a lens, a standard lens,
15:15 that goes up to 55 and back to 28.
15:18 That's very helpful.
15:20 Because there are times you are wanting to photograph
15:23 a group of people, and a standard 55 millimeter lens
15:27 might just be too close.
15:30 Maybe a large group of people and you don't
15:32 have room to get back.
15:33 Or you might be looking at a view, some sort of vista,
15:37 maybe a cathedral or a tree, or I don't know.
15:41 Whatever you want. It could be anything.
15:44 And there are times that you might want a lens a little wider
15:49 than 50 millimeters.
15:50 So this 28 millimeter thing, we find a...
15:53 Now it's not a fisheye lens.
15:56 If you've got an 8 millimeter lens or a 10 millimeter lens,
15:59 now it brings you back so wide you can see the
16:02 curvature of the earth.
16:03 You know, that's a fisheye lens.
16:04 You don't always want that.
16:06 You take a photo of someone like this, and with a fisheye lens
16:09 the person is shown leaning over like that.
16:12 That's okay if that's what you want, but you don't always
16:14 want the subjects in your photograph leaning over
16:16 like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
16:19 A 28 millimeter lens will just allow you to pull back
16:21 a little bit and now you can get the whole tree.
16:23 Now you can get the whole group, everybody's head.
16:26 The whole cathedral, perhaps.
16:28 Or whatever it is that you're looking at.
16:30 It's helpful.
16:31 Instead of just seeing part of the building,
16:33 you get the whole building.
16:35 Instead of seeing part of whatever it is
16:39 you're looking at, you now can see the big picture.
16:46 And when we come to the Bible, we want to see
16:50 not just the part, but the big picture.
16:54 Again and again and again it is demonstrated,
16:56 and I tell people this frequently,
16:57 that if you are wrestling with a verse in the Bible,
17:01 one verse, what you want to do is step back from
17:04 that verse a little bit.
17:06 Broaden your field of view.
17:08 Instead of reading that one verse and saying,
17:11 "What does this mean,"
17:13 you might want to read the verse ahead and the verse after.
17:16 Three verses.
17:18 Or you might want to read the entire chapter.
17:21 And then if you want to get the chapter
17:23 in some sort of meaningful context, you might even
17:26 need to read the whole book.
17:28 That works when you're reading Ephesians or Galatians.
17:30 If it's Exodus, I mean that's a big book.
17:32 But you know what I'm saying.
17:34 You want to see the big picture when you come
17:36 to the subjects of the Bible.
17:39 These things are of eternal importance.
17:41 We're dealing with life and death.
17:43 And I mean eternal life and eternal death.
17:45 Very, very important things.
17:48 And if you want to back off a little bit
17:52 from some Bible verses and you want to see the big picture,
17:57 then you might do well to consider what we
17:59 started considering last night when we were here.
18:03 We found out, and I don't expect this is news to too many people,
18:06 but we found out that we here on planet earth
18:08 are caught in the middle of something.
18:09 A battle, a battle.
18:11 It's a controversy that rages throughout the entire universe.
18:17 And we looked at some passages last time we were here,
18:19 some Scripture references to help us to understand
18:23 that long ago, in fact you could say very long ago,
18:27 there was something that marred the perfect peace of heaven.
18:34 It scarred heaven, I could say, literally.
18:37 Literally it scarred heaven.
18:40 Inextricably, a rebellion began deep in the heart of
18:45 one of the most privileged angels ever created.
18:50 Lucifer, for some reason, decided that he wanted
18:54 to be like the Most High.
18:58 He wanted to stand in God's place.
19:01 He would be glad to receive the leadership God exercised.
19:07 He wanted to receive the honor due only to God.
19:11 And receive to himself worship of which only God was worthy.
19:18 He was evicted from heaven.
19:20 Here to the earth he came.
19:24 And because sin cannot help itself, and because Lucifer
19:28 was filled with a malignity that burned white hot within him,
19:34 a bitter hatred for the God of heaven and for everything
19:38 that God loved, because Lucifer was that sort of being,
19:42 he immediately sough to win the affections
19:44 of our first grandparents.
19:47 He sought to win their loyalty.
19:50 Adam and Eve were the targets of his bitterness.
19:53 And in getting their allegiance, Lucifer did here on earth
19:59 what he had done in heaven.
20:01 He lied.
20:03 We looked last night at some of the lies in Genesis chapter 3,
20:06 "Has God really said..."
20:09 "God is only keeping that fruit from you because He knows
20:12 if you eat it you'll be like Him, you'll be as gods.
20:14 Your eyes will be open."
20:15 He lied.
20:16 Of course there was some truth.
20:18 They would know good and evil, that's true.
20:22 But Lucifer is a master at adding untruth to truth,
20:29 at adding error to what is right and what is appropriate.
20:33 He lied. He lied about God.
20:36 And he misrepresented even the character of God.
20:41 You know, there are some remarkable
20:44 statistics in this world.
20:46 You will read statistics in sports, and in finance,
20:52 and in history, and in science.
20:54 You read them in economics.
20:56 You read some remarkable statistics.
20:59 But one of the most phenomenal statistics that I have ever
21:02 come across is found in Revelation chapter 12.
21:05 Why don't we just turn in our Bibles to Revelation chapter 12.
21:10 In Revelation chapter 12, you read a stunning statistic.
21:16 Revelation chapter 12 and verse 4.
21:18 The Bible says, speaking of Satan, that "his tail drew the
21:21 third part of the stars of heaven and did
21:23 cast them to the earth."
21:25 We take this to mean that when Lucifer fell,
21:27 one third of all of the angels in heaven fell with him.
21:30 That's a phenomenal statistic.
21:32 Thirty-three and a third percent of all the angels in heaven
21:36 sided with Lucifer, arrayed themselves against God
21:42 in this thing.
21:43 That is just stunning.
21:45 There had never been any sin.
21:47 God had never lied.
21:48 God had never given a single angel any reason
21:51 to turn against Him, to even think against Him.
21:55 But by the time Lucifer was done, one out of three
22:00 had rejected God and were evicted from heaven with him.
22:04 Now that's a stunning statistic.
22:06 You know, in old English history,
22:10 in old English history there was something
22:11 terrible called, the black death.
22:13 The black death came in the 1300's.
22:14 Maybe late 12's, early 13's. Up through the 1300's.
22:17 The black death. Not just England, but in Europe.
22:20 The black death was bad.
22:21 You know, I read that in Oxford University when the
22:23 black death hit, there were 30,000 students.
22:25 By the time it was done, there were 10,000 students.
22:28 And we're not talking about people who went home to be safe.
22:30 We're talking about people who died.
22:32 In other parts, they say 50% of people died because
22:35 of the black death; 50%.
22:37 But think about that.
22:38 One in three; that was a common statistic.
22:41 One in three people died.
22:42 And you say, "That's shocking."
22:45 I remember being in a great African city and walking
22:47 down a street with my friend.
22:48 And we both had heard that in this great city,
22:51 one in three people were HIV positive.
22:54 And I must tell you, in the interest of full disclosure,
22:56 that I revisited that statistic.
22:58 And the truth is, it's now one in six; 17%.
23:01 That's a lot better than one in three.
23:03 But that's a tremendous statistic,
23:05 a staggering statistic.
23:06 Even one in six, man.
23:08 One in three people died from a terrible disease.
23:11 One in six people are facing a lifetime of difficulty,
23:14 and their family and their friends are implicated in this,
23:16 because they have the human immunodeficiency virus.
23:19 And it makes life tremendously difficult.
23:21 And we thank God for advancement in science and medicine.
23:24 We do.
23:26 But one in three! That's a stunning statistic.
23:30 One in three of the angels of heaven were
23:32 caught up in Lucifer's mess.
23:34 Stocking.
23:35 They were inflicted with the black death of sin.
23:39 Unbelievably horrifying.
23:42 And from that time, Satan has done everything he can to
23:44 draw people away from God's great heart of love.
23:46 He has done everything he can to obscure the beauty of
23:49 God's great gift of salvation.
23:51 Adam and Eve were created in the enemy...
23:54 I'm thinking ahead.
23:55 Adam and Eve were created in the image,
23:57 in the image of God.
23:59 And the enemy of souls seeks to destroy anything that
24:02 he can find that has even the last trace of the
24:06 image of God upon it.
24:08 At the end of time, we see that God's image
24:10 is restored in human beings.
24:13 We'll get to that before we're done tonight.
24:14 God's image is back where it belongs; in those who are saved.
24:18 We see then that the plan of salvation is far more than
24:22 human beings simply being sorry for their sins.
24:25 We have sinners, Jesus died, the saved go to heaven.
24:28 That's true, that's part of it. But there's more.
24:32 This great controversy that we are in, indeed, involves the
24:35 entire plan of salvation.
24:37 Salvation contemplates our complete recovery from the
24:41 power of sin and our recreation into the image of God through
24:45 faith in Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
24:50 We looked briefly last night at a passage that
24:52 I want to revisit tonight.
24:54 Please, if you would, turn with me to 2 Kings 6.
24:57 2 Kings chapter 6.
24:59 For even though we are the targets of Satan's venom
25:02 and wrath, we can be assured tonight and encouraged tonight.
25:10 For the sake of a recap, for the sake of clarity,
25:15 I want to just revisit a couple of points and expand upon them.
25:19 You understand that as we talk about the great controversy,
25:21 we're into a series that's going to take us
25:24 five parts to get done.
25:25 You could say the best part of five hours.
25:28 So I would hate for you to think that if you caught a
25:30 little bit, that was the sum total of our
25:32 treatment upon this thing.
25:34 2 Kings chapter 6.
25:35 And what you find is that Benhadad, the king of Syria,
25:38 is perplexed.
25:39 He was intent on crushing Israel.
25:41 Think about this.
25:42 The enemy of God was intent on crushing God's people.
25:46 This calls to mind, I'm sure, the great controversy
25:48 in which we find ourselves.
25:49 As the people of God, we are the subjects, we are the objects,
25:53 we are the targets,
25:56 of a hatred of the enemy of souls.
25:59 We are up against a foe, an enemy.
26:02 One who wants to trouble us, and perplex us,
26:04 and weigh us down, and burden us, and separate us from God.
26:07 Not only so that we'll be lost, but think if you would,
26:11 Satan doesn't want that we just be lost.
26:14 Satan wants that God's character is disrespected,
26:17 misunderstood, and misrepresented.
26:20 That's what makes the enemy of souls happy.
26:23 For if God is misrepresented, Satan's lies are validated.
26:27 There is a controversy here.
26:29 The created being is up against the Creator,
26:32 putting on the Creator his own hateful attributes.
26:35 "God is unfair, God is unjust, God is a liar.
26:38 God is keeping something back from you."
26:40 That's what Satan is. He is all of those things.
26:43 Benhadad announces his plans to his servants,
26:45 "We will camp here."
26:47 And then somehow, miraculously, that plan is relayed to
26:51 King Joram through the prophet of God.
26:55 "Don't go there," Elisha says. "The Syrians are there."
26:57 This happened several times so that the king of Syria
27:01 was beside himself.
27:02 "Who's ratting me out?
27:04 We've got a traitor in our midst."
27:06 And one of the servants said, "No, King.
27:07 No traitor, no traitor at all.
27:09 But the prophet Elisha, he knows what's going on.
27:13 God has got a man down there who's receiving communications."
27:17 The enemies plans were foiled by one who
27:21 had the gift of prophecy.
27:25 I wonder if we can say here that in this great controversy
27:30 it is good to know that God has given us a prophetic message.
27:38 The Israelites were embroiled in a controversy.
27:42 They were up against a brutal and a vicious pagan king.
27:48 We are up against the same thing.
27:50 And they would have perished wholesale had not God
27:56 blessed that people group with the gift of prophecy.
28:00 I don't believe this is too early in our series on
28:03 the great controversy for me to suggest that God has likewise
28:08 blessed His people living down in the last days
28:10 that we be safe from the attacks of a pagan king
28:14 by listening very carefully to the gift of prophecy.
28:17 Can you say amen?
28:19 God has given us that gift to keep us from falling prey to
28:22 Satan's strategies and schemes.
28:25 It is obvious God's people would not have survived the
28:29 Syrian incursion without the gift of prophecy.
28:33 If the prophet had been ignored, the people would have perished.
28:39 There's that verse in Scripture that says,
28:41 "Where there is no vision, the people perish."
28:44 And I hope you'll allow me to use that verse
28:46 homiletically here.
28:48 God knew that His people were in the midst of something
28:51 much bigger than themselves.
28:53 God knew that His people were not up to the task.
28:57 God blessed them.
29:00 He had told those people, "You will be okay
29:04 if you'll learn to rely on Me.
29:06 I will never let you down.
29:08 I will never sell you upstream.
29:09 I will bless you with every spiritual provision
29:12 that you need.
29:14 I'm giving you the gift of prophecy.
29:17 Listen, trust, take heed.
29:20 Act on that special gift."
29:22 You know, God didn't choose Israel because they were
29:24 the biggest and the baddest.
29:25 He didn't choose them because they had all the weapons
29:27 and all the smarts and all the skills.
29:29 In fact, we know they were small.
29:32 They weren't the fiercest people group in the Middle East.
29:34 They weren't the best trained.
29:35 They weren't a warrior type of people.
29:39 But they were willing to follow Him.
29:40 God said, "I will bring you up out of Egypt and
29:43 you won't have to fire a shot.
29:45 I will drive your enemies out of the Promised Land
29:47 before you get there even."
29:49 Well, not all of them.
29:50 "I'll send hornets before you and run them off.
29:54 The Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace.
29:57 I will allow you to walk across a river in flood stage.
30:01 I'll just stop the thing from flowing.
30:04 I'll dam it up here and let the water run down there.
30:06 You all just walk across."
30:08 I grew up on a river.
30:09 And I mean that almost literally.
30:11 I can't say a stone's throw, but if I had a cricket ball...
30:15 Now in civilized countries, we don't have the baseball.
30:17 We have a cricket ball.
30:19 And if I had a cricket ball and threw it about four times,
30:23 the fourth one would have seen it roll down the river bank
30:25 and plop into the water.
30:26 I grew up near a river.
30:28 It was summer time when the sandbank...
30:31 We called it the sandbank.
30:32 Out there in the middle of the river almost.
30:33 The sandbank would come up.
30:35 Now nothing really came up, but the river level would come down.
30:38 Lack of rain, and there were hydroelectric power schemes
30:40 along that river, and so the river level would drop down
30:44 and the sandbank would rise up.
30:46 And we could walk out.
30:48 Man, before you had to...
30:49 In fact, you wouldn't even swim out because the sandbank
30:51 was under water and you wouldn't swim out to stand on the water.
30:53 I mean, you couldn't do anything out there.
30:57 But in the summer time, the river was down.
31:00 But you could only go half way.
31:02 You got to the other side of what we called the sandbank
31:04 and you saw that it dropped off.
31:06 Man, it was like the Mariana Trench.
31:09 Nobody messed with that part of the river.
31:11 But here's what God did.
31:12 He just stopped the thing from flowing.
31:15 "If you just rely on Me."
31:18 I've said this before and I will say it again,
31:21 all God really wants from His people is that His people
31:24 let God be God.
31:28 If you just let God do His job, He'll do it successfully
31:33 and you won't have a thing to worry about.
31:36 God said, "I will do it for you if you listen to Me."
31:40 And part of listening to God, a major part of listening to God,
31:44 is listening to the voice of the prophets.
31:45 Friends, if we will do that, if we'll take our lead
31:50 from the testimony of Jesus, which is the gift of prophecy.
31:55 If we can say, "The prophets said it, I'm going to follow it.
31:58 I know it might not be popular in all quarters,
32:00 but it sure is popular with God, and so it's popular with me."
32:04 If we'll have the good sense to say, "God has sent light
32:07 not just for us to look at, but to walk in,"
32:11 if we walk in that light, we can hardly go wrong.
32:15 If we'll have the tenacity to say, "I'm hanging onto the
32:18 Word of God, and I'm hanging onto the testimony of Jesus
32:21 because this is light given us by God."
32:23 If like Joram you have the good sense to say,
32:26 "This is God's message to me and I will listen and trust,"
32:30 God can do something for you.
32:31 If they had rejected the gift of prophecy back then,
32:34 they would have been wiped out.
32:37 If God's people were to reject the gift of prophecy down here
32:40 at the end of time, there's no way we would be able to stand
32:42 safely over on the other shore.
32:46 Remember in the great controversy, God has sent you
32:49 heavenly guidance.
32:50 Heavenly.
32:51 I remember reading a story about a fellow who,
32:53 during the cold war, he was a pilot.
32:55 And I don't know just what this guy did wrong,
32:57 but he found himself, he got off course.
33:00 And by the time he figured out what was going on,
33:01 he was way deep into enemy territory.
33:04 Now for some reason, he couldn't rely on his
33:06 navigational instruments.
33:07 And I don't know why.
33:09 But there was something he could rely on.
33:10 He looked outside and he could navigate by the stars.
33:14 And as he navigated by the stars and as he followed the stars,
33:18 the guidance system worked.
33:20 It was an old fashioned guidance system.
33:25 But it worked.
33:26 Friends, God has given us an old fashioned guidance system;
33:30 the Word of God, the testimony of Jesus Christ.
33:34 It might be old fashioned, but it works.
33:37 It will help us in the battle, it will help us against the foe.
33:41 It will see us victorious.
33:43 It might be old, but it is tried and it is true.
33:47 And when everything new might fail away,
33:50 there is something that's going to stand like the heavens;
33:53 the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
33:58 You think Satan knows that?
34:01 I think he does.
34:02 That's why he plots, and that's why he plans,
34:04 and that's sows doubt.
34:08 And that's why he gets people to come off with you about,
34:11 "Well, you can't trust anything."
34:12 "He said..." Anything. "She said..."
34:13 "You can't trust that."
34:14 I'm telling you that you can trust it.
34:16 You know what Satan does?
34:17 He studies and he watches.
34:19 It's part of the great controversy.
34:22 I recently had an interesting conversation with a
34:24 fellow named Will Baron.
34:26 Will is a tremendously nice man. He's an English man.
34:29 That probably helps.
34:31 He wrote a book about 20 years ago called,
34:33 Deceived By The New Age.
34:35 If you haven't read that book and you do, you'll find it
34:37 very, very interesting.
34:39 But we sat down and had a conversation for an upcoming
34:41 It Is Written television program.
34:43 We're going to look at, in this program, on the affects
34:46 of the New Age in the world and in the church today.
34:49 And you can think about the New Age in very broad terms.
34:52 You know, it's not just the Harry Potter movement,
34:53 but it's yoga and it's any number of things.
34:58 And Will said that when he was in the New Age movement,
35:01 he was a New Age priest.
35:03 He was a high flyer in the New Age movement.
35:07 He said that the spirit guides came to him and others
35:10 at their New Age group.
35:11 And when I say "spirit guides," what am I really meaning?
35:13 Demons, exactly.
35:15 And they came and they said, "We want you now,
35:17 not just to be a New Age group, but to flip over
35:19 and now be a Christian church.
35:23 To show yourself to be a Christian church."
35:27 Now the demons weren't saying, "Go be Christians."
35:31 The demons said, "We want you to model as a Christian church
35:34 so as to be able to better deceive Christians."
35:40 This is what's interesting.
35:41 The spirit guides...
35:43 And what were the spirit guides? They were what?
35:45 Demons. That's right.
35:46 They came and they said, "Here's what we want you to do.
35:49 I want you to go into Christian churches and meet with
35:51 Christians and teach them New Age meditation techniques."
35:57 Are you hearing me?
35:59 Isn't that something?
36:01 And we say, is it just circumstance or happenstance
36:05 that various things pop up in churches around the world?
36:09 No.
36:10 Ladies and gentlemen, Satan is smart.
36:13 I have said before that I aspire to be as good at my job
36:17 as he is at his.
36:19 He's smart.
36:21 And he's not just letting things go and letting things happen.
36:24 He is calculating and he is working and he is manipulating
36:28 and he is pulling strings.
36:30 Remarkable.
36:31 You'll want to see that program when it comes up.
36:32 And you'll be able to watch it right here.
36:35 The point is, Satan is in earnest.
36:39 And what's going on in this world today
36:41 as a controversy rages between right and wrong,
36:44 light and dark, between Christ and Satan,
36:47 it's not just an accident.
36:50 But there is something intentionally
36:52 that is taking place.
36:55 Satan is the master conspirator.
36:59 And there is a conspiracy afoot.
37:02 Now I run the risk of digressing just a little bit here,
37:05 but I cannot help myself.
37:07 So I'm going to have to.
37:09 Mentioning conspiracies brings something to mind.
37:12 You know, there are always people you're going to find
37:14 who are obsessed with conspiracies, and conspirators,
37:18 and conspiracy theories.
37:20 Have you noticed that?
37:22 I'm about to lose at least one friend.
37:25 But it's probably worth the price.
37:29 I would like to encourage those who spend their time
37:33 studying the fine points of the trilateral commission,
37:37 and the Bilderbergers, and the Illuminati,
37:42 to find a pursuit more worthy of your energies.
37:47 I'm not suggesting that one should be ignorant entirely
37:51 about such things.
37:55 But I encounter people who read about this stuff online
37:58 and they study about this stuff.
37:59 And it becomes their stuff.
38:00 I met a kid...
38:01 That's disrespectful to call him a kid.
38:03 I met a young man recently and he said that when he
38:05 came to the church, someone got a hold of him and started
38:07 sharing with him some of this stuff.
38:09 He said, "I woke up one day and found that all I was studying
38:11 was about conspiracy theories and I wasn't studying my Bible.
38:14 I knew the conspiracy theories,
38:17 but I didn't know Jesus."
38:19 We make a great mistake.
38:21 I've read the book of Revelation and I find
38:23 no mention of the Illuminati.
38:25 None.
38:27 I have read other good books that comment on the Bible
38:31 and none of the reliable ones mention the conspiracy theories.
38:34 I'm not suggesting that they're not out there.
38:36 But there are people who want to rush up to me
38:38 and talk to me about Bohemian Grove.
38:40 They've never been there.
38:42 They don't know anyone who's been there.
38:43 They read about it on the internet.
38:44 And of course everything you read on the internet
38:46 has to be what?
38:47 Has to be true.
38:49 Especially when it's about something that
38:51 you can't validate.
38:54 You know, there's a reason I don't know anything
38:56 about secret societies.
38:57 You know what that reason is?
38:59 They're secret.
39:02 And if they're so secretive, how do we have so many
39:04 experts in our midst who can tell you all of the
39:06 last details about them?
39:07 Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to study anything,
39:11 study the Bible.
39:12 If you want to be up on something, be up on Jesus.
39:15 If you really want to know who the enemy is,
39:17 the enemy is Satan.
39:18 If you want to know who he's working through,
39:19 he's working through the beast.
39:21 Study that.
39:23 And I'm not going to say that everyone else
39:25 is absolved of guilt.
39:27 I'm not here to pretend that there's not other
39:29 interesting things you might be able to learn.
39:30 I'm not trying to say that people associated with
39:33 this group or that group or some other group
39:34 are all choir boys.
39:35 I don't mean that.
39:37 But part of Satan's great conspiracy is to get
39:41 people so worked up over the conspiracies
39:43 that they go cold on Jesus and wonder away from the
39:47 truths that are central to the great controversy.
39:51 It's important that we let the main things be the main things.
39:55 You know, I was talking to a group the other night
39:58 and I said to a lady...
40:00 She was sitting right by the piano, so I took her
40:01 for a piano player.
40:02 And I said, "Would you sit at the piano, please."
40:04 I put her right on the spot and I took a bit of a risk.
40:06 I said, "Would you play a major cord, please?"
40:09 And she played a major chord.
40:12 Beautiful.
40:13 Now I asked the congregation, "Do we need these major chords?"
40:16 "Oh, yes we do."
40:17 I asked her, "Would you please play a minor chord?"
40:20 And the minor chords wasn't...
40:22 It was like...
40:25 I don't do a minor chord any better than I do a major chord.
40:28 But I tried.
40:30 Now the minor chords, they don't sound very nice.
40:33 They sound all sort of suspenseful.
40:37 I don't like it.
40:39 But I asked the congregation, "Do we need the minor chords?"
40:41 "Yes, we need the minor chords."
40:43 The major chord needs to be complimented by the minor chord.
40:45 But you know, when the minor chords overtake the thing
40:48 and all you're getting are minor chords,
40:49 I end up feeling a little bit uncomfortable.
40:51 Now somebody who's a composer or an expert in music
40:53 will help me to understand there is an exception to that rule.
40:55 I know that.
40:57 But thumb your way through the hymnal and you will
41:00 find that the minor chords are minor.
41:03 And the major chords are major.
41:05 Friend, if you're going to hum a tune, a biblical tune,
41:08 let it be filled with major chords and let the
41:11 minor chords be the exception rather than the rule.
41:14 I hope I've said enough about that.
41:17 The worst thing about this stuff is sometimes it
41:19 just sucks up your time.
41:20 And you're not an expert in Jesus anymore,
41:22 you're an expert in the conspiracies.
41:24 God has given us a message.
41:26 It's the three angels messages.
41:29 Now back in Elisha's time...
41:31 We don't want to lose our thread here.
41:33 In Elisha's time, they were confronted by a pagan king,
41:35 just like Satan, planning the demise of God's people.
41:39 Here's what I want you to see.
41:40 I want you to see that there was something
41:42 going on behind the scenes.
41:44 The people were embroiled in a controversy,
41:46 but there was something going on behind the scenes.
41:50 They said, "That's it, let's go wipe these guys out."
41:52 They went down to Dothan, they found that Elisha was there.
41:54 They got themselves down to Dothan.
41:57 And the servant of the man of God saw all these cats and said,
42:00 "Man, this isn't good. What are we going to do?
42:02 There are so many of them."
42:03 And the word came back, "Now hang on, fear not.
42:07 They that be with us are more than they that be with them."
42:10 Elisha prayed, "Open up his eyes, Lord."
42:12 The man's eyes were opened and he saw horses and
42:15 chariots of fire round about.
42:16 See, listen.
42:17 Behind the scenes in the great controversy,
42:19 there are things you cannot see.
42:21 God is at work.
42:22 And you can rely on that and you can count on that.
42:25 You can know that in this battle, the numbers
42:28 are on the side of the child of God.
42:30 If Christ is with you, just you, then you are in the majority.
42:34 You and Jesus equals a huge majority.
42:38 It doesn't mean your life will always be peaches and cream.
42:40 It doesn't mean it will always be weather like San Diego.
42:44 Sometimes there's going to be a frost
42:46 on the ground of your life.
42:47 Sometimes the winds will blow, maybe mighty hard.
42:49 There may be things that will topple.
42:52 But if Christ is with you, then you can be confident of
42:55 deliverance and ultimate victory.
42:58 We are involved in something out here.
43:01 An angel, and angry angel, rebelled.
43:04 Sin entered the universe.
43:06 God could have ended it just like that
43:10 by destroying Satan.
43:12 But if He had, He wouldn't have ended it.
43:14 He would have just begun it.
43:16 If God has wiped out Satan, He would have been opening up a
43:19 Pandora's box.
43:20 And there was no way of telling all that would have
43:24 climbed out of that thing and destabilized the universe.
43:29 God could have put it down, but He said,
43:31 "In this great controversy, let's do something.
43:33 Let sin run its course."
43:34 Why? Satan has raised accusations.
43:37 "I could deny them, but that wouldn't prove anything.
43:40 Let's let sin run its course."
43:41 Satan has made certain claims about himself.
43:44 "I could destroy him, but what would that do?"
43:47 It would just cause doubt to rise.
43:48 Fear would enter the universe.
43:50 People would be scared stiff.
43:52 And they'd all say, "Maybe Satan was right."
43:56 Let's let this run its course.
44:01 And everybody is going to have the opportunity to
44:02 allow this wretched thing called sin play out.
44:06 The cost would be high.
44:08 It meant that people would get sick and people would die.
44:10 And there would be tragedy, and there would be premature death.
44:13 And there would be babies born ill and there would be
44:15 marriages that fell apart.
44:17 The cost would be high.
44:18 But our grandparents, Adam and Eve, were told
44:20 the cost would be high; sin would lead to death.
44:23 You reap what you sow.
44:24 They sinned; death came into this universe.
44:27 The cost would be high.
44:28 How high?
44:29 The cost would encompass something as valuable
44:33 as the life of Jesus Christ.
44:36 Sin entered this world.
44:40 And when it did, the death warrant of Jesus was signed.
44:44 Because it was agreed ahead of time.
44:45 In fact, let me read you something I read here.
44:48 "God made the world to enlarge heaven."
44:49 I like that.
44:51 "God made the world to enlarge heaven."
44:52 He desired a larger family.
44:55 How cool is that?
44:57 Why did God bring you into this world?
44:58 So that you can live forever.
45:00 So that God could have you as part of His family.
45:03 So that Jesus could have you as a sister
45:05 or as a brother, forever.
45:07 God brought this thing into existence so that we would be
45:10 blessed beyond our capacity to imagine.
45:13 Back to the quote.
45:14 "And before man was created, God and Christ entered into a
45:17 covenant that if he," that's man, "fell from his allegiance,
45:20 Christ would bear the penalty for transgression.
45:25 Man fell, but he was not left to the power of the destroyer.
45:28 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
45:30 that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
45:33 but have...'" What?
45:35 Yes, everlasting life.
45:36 "To the Redeemer was given all power to impart to
45:40 fallen human beings for their benefit and blessing."
45:44 Look, sin came. Jesus didn't leave us.
45:47 He said, "I'll take care of that.
45:48 And I will give you everything you need; every benefit,
45:52 every blessing, every advantage.
45:54 I will give it to you so that you're not going to be
45:55 rudderless out here in this world."
45:57 Satan says, "I will be like the Most High."
46:01 We can't know all that he said.
46:02 That's not in the biblical record.
46:04 You know that he lied and he schemed and he connived
46:06 and he was cunning.
46:07 And he misrepresented God.
46:09 The rebellion had to have huge affect on the entire universe.
46:12 People, angels, wondering what is the truth of all of this.
46:17 What's God really all about?
46:19 What's really going on?
46:21 Where did Lucifer come up with these ideas?
46:23 Is God just?
46:25 Is His law just?
46:28 Questions that demanded answers.
46:30 Could God's law be kept by human beings?
46:33 Because after all, Adam and Eve were put on the earth
46:35 and they fell.
46:37 God has got this perfect law, maybe that whole law is unjust.
46:42 And Lucifer might have said, "If they can't keep the law,
46:47 and I didn't keep the law, we're all on the same level.
46:51 If You're going to save them, You ought to save me as well."
46:56 As a race of people, we find ourselves, because of sin,
47:00 hopeless and helpless.
47:02 How could we get out of this mess.
47:03 I have good news for you.
47:04 We're going to cram all the good news into just a few minutes.
47:07 When Jesus came to this earth, He came not just to succeed
47:10 where we failed, but to demonstrate to the universe
47:12 what God was really like.
47:14 And frankly, if you stop and think about it,
47:16 the larger purpose was demonstrating to the universe
47:18 what God's character was like.
47:20 Whether we're saved or lost has to only be secondary.
47:22 The glory of God must be supreme.
47:25 Remember when David went into battle with Goliath?
47:29 What was motivating David wasn't the drive to kill a giant.
47:34 Wasn't the drive to marry the king's daughter.
47:36 He said, "Who is this person, this uncircumcised heathen,
47:39 who's dishonoring God?"
47:42 He was going to see to it that God was honored.
47:44 That's got to be our motivation out here; the honor of God.
47:47 "What's wrong with this sin that I'm committing?"
47:49 Hang on, you're asking the wrong question.
47:51 The question is, "Where's the honor of God in this?"
47:54 "Do I really need to do this thing to get to heaven?"
47:56 Stop, stop. Number 1, you don't do nothing.
47:58 You yield and Jesus does the doing in your life,
48:01 with your cooperation.
48:02 Christ in you, the hope of glory.
48:03 But secondly, you don't want to be asking ticky tacky questions.
48:07 You want to ask the big question,
48:08 "Where is the honor of God in all of this?
48:11 How is God glorified in all of this?"
48:15 That's the question.
48:16 Jesus came to this earth to restore in us the image of God.
48:21 That's one of the keys of the gospel; restoration.
48:24 Restoration in us God's image.
48:26 To restore in us the image of our Maker.
48:28 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to..." What?
48:32 "...forgive us..." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
48:33 And to do what?
48:35 "...cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
48:37 Get out of us the black death of sin and into us the new life
48:41 that comes when the image of God is restored in us.
48:45 Jesus would come, He would pay our debt.
48:47 Fallen into sin, prisoners in a world now that
48:51 is being claimed by Satan.
48:53 Jesus came to pay the debt and give us the opportunity
48:56 to choose life and not death.
48:58 Now we still have that choice.
48:59 You can choose death if you want.
49:00 It's a foolish choice, but you can do it.
49:03 When John Wesley was coming to the place that he was
49:05 founding Methodism, he had an argument with George Whitefield,
49:08 or Whitfield...
49:09 It's spelled Whitefield, but some of these English people
49:11 like to say Whitfield.
49:13 So whatever you want to say, say.
49:16 But Whitfield was a Calvinist.
49:17 He believed that there was no free choice.
49:21 He believed you're either born to be saved or lost,
49:23 and there was nothing you could do about either.
49:25 You're either damned to be damned or damned to be saved.
49:28 What could you do?
49:30 John Wesley said that this idea "made God
49:32 to be worse than the devil."
49:34 That's an exact quote.
49:35 God gave us choice, "Choose ye this day whom you will serve."
49:39 "Whoever comes to Me, I will by no means cast out."
49:42 There at Lincoln College in Oxford, they had some
49:44 discussions, you understand.
49:46 Christ would die on the cross to give us a choice.
49:49 God told the serpent, "You will bruise His heel,
49:52 but He is going to bruise your head."
49:54 I have to tell you, I don't have a soft spot for serpents at all.
49:57 I know people, they keep snakes as pets.
50:00 I don't know why?
50:02 I think it's evidence of a form of insanity.
50:05 Can I say that? A form.
50:07 Maybe a pretty gentle form, but a form of insanity.
50:10 What do you want one of them for?
50:14 No disrespect.
50:15 Well, okay, truthfully a little bit of disrespect intended.
50:18 I think you could say.
50:21 Jesus would bruise the snakes head.
50:25 He would bruise his head.
50:27 How would He do that?
50:28 He would do it at the cross.
50:31 That cross which would end up being the focal point
50:34 of this great controversy.
50:36 Everything before, in the minds of some,
50:41 raised questions about God and His goodness and His kingdom,
50:46 and His kindness and His love.
50:48 Everything after, all you've got to do is look back at the cross
50:53 and say, "That settles it."
50:55 God is good, look at the cross.
50:58 You think the great controversy costs you something.
51:00 Stop and think about what it cost God.
51:05 He gave His only begotten Son.
51:06 Now listen, I tread on thin ice when I say this.
51:10 If I gave my only begotten son, in as much as he's my only son,
51:15 I can't even imagine how I would breathe after that.
51:17 My boy is 11 years old, coming up 12.
51:20 He's at the place now that he's reminding me; almost 12.
51:27 How old was Jesus when He died on the cross?
51:30 Now you might say 33, and you'd be right.
51:32 But come on now, how old was Jesus?
51:34 Can you imagine how attached God and Jesus had to have been?
51:38 They had been together for how long?
51:39 Tell me.
51:40 Forever. How long is forever?
51:42 A long time.
51:44 And God...
51:46 I haven't had to send my kids off to college.
51:49 I have friends, they weep when their kids go to college.
51:51 We have other friends who celebrate
51:53 when their kids go to college.
51:54 That's another matter.
51:55 They weep.
51:56 Imagine when God fare welled Jesus and sent Him
51:58 down to this earth.
52:00 What a battle, what a struggle.
52:01 What a struggle, but Jesus came because the serpent's head
52:05 had to be bruised.
52:06 That meant the price for our sins had to be paid.
52:10 And also it would be demonstrated before
52:12 this universe once and for all that God was love.
52:17 He would demonstrate on the cross the character of God.
52:20 Love; Jesus hanging on the cross.
52:23 "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son."
52:27 When Jesus is on the cross...
52:29 What does that verse say?
52:31 "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
52:34 He died for His enemies.
52:37 He didn't just give His enemies money for food,
52:41 He died for His enemies.
52:44 Died knowing that most of them would spit on His grave.
52:48 Yet He died for them anyway.
52:50 That's love.
52:51 Enemies nailed Him to a cross.
52:53 And as He was being nailed to a cross, He breathed a prayer,
52:57 "Father, forgive them because they don't even know
53:00 what they're doing."
53:01 Who else would have done that?
53:03 Nails being stuck in their hands and feet, "Forgive them."
53:08 Most of us would have called down the curse of heaven.
53:13 Heavenly intelligences had the right then to think about
53:17 Satan's charges.
53:20 I don't know what was in the minds of the angels.
53:21 I don't know, so I'm not going to try to pretend.
53:24 But any angel who had ever wondered now saw Jesus
53:27 lay down and stretch out His arms on that cross.
53:30 They didn't wonder anymore. They knew.
53:32 And I just wonder now, I'm just wondering.
53:33 And it's dangerous to wonder too much.
53:36 But I'm wondering, what do you think the
53:38 fallen angels were thinking?
53:40 When they saw Jesus carry His cross, carry that thing,
53:45 thorns on His brow, back whipped open.
53:47 He carried His own cross.
53:49 He got up to the top of Calvary, He didn't protest.
53:51 He laid down on the cross and stretched out His arms.
53:53 What did the demons think?
53:55 Don't you think one of the demons had to have thought,
53:57 "Wait a minute, this isn't what we were told.
54:00 We were told He was lousy. We were told God was unfair.
54:02 But I'm not seeing any lousiness and unfairness
54:05 being demonstrated here."
54:07 I don't pretend to think that they were about to repent.
54:09 I have no idea.
54:12 Too late by then anyway.
54:13 But I just imagine if something thrilled the
54:16 heart of a fallen angel.
54:17 Maybe they were just so cold it didn't matter anymore.
54:21 The cross answered the charges, the arguments, the claims,
54:27 the lies of Satan.
54:30 The cross would uplift and refine and ennoble human kind.
54:35 The door was open wide now.
54:38 Salvation was before us.
54:40 Heaven was not locked.
54:43 God's goodness and God's grace had been dispensed
54:46 since time began.
54:48 Don't make the mistake of thinking grace
54:50 only happened after the cross.
54:52 Noah and Lot, in fact everybody who was saved back then,
54:55 saved by grace through faith in the Messiah.
54:58 Just the Messiah who was to come rather than the
55:00 Messiah who has come.
55:02 But through this gift of the cross, human beings
55:06 would be lifted up, human beings would be refined,
55:09 our price would be paid.
55:11 That sins price would be paid.
55:13 Debt would be lifted, burdens would be lifted.
55:17 Debts would be cancelled.
55:19 Cross would see to it Jesus died.
55:21 He said, "It is finished."
55:25 And it was finished.
55:26 It was accomplished when Jesus died on the cross.
55:30 When Jesus died on the cross, now the image of God
55:33 could be restored in fallen humanity.
55:36 Oh thank God for what the cross accomplished.
55:40 Oh thank God for what Jesus did on Calvary.
55:43 Carried that cross up the hill.
55:45 Laid down on the cross.
55:47 Nails put in His hands and feet.
55:49 Lifted up and dropped that cross, dropped down in the
55:52 hole with a thud.
55:54 Christ was in agony.
55:56 But the cross demonstrated to the world, Satan is a liar.
55:59 The cross demonstrated to the world, God is able to restore
56:03 in you His own image.
56:05 The cross told us we are not under a sentence that
56:08 damns us forever, but now we are free.
56:11 Chains are gone.
56:13 Sin does not have to drag you down to hell.
56:15 The old mind doesn't have to stay old.
56:18 This has been done, price has been paid,
56:21 burdens are disappeared.
56:22 Jesus has died on the cross.
56:24 Opened to us heaven's storehouse of grace and blessings forever.
56:30 Because Jesus died, answering Satan's charges.
56:33 Friend, we have a great God and a mighty Savior.
56:38 And as the time ticks away, in our time this evening
56:40 we're going to pray briefly
56:43 and ask that Jesus would make real forever what He
56:45 accomplished when He died at Calvary.
56:47 Would you pray with me.
56:48 Our Father, we are thankful that as undeserving as we are
56:56 You, in Your goodness, allowed Your Son, Jesus, to die for us.
57:01 You showed us what You are really like
57:03 and settled forever Satan's charges against You.
57:06 As we study on, open our eyes and hearts and minds.
57:09 Thank You for blessing us tonight.
57:10 And we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
57:14 I'm thankful that you've been here tonight.
57:16 And I'm thankful that you have been here tonight.
57:18 God bless you.
57:19 Be sure to join us next time as we study our next part,
57:23 part 3 in our study here on The Great Controversy.
57:27 God bless you and good night.


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Revised 2014-12-17