Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190004B
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00:06 When we hear the words of Jesus again, we want to reemphasize
00:09 that as He turns to John, puts His hand on him, and He says, 00:12 "John, don't be afraid." 00:14 And then Jesus says why. 00:16 Even though John falls like a dead person, he's not dead, 00:19 but he just loses all strength. 00:20 And Jesus puts His hand on him and says, "Don't be afraid." 00:23 Then Jesus gives the reason why. 00:25 So we want to go to Revelation 1:18 00:28 and listen to Jesus as He says why we should not be afraid. 00:33 He says, "I am He who lives, and was dead..." 00:37 In other words, "I'm alive. I was dead, but I'm alive." 00:41 So that should give you hope. 00:43 "...and behold, I am alive forevermore." 00:46 So Jesus is saying, "Don't be afraid, because 00:49 even though I was dead, I'm now alive. 00:52 And I'm going to be alive forevermore." 00:53 Now that's very, very important to remember. 00:56 And then He says, "Amen." Or so be it. 00:59 "And I have the keys to Hades and Death." 01:04 Or to grave and the death. 01:05 Now that's quite a statement. 01:07 Jesus alone has the keys to unlock the graves. 01:12 You know every time you ride by a graveyard, 01:14 it's like riding by one of Satan's prison houses. 01:17 Because as people die, they go into Satan's grave, 01:20 if you please. 01:22 Into the prison house. 01:23 But Jesus is coming some day to release His children 01:27 from that prison. 01:29 He has the keys. He can unlock that grave. 01:31 He can bring people back to life. 01:33 Some people think that's a hard thing, but 01:36 really for the God of heaven it's not going to be hard 01:39 to bring people back to life. 01:41 Let's just go on just a little bit. 01:43 When Jesus talks about having the keys, He's the living proof. 01:47 He knows what He's talking about. 01:50 Well how did the human race get into this mess anyway? 01:53 We've talked a little bit about that. 01:55 But God is love. 01:56 But it's because the whole human race bought into 01:59 the selfish proposition of the devil and his evil angels, 02:02 that somehow they could live and be selfish. 02:05 But you can't be selfish and live. 02:07 The only way you can live is to become unselfish. 02:10 And we need Jesus to do that. 02:12 Now it was a big risk for God to bring people into the world. 02:15 It's a risk to bring children into the world. 02:17 I mean, they're beautiful and wonderful as little babies, 02:19 you know, that's great. 02:21 But they're going to grow up and you're going to lose 02:23 control as a parent, and they are going to make decisions. 02:25 And they may make decisions that, you know, bother you. 02:28 It's a risk to bring children into the world. 02:30 It was a risk to bring a creation into the world. 02:32 Now Jesus could have made everybody robots. 02:36 I remember the first time we saw our little girl. 02:40 And I saw her through the window, 02:41 she had a little pink hat on. 02:43 She was so precious. 02:45 Now this didn't happen, and this is just after 02:48 I got to thinking about it and after she began to grow up. 02:51 She's been a wonderful daughter. 02:53 Is a wonderful daughter. 02:55 I began to think about this a little bit, and my imagination 02:58 worked on a little parable. 03:01 What if while I was looking at my little daughter 03:04 an angel appeared to me and said to me, 03:07 "You know what, behind her ear is a button. 03:12 And if you'll just push that button, she'll always be good." 03:19 Would you push it? 03:21 Would you push it? 03:24 I mean, it would be like saying she has to be good because 03:29 she'd be programmed that way. 03:33 No, you wouldn't push it. 03:35 Because when she sat on your lap and she said, 03:37 "Daddy, I love you," you'd be listening to a tape recorder. 03:41 No, God made His children free moral agents. 03:43 And we want our children to have freedom 03:46 to love and to take the risk of not loving us. 03:51 Love takes a risk. 03:54 That's why God made us free moral agents 03:57 so that when we say we love Him, 04:00 He's not listening to a tape recorder. 04:02 Jesus wants children, not robots. 04:07 So God runs His universe by these laws. 04:11 He wants to give us all the freedom he possibly can. 04:13 Some people think that God's law is restrictive. 04:15 No, it's not. 04:17 Unless death is freedom, and it's not, 04:19 God's laws are the law of liberty, as the Bible says. 04:23 They can make freedom possible. 04:24 They make life possible. 04:26 And without life, there's no freedom, of course. 04:28 So He runs His universe by these finely tuned laws. 04:32 We'll talk about that in another program again. 04:35 But if you change those laws, as I mentioned before, 04:38 death is the result. 04:40 Not because God is mean, but because He loves life. 04:43 And those laws are necessary to life. 04:46 And that's why Adam and Eve had to be tested. 04:49 That's why there was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 04:52 Not because God wanted them to choose evil, 04:54 but they couldn't grow in character without that testing. 04:59 And testing is different than tempting. 05:03 Let me underline that. 05:05 I mean, when you take a test in school, 05:06 does your teacher want you to pass the test? 05:08 Of course she does. 05:10 Of course he does. 05:11 He's rooting for your success. 05:15 He wants you to do well. 05:16 That's why you have tests. God's rooting for their success. 05:19 He's made them free moral agents, 05:20 and their loyalty now needs to be tested. 05:23 When somebody tempts you, they're tempting you 05:27 to get you in trouble because they don't like you. 05:30 Because they want to get you in a very difficult situation. 05:34 Temptation and testing are two very different things. 05:37 God tempts nobody, but He does test us. 05:41 And Adam and Eve were being tested. 05:43 Their loyalty was being tested. 05:45 And without loyalty, without trust in God, you can't exist. 05:50 That's the thing that connects us to God. 05:52 It's just that simple. 05:53 You trust God, you have faith in Him, 05:55 and now you're connecting with God. 05:56 He's the source of all life. 05:58 You don't have faith in Him, then you're not connected 06:01 with Him, and you're going to die. 06:03 That's why the whole world is dying, 06:04 is because of a lack of faith. 06:08 So how do we get out of this mess since we're all 06:11 born into a sinful condition? 06:13 I mean, you're born with a carnal nature 06:16 that tempts us, Satan tempts us, 06:18 the selfish world that we live in tempts us. 06:21 I'm telling you, we had to have a substitute. 06:23 We had to have somebody different from Adam 06:25 who fell and plunged us all into this mess. 06:29 And Jesus became our substitute. 06:32 What is a substitute? 06:33 That's a big word. 06:35 Well let me give you an illustration 06:37 maybe to help understand that. 06:39 I'm not sure I really like where I get it from, but 06:41 it helps you to understand how substitution is 06:43 going on in our own culture and our own society. 06:47 Let's just suppose that two guys are at work and it's Friday, 06:50 and they're getting ready to get off, 06:51 and each one of them are the sponsor of a ball team. 06:54 I don't care what kind of ball. Some kind of sports team. 06:57 And one says to the other, he says, "You know what? 07:00 You know what? 07:01 Our team is going to win this weekend. 07:03 And the other one says, "No, our team is going to win this week." 07:05 Oh, they have this friendly back and forth. 07:08 And then they go home. 07:09 Have you ever seen a sports, pardon the word, 07:13 ever seen a sports fanatic? 07:17 You know, they paint their faces, they go to some 07:20 sports game, they stand up and they yell and they scream. 07:23 Or they get in front of the television, 07:25 nobody can hear them there or maybe except their kids 07:27 and their wife. 07:29 Or maybe it's their husband. 07:31 And every time something goes right, they jump and yell. 07:34 And every time something goes wrong, they say, "Oh no." 07:39 Well, come Monday morning, and they get back and 07:44 the guy whose team won, he comes in and he says 07:47 to his friend, "We beat you. 07:49 We beat you good." 07:51 We? 07:53 We? 07:56 We never touched the ball. 08:02 So what's going on here? 08:04 It's called, substitution. 08:08 Substitution means that whatever the team does happens to him. 08:13 So if they win, they're happy as all get out, so to speak. 08:18 And if they have lost, they go into depression. 08:23 Substitution. 08:25 Whatever happens to the team happens to them. 08:28 The wonderful thing about our wonderful Savior is 08:31 that everything He did can be substituted for us. 08:34 His death, His resurrection, His life. 08:38 That's where you get power to live a Christian life. 08:39 You can't live a Christian life on your own. 08:42 I want to underline that. 08:43 You need a union with Christ in order to be able to 08:46 live a Christian life. 08:48 It's that union with Christ that means everything to us. 08:51 Some people say, "Well, how is it that one Man's life could 08:54 pay for everybody else's?" 08:56 Well, let me ask you a question. 08:59 Who is more valuable, the artist or the artwork? 09:05 Well, I know in our world today so many people say 09:07 the artwork is more valuable, but they're wrong. 09:11 The artist is always more valuable than his artwork. 09:15 The creator of anything is always more valuable 09:20 than what he created. 09:22 Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. 09:25 He is the one who created everything. 09:29 He created Adam and Eve, from which we all came. 09:34 So Jesus, because He's the Creator of the universe, 09:39 is worth more than all of us put together. 09:43 He's worth more than the entire universe. 09:46 So when He gives His life in place of mine, 09:51 His life is worth all of our lives. 09:53 So His life can be a substitute for the life of 09:58 everybody on the planet. 10:00 What a wonderful Savior. 10:02 There's nobody like Him. 10:04 This incomparable Jesus who gave His life for us 10:09 so that He could save us 10:11 and get us out of this terrible mess. 10:14 You know, if you choose Jesus as your Messiah, 10:18 then there's several wonderful things that happen. 10:21 First of all, of course, He brings you to repent 10:24 of your sins, which is a good thing to repent 10:27 in front of God's Ten Commandments. 10:29 And then you surrender your life to His control. 10:31 And that's a good thing because so many people's lives 10:34 are out of control. 10:36 That's why there's so much unhappiness in the world. 10:38 People are just out of control. 10:40 Everywhere you go you see people doing crazy things. 10:44 And they're ruining their life because they're out of control. 10:49 But the result of that is a brand new you. 10:51 We call it a new birth experience or a new creation. 10:55 But you know, in order to keep that new birth going, 10:57 you need a constant faith in the Lord Jesus. 11:00 Not a one point in time faith. 11:04 You need a constant faith. 11:06 You need a constant union with Christ. 11:09 And the wonderful thing is that even if we do sin, 11:12 if we do sin, thank God we have an Advocate, 11:16 we have somebody that can help us. 11:18 You know, you've heard people say, "Well, I'm not perfect." 11:21 Have you ever heard anybody say that? 11:22 Yet Jesus says, "Be perfect, even as your Father 11:26 in heaven is perfect." 11:27 What did He mean by that? 11:28 Oh, a few months ago I got to thinking about that. 11:30 And I said, I've got to understand that better. 11:33 And I went and read... Let me tell you this. 11:34 Context is everything. 11:37 If you take something out of context, 11:38 you can make it say anything you want. 11:40 But when you go to the context in Matthew 5:43-48, 11:47 you hear that Jesus says, "Be like your heavenly Father. 11:50 He makes the sun shine on those that are not nice 11:53 and He makes the sun shine on those who are nice." 11:56 God does nice things for everybody 11:59 because He's such a wonderful loving God. 12:01 He cares about everybody. 12:03 And that's the context where Jesus said, 12:07 "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." 12:09 In other words, learn to love unselfishly, 12:14 like your heavenly Father loves. 12:17 You love everybody. 12:18 That doesn't mean you condone everybody, 12:21 nor justify wickedness or evil. 12:23 Still call sin by its right name. 12:26 But we do love. We care about people. 12:30 Listen, Jesus has the key. 12:32 This union with Christ means everything. 12:35 One of my favorite authors in, Desire of Ages, page 388, 12:38 says this, and I'd like to share this with you. 12:41 "Christ became one flesh with us so that we might become 12:45 one spirit with Him." 12:46 Now listen. 12:48 "It is by virtue of this union with Christ 12:52 that we are to come forth from the grave, 12:55 not merely as a manifestation of the power of Christ, 12:59 but because of faith," in Him, of course, 13:02 His life has become ours." 13:04 In other words, the life of Christ 13:07 has become our substitute. 13:10 Let me tell you, this incomparable Jesus, 13:12 this Alpha and Omega, this Beginning and the End, 13:17 this One who says don't be afraid, 13:20 He can say that, He can say that because 13:25 He is able to bring us back from the grave. 13:30 Don't be afraid. 13:31 You have the Alpha and the Omega on your side. |
Revised 2019-06-25