Easter Sunday - Where, What, When, With Whom and Why it All Began

[0:00] Young people probably wondering when you all stood, why didn't the preacher stand? And those of you who have a few years on you can understand, but it's called conservation of energy.

[0:16] Hey, we're delighted to have you all here. We invited all of you, we just didn't expect you all to come. So you picked a great morning to be here, especially if you were here for breakfast. It was a sumptuous feast and we just enjoyed it immensely.

[0:30] And our thanks again to all of those who prepared those delicious dishes and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. So thank you again. And thanks also for those who've provided the beautiful bank of lilies and obtained them in memory of loved ones.

[0:48] Their names are listed in the bulletin and we just want to remind you, those of you who were kind enough to purchase these as memorials, be sure when the service is concluded that you take those that you purchased home with you and enjoy them in your own living quarters.

[1:06] Thank you again. We have had some year, haven't we? Last 12 months or so has been so chaotic and abnormal.

[1:20] And as I've often said, we've never been here before. And everything takes some getting used to. And there's been so much information out there and so much misinformation and disinformation.

[1:33] And it gets to the place sometimes where you don't know who or what to believe because each one that makes their pronouncements is coming from some kind of sphere of unquestioned authority.

[1:45] And yet they disagree with others who have unquestioned authority. And it leaves us poor lay folks out there wondering just exactly what it is we're supposed to believe. So in the midst of all, we have one great item of comfort.

[2:00] And that is the only one who really understands it all is in charge. And don't you forget it. That's our source of comfort. Would you pray with me, please? Loving Father, we pause once again this glorious Resurrection Sunday.

[2:19] Mindful all throughout the year, but especially on this Sunday. Of that enormous, incredible event that happened for 2,000 years ago.

[2:33] When he who knew no sin was made to be sin for us. And was offered up by the Father to redeem a fallen world.

[2:47] Paid the ultimate price. And then three days later, triumphantly, was raised from that grave. We just cannot fathom such an incredible event.

[3:01] But we are so glad for the authority that sets it forth in your word. Provides us with the real basis for hope, for confidence, for joy, for everything that you have secured and paid for and provided for us through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[3:19] And today we are celebrating that with a new kind of Thanksgiving. We trust it will be a more aware Thanksgiving when we leave here. That each of us will have just a little bit better perspective of it all than when we arrived.

[3:35] And to that end, we commit this time of fellowship and investigation into your word. In Christ's name. Amen. Amen. I'm especially delighted to see so many young people here this morning.

[3:53] And as you look in your bulletin and see the title of the message, it kind of reminds me of a similar theme that we've addressed before that we have called what everything is all about.

[4:06] And it ties in with that. and I realize that that sounds like a very expansive subject and maybe too great a one to undertake but when you have the scriptures to back you up it really isn't and it is akin to what we've got here for this morning the message is entitled what, where, when, with whom, and why it all began where what all began everything absolutely everything you know as we were singing these wonderful hymns and the hallelujah and in Christ alone it just occurred to me I sat there and I just felt kind of sad all over again for a number of the atheists that are out there because atheism has no song isn't that sad and we need to we need to have compassion for these dear people because many of them are coming from a position of atheism because they've had a severe disappointment of some kind in their life for which they held God responsible and because God didn't come through for them they just kind of wrote him off as if he doesn't even exist and I've talked with a number of Jewish friends who have thoroughly committed themselves to atheism and many of them there's a disproportionate number of Jews that have embraced atheism as opposed to the rest of the population and the thing that weighs most heavily on them is the Holocaust and I can understand their thinking that can you not?

[6:01] when you look upon yourself as one who is supposed to be God's chosen people and then God allowed his so-called chosen people to perish to the tune of six million in Hitler's death camps frankly at least from a human standpoint I can understand them writing God off and saying to me this is evidence that there isn't a God and even if there should be a God who didn't intervene in a case like that I don't want anything to do with him and I'm reminded of a gentleman who had a conversation with a little seven-year-old boy a year ago and they were on a plane traveling somewhere and well it was the gentleman that he was with wasn't seven years old but he was relaying back to the time when he was seven years old and the other passenger was a pastor and he struck up a conversation with his seatmate the guy said so you're a preacher huh?

[7:02] and he said well yes yes I I teach the word of God and he said well I gave up on God a long time ago and he said well what happened?

[7:12] what brought that on? and he said well my mother was very ill and we were all praying for her and the church they attended they had some people come over from the church and they all prayed for her and they were trusting God that she was going to be healed and raised up and she died right then and there as a seven year old I decided that if God didn't care anymore about a little boy seven years old who really needs his mother and won't come through like that I don't want anything to do with him and he just had written him off and you know something this story is legion there are a lot of people out there like that had some kind of a sad reversal in their life because and maybe they prayed and maybe they didn't but at any rate God if he's supposed to be all powerful and all wise and everything where was he when I needed him and they just kind of write him off and there are a lot of people like that out there because in a fallen world that we live in there are lots of things that can disappoint you and break your heart and cause you to wonder where is God when you really need him if he even is so

[8:32] I can understand that and the message this morning like I mentioned is going to be somewhat different and I'm really encouraged for a number of young people here for the simple reason that you young people are going to hear something this morning that is information is completely unknown to the vast majority of the people on the planet actually much of it is unknown even to a lot of people who profess Christianity but you're going to get a kind of a bird's eye view of it and from the scriptures as to what's involved with the title that we just shared with you in the bulletin and before we look to Hebrews chapter 1 I want to give you some I guess for lack of a better term we'll just call them some thoughts for you to ponder before we turn to the scriptures and we'll be reading from Hebrews shortly in speaking with the woman at the well in John 4

[9:35] Jesus informed her that God is spirit that means God is able to be everywhere present without subtraction or division he is not diminished or lessened by being in one place rather than another he is omnipresent or everywhere present at one and the same time it is not true that if God is here he cannot be there not at all he is everywhere fully present and fully intact in his being this spirit God existed in three distinct personages while comprising a single deity or Godness of oneness as regards God's distinction from humans we can only think in terms of his otherness and that's a good word to think about when you talk about God otherness otherness this spirit

[10:47] God is eternal in existence comprised of three distinct persons while constituting not three but one God each of whom is spirit in essence and not physical or material we've had great difficulty grasping that because when Jesus told that woman at the well that God is spirit and he didn't say God is a spirit he said God is spirit that means God is immaterial that means God is not comprised of stuff like we are we are flesh and blood and bone and God is not God is spirit he is immaterial he is non-physical each father son and holy spirit each is not merely one third God with the three comprising one God but each is fully

[11:50] God in his own right enjoying a co-eternal exercise of omnipotence that means all powerful omniscience which means all knowing and omnipresence which means everywhere present at the same time these three persons partake of a holy and perfect interaction of love and fellowship on a plane unknown by angels or humans God the father and God the son must not be thought of as a human father and son that would be a major mistake on our part but we tend to think that way because that's the only way we have any reference to it we know about fathers and sons among humans fathers pre-exist sons and there is no son who is older or equal in age to his father but in the trinity father son and holy spirit are co-equal and co-eternal and all three are spirit beings possessing no physicality likewise the trinity is devoid or absent of rank but each is fully equal to the others

[13:21] God the son in existence eternally with God the father and God the holy spirit and Jesus is not identified except as God the son Jesus was not until the son became clothed with humanity at Bethlehem that he was given the human name Jesus which literally means savior savior what was he before well he wasn't Jesus he was simply the eternal son of God but he had no flesh about him until Bethlehem and then the word became flesh and dwelt among us we are told God of his own good pleasure decided to create non-physical spirit beings called angels how many were created we do not know except they are referred to as innumerable unable to they were created as independent moral beings whom he endowed with a will that allowed them to make choices with their will these angels could choose to comply with their creator and his will or they could exercise their own will of non-compliance and disobey their creator this was the introduction of volution into the created order of beings volution of course is related to the word voluntary and volunteer of all the many angels one in particular named lucifer was endowed with an elevated capacity that gave him a kind of superiority over all the other angelic beings some angels are designated as seraphim in isaiah six and cherubim in genesis three indicating a kind of ranking among these created angelic beings one in particular by the name of gabriel will make the announcement to the virgin mary about her being the earthly mother of jesus as well as announcing to zacharias the birth of his son who will be john the baptist another named michael an angel named michael will be charged with direct responsibilities for the nation of israel he will also in the final analysis be the one who will dispatch lucifer known as satan to his final doom and here's what i really want you to hear we do not know why it pleased god to create angels or humans and in doubt the capacity to obey or disobey we only know that he had one other alternative and that would have been to create everybody in a programmed way angels and humans so that they automatically obeyed and had no choice but that would make them involuntary that would make them pre-programmed and the analogy that i use is that no woman wants her husband to love her because he is programmed to do so but because he chooses to do so he loves

[17:22] her because he wants to that's the kind of love that god wants also he wants a voluntary love and he gave us and he gave angels wills so that they could express that one way or the other so we do not know why it pleased god to create angels or humans and to do both with the capacity to obey or disobey we only know that it did according to revelation four and verses 10 and 11 which states the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne and worship him that liveth forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne thou art worthy oh lord to receive glory and honor and power for or because thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created which boiled down especially for you young people means that god created angels and humans as he did simply because he wanted to oh by the way not because he had to but because he chose to because god has no needs that he cannot meet within his own person and character god does not have to go outside himself to meet any need that he has he is fully contained and fully sufficient within himself and then later in revelation chapter five the very next chapter we read the same four and twenty elders along with four other living creatures are said to sing a new song to

[19:12] Jesus as the lamb of god saying thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof for or because thou was slain and has redeemed us to god by thy blood which is a synonym for death Jesus didn't redeem us by just bleeding a little bit of blood he redeemed us by dying wasn't just bleeding but it was death that was required has redeemed us to god by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation and has made to our god kings and priests shall reign on the earth and of course that is all future so what I've just given you is a very brief synopsis and by the way if anybody understands what I just read please explain it to me after the service is over because it's over my head also and yet this is this is all that god has given us to go on that is provided here in his word and it's it is it is the answer to the question of philosophers for centuries why is there something rather than nothing and when you realize if you take the position that so many do today and by the way we've got a bumper crop of atheists a great many people have embraced atheism percentage wise than what has ever been known before and you you have no alternative but to take the position that nobody and nothing brought everything into existence and frankly

[21:16] I am of the opinion that it really would take a lot of faith to believe that other than to just believe that in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth and by the way the word in that very first verse of genesis one god is a word that of all things appears in the hebrew in the plural it's elohim which is the plural for god but the scriptures teach that there is but one god not three gods and this one god subsists three persons father son and holy spirit and as I mentioned has nothing to do with age relationship or generational but that's the only way we can think of it we think in human terms of a father and a son and of course the father always comes first because you can't have a son without the father but in so far as god is concerned we're we're getting outside the realm of humanity this is why

[22:17] I say the otherness the otherness that's what he is he's the otherness he's everything that we aren't but in order for us to get any kind of a grasp or picture of this being he has to bring himself down to some kind of explanatory level that we can at least begin to appreciate a little bit because that which separates god from man is so great it can't be measured god is infinite that means he is without limitations we have all kinds of limitations imposed upon us we have a limitation of well I mentioned earlier that god meets all of the needs that he has within himself and we can't begin to do that if we were limited to meeting the needs that we have within ourselves we would die just as soon as we ran out of air because we've got to have air we've got to go outside ourselves to find something to sustain us and we do the same thing with water and with food because we have to have these things and god is the otherness he is not dependent upon anything that we are he is completely unlike us someone said that that which separates man from god in likeness and distance is far greater than that which separates man from an ant what kind of comparison would you make between a little crawly creature and a human being what's the distinction between them why it's so great that you just couldn't hardly imagine well that which separates god from humans is far greater than that when we talk about infinite we're in way over our heads we just can't and yet this is the picture that the scriptures give us of this god and in this godhead this humanity this father son and holy spirit all of whom are by the way co-equals yet the son takes a role a position of subservience to the father that caused him to say i do always those things that please my father and my father which sent me and so on and the spirit of god is subject to the son of god so there is a kind of what we would call from a human standpoint a ranking or a pecking order but in reality that is not so because the son is just as much god as is the father and the spirit is just as much the son just as much as the son or as the father and again these are concepts that escape us because we are locked into humanity and that's as high as we can go and god is so much removed from that and we should be glad that he is and this infinite god always existed from eternity which is another concept none of us can appreciate there was no time when he wasn't in fact when you use the word time you're already disposing of god because he's got really nothing to do with time the psalmist tells us that god inhabits eternity and when you read in genesis 1 1 in the beginning in the beginning of what in the beginning of everything that we think of the heavens and the earth god created the heavens and the earth and the reason he did was because

[26:18] he was also going to create physical creatures and as physical creatures with physical bodies we are made up of stuff flesh and bone and blood and so on we have to have space to occupy every one of us is occupying space right now where we are and time goes with space but this god existed in eternity past when there was no time and there was no space but because he is going to in his own wisdom he is going to bring into being physical creatures like Adam and Eve and start this thing called the human race he has to create a physical apparatus in which they can function and dwell and that's what we do right now this is our world and he's created this enormous thing called space and the universe some years ago our scientific community developed what became known as what is known as the

[27:34] Hubble telescope and previous to that we were limited to a certain kind of telescope here on earth that had to try and penetrate the earth's atmosphere up there to get beyond that and get accurate pictures and it wasn't very successful and wasn't very satisfying in so many ways but when the scientists came up with the Hubble telescope they're able to get out of earth's atmosphere into space and get pictures that were stunningly clear and so revealing so much more than anything that we had any idea of before and it was just absolutely mind-boggling and the astronomers were just wowed by it all and now we look out there and we see through these Hubble telescopes we see galaxies and the existence of stars that we didn't even have any idea were out there and all of these things are physical they're material even if stars are made out of gas and I guess the kind of gas that they're made of determines their color so it's a beautiful thing when you have a picture that the

[28:46] Hubble telescope gives you and all of this expanse we talk about we talk about miles and miles and light years and a light year is a fur piece I mean it's a long ways off and then when you're talking about millions of light years you end up with a number that you can't even pronounce is God greater than all of that yes but here's what I want you to really appreciate all of that is physical all of that stuff all of the planets all of the stars all of the asteroids all of the everything it's all physical it's material but God is spirit can you imagine something that we would say appears to be nothing appears to be nothing is responsible for everything that is of substance and material do you realize that you have you have an innate part of your being that is also called spirit and it is not physical and it is the real you that dwells inside of you and if the time should come when you understand that as a member of the human race you are a flawed imperfect being with a character and a nature that is completely unlike that of God who is absolutely holy and righteous and we aren't have you ever told a lie that makes you a liar if you say you have never told a lie then you are also self-deceived because we all have have you ever taken anything that didn't belong to you well I've never well actually

[30:55] I took something from my brother didn't belong to you but that doesn't count yes it does yes it does that makes you a thief you know and on and on it goes so we've got to deal with this reality that if we ever expect to be welcomed and enjoy the presence of this holy righteous being which we are not called God something's got to change and if you're thinking that it's going to be him you're wrong because he is immutable that means he is not subject to change because if God were not immutable if God were able to change he could only change for the better which would mean he's not the ultimate now or he could change for the worse which would mean he's less than he is now and that's unthinkable so God is the super constant I am the Lord I change not he is perfection and if we expect to be in his presence we've got to do something about our own nature because we are incompatible with this holy God so this holy God who subsists in these three persons and I don't know how else to couch this so I'll just say it this way for lack of a better explanation these three beings entered into a kind of what we would call a contract an agreement reached among them from who knows how far back because when you talk about how far you're talking about time we're not talking about time we're talking about eternity but they reached some kind of an agreement or a pact or an understanding that the father would be the giver and the spirit would be the one through whom the son would be given and the son would be given to humanity for the purpose of being abused by humanity and being slain by humanity and a realization that would accomplish something that would allow this fallen sinful humanity to come into the presence of

[33:03] God and enjoy him throughout eternity and it is called redemption the buying back that which was lost was forfeited by our first parents when Adam and Eve disobeyed God something within them changed they took a nature to themselves that God didn't put in them and it was a fallen nature and death was a result spiritual death immediate so that they were hiding from God they were fearful made these fig leaves to cover their nakedness and by the way what's that all about anyway what was it that they were covering they were covering their reproductive organs think of that what's the big deal about that by the way I never considered it before but you know that's a pretty good argument for creation from an evolutionary standpoint we really don't have any reason to be wearing clothes do we think about that what animal have you ever seen wearing clothes oh I know there are people who dress up their little dogs with with uniforms and what not and it's so cute you know but the dog the dog is not self-conscious of his nakedness nor is a horse because they have no moral capacity they have no moral equipment to be concerned about but we do we are imbued with a thing called conscience that reveals to us when a standard has been violated and Adam and Eve hiding themselves with those fig leaves why would they do that they'd taken on a new dimension a new thing that they had never experienced before and it was called guilt guilt guilt guilt guilt is a consequence guilt is an emotional pain that is realized when you know you have violated a standard you feel guilty and Adam and Eve felt guilty and they hid because guilt fears not only detection but guilt fears punishment retribution so they hid and

[35:47] God says Adam where are you and he found them and he's what's going on well we realized we were naked and God says interesting never bothered you before that you were naked but now it does what's going on here little tit for tat you know and well and Adam said the woman thou gave us me this is one of the first illustrations of passing the buck the woman and by the way it's the woman that you gave me I didn't ask for her you gave me her and he says okay Eve what about it and Eve said it was the serpent aren't we good at this it's called blame shifting don't take responsibility for your own actions make excuses for yourself tell yourself at least you're not as bad as some other people that'll make you feel a little better so we come up with these things and then and I probably should pass on this but if the preacher

[36:58] I can't do that so God went to the serpent and he didn't have a leg to stand on forgive me but you know there is a scene that is being created here that is kind of humorous and kind of funny to look at it because it's just a picture of humanity in action but you know what it is it is so sad and so tragic and what is going to be done to resolve this do you know what God did we are told that he clothed Adam and Eve's nakedness with animal skins where did he get those just think a little bit now about putting two and two together where do you get an animal skin you get it from an animal how do you get it from an animal where you kill the animal and then you skin it what's that all about pray tell me what did the animal do to deserve that why should this poor animal have to give up its life to cover the nakedness of these two irresponsible people what's what's just about that there isn't anything that's just about it there isn't anything that's righteous about it it's called grace and grace and justice are not the same it's what

[38:52] God was doing here was establishing in the very first human beings that ever lived a principle that is intact today and that is so powerful it gives us a message to preach and it started all the way back in Genesis 3 and it has to do with the innocent dying for the guilty that is amazing now you know we will not let our courts get away with that we will not allow a judge on any bench in any court in this land to free a guilty man and require an innocent man to pay the penalty in his place and you know something in our humanity and all of our flaws and inaccuracies that's happened a lot you know that that's happened a lot but it's never happened intentionally at least

[39:55] I trust not because we all know that sometimes sometimes the guilty guy doesn't get convicted and sometimes the innocent person does and that's just the flawed nature of humanity because our justice is a far cry from being perfect we all know that so when God established this principle it was with the very first two persons who ever lived that justice has to be maintained because God is righteous and holy and just and God requires God requires perfection from his creatures in order for them to enjoy his presence otherwise there would be an essential incompatibility there and the most amazing thing about all of this that I've just said is that God not only requires something from you that you can not provide and neither can I or anyone else but Jesus provided it for you because in his person and please understand this it is only because of who

[41:18] Jesus was as the eternal son of God as God in the flesh as the word of God made flesh as John said we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth this one this perfect one this member of that exquisite triune godhead entered into a pact with his father and with the spirit and he was going to do something for you and for me that we would never be able to do ourselves and it was all going to be based on the enormous amount of love that God had for these fallen wayward creatures who literally thumbed their nose at God God God demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners

[42:22] Christ died for us think of that and the text goes on and says you know it's very very rare that you're going to find anyone who is willing to die in the place of a righteous person but we know people do that and especially you find out on the battlefields where there have been cases a lot of people have laid down their lives to save the life of their buddy in that trench with them but you know we've never found anyone in the US army who was willing to lay down their life for the enemy on the other side isn't that something that's called Calvary love that's called the kind of love that God has God so loved the world and that little tiny word in the English language SO in the

[43:23] Greek in the Greek the word is this doesn't mean anything to you but I want to impress you with my knowledge of Greek it's the Greek word utos utos if you were going to spell it with the English it would be O U T O U S utos and it's got an H sounding at the beginning it's a hard H utos and it means in this manner and it's just translated with the word so and it means God's love was of this manner this kind of this quality it wasn't it wasn't an amount of love it was the kind of love that's that Calvary love it's the kind of love that only God has and by the way that's the same love that God spreads abroad in our hearts when we come to faith in Jesus Christ that gives us a supernatural ability to love others as

[44:28] God loves well of course you understand it's not on that same plane but it is a supernatural ability for us humans to love beyond that which would be normal capacity for humans it's an extraordinary love and we love that way because we are loved and we are transferring that love this is the most amazing thing and the father and the son and the spirit because Jesus was offered through the eternal spirit you see all three members of the Godhead were active in creation all three of them were active in Jesus going to the cross and all three of them were active in this glorious thing we call the resurrection Jesus said I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it up again really think of that he did and yet he was raised by the father and he was raised by the spirit they were all operative and all active in other words

[45:39] God this eternal God they employed the totality of the triune Godhead on your behalf because their love for you and for me was of that quality you have no idea none how greatly and deeply you are loved God loved in this manner that he gave and his son was willing to be given shortly before that fateful day when he knew he would hang on the cross Jesus was in prayer and he said what shall I say what shall I pray father save me from this hour and then he uttered those incredible words he said but for this hour came

[46:40] I into the world this is Christianity and do you realize that out of the 1500 major and minor faiths sects cults schisms splits splinters that there are all over the world biblical Christianity is the only one that operates on the basis of grace not on the basis of human merit all of the other faiths all of the other faiths are all about what the adherence can do for the founder but Christianity is what the founder did for the adherence just the complete opposite and you know

[47:40] God is given to doing just about everything the opposite way we do there is a way that seems right to a man but the end of there is a way and what I'm saying is we still don't know why it pleased God to create anything all we know is it did and there he set in motion this what we would call an incredible from a human standpoint it looks like an experiment and in many respects it looks like a failed experiment looks like something's gone wrong but when you read the rest of the book get the rest of the story you know how it ends and it ends with redemption realized it ends with everyone and everything being appropriately placed experiencing whatever God deems is appropriate for them and it'll all be well it'll all be as the revelation says it'll end with the glorious creation of the new heavens and the new earth and all the former things that be passed away no tears no disappointments someone said asked me one time what what I thought heaven was going to be like and I said it's not much that I know but I do know this I knew I do know two things there's going to be no disappointments going to be a lot of surprises and no disappointments and nobody's going to be walking around heaven and saying oh is this it is this all there is is this what this thing is all about called no it's going to be one major wow after another and you're never going to get tired of it and we're never going to be fatigued with God's love and don't worry you're not going to be sitting on a stupid cloud playing some instrument you're going to be fully engaged and fully involved and it's going to be let me put it this way heaven is going to be as wonderful as

[50:00] God can make it how good is that so all of this grand scheme that we see is playing out before us the earth is now on several thousand years of age some think it's winding down and it does have some appearances of that from time to time and we wonder how close we may be to the end and it may be a lot closer than we think and as I've always told you we're closer than anybody has ever been and the time is coming when there's going to be a big wrap up and the question is where are you going to be in this wrap up you're destined and what are you basing it on everybody who is planning on or thinking about hoping about going to heaven you've got something that you're counting on what is it if it isn't

[51:04] Jesus Christ and what he did on your behalf to make you acceptable to God if it isn't that then whatever you're counting on is going to be a huge disappointment and a big failure because you do not have the ability nor do I nor does anyone have the ability to measure up to the standard that God requires and I want to close with this thought if God requires this thing called perfection and I can't produce perfection why in the world I mean how can God fault me by requiring something from me that I don't have any ability to provide what's fair about that and what's fair about it is God takes that which you do not have the ability to provide and he offers it to you on a platter and all you have to do is take it so what

[52:08] God requires from you God has purchased and he gives to you as a gift and if you will accept the gift you have the righteousness that God requires as a free gift from him God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing unto them their trespasses and then in the very next verse he says I pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God for he made him who knew no sin God made Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us so that so that we can become the righteousness of God in him don't leave out those last two words because that's where you get your righteousness it's in him and the amazing thing about it is and I've it's so amazing listen I've been preaching this message for 60 years plus and I still haven't gotten over it most amazing thing is

[53:21] God takes this righteousness and he offers it to you as a free gift and all you have to do is take it and you can say and some people do say well thanks but no thanks I'd rather try to make it on my own and there are people like that I was one of them until I really heard this message and put it together so I just hope that you have put something together this morning and I'm especially grateful for young people here because all things being equal you have more time to utilize these things and benefit from them than those of us who've been around the block a few times so what we are talking about is what everything is all about and why there is a world and how it's going to end and who's going to be where and who did what in order to change it all and his name is Jesus that's what the majors all about and Christmas that's what the cross is all about that's what the empty tomb is all about that's what everything is all about that really matters this is the story there's nothing to compare to it and what you have to ask yourself now is where do you stand with this what's your position where are you when you leave this place whether you make a decision or not you are going to be more responsible than you were when you came in you need to think about that too because the scriptures say unto whom much is given shall much be required so we are accountable for the information we have and what we do with it and right now as we close on a word of prayer I'm going to give you an opportunity that I really pray you will take advantage of because we never know when our time may run out and the opportunities may cease so this is your opportunity right now to do something that will radically change your life in this world and for the next prayer with me please father as glorious as this story is we know that we have not begun to do it justice there's no human that can do justice to the account that's given in scripture we can only muddle about and try to get our brains around it and try as best we can to understand this and that and the implications and the consequences but we know our understanding is so lacking and yet we can all know enough even though we don't have answers to everything we would like we can know enough know enough to act on and our prayer for each person here today man or woman boy or girl young or old is that they may honestly look within themselves and see just where they are with you is there fear questions concern worry you don't know about your future you don't know about eternity you don't know about heaven you know you certainly don't want to go to hell nobody does but are you willing right now to just talk business with

[57:09] God are you willing to say oh God I don't know I don't know if what this preacher is saying is really true or not but I do know this I want to know and if it is true I want to believe if these things the Bible records really mean what they say they do and I believe that Jesus Christ did in fact die on that cross not for his sin but for mine and as best as I know how I simply want to surrender myself and all that I am to you after all you are the creator you are the maker of it all I couldn't be in better hands I just want to believe that Jesus Christ is who the scriptures say is I want to entrust my case to him I want him to be my savior and as best as

[58:09] I know how I'm just now delivering myself to you asking you to take this life of mine that you have allowed to exist and I want to give it back to you and I want to ask you to just be pleased to use me any way that you want and that would be the best possible thing that could ever happen to me that's my prayer and dear friend if that's the way you feel right now I can assure you God will hear you God will delight in your answer and God will respond by coming into your life in a way we don't understand but we know what has happened and he makes you a new person on the inside and he gives you new desires and a new agenda and new understanding and new interests it is the most glorious thing in the world it is what Jesus referred to when he talked about being born again it is just like you are starting your life all over again so it doesn't make any difference what kind of a life you have had in the past how difficult how messy it has been how sinful it has been for Jesus

[59:25] Christ cleanses pardons forgives removes all sin and gives you his righteousness so that we are found in the righteousness of Christ and it is the most wonderful thing that anybody could ever experience if that is your desire it can be your reality even right now as you make that decision for Christ and if you do please let someone know maybe someone you came with maybe maybe an older person and tell them that you've made a decision for Christ or tell me I'd be glad to talk to you and we want to provide you with some information that will help you to get started in this thing called the Christian life Father we are so thankful for this old old message we just cannot cannot thank you enough we cannot do enough we cannot be enough to express our gratitude but as much as lies within us now our greatest joy would be to see someone else come into this newfound faith and enjoy the peace and forgiveness that only

[60:34] Christ can give for any who may be struggling and searching and wondering we know that you are the hound of heaven and you're after their heart and you will reveal yourself to them thank you again for this meeting this morning for the presence of each one here for the beautiful spring day that we're enjoying even now and we look forward to more of the same dismiss us now we pray in Christ's name amen thank you you are dismissed