Prophecy7

[0:00] Well, we are continuing to examine the situation regarding the issue of prayer. We are talking about how there was a difference in the prayer life in previous times as opposed to today in the body of Christ.

[0:19] And it is a great mistake that some people make, and I know because I made it for years, how that all that the Bible has to say about prayer is, of course, just all supposed to be lumped together.

[0:32] But it isn't. And the effort to do so, I can promise you, will result for you the same as it resulted for me, which is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding.

[0:43] Because the Bible not only was given progressively over a period of 1,500 years, but it needs to be understood and approached from a progressive revelation standpoint.

[1:04] And while it may sound good on the surface to say, well, I just take the whole thing. Well, we do too. We take the whole thing because all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

[1:19] But while all Scripture is for us, not all Scripture is to us. Most of the Scriptures, most of the Scriptures is addressed to the Jewish community, the nation of Israel and the people of Israel.

[1:34] There is a thin section that is specially designated for those who are Jew and Gentile in one body, and they are called the Pauline epistles.

[1:48] So all of the rest of Scripture is for us. But in the Pauline epistle, let me put it this way. In those directives that are sent to and intended for Israel, their response is to go and do likewise.

[2:07] That's a whole lot different from simply believing something. There is a works ethic connected with what was given to Israel as opposed to zero works that is given to the church, the body of Christ.

[2:26] And we'll see some of those distinctions now, and we'll see some of them perhaps later in the service that follows. So let us go first of all, if we may, to Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 6.

[2:39] And we'll spend most of our time in Matthew rather than flipping through all of the Gospels because Matthew is the longest of the Gospels, and it contains most of what we need.

[2:50] Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 5. And let's look at verse 39. And by the way, we had a discussion, a good discussion.

[3:04] I wish we'd had more time for it at the men's class this past Thursday when we were talking about praying for those who despitefully use you and about forgiveness and so on.

[3:14] And then we talked a little bit about just exactly how does this forgiveness thing work. And is there a difference between prayer and forgiveness under the Jewish economy, the Israeli economy, what we would call the prophecy part as opposed to the mystery part?

[3:40] Is there a difference? Oh, you better believe it. And in the subject of prayer, I think we will find some of the more significant things that help to explain why so many people, myself included, for a number of years had so much confusion and disappointment in the subject of prayer.

[4:01] And we'll be touching that, and we'll be happy to entertain any questions that you might have. Matthew, Chapter 5, and let us look first of all, if we may, at verse 39.

[4:13] And we'll get to the prayer for your enemies, too. I trust we'll get there. But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil. Whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

[4:26] And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

[4:42] You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

[4:57] In order that, or so that. Now, do you see the condition here? You see the condition? In order that, or so that, or as a result, you may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven.

[5:16] Well, that sure doesn't sound like a grace message to me. Does it to you? What Jesus is saying is that you need to do these things.

[5:30] You need to have this attitude and perform these actions so that, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

[5:45] And what's the implication if you don't? That you won't be sons of the Father who is in heaven. What is this all about? Well, I'll tell you what it's all about.

[5:57] It is all about Israel. This whole thing is set in the kingdom context. What's the big issue here? Beginning with what John the Baptist announced when he came on the scene.

[6:10] Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This content is all kingdom oriented. All of the gospels are. The first half of the book of Acts is. Can you square this with the grace message of Ephesians 2, 8, and 9?

[6:29] Boy, I can't. I don't think it squares. And you know why it doesn't? It isn't supposed to. There is a progression of revelation that is given here.

[6:39] And what we are reading in Matthew was earlier, it is for the kingdom dispensation, not for the grace of God dispensation. And we don't know exactly when that offer for the kingdom thing passed away, but we know that eventually it did.

[6:56] And we know that the apostle Paul was one who bridged the difference between the kingdom and the gospel message that was given to the church, the gospel of the grace of God.

[7:07] He lived in both of those times. And this is why it is sometimes very confusing, especially when you get into the book of Acts and try to make sense of these things, because if you do not recognize the progression of doctrine, the development, the ongoing unfolding of doctrine, new doctrine, updates, if you don't acknowledge those and you stay with the original stuff, you're going to have confusion upon top of confusion.

[7:37] Now let me ask you a question. In 2 Corinthians 12, which we may get there if we have time, Paul mentioned that he had received an abundance of revelations.

[7:52] What does that mean? It means simply this, that Paul, the apostle, was given a number of revelations from the risen Christ.

[8:08] This is after Jesus ascended. Remember when he called him on the Damascus road? And this is later, because he tells us in Galatians 1 and 2 that after his conversion, he went to Arabia, and he spent a considerable time there.

[8:23] And by the way, this is the same place where Moses got his instructions, where Moses saw that burning bush. There's a connection there, you know that? And Paul says that he received these revelations from the risen Christ, and they contained information that was not known previously.

[8:44] Let me just run this by you very quickly now. When Jesus was on the earth, the last few moments that he was here, it's in all of the gospels, and it's in Acts chapter 1.

[8:57] It's the account of the ascension of Christ. And right before he left the earth, he gave his 12 apostles marching orders.

[9:08] He told them they were to go into all the earth and preach the gospel to every creature, and teaching them, baptizing them in the name of the Father and Son. And he repeated the same thing in Acts chapter 1.

[9:18] They had their marching orders. They knew what they were supposed to do. You, in a few days, you will be endued with special ability, special power.

[9:30] And as a result, it will enable you to proclaim the truth in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

[9:43] And he bodily rose right in their presence and went up to heaven, and they stood there with their eyes wide open, watching him disappear.

[9:54] But they had their marching orders. And they are found in Matthew 28, commonly referred to as a great commission. It's repeated in other gospels, and here in Acts chapter 1.

[10:06] And what did the apostles do? Well, 10 days later, 10 days later, Pentecost, the Spirit of God came. They were endued with special power, enabled this nobody fisherman preacher, uneducated, almost illiterate, to stand before a huge crowd of people and say, this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.

[10:32] And he went on and delivered that incredible message in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost. And then they began preaching that message everywhere.

[10:45] And what happened? You don't get any further than chapter 4, and the clamps are put on. The religious establishment began threatening them.

[10:57] They called them on the carpet. They beat them. They warned them, don't preach anymore in this man's name, and so on and so on. And you know something? Seven or eight years later, the 12 are still in Jerusalem.

[11:18] Is there something wrong with that picture? What are they doing there? Why didn't they get on about the business in Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth?

[11:29] Why are they still stuck in Jerusalem? Do you know what some commentators say? Well, they were disobedient, or they were fearful, or they were afraid to venture out. That's nonsense. These guys had the Spirit of God upon them and special ability, and when Jesus said, you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, they remained unsuccessful in Jerusalem.

[12:00] Their message didn't get any further from Jerusalem, and most of the message that got out got out from the people who were there. You know, when you read in Acts chapter 2, it gives a long laundry list of the geographical locations from which all those people came.

[12:14] You remember that? From all over the Mediterranean world. They were there for the day of Pentecost. They heard the gospel preached. They heard the people speak in tongues that they didn't know, and when they left, they were all there on pilgrimage, and when they left, they all went back home all over the Mediterranean, and they took that message with them, but the 12 didn't.

[12:31] The 12 were still stuck in Jerusalem, and you know why? Because Jerusalem had not responded to the message. They did not win Jerusalem. They never did win Jerusalem.

[12:42] So what happened? Israel is eventually then set aside and the gospel of the kingdom that Peter was called upon and the others were called upon to preach continued to be preached until God brought down the curtain and said, all right, Israel's rejection of Jesus is final, and I don't know if it was a stoning of Stephen or if it wasn't until Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, but when that happened, the Jews were scattered all throughout the world as a result of their disobedience and the message in the meanwhile that was intended to be specifically for Israel because you see, Israel was to be used of God to be the spearhead nation.

[13:33] Don't get the impression that God didn't care about anybody but Israel. That's not true. God cared for the whole world, but when John says Jesus, when John says that Jesus came unto his own and his own received him not, talking about Israel, but as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become, and that's everybody else.

[13:55] So Jesus came to Israel for the world, and the game plan was Israel was to believe and be on board, and then Israel as a nation was to be the light to the Gentiles and bring everybody else along.

[14:14] The problem was Israel said, no thanks. And Paul said, no, we turn to the Gentiles and they will hear it.

[14:28] And that's exactly what happened. So we've got a situation developing here where the progress of doctrine is ongoing. And when Jesus gave revelations to Paul, what do you think those revelations consisted of?

[14:44] They were updates to the information that he had given to the 12 when he was here on earth. How about this for starters?

[14:56] How about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Where do you get that information? Only in the Pauline message.

[15:07] Only in 1 Corinthians. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have of God, and you are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

[15:21] That's new. That's new. Israel didn't have that. That is peculiar to the body of Christ. And what about, behold, I show you a mystery.

[15:36] We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. Wow.

[15:48] And we who are alive will be changed. What's that? That's the rapture of the church. That's new information. The 12 didn't know that.

[15:59] That was exclusively revealed to Paul. You see, if you know anything, if you even know as much about computers as I do, which isn't much, you know that there is such a thing as an update.

[16:16] There are continually new programs coming out for your computer that make the previous program. The previous program obsolete. The previous program obsolete. And you're supposed to install the new program that's called an update.

[16:33] And the name of the game is, things are changing. That's what we have in the book of Acts. Things are changing. They are changing from the earthly commission that Jesus gave the 12 in Matthew 28 to a new commission that he has given to Paul because of the lack of response of the nation of Israel.

[17:01] God completely changed everything and introduced a concept that was never before even imagined. And that consisted of putting Jew and Gentile on the same footing, on the same plane, making them equal members of the body of Christ.

[17:24] Who would have thunk it? Wow. That is so radical and so different. And you know who fought it? Well, the Jews fought it. Fought it all the way.

[17:35] They beat Paul. They maligned him. They did everything to keep this man quiet, to shut him up, to kill him. He even made efforts on his life because they saw him as a traitor to Judaism.

[17:49] This is a guy that used to persecute those Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah and now he's preaching that stuff. Kill him!

[17:59] They said, It is not right that this man should live. And some of them even took a vow that they would not eat or drink until Paul the Apostle's blood ran cold.

[18:13] Wow. You see the upheaval? You see what's taking place here? Let me tell you something. This produced an enormous amount of confusion in the first century and it hasn't gone away.

[18:26] People are still confused over this same thing. And here we are, little old podunk Grace Bible Church, trying to enlighten a handful of people about something that the whole church ought to have already known about and believed and embraced 2,000 years ago.

[18:49] And, and you know, some people say, well, this stuff you're preaching, this, this, um, administration, this dispensational stuff, this progression of doctrine.

[19:00] how is it that this is just now being noised abroad? You know, John Nelson Darby was a, a, a famous, a progenitor of this.

[19:14] And he enlightened a lot of people and they call it Darbyism. And they say, and you mean to tell me that the church has done without this truth that you're talking about that is so valuable that the church has done without it for hundreds and hundreds of years and just now has come on the scene I can't believe that.

[19:32] Well, let me tell you something. When Martin Luther in the 1500s, 1500s, just a scant 500 years.

[19:46] Now you think 500 years is a long time ago and it is compared to your lifetime. But compared to human history, 500 years isn't that much. No. 500 years ago, Martin Luther began preaching the just shall live by faith.

[20:02] He began preaching the gospel of the grace of God that man is justified before God on the basis of believing in Christ plus nothing. And do you know what the word was?

[20:16] The word was, well, Luther is preaching heresy. He's preaching a strange new doctrine. Well, there's nothing new about it. All you have to do is read Romans chapter 4 where Paul says, what shall we say then regarding Abraham, our father, that he found according to, and he gives a beautiful illustration how that this thing called justification by faith is as old as Abraham.

[20:44] There's nothing new about it. Paul wasn't preaching any new doctrine, but he was accused of that. And the reason he was is because the doctrine of the grace of God had been lost, submerged to the church for hundreds and hundreds of years.

[21:00] When Jerusalem was burned and destroyed in 70 AD, oh, I look at that clock. When Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, well, let me see now.

[21:18] Where do I want to go with this? Oh, so much we've got to leave out. All right.

[21:30] the Jews who did believe, the Jews who came to faith in Jesus as their Messiah, began, began arriving in less in number and more and more Gentiles were believing.

[21:46] So you've got a decline. Remember now, for the first 10 years after the resurrection, whole decade after the resurrection, there were no non-Jews.

[22:00] Jews who believed in Jesus as Israel's Messiah. They were all into paganism of all sorts. And it was only the Jew who embraced the concept of Jesus being the Messiah.

[22:14] and when the rest of the nation remained turned off to that whole concept and rejected Jesus, not only, not only at the crucifixion, but rejected him as Paul was preaching him as well.

[22:29] Eventually, God brought the curtain down. Jerusalem was destroyed and so on. And the Romans then scattered the Jews all over the Mediterranean world. And as a result, what happened was there became a tremendous upsurge of non-Jews, that is Gentiles, who were believing.

[22:49] And this, this is where replacement theology comes in. Because these Gentiles who had come to faith in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus had put their faith and trust in him.

[23:04] When Jerusalem was destroyed, they unfortunately came to the conclusion, God has completely, finally, for good, done away with Israel.

[23:21] He fed up with Israel. He has rejected them. They rejected Jesus. Now God has rejected them permanently, totally. And God has replaced Israel with the church.

[23:36] And we are the church. And you can see carryovers from items even involving worship and even clothing that was brought over from Judaism into Catholicism.

[23:55] It wasn't Catholicism, it wasn't called that. And it won't be for probably a couple of hundred more years. And all the word Catholic means, all it means is universal.

[24:08] Complete. It's a word that, you understand, we are all Catholics. We are all Catholics, literally. But Roman Catholic, that's entirely different.

[24:22] Roman Catholic is under the authority of the Pope at Rome. That's Roman Catholic. But we are all Catholics in that we belong to the body of Christ.

[24:33] And everyone who's in the body of Christ is a Catholic. And I don't mean to use that as a play on words, but technically that's true. So, what happened then was that the Jew has been scattered.

[24:46] And you see, it wasn't, it wasn't hard at all for these Gentiles to conclude that God was finished with Israel.

[24:57] Because we've got the rending of the veil in the temple, remember that? And then when God allowed Titus, the Roman general, to really reduce Jerusalem to rubble and break down the wall, and you realize there were a million people killed in that siege that lasted for a couple of years.

[25:21] And they chased all of the Jews out. They even renamed the city of Jerusalem, called it Capitolina, gave it a Gentile name. and the Christians, the non-Jewish Christians who had come to faith in Christ saw the destruction of Jerusalem as proof positive God was finished with Israel for good.

[25:47] He even allowed the city to be destroyed and leveled. And do you know what's in the city? The temple. The temple. God's temple. The place of Jewish worship.

[25:58] God allowed the whole thing to be leveled. Do you see how easy it would have been for them to reach a conclusion that God's judgment was on Jerusalem in such a way that he allowed the Romans to completely destroy it?

[26:12] And it was God's judgment. The only difference is while it was God's judgment, it wasn't ever intended to be permanent.

[26:23] But those who saw themselves as the replacement of Israel considered Israel as to being out of the picture permanently for good and it's been replaced by the church.

[26:36] And that eventually became the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church. And many of the practices were brought over from Judaism and installed in the Roman Catholic Church including the concept of the priest.

[26:52] You see what we're talking about here? The priest and the garb. The Jewish priest wore a mitre on his head and have you never seen the Pope of Rome with the mitre on his head and the peculiar clothing?

[27:11] This is all a carryover from Judaism and it seemed quite logical that some of the residue, some of the things that made Judaism what it was was brought right into what would become the Catholic Church and they've got a head and who is the head?

[27:34] It is the Pope. The Pope is the chief priest. Do you see how all of this, and by the way, it's a very natural, understandable progression.

[27:46] I don't necessarily fault them for doing that. I think they did what they thought was the logical thing to do, that God is finished with them and now he's starting this thing with us and we are the people.

[27:59] And long story short, what happened was when they came to the conclusion that the Bible really was the Word of God and it was infallible and inerrant because God gave it?

[28:14] What kind of a person do you need to interpret an infallible inerrant Bible? Well, just an ordinary human won't do.

[28:27] You need someone who is instilled with the powers of infallibility and inerrancy because that's the way the Bible is.

[28:42] The Bible is an inerrant infallible book. You need an inerrant infallible interpretation of that book. Who is going to give that? Just one man.

[28:54] He is the infallible inerrant interpreter of Scripture. He and the counsel that he calls and the conclusions that they reach. And you know what? I'm sure it seemed very logical.

[29:06] I'm sure it seemed very reasonable. I think they made a whole lot of decisions that were based on faulty assumptions. But let me tell you something. Humanity is given to making faulty assumptions one after another.

[29:23] And we are not exempt. I'm talking about Grace Bible Church. We have the same potential for making faulty assumptions that they do.

[29:34] And we've got to watch our P's and Q's because it's so easy to slip into because you misunderstand things. You misinterpret things. And that leads you to wrong conclusions and the wrong conclusions lead you to wrong actions.

[29:46] And what we're talking about is life. Joe? Joe? Mark, I'm going to take you back to the scripture. Microphone. Microphone. Yeah.

[29:57] Somebody want to take this over there? Yeah, if you'll keep it short, I'll repeat it. The scripture that you started out with, obviously it's not to us, it's to the Jewish, the Israelite people.

[30:08] Right. But it's for us. Right, absolutely. It's for us. So what is the meaning we are to get out of that that's for us? I know the last verse you didn't read there in 48 says, therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

[30:22] Obviously they couldn't be perfect. Nobody's perfect. How are we to get anything out of that? Okay, well, there is a difference between the principle and the go and do likewise.

[30:35] And the principle is this. We are bound to follow the spiritual principles of the Bible, no matter where they're found. And tons and tons of them are found, for instance, in the Old Testament.

[30:51] Now you take, for instance, the example of Abraham offering Isaac. What is the principle there? Well, the principle is not go and do likewise and offer your son.

[31:09] The principle is, and the overarching theme that comes out of that whole incident of the Abraham offering Isaac is this.

[31:20] The principle is God is faithful. God can be relied upon. That's the principle that's to be adopted.

[31:31] The Old Testament, as well as the New, is loaded with principles. And each of those are timeless. They are cross-dispensational.

[31:42] They apply to any dispensation. Honesty and truthfulness, these are abiding principles. The principle of telling the truth and not lying is an Old Testament principle.

[31:55] And it's the New Testament principle. And virtually everything under the law, by the way, just about everything under the law that is found in the commandments, Moses, etc., all 633, are found that are expressly given for obedience to the nation of Israel.

[32:17] Everyone that is incumbent upon us is repeated by the apostle Paul. And you look at the Ten Commandments, every one of them is repeated by the apostle Paul, except one.

[32:35] You know what that is? Sabbath. The Sabbath. We are not regarded, we are not Sabbath keepers, nor is the Sabbath imposed upon us as it was upon Israel.

[32:50] All of the other nine commandments of the Ten all reflect a moral spiritual principle that is binding upon all people for all dispensations, for all ages. That hasn't gone out of style, but that one thing, and that was the Sabbath.

[33:05] And why that? Because that had to do with a particular day and a particular things that you did or did not do on a particular day. That's why that wasn't brought over into the church.

[33:18] That was completely passe and is not applicable to the church. But honoring your father and mother is, not lying is, not committing adultery is, not bearing false witness, all the rest of it.

[33:28] Those things are binding upon all people for all times, and you will find the apostle Paul repeating them in his epistles somewhere where he tells us how we are to conduct ourselves. And just for starters, you can go to Ephesians chapter 4 where you find a long list of things there that constitute the Christian faith.

[33:45] And it's just, it too is an update. The whole subject of the second coming, of the resurrection, of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, of the rapture of the church, these things all constitute an update that the twelve never had, never preached, and they weren't supposed to.

[34:06] We're not faulting the twelve and saying that they were wrong. We're saying they didn't have the information to give. But the information that the apostle Paul received, after Christ ascended, same one who confronted him on the road to Damascus, gave him, as he said in 2 Corinthians 12, an abundance of revelations.

[34:31] Now, what does that word mean? Abundance. Well, it means multiple. Multiple. It doesn't mean one or two.

[34:42] It means a whole series of revelations. In fact, I don't know what this was, and I'd give my left arm up to about here to know.

[34:55] Paul said that God gave him revelations and information that he is unable to repeat.

[35:11] And our curiosity says, what were those? We don't know. They were specifically, privately given to Paul by the resurrected Christ, and he said he was given those revelations so that, well, let's look at 2 Corinthians 12.

[35:36] We've got a couple of minutes. That's all we've got. But 2 Corinthians 12, given an abundance of revelations, lest he should be exalted beyond measure. This is amazing stuff.

[35:50] And this all had to do with his thorn in the flesh as well. We'll just have to jump in to verse 7. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation. Wow! Surpassing greatness.

[36:02] This wasn't Mickey Mouse stuff. This was something big. Oh, how I wish we could tap into that. But surpassing greatness of the revelations for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself.

[36:19] I think what the Lord is saying here and what the text is saying is that Paul, there is no way that Paul could have resisted getting the big head if he were allowed to divulge this information.

[36:36] There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan. That too needs some explanation that we won't have time to go into. But to buffet me, to correct me, to chasten me, to keep me from exalting myself.

[36:54] What could those have been? And why was he given them but not allowed to divulge them? And the only conclusion that I can come to, this is just a Wiseman opinion, take it or leave it.

[37:07] The only reason that I can come to is that these were personal and direct to Paul and it involved him more than anybody else.

[37:18] And I think it even revealed to him what his end was going to be. I cannot come up with any other explanation as to how and why this man was able to undergo the things that he did.

[37:37] And it's because the risen Christ revealed to him exactly what he was going to have to endure. And I would not be a bit surprised if it didn't say and include, oh, by the way, Paul, there is going to be an executioner's axe.

[37:57] And you are going to be martyred. I would not be a bit surprised if he did not know that in advance. I think God laid out for him everything that was going to transpire in his life.

[38:10] And listen, to me and my thinking, that's the only thing that enabled that man to keep going on. He knew exactly how it was going to end.

[38:25] He knew exactly what he was going to suffer. Look at just across the page here in chapter 11. It talks about what he's experienced. Verse 23, are they servants of Christ?

[38:40] I speak as if insane. I more so. In far more labors. In far more imprisonments. Beaten. Times without number.

[38:53] Often in danger of death. Was he speaking the truth? Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes.

[39:04] Do you have any idea what this man's back must have looked like? Huh? Think of this. Think of this. And for most people, all it would take would be one of those lashings just about one time.

[39:18] And the person is ready to say, hey, I'm ready to think about a different occupation. This is not for me. I didn't bargain for this. What is it that kept this man going?

[39:33] Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I've spent in the deep.

[39:44] Do you know what that means? That means out in the drink, hanging on to a piece of wood, trying to stay afloat and keep from drowning until he was rescued.

[39:58] We don't even have the record of that. Night and a day is spent in the deep. I've been in frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles and the cities.

[40:10] I cannot find any human reason why this man would insist on prosecuting a ministry like that.

[40:24] Anybody in their right mind would say, that's it. I've had it. I'm retiring. I quit. I didn't bargain for this. Hey, God, you called me. You asked me to do this. And this is the way you let me be treated?

[40:37] This is the way you look out for your friends, people who are proclaiming your message? In my estimation, part of the revelations that Paul received that he was not allowed to repeat involved him personally.

[40:54] And I think he knew in advance everything that was coming. And he went through it anyway. And do you know why? Because he knew how it was going to end.

[41:04] And I'm not talking about his execution. I'm talking about the time and the glory. And someone has said, you know, if we only knew when things come into our life that make no sense and we say things like, how could there possibly be any good come out of this?

[41:28] This is terrible. This is hurtful. This is painful. This is no way to live a life. Well, if you knew what the, I'm confident, said Paul, that the sufferings, the sufferings of this present life, and they can be terrible.

[41:56] They are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Can you believe that? It makes all the difference in the world if you can.

[42:10] I think this is exactly where Paul was. And I think this is why the Lord enabled him to write that. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us.

[42:24] I think that's what kept this man going. We'll take a quick question from Sarah and then we'll have to dismiss. Would it be safe to say, or a conclusion come to, the parts in the Bible that are not meant for, or written to us, we look back to Paul's teaching and those congruent with Paul's teaching are the ones that are safe to apply to our lives.

[42:47] I think so, in part. And you've got to remember, you've got to remember what Paul said in Romans 15. I think it's verse 4. Whatsoever things were written aforetime.

[42:59] What's he talking about? He's talking about the Old Testament. He's talking about the Old Testament. Whatsoever things, Paul said, were written aforetime were written for our learning.

[43:12] Not to duplicate, not to go and do likewise, but to benefit from. They are written for our learning so that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning so that we might have patience and hope.

[43:32] And patience, the word patience, hupomone in the Greek, means the willingness and the ability to hang in there when the going really gets tough.

[43:46] It means you keep on keeping on and you don't give up. Wow. Well, that was the second buzzer and we're done. Hey, I'm sorry. We didn't get into the message that was intended, but that's not the first time, is it?

[44:02] So thank you for your kind patience. I appreciate it.