Many are the plans of a man's heart, right? But the Lord directs our step. All right, well look, anybody have anything in your time in the truth? Now, we're in Matthew, but it could be anywhere. Anywhere. We're up to chapter 16, I believe it is. So many wondrous truths all the way through it. All the way through it. So good, so good. Challenging. Jesus getting close to the cross. He's laying it on the line right now. That's what he's doing. You notice the shift in his teaching of the, when I say the shift, it's getting more specific. Started revealing to him what he was gonna go through. And then if they wanted to follow him into that, they were gonna have to face challenges as well. But anybody, anything. Any, anything. It's rich now. It's good. It's so much more we can comprehend in one sitting, that's for sure. You can spend a lifetime walking through these and glean every day of great truths. I did a look at it. We've been in Matthew now. This is our 12th time in Matthew. And then if you piled all that up with the other books, we got a lot we're gonna be accountable for, huh? Put that away. Good stuff. Chapter 15, look in 15 real quick. Yeah, chapter 15. Something that we can pick up on. You've noticed twice thus far in your reading on either we can be offensive to the king and his kingdom or the king and the kingdom will be offensive to us. There's no other two options. Either we are offensive to the kingdom, unfit for it, or the kingdom itself then would be offensive to us from that perspective. Notice how we said it, and I'll show you what I'm talking about. In verse number 12. Yeah, well, just verse number 10. Let's just start there. This is 1510. When he had called the multitude to himself, he said to them, hear and understand. He said that on quite a few occasions, hadn't he? Do you understand, hear and understand? Because understanding makes all the difference in the world. He ties understanding, reasoning, and faith together. If you remind me, I'll show you what I'm talking about in a moment. It was in today's reading how he did that. Verse number 12. Then his disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were what? Offended. They were offended. They stumbled. You offended them when they heard this saying. But then Jesus turned around and said, every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be what? uprooted or rooted up. Okay. Those that were offended with Jesus or plants that are not planted by his father and anything not planted by his father is going to be what? Uprooted and thrown into the fire. And I'll show you how you couple that together. So they were offended with him because they were a fence to him. That makes sense to you. They were an offense to Jesus, and Jesus was an offense to them. They were opposed to one another. They were contrary to one another. And that applies to everyone and everything. Either Jesus is everything, the treasure king of our life, or we're gonna be offended by him. Now go to the parables that you see in Matthew 13, two chapters before this. Remember the parable of the wheat and the tares? Okay, well that parable, the wheat and tares, is dealing with that the son of man plants and then the enemy plants. Son of man plants what the father gave him to plant, which were people, and then the sons of the wicked one are people that are tares. Watch the wording. Verse 36, then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house, this is chapter 13, 36, and his disciples came to him saying, explain to us the parable of the tares of the field. They were intrigued with that teaching. And because he's already explained, he gave the parable without the explanation of it, now he's gonna explain it for us. Verse 37, he entered and said, he who sows the good seed is who? son of man. Now who's the son of man? That's Jesus. The field is what? The world. The world as a whole. The planet is the field. The good seeds are who? children are the sons of the kingdom. So the sons of the kingdom have a heavenly father because the heavenly father's son is their king and he's the one plants them. You plant it where you are. He puts us where he wants us. We are the seed that he plants. Now in the other parable, the first parable, he made reference to the seed as being the word. Remember these are two different stories with two different meanings, two different applications. But in the weed and the tares, he's talking about people and not the word. And the people are either his people or the devil's people. It's only two options. Notice how he explains it. Verse 39. Well, verse 38 again, the field is the world and the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of who? We know who that is. Who's the wicked one. Satan, that's the devil. Verse 39, the enemy of God who sowed them is who? The devil. The harvest is at the end of the age or the end of time, the end of the generations and the reapers are who? The angels. Therefore, As the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age, at the end of time, at the end of the world. Verse 41, pay attention to the wording. The son of man will send out his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that what? offend and those who practice what? Lawlessness. That's the product of the devil. 1 John 3, when we was in it, remember how he talked about how Cain was the son of the devil and he practiced what? Lawlessness. What was the evidence? He hated his brother. So the Tares are sons of the devil, sons of the wicked one, and they are offensive to God and his kingdom. They are offensive. Verse 42, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There'll be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears, let him hear. Now notice what you have there. You've got good seed, and the only way you can be good seed is somebody had to do something in you to make you good, because we're not good enough ourselves. At one point in time, we were all part of sons of the wicked one. But you know what? We had to be born again. And when we were born again, we were taken out of Satan's kingdom, and we were transferred into Jesus's kingdom, and then Jesus plants us. And at the end of time, in the end of the age, Jesus will send forth the reapers, just like any in any harvest, they send out reapers, where the reapers are gonna be the angels. And what are they gonna collect together? Everything that offends and is a product of lawlessness. Remember what we've seen in chapter 15, who was offended with Jesus? The Pharisees who are sons of the devil. So you follow with me. Either Jesus is offensive or we become offensive to the world. No matter how you look at it, we are an offense to the world because we're sons of light, we're sons of the kingdom. Therefore, we're not offended with Jesus. Matter of fact, he's the one planted us where he planted us. We at work doing his work. So either there's only two spectrums that will be offended. That would be those that are offended with the things of God, and then those that belong to God are gonna be offended with those things that are not of God. You follow with me? And between those two passages, you see that. See, the Pharisees were offended with Jesus. And what did he say? If my father didn't what? If he didn't plant it, it's going to be what? Uprooted. It goes back to this parable. Remember the good seed was planted by the son of man who does his work at the discretion of his father. So if my father didn't plant it, what's going to happen to it? It's gonna be uprooted, and when it's uprooted, where is it cast? In the furnace, in the fire. Who's gonna collect them? The angels will. And the angels only do what the Father gives them to do. And anything offensive to the kingdom, they're gonna collect and cast into the fire. So if it's offensive to Jesus, the angels are gonna be offended, and they're gonna collect them and throw them into the furnace. But see everything that is in step with Jesus, that shows the fruit of Jesus, that ain't offensive to Him, they will shine as lights. They will shine as sons of the kingdom, amen? Y'all follow what I'm saying? That man, that's important, why? Because anybody that hasn't been rescued by Jesus is still sons of the devil. They've gotta be taken out of that. A parallel passage, look in Colossians. You'll see what I'm referring to. Colossians one. That's just one example we see. Colossians one. We don't wanna be offensive to the king, do we? Not at all. Colossians chapter number one. Notice how this has to happen. Look in verse number 12, Colossians 1, 12. Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He, verse 13, He has delivered us from the power of what? Darkness and translated or conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. In whom, that would be His Son, we have redemption through His love. blood, the forgiveness of sins. So you got to be forgiven. Amen. Sins got to be cleansed. And that only comes through putting our trust in Jesus. And when you put your trust in Jesus, Jesus takes you and plants you right where he wants you. And when he plants you, he plants you to what? Go to work for him. to go to work for him, to produce a harvest that is an expected harvest from the one that planted you. See, but while he plants us, what is the devil doing? The devil's planting his people. That's right. So everywhere you go, not necessarily, we're not just talking about in the church, we're talking about the world. Remember he's saying that everywhere we go, you got sons of light and sons of darkness. And the only way to come out of being a son of darkness, you gotta be transformed, you gotta be changed, you gotta be changed. Ephesians, look in Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians. Go back two books to Ephesians. See, we all at one point in time were in Satan's kingdom. We born into it. See, but you gotta be born into Jesus's kingdom. We had no choice being born in the Satan's kingdom, but you have to put your trust in Jesus to be taken out of that kingdom. Look what he says in verse number one. Verse number one of Ephesians chapter two. And you he made what? Alive who were? Who were dead. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. in which, that is the trespasses and sins and our deadness, we once walked according to the course of this world, which is according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in who? the children of the sons of disobedience among whom we also all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath. That would be an offense. Offensive to the things of God. But she had to be taken out of that, huh? had to be rescued out of that, had to be salvaged out of it, had to be taken out because we were dead in it, caught in it, offensive in it, and the things of God were offensive to us. As the scripture says, what is John 3? People don't come to the light. Why they don't come to the light? They love their We loved our darkness. We had to be what? Rescued out of that. That's where Colossians says, we give thanks to the father who qualified us. What did he do? He delivered us out of that darkness and brought us into the light. So we become instruments where he plants us as those that go help other people get out of darkness. that dark kingdom when they can't rescue themselves. They can't get out of that themselves. There's no way they can get out of it. They have to be rescued out of it. And remember God, it's by the Lord through his servant. He sends us as those ambassadors and those messengers to rescue them out of it when we carry his message in there to it. His message is light. and it bursts something in them that they then see the light, put their trust in him and he takes them out of that kingdom and puts them in the kingdom of his son. Then he plants them where he wants to plant them and now they go to work for him, amen? That's the picture. So we go from being an offense to treasuring him. And when you treasure him, now you become an offense to those you used to walk with and used to talk with and hang with and live like because Jesus is an offense to them. So we either an offense to Jesus or an offense to the world, but you can't play both worlds, can you? That's the difference that he makes in us. So I was picking up on that as I was walking through A couple of days ago in chapter 13, that word offend, and then when I saw that again in chapter 15, I said, well, let's pull this together. Either we're offensive to the angels because we don't line up with the things of God, or God's kingdom's gonna be offensive to us, or we're a treasure to the things of God. Either, either way. Look over in Matthew 16. I'll show you what I was gonna mention to you a minute ago about this idea of understanding. The disciples were still thinking in the natural about food and about bread. And they, when Jesus mentioned leaven, they automatically took them back to the natural mindset Bread, and I'd imagine nobody even spoke about bread. They didn't ask about leaven when you was looking for bread unless you was gonna make bread, right? So it just shows you how our minds can easily run in a way that they normally don't even think that kind of way when we're not really hearing what we need to hear. So it says in verse number five, now this is chapter 16 in verse five, now when his disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take Bread, not leaven, but they forgot to take what? Bread. And then Jesus said to them at the same time, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now, if we was to read in Mark's gospel, he adds a Herod in there. Those three different groups of people. Verse seven. And then the disciples begin to reason, think about this and talk about it among themselves saying, is it because we've taken no bread? Which that's not what he's talking about. He's gonna make mention of that. But then Jesus being aware of it, said to them, O ye of little what? Faith. O ye of little faith. Why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand and remember the five lows of the 5,000 and how many baskets you took up? Nor the seven lows of the 4,000 and how many large baskets you took up? How is it that you do not understand that I don't speak to you concerning bread, but beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Jesus saying, it's not a bread issue. If we needed bread, you've watched me do a work with bread, right? Bread's not the key here, but he says, oh ye of little faith. How does faith come? By hearing and hearing from. the Word of God. Well, by faith, they've done watched God take little and make much of it. But their faith in hearing and understanding that isn't growing. Therefore, their understanding of those things are not expanding. And therefore, when they reason on the understanding they have, they're still talking about natural things, not supernatural things. So when you consider how, oh ye of little faith, why are you reasoning? And then verse number nine, notice what was deficient. Their understanding and their what? Their memory. Do you not what? Do you not understand and do you not remember? I just gave you an illustration that you watch me take that bread and bless it and God multiplied it. And we shared it with everybody. But because you missed the spiritual lesson in it, it affected what? It affected your memory. You lost it. What you just witnessed, you lost it. And then that affects your what? Your ability to understand kingdom things. And therefore you then logically can't even approach it from a supernatural perspective. You're still looking at it in the natural. You follow with what he's saying? Faith propels your understanding. Faith propels your memory. that you grab something that is supernatural, heavenly, and it affects how you think, it affects what you remember, and it affects how you communicate, it affects how you operate in everyday life simply by grabbing a hold of the supernatural. It elevates what you do in the natural, if that makes sense for you. You follow with me how he attached their reasoning, their understanding and their memory back to a little faith. Oh, you have little faith. You hadn't, you didn't hear the lesson. You didn't hear the word. You didn't hear what took place. You missed it. And therefore your memory is lacking. Your understanding is lacking. And therefore the conversation that you're talking about has no God in it. God ain't in it. They're talking about what? Physical bread that Jesus ain't even on the same, they're not on the same page with Jesus. They're thinking about two separate things. But he understood what they were thinking about. And then what explained it in a way that helps us then realize that look, if my understanding ain't on the same page with Jesus, My memory's not going to be on the same page of what he's been doing around me, and therefore my faith is going to lack in all those things. And what I'm going to do is look at everything in the natural realm, and I'm going to miss him and his supernatural work in it. Because I'm talking about something that would be an easy fix for him. He said, just think about it. We had five lows. and fed 20,000 people and had leftovers. Why are you making this about bread? That's not what I'm making. I'm talking about the influence of people who will cripple you, not bread, not bread. So you see what I'm saying, but he's been doing that again and again. Do you not understand? understanding is intimately connected with our faith. That if I'm not seeing my faith expand in what I'm hearing from God, my understanding is going to stay on a level that's in the natural plane and it's not going to excel me into the supernatural of seeing God at work, if that makes sense. I won't recognize him when I'm looking at stuff. and I'm hearing things and seeing, I'll miss him in it. I'll miss his point in it. So it's just something for me that I've gotta remember. Heavenly thinking takes faith. I gotta be hearing from God. And heavenly thinking, hearing from Jesus affects my understanding, affects my reasoning, affects how I think, and therefore will affect how I talk, how I communicate with people around me. And man, I need to learn these lessons, amen. But because man, God could be wanting to do something and I'm still looking at stuff in a simple, natural way and I'm missing out really what he wanted to do in my life and what he was teaching me. Because I'm thinking about meager bread when he was teaching me how not to be influenced by the wrong thinking and teaching. And man, it all applies, it all applies. All this is so, so rich and good So good, but we're gonna run out of time again tonight like we normally do. We tried to look at the comet and saw just a little dot of it. But yeah, but yeah, good stuff, good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes, and how far away. Oh yeah, it looks like it's going a whole lot faster and in comparable speed just because of the distance, just because of the distance. And the same thing applies to like this, what Jesus was doing, their distance away from him, they looking at just this meager bread, but he was in a whole nother plane, wasn't he? of teaching on something much more of value about being influenced and impacted by the wrong thinking and not just do we have bread to feed us when we get to the other side. So yeah, all those things are so rich and good. And it's in chapter 16 when he gets into the fact that when he says, who do people say the Son of Man is? And Peter said, you're the Christ. He said, well, Man couldn't teach you that, my father gave it to you. And then he told them not to tell anybody. Why? Because it was a timing thing. Everything was on timing. As the Christ, he tells them he's gonna what? Suffer, be rejected, be killed, and be raised the third day. Wow, that's been the theme of the whole Older Testament, hasn't it? Then we talk about that Sunday morning about those three woods that he would suffer, that he would rise, and that he would preach. And we see it, and we'll see it through the Gospels. You'll see it in Luke's Gospel 24. That's what he said. It says he taught them from Moses, the law, and the prophets, and he taught them how the Christ would suffer. He would die, He would raise, and that repentance and the remission of sins will be preached in His name to all the nations. Amen? That's just, that's our thing. And if I'm not living that, I'm an offense. I'm an offense. And the angels are gonna collect every offensive thing and cast it into the fire. Why? Because, man, when Jesus becomes our treasure, His message becomes our treasure. And we start telling it, amen. Because I've been planted where he's planted me in this old world. And to him be the glory, amen. Now, remember, they want to do something with the tares, but what did he tell them? He said, don't, let them be. Let them be. Let them be. If you try to deal with the tares, you know what you're going to do? You're going to tear up the wheat. you'll mess the weed up. The harvest will reveal what's what. You just keep going and keep going and keep going. It'll be uprooted, right? You keep doing what you gotta do to see people brought out of that because I was over there too. Somebody came and brought a message to me, amen? And God brought me out of it. Anybody have anything before we go? I'll do it, anybody else? All right, Father, we bless you, we thank you. I love you and I praise you. I ask you to help us, Lord. We don't always see it right, hear it right, do it right, but we're asking you in this place tonight that you would continue to speak to us, that you would expand and stretch our understanding, our love, our knowledge, our faith, that we would hear, that we would be in tune with what you're doing how you're working, where you're working, and when you're working, and that we're gonna praise you. And that you would continue to launch us out into your Father's work and use us how you see fit. We thank you so much for our faith family. We ask you to show them favor and bless them in ways that they can continue to have a practical influence and impact on people around them. that we would just simply and personally teach what you're teaching us and that we would see you permanently interrupting and invading lives for your glory. So thank you and we praise you in Jesus name, amen. Love y'all, y'all have a good night.