Footsteps of Messiah, we're going to be on page 442, and again we're looking at the conditions of the messianic kingdom. We talked about righteousness, holiness, peace, security. The fake security we talked about last time. So now we're going to look at the highway of holiness, and we'll talk a little bit about that. So this brings us to Isaiah 35, 5 through 10. It's a very famous passage. A lot of people misuse it. But it is a reference to the messianic age or the millennial age. And let's go ahead and parse that out. So it says, then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame man leap as a heart or in other words, as a deer. And the tongue of the dumb shall sing, for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert." Let's just stop right there. You might have heard that kind of language in the Gospels in relation to Messiah's ministry, right? And that was actually said by the Messiah. Remember, John the Baptist had a lack of faith. You remember that situation when John was in prison, John the Baptist, and he was like, hey, are you the Messiah? Remember that? And then the response back to him is a portion of Isaiah 35, that I'm doing what Isaiah predicted. Okay, so that coincided with John's message and Jesus's message before Israel rejects him, okay? So repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand, right? You know that term, okay? So that term was being used prior to the rejection. And so what Jesus was doing in his miracles was doing exactly what Isaiah promised, that he was healing the blind, healing the lame, and things of that nature that all that Isaiah predicted. So that he would not require faith in order to heal people and he was doing that as a demonstration that the kingdom was at hand But as you know, he'll pull back the kingdom and they won't because of the rejection so he won't do things unless the individual has faith, but it's in regards to this because Theoretically, hypothetically, if they would have accepted the Messiah, then obviously the Messianic kingdom would have started after the death and resurrection of the Messiah, but they didn't. Okay, so all this is postponed. He demonstrated he's the king and that can usher in the kingdom, so all of this is postponed and will be manifest in Israel. in the messianic kingdom which means that it's not just a reference to spiritual healing it's a reference that with the messiah's resurrection and his power that he has the ability to heal people and make them whole we will see that not only in the glorified body but also in the messianic age for instance in the messianic age the only reason anyone dies is because of unbelief There is no sickness, there is no lame, there is no deaf, there is no blind in that environment. And it's an environment we're not used to. So everyone gets dealt. a clean bill of health in the messianic age. So we're not talking about us. We're there, but we're glorified. It's different, okay? So I'm talking about mortals. And in that sense, Gentiles and Jews have no physical defects. There's nothing wrong with them. They don't get cancer. They don't get heart disease or anything like that. The only reason anyone would die in the messianic age is because by age 100, they have not placed faith in the Messiah. and that's why they die. So death is not attributed to physical disease because in the messianic age, he reverses the curse. And so you'll see the fruition of Isaiah 35 in the future messianic kingdom. Now, let me make another caveat to this. This does not allow the new apostolic reformation, does not allow dominionism, does not allow kingdom now people to claim these verses. that these verses are in effect because they'll say we're in the kingdom and this is the new apostolic reformation and so we have these promises and there's apostles and prophets now and and so healing can come in waves like this is being described in Isaiah 35 and you got people in Bethel telling people that have been resurrected they say they resurrected the dead and stupid things like that and it's like okay buddy prove it but they can't they always say it happened but they never can prove it And so a lot of the cults, a lot of the false movements you're seeing claim these verses, but you can't tie these verses because these verses are tied to the messianic age. Now, question, can God heal today? Well, of course he can. He can do anything he wants. We don't put him in a box. But not to the degree what we're seeing with the messianic age, where everyone's completely healthy. That's just not the age we live in. So even if someone did get healed, And people have reported to me that God healed them. They eventually die. Eventually they get another disease and they die. Lazarus was resurrected from the dead and he eventually died. Jairus' daughter was resurrected but she eventually died. Because this is the age that we live in. And so you got to be careful with people using these verses. And also people spiritualizing the text and saying, well, this is referring to spiritual hearing and this is referring to spiritual eyes. Well, you can make an application for that, but this is physical stuff. When he reported back to John, the lame walk, the blind see, he was talking about physical healing. that he had the power to do that. Can you make a spiritual application of this? Yes, of course. Like, for instance, the healing of the blind man that had congenital blindness, right? There's a spiritual lesson in that story, right? He goes before the Pharisees and they say, who are you to educate us? You don't know what you're talking about. You're sinful from birth. And he goes, I don't know if I'm, you know, what's the deal? He goes, all I know is Jesus of Nazareth healed me. And so what did Jesus say in regards to sight? I've come to give sight to those who are blind and to take away sight from those who think they see, right? So there's a spiritual component to it that if you admit your blindness, you'll be able to see spiritually. If you say you see spiritually without the Messiah, you get blinded, okay? Hence, When you see a text in Romans chapter 9 through 11 where it says the Jews have been blinded in part then you know that blindness is a penalty for unbelief. Not just simply for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles. If you continue to refuse truth, you will be blinded as a penalty. Along with being blinded, your heart will become hardened as well. There's a lot of other factors that go on. But you have to know that yes, this is physical healing, but you can make an application then spiritually. Let's continue on about this. And he says, for in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert. Okay? Again, that you cannot spiritualize this. I know there's cleansing streams and all these other ministries that talk about, you know, cleansing your soul out. They can't use this text. It's actually referring to the land of Israel that would become almost a paradise on earth. with the abundance of water. And those of you who have seen pictures of Israel and those of you who have went to Israel, you know that there's very arid parts of Israel that has never had any vegetation. It's drier than a bone, especially around the Dead Sea area. Or if you ever get a chance to go south of Israel, south of Bethlehem, man, it is desert. There's nothing there. It's a wilderness. Well, in the messianic age, it becomes paradise. It's tropical. Every piece of land has water on it and vegetation growing. So you don't want to spiritualize that. And then it says this, and the glowing sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. It's more about this water thing. What you see in other passages is actually the Dead Sea becomes alive again. In the habitation of jackals, where they lay shall be grass with reeds in Russia." So very, very plentiful of plant life. So with that being said, you can see that eventually it'll change. And I think I've mentioned this to you before, a lot of people who acknowledge Israel's return back into the land will misquote this passage. Because they'll see Israel very productive, they'll see their farmland, they'll see all the vegetation that grows in Israel today, which is amazing what they've done with that country. But they'll take that and say, ah, see, Isaiah predicted this and it's happening right now. And it's like, whoa, time out, time out, time out. Notice what's in the passage. There's physical healings. There's all kinds of other things. You'll see a highway and all this other stuff. You can't just isolate a few verses and say, well, that's happening now in Israel. That's not. Israel's doing it by its own production. In the messianic age, it's actually coming from the Messiah's supernatural powers that allow Israel to have its great production with water and vegetation and whatnot. Okay, so then we move to, and a highway shall be there, and a way, and it should be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for the redeemed. The wayfaring men, ye fools, shall not err therein." So fools don't walk on this. The idea of a fool is an unbeliever, okay? When you see the word fool in Scripture, it means an unbeliever. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon. There shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransom of Yahweh shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Okay, so this idea of a highway in the desert is a real highway that will be there in the messianic age. It's kind of the way you read it in Hebrew. It's an uplifted path That's visible to everyone to see okay Well in that sense it says it's only for the redeemed so the people that go into the tribulation Only believers go into the trip Sorry out of the tribulation into the messianic kingdom only believers are allowed into the kingdom. You must be what? born again to enter the kingdom of God. When we say kingdom, we're referring to the messianic kingdom. That's what he was talking about with Nicodemus. We Gentiles think, well, heaven, heaven, heaven. It's true, but the direct reference is You must be born again to enter the kingdom. You have to be saved in order to enter the kingdom. So that's why it's called the highway only the redeemed can walk on. So this highway leads directly to Jerusalem, directly through all the world as a path straight to Zion, straight to where Jesus is. And so imagine, you know, this causeway or walkway during the millennial age where people get on it to travel back to worship the Messiah. It is also a spiritual lesson as well. It is a real highway that only redeemed travel on to see Messiah. You will be required to see Messiah once a year if you're a mortal. You must come up to the Feast of Tabernacles, and you must obey Him if you're a mortal. You must do this. You must make a pilgrimage once a year. However long it takes, you must do it. And the way you get there is through the highway. This highway of holiness. Okay? That's the path you travel to get there. Fools don't walk on it. There's no unbelievers that get on this path. Okay? It's only for the redeemed. So here's the spiritual lesson or the spiritual application of this because it's twofold. It's a real highway, but it also represents or typifies something else that's a little bit deeper. And can you think of what it represents? The unsaved cannot travel on this highway. How many ways are located in the text? One highway. It's a path of holiness. John, when he was here, quotes Isaiah 40 verse three. A voice of one crying in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. What did he mean by that? It's coming out of Isaiah 35, but it's also Isaiah 40. The idea of prepare a highway for our God. Make it straight. Be ready. He's coming. Prepare. What was the message? What's the deeper significance of this? It is a highway, a messianic highway in the kingdom. But John said, prepare for this. It's coming. It's a path of holiness. It's a way to God. It's the only way you're going to God. Thank you. The path is a real path in the Messianic age, but it typifies Messiah. How so? In what way? As an example, in what way is the way of the truth and the life? Yes, but for us, how do you get on that highway? How do you, you believe. Right? So when he says, I'm the way of the truth and the life, I'm the way. He was referring to Isaiah 35. He's referring to Isaiah 40. I am the way doesn't come out of a vacuum. It comes out of the prophets. I am the highway that you all have been looking for that was promised by Isaiah. I am the highway. I'm the highway of holiness. Only the redeemed travel on my way. So you see the connections? When he says, I am the way, the truth, the way part is referring to the highway of holiness. Okay, what is the highway of holiness? Tell us. Well, no fool can travel on it. Again, what does fool mean? Unbeliever. Hence, in terms of salvation, does that mean everyone's saved? What does it mean? Only belief gets you on the highway. Fools don't go this way. Unbelievers can't go this way. I know it seems simple, but you have to see the typology, how it intermingles with this idea of a highway. It's a very famous passage, but no one makes the connection to the Messiah for some reason. Okay, so to get on the highway, only the redeemed can be on the highway. That means they have to believe to be on the highway. If you're off the highway, that means you're a fool. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. So the fool stays off the highway. But what does the fool try to do though, to get to God? He tries to go other paths. There's only one path to Zion. There's only one path. Where does that path take you though? The path is Jesus. So imagine a highway, and you get on the highway, and where is it taking you? So think about Messianic age and then we'll spiritualize it. If I got on the path in the Messianic age, and let's say I'm in Asia, I'm in America or whatever, and I start walking that path, where am I going? I'm going to Jerusalem. The first thing, the first boundary that I will eventually cross is I'm stepping, I will step over the boundaries of the territory of Israel. And then as I keep moving on the path, I not only go through the boundaries of Israel, then I will go through the boundaries of Jerusalem. And then what's in Jerusalem? The temple. Then I will step through the boundaries of the temple, and as I get closer and closer, then I will eventually come to who? Jesus, Messiah. But I want you to ask yourself, once I got on the path to get to Messiah, what did I have to go through? I had to go through what God wanted me to go through. For instance, salvation is of the Jews. You must go through the Jewish nation to get to Messiah because he's the Jewish king. You worship a Jewish Messiah. Hence, you must go through their gates in order to get to Him. Does that make sense? That's why the gates in heaven have Jewish names, to represent that the only way you're getting to Jesus is going through the Jews. You will never be able to disassociate Israel from their Messiah. So you must, in one sense, tip your hat to Israel to get the Messiah. Now I'm saying that's not a condition for salvation, because a condition of salvation is to get on the path. You get on the path by faith. But if I'm going to advance on the path towards the Messiah, be conformed to the image of Christ, grow more like Him, guess what starts to happen? I'm gonna have to go through Israel, and what did Israel do? They contained the word of God. I'm gonna have to go through all the scriptures. I'm gonna have to go through everything in order to be more conformed to his image. So the end goal for our lives is to be conformed to the Messiah, is to be conformed to his image. But in order to do that, I've gotta cross certain boundaries. I've gotta walk into the promised land. Follow me on this. In Israel's history, you'll see this typified. You remember when the children of Israel are getting ready to go into the promised land with Joshua, not Moses. You know what happened with Moses, right? They refused to, they're gonna die in the desert. But in order to go in the promised land, to cross the boundaries into Israel, they had to cross Jordan, okay? Crossing Jordan is a boundary. Okay, God held up the water so they could cross over Jordan. Crossing over Jordan is symbolic or typological of us finally making the decision in our personal walk to grow in maturity and stop wandering in the desert. It's Romans 12 verses one through two. Romans chapter 12 verses one through two in the Greek The way of the tense is that you must make a once and for all decision to be mature. Hence. To do that, you will not be conformed to this world, but you'll be conformed to the image of the Messiah by what? Renewing your mind. But you must cross Jordan in order to do it. And then once you cross the boundary of Israel, guess what you have to start doing? What did Israel do? Just use what they did. You will have to start fighting the giants in your life. Do you now understand in your personal walk why people don't cross Jordan and decide to say, you know what, I think I'm just going to live my Christian life wandering in the desert? I like the manna, and I like the water from the rock. Because I'm so immature, I need to be spoon-fed from God. But I will not take responsibility for my own walk with the Lord. Make the decision, once and for all, I'm crossing Jordan. And the minute I cross Jordan, guess what fight you have? Jericho. That's the first fight you will have. And by the way, you're gonna fight giants in the land. There's Nephilim all over the land, and you're gonna have to fight them. The first thing you're gonna do is hit Jericho. And Jericho is the first fight you'll have, and then you'll say, okay, man, I don't know how to fight this. And God will give you the instructions of how to fight it. But the instructions will seem counterintuitive to what you think. Because you haven't been thinking correctly, wandering in the desert. So the minute you cross over, he says, I'm renewing your mind, this is what we're gonna do, and here's the instruction, and you're gonna say, walk around Jericho seven days blowing a trumpet, and the last day, walk seven times blowing a trumpet, and the walls are gonna come down? Yeah, that's what I want you to do. That doesn't make sense to me. That completely doesn't make sense. It's counterintuitive of what I think. Joshua could have been saying, why don't we just rush it and take it? We'll climb up the walls and kill them all. And God said, I don't want you doing that. What I'm telling you is gonna be counterintuitive to you because you've been living so differently as to what I want you to do. All my instruction to you will seem odd. It won't seem like it'll work. And that's the first fight you're going to have, is you're going to have to go against what you feel is right and just do what he tells you to do. Then you'll go up to AI in your next battle, and you'll be taught the lesson of, when I tell you to take it all out, I'm telling you to take it all out. Do not leave anything behind. Don't take anything. I need you to drop everything. And the test that you will have is, well, can I keep some of it back? Can I keep part of my little life back? I like this little pet sin over here and it's nice to me and I like it. It's a sugar stick for me. And he's saying, why did you lose at AI? Because you're gonna go against AI and you're gonna lose against AI. And you're like, why did we lose? I feel so sorry for myself. This whole thing I shouldn't have done. I know it was too much for me. It's scaring me to death. And he's gonna say, get up. Because what did Joshua do? He was just down and all out. And he says, stand up. You got sin in the camp. That's why you failed. Go cleanse out the sin and then you can take AI. And the first thing you'll learn is I have to get rid of stuff. I have to start dumping stuff that I'm holding on to. And if you read Joshua, it's your fight. It's really your fight. So the highway theme is bigger than you think. So in order to cross into Israel, cross Jordan, you're gonna have to start fighting. And once you're in the land, there's all these giants and stuff, and you're gonna have to fight, and you're gonna have to fight your way and journey all the way to Jerusalem. And on that way to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, it's pretty treacherous. We learned in Israel that there's these paths that come from the Dead Sea that lead up to Jerusalem. And there's a certain path that's called the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And in that path, you can get on that path, it takes you to Jerusalem, but man, if you're not careful, you'll fall off that path. It's very tricky. The sheep and the goats walk it and shepherds walk it, but David labeled that the shadow of death. Because if you're in the wrong place, you can fall, you can plummet, or if a storm comes in, you're dead meat. You will die. And what you find out is it's a hard trek to get to Jerusalem. So question. Israel had three feasts. They were required to come to Jerusalem three times a year. So it didn't matter where you were at in the north or the south or the east and west. Three times a year, you're gonna make a travel. And in that travel, it was dangerous. Sometimes it would take you 10 days to get to Jerusalem from where you're at. It was treacherous, it was hard, there was mud, you had thieves on the road that could actually rob you. It wasn't an easy trek. In fact, a lot of people died on the way to go to Jerusalem for the feasts. And then you had to camp out there for seven days and then you had to walk back. So you're talking about a good month or so on foot surviving. Question, why make them go through all of that? Obedience, but what was it teaching them? Dependence on Him? Yes, you got it, but what's the bigger lesson though? Why did it make it so hard for them to worship Him? Why make it so hard? Why couldn't we do just what Jeroboam did up in the north? Because some of you were there at Tel Dan. He said, we want to make a site over here that's convenient for the people in the north. And you could just go here. You have to walk all the way to Jerusalem. We'll just go here and worship Yahweh at this alternative site. You only have to walk two days here. What was Yahweh trying to do? Yes. OK, so. It was to teach them a lesson. I'm gonna put actually barriers in your life that I want you to go overcome. And one of the barriers is I just want a physical barrier to see how much you wanna worship me. Will you make the walk to worship me? It's all I'm requiring you to do is will you make the walk? The walk is treacherous. But if you can make the walk, guess what you can do also else in your life? You can take other harder things that are coming to you. It was a teaching lesson for Israel. I'm not gonna make this easy. If you want it, it's there. But you're gonna have to go get it. I require you to be responsible enough to get it. So, question. In the desert, wandering, what do they do with their food? What do they do for water? God spoon-fed them, right? Man arrived in the morning, Water came from the rock. They didn't have to really do anything. But once they're in the land, they got to plant crops. They got to work the field. They got to do harvest and reaping and sowing and all that stuff. It's a lot of work. Yeah, it is. It's a lot of work. Now I'm making you responsible. You're not little babies anymore. One of the things you'll see with God is he will not do what he expects you to do. And that's a hard pill to swallow. It's not that God doesn't have empathy. It doesn't mean that God doesn't sympathize with the struggles. But what would happen if he did everything for you? Let's put it in parenting. What would happen to your kids if you did everything for them? You'd get monsters. So here's the question as a parent, and I want you to think of this in terms of God. You have, let's pretend you have a grandchild or a child, and they're three years old, four years old, maybe five, I don't know. They're struggling to tie their shoes, they're struggling to zip up their zipper, they're struggling to button their buttons. What's your instinct tell you to do? You wanna do it for them. It's the wrong move, isn't it? Every time you jump in the middle of rescuing somebody, you rob from them their independence and responsibility. And they will become utterly dependent on you and they cannot take care of themselves because you want to react and jump in and make life easier for them. And that's the wrong move. It's counterintuitive. God is saying, I'm not gonna do for you what you can do for yourself, because if I do that, I steal your independence as a free will creature. And a lot of the world doesn't wanna hear this. A lot of the world says, I'm a victim, please feel sorry for me and do everything for me, right? It's not, you can't do that. So that's why he makes them walk in the mud. That's why He allows sometimes them to be robbed. Now He didn't cause it, but the highway is deadly. This is why Jesus gave the parable of a good Samaritan. He got beat up on the highway, right? It's tough. But the idea is, if I don't let you be independent, not that God doesn't protect, He does protect, but if He does everything for us, then He robs us of the sense of responsibility that we actually should have. And that is a killer for a human being to be robbed of that. Look what happens with these helicopter parents with their children. As an example, these children grow up incompetent, can't take care of themselves. The majority, they said the other day, of these millennial protesters that are out with Antifa, did you hear what the study came out with about them? They still live with their parents. All these protesters that are out there with George Soros, they live with mom and dad in the basement, they found. Does that surprise you? Doesn't surprise me. They're just simply victims, right? They're victims, and so we gotta tie their shoes. We gotta button their buttons. If you worked at an old folks home, what would you do for the people that you were serving? How would you treat the old people at a convalescent home? Would you do everything for them? No, your principle as a nurse, worker, whatever you were, is to allow them to do as much as possible. Because every time you take something away, they slowly die. You don't do that. You don't jump in. You arrest your empathy for the sake of their independence, for the sake of their responsibility. Now, when would you help? I think the principle you would use is, I would only do for them what they can't do. They can't get out of bed, or I'll help you get out of bed. But if they can get out of bed, don't help them. Why? They're getting the exercise by actually trying to exert physical strength to get out of that bed. It's good for them. They will need to come to pen, and they will shut down and lose their legs. That's the first thing that goes. They will lose their legs if they are not allowed to get up on their own. They lose their legs. And they fall, and then every time they fall, they hit their head, they get pneumonia, they get sepsis, and then that's it. That's how it goes, because they lose their legs. Now, I'm not saying eventually, you get old enough and you're in your 90s and stuff. Yeah, I get it. But what we're talking about is a principle. And so when you see all this, there's lessons about the highway that it's not just served up to you. Salvation is a free gift. There's no doubt about that. You get on the highway by belief. But once you're on the highway, Now you're in the role of sanctification and you have to walk with the Lord to him. The end goal is Jesus. By the way, is that not scripture? The writer of Hebrews says you run a race and at the end of that race is at the finish line is Jesus. Does he not say that? And so the writer will say, take off any impediment, any sin that weighs you down from going on that path. And so it's not just sometimes sin, it's impediments. It's that you're carrying too heavy a load on your backpack and it's slowing you down. And you have to think about, okay, if I'm not sinning, the devil then will make me too busy. And so imagine carrying a 40-pound, 50-pound backpack on the road and how difficult that walk is, and Jesus is saying, hey man, I think it's time to unload that 50-pound backpack that you keep carrying for some reason. So you have to think about this highway. Some other things about the highway. No lion there. Ravenous beasts. It should not be found there. What is that a reference to? Vicious animals are not on the path. You won't be attacked, you'll be protected from the vicious animals. In one sense, yeah, you're protected in that sense. Well, it's not so much spiritual warfare, but it's the idea of there's a certain amount of protection in obedience, if that makes sense. It's not that we're not in a spiritual war, we are, and you will constantly get it, but I'm gonna tell you what, the only thing that protects you is obedience. Notice he uses the term lion. What is another term for Satan? A what? A roaring lion doing what? Playing around? Playing with kittens? Seeking whom he may devour. Okay, so the idea is this. You're on the path of holiness, you're walking in your walk of sanctification, you got on the path because of belief, okay? The minute you decide to say, you know what, I'm gonna take a break and I'm gonna step off the path into the land of fools, okay? And we all know people that walk off the path, they're believers, they walk off the path. Doesn't mean they lose their salvation, it means they're off the path, they're out of fellowship. So now they're in the land of fools, unbelief. Guess what's in the land of fools? Lions seeking who may they devour to eat, ravenous beasts, okay? What does it mean that Satan looks to devour an individual? What does that mean? Eat them up literally? No, it's a figure of speech. What does it mean? Well, that's number one. I'm gonna get you as far away from Jesus, but the devouring has to do with eating something from that believer. It's not a physical body. It's using the analogy of it, but he's gonna take something away. He's going to eat something of them. He's gonna destroy their faith, and he's gonna destroy their witness. Okay, so he's gonna destroy their faith, eat their faith, eat it up, and take away their witness. If he can take away a believer's faith, they're done. They're done. If he can make you doubt God in any form or fashion to where it puts you in a funk that you can't get out, he's got you. The second thing is, I can screw you up so bad that you have no witness whatsoever, is what Satan's game is. If he can get you to sin, If you wait it out with certain things, He will take away your witness. So then at that point, question, if the salt loses its saltiness, what good is it for? What did He say? What would He do on the ground with the salt? It's nothing to just be thrown other than be on the ground and trampled under feet. It's useless. And useless has to do with Laodicea, which makes Jesus sick and wants him to vomit them out of his mouth. useless is the key phrase for being off the path. God can't use you when you're in sin, when you're jacked up with heavy weights of life and you're on your kingdom program rather than on his kingdom program. Because if I'm heading to Jesus, I've gotta be on the program. To be on the path, I have to, as Paul says, compete by the rules. I have to run the race according to the rules. And if I don't run according to the rules, I become what? Disqualified. Not losing salvation. I become disqualified in order to run the race. Time out. Off the path, you're off, you're disqualified because you're not competing according to the rules. What are the rules? There's about 1,200 rules under the law of the Messiah. 1,200 rules under the law of the Messiah. Not rules to save you, but rules to tell you how to compete. principles, laws, programs, methodologies of how to run the race. And if you don't know the 1,000 close to 200 rules or laws of the Messiah, you will become disqualified in your race. And you will get off the path of holiness, if that makes sense. Question, if you run this race well, and you actually make it to the finish line, There is Jesus, but also what comes with it, rewards, right? So you get to the end of the race on the path, not only is Messiah there, but he says, my reward is with me. When you get to me, I have it all ready for you, but you've got to run the race. You've got to compete according to the rules. Now, is it possible for someone to be disqualified and be off the path and then eventually make it to heaven? Yes, and a lot of people have done that. Ananias and Sapphira, some people in the Corinth church, and perhaps people you know and love that got off the path, who got saved early, got off the path, and now they're all jacked up, and then they died. Doesn't mean they're not believers. It just means they got off the path. They got off the highway of holiness. Will they lose rewards? Of course. Will they lose salvation? No. They get to go to heaven, they get to go to the kingdom, but they are considered what's called least in the kingdom of heaven because they didn't want to compete according to the rules. Question, why would they not want to compete according to the rules? It takes work, it's hard, what else? Pride, temptation, lazy, what else? They're deceived, selfish. So this idea of, you know what, I'm just gonna love Jesus and that's fine with me. That's called a hyper grace movement, it's unbiblical. where this idea that I can do anything I want and I'm still under grace and Jesus will forgive everything I do. Yeah, you're right in one sense, Jesus forgives past, present, and future, but there's consequences to what you do. You just can't live any way you want. Paul said that point, may you sin so that grace can abound? He goes, heavens no, what are you thinking? To paraphrase him. He goes, what person in their right mind would think that I'm gonna continue to do what I wanna do and live the way I wanna live and say, it's all under the blood? We gotta be insane to think like that. Well, honestly, that's how Christians think. And so you're gonna be called a legalist for competing against the rule, with the rules. But they will find themselves on the Bema seat, getting the biggest tongue lashing they have ever gotten in their whole life by King Jesus of saying, why were you not on the path? I made it abundantly clear how to be on the path. Obedience is their answer, and I think Dick said it, but question, you saw what people just said. Why is obedience so hard? It's easy to understand what he expects of us, but why is it so hard? Manny? Yeah, I know people want to die to self and deny their flesh and deny their desires and put their desires on the back end to, you know, second to God's desire. So one of the things that you see is people don't want to die to self and crucify themselves and really give up what they're trying to do in this life. The only goal that matters in your life is not how much money you're gonna die with. It's not how much things you have. At the end of your life, the only thing that counts is how much you were conformed to the image of Christ. That's it. That's the only thing that's worth anything in heaven. That's it. It's not having the big job and the CEO thing and doing this. It's not that. And the faster you get on that mark of saying, I need to become more like Christ every day, the more on the path you stay and go. And you decide how fast you wanna go on the path, by the way. You're the determiner of how fast you're going. No one can do it. I just pray and hope it's forward motion. Because guess what another spiritual reality of being on the path? There is. Let's say you're walking on a path and you're walking to Jerusalem and you're walking to Israel. Maybe let's say you've crossed the boundary into Israel and you're fighting the Nephilim, you're fighting the giants in your life. You're still not at Jerusalem. You're still not at the temple. You're still going. Okay, fine. And you decide to say, you know what? I'm a little tired, man. So I'm gonna take a break. I'm gonna take a break from all of this, man. I'm just worn out, dude. Okay. If you stop at Hasor, what happens to you? You lose momentum. And here's the spiritual reality that all of us need to understand because the writer of Hebrews makes this abundantly clear. He says, by now you ought to be on the meat of the word, but you're not. He goes, I have to reteach you the ABCs and one, two, threes, and I have to actually give you milk again, because they stopped. And the minute you stop, you start regressing. And whoever the writer of Hebrews was, it might be Paul, we don't know. He says, I now have to re-instruct you again. because you will forget and you will actually regress back into your old life the minute you stop. So that's a reality that a lot of people don't understand because they think, well, you know. I got pretty far in my spiritual walk, and I'm good, man. I'm golden. This is where I'm going to stay. I've achieved what I wanted to achieve spiritually, and I've got this, I've got that, and so I'm good. By doing that, they actually cement themselves into their final self that's going to go into eternity. And let's say they have 20 more, 30 more, 40 more years left of their life. But they're making a decision at, let's say, 65. They're making a decision at 55 or whatever, saying, hey, I'm good, man. I'm golden. I gave at the office, man. I'm good. I'm going to just spend my Christian life in retirement, too. Oh. Well, not only are you cementing yourself in for your final self. Okay, so you decide that at 65 or 50 or 55, whatever the age is, that this is what you're going to be rewarded on, right? That's what you're going into eternity with. At this point, I'm in your life, right? This is what you're going for. Yeah, I'm good, man. I've achieved what I wanted to achieve. Dude, you have 20 something more years left. You have 30 something more, you're 40, whatever it is. That's a long time to get a lot more rewards than what you think. But a lot of people make the decision, I've gone as far as I wanna go, I'm done. And so they cement themselves in, but they actually start regressing. They go backwards on the path of holiness. And what you start finding out is, there's a lot of people who are regressing. Yes, it's the Hebrews, it's implied in Hebrews. Let me find it real quick for you. I think it's in four or five, but let me double check. Chapter five, verse 12 through 14. Yes, because if you regress, what you have achieved, you actually go backwards. You lose, can you lose rewards? I'm sure you can. And then Charlie's making an excellent point. Anytime and you see in scripture, in reference to Jerusalem, you ascend to Jerusalem. It's you always, it'll say you go up. to Jerusalem, so it is a, Jerusalem's about 3,000 feet elevation. So it's in the mountains of Israel, if you wanna consider that mountains, but it's about 3,000. You have to ascend up. So there's a trek involved of going upward. Bingo. So if you're on an escalator, it's a good analogy, and you stop on that escalator, Takes you back down. I think that's an excellent analogy, Don. And if you can get that picture in your head, you know, in my mind, do you ever climb a hill when you were a kid and you're climbing and you're scraping? The minute you stop, you start sliding back down. That's kind of the mentality of ascending Jerusalem. Why make it so hard though? Why is God not just serving everything up on a silver platter? Now obviously he serves salvation because that's something you and I can't do. But why is he making this trek to Jerusalem, trek to the kingdom, trek to the Messianic temple where Messiah is? Why is he making this so stinking hard? You better want it, because you're responsible. I've given you all the tools to do it. You're equipped with the Holy Spirit. I've given you a new nature. I've given you the church. You have everything available to you to make the journey. And if you don't make the journey, man, that is on you. You should. Very few that find it. And very few that stay on it. Not that they lose salvation, but we're talking about fellowship. You have to understand those terms. To be on the path, you have to be redeemed, right? You have to be part of the redeemed. And so what you start seeing is, oh, I'm responsible for a lot more than I thought. Yeah, I know, it's tough, isn't it? It's not a Joel Osteen message, that's for sure. And the more you look at it and you start seeing, you put these dots together, you're thinking, all right, man, the Bible's teaching a radically different Christianity than what I have known. This is radically different than what I've ever heard. Most people hear, well, man, if you're saved, then that's it, baby. You're made it. That's it. That's as far as we go. And so we just want to get everybody on the joy bus and get everyone saved. Okay, you saved? All right, then you're good too. If you think getting saved is the end of the line, you have no idea. That is child's play in that sense. It's milk, it's wandering in the desert once you get saved. Until you start fighting the Nephilim in your life, you haven't touched maturity. Question, in your own mind, you don't have to say it out loud, who are the Nephilim in your life? You have to then start identifying What am I afraid of? So remember the 10 spies, this whole drama of the 10 spies is us. They were afraid to take on giants, okay? Question then becomes for you and I, what am I afraid of if I keep going towards Hazor or if I go to Jericho, if I go to Ai, what am I afraid of? What is the Nephilim that I'm afraid of? What am I afraid he's going to do to me? What am I afraid is going to happen to my life? And the fear then becomes where you're stuck. And if you find yourself stuck, it's because you're afraid of losing something. That is where this gets all of us. Brandon, you don't understand, man. If I give this up, I lose my sugar stick. And I like my sugar stick. Man, Brandon, if I give this up, you don't know how my family's going to react to me. If I do this, they will cut me off. Brandon, you don't understand. If I do this, I will lose my job. Brandon, you don't understand, if I do this, it's gonna really upset my wife. And on and on the list goes. The question is, you have to find out what you're afraid of, and you're gonna have to go tackle that Nephilim in order to advance on the highway. It's the only way you can do it. It's the only way you can do it. It's the only way you can do it. It's the only way you can do it. It's the only way you can do it. It's the only way you can do it.