from the gospel according to Luke we're studying Luke from the Greek text of course we're translating into English so all of you can understand it and we're reading the Amplified Bible also for emphasis 20 and verse verse number one how many of you have almost been snake bit How many of you almost have been snake bit or have almost been snake bit? I have been struck by rattlesnakes. I remember one time a long time ago, long time ago, my nephew Willie had gone woodcutting with us. We were up in Glenville area. And we were going to eat lunch. We had been working probably four or five hours that morning. We had all the firewood cut that we were going to cut. I had a commercial firewood business. I cut about two cords of wood. And we had put it in the truck, most of it. We were splitting some of the rest of it. And we decided to go down the hill by the creek and to have lunch. I had made some burritos with potatoes in them and chili and all kinds of good stuff. And I put them on the intake manifold of my 390 Ford V8 in my wood truck. And I had let it run for an hour or so to heat the dinner up. And we also had little pies that I'd put in, fried pies that I'd put into tin foil. And Willie was coming down. We all had gone down to the creek and sat down on some rocks down by the creek. And when I walked by this great big oak tree, underneath there, I thought was a great big cow patty about that big around. Willie came down, bouncing down the hill, running around, smiling and everything else. And just in midair, he looked down and the cow patty moved. And he had come up. It was a great big timber rattler, real dark. Willie's foot almost landed on the snake, but it seemed like he just pulled his legs up and went on about seven or eight more feet and hit the ground running. Snake pit. People have fallen into snake pits. We see the movie True grit and the girl falls down Maddie Ross falls down in the cave and and and is in there with the in the snake den Jesus is a bunt round really has fallen into a snake den rattlesnakes serpents all around him serpents every direction and That's what's happening right here the serpents The devil's advocates are all around him and it's dangerous to be in their presence because they're going to strike a deadly blow against the Son of God. Here is a whole Sanhedrin assembled with their fangs showing and full of poison. The snakes in every direction. Serpents in every direction. And it came to pass, during one of the days teaching Jesus, him, the people in the temple area. And as he was preaching, evangelizing, you know what he was teaching, Marilyn? He was talking about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus of himself. He was talking about the Son of God coming to the world, living a perfect life, being seized by serpents, evil men, Crucified buried and risen again Paul told us that Jesus Jehovah preached the gospel unto Abraham and There's only one kind of gospel The gospel is You Anglia the gospel is the coming according to 1st Corinthians 15 chapter that Jesus Christ came according to the scriptures and lived according to the scriptures. He was born in the right place, raised in the right place. He died according to the scriptures. He was buried according to the scriptures. And he was raised according to the scriptures. That's what the Bible tells us. That's the gospel. There is no other gospel than that. That is the gospel. A lot of the teaching in the Bible, but that is the gospel. And the people in the temple area, and he was evangelizing. He was gospelizing them, and they came upon him, the one's high priest, and the one's scribes, and the one's elders, Praebuthoros. The snakes crawled. The snakes crawled for the strike, to strike. The snakes crawled and coiled up in front of him to strike. Surrounded by serpents, and they spoke and they kept on saying to him literally prose out on toward him. That word out on there. That's a, uh, third person pronoun accused of singing them mask on third person pronoun. They kept on gnashing their teeth at him and questioning him. Hissing, hissing, hissing. You say to us in what authority exousia these things you do or Who he is, the one having given to you, exousion, tautain, authority this. Now, you remember what the word exousion means? Exousia. Exousia means no limits. No boundaries. He had authority with no boundaries. He could do what he wished. Powerfully. By the power of the Holy Spirit. Go on in verse three. And having caught up in speech, he said toward them, answered, that means caught up in speech. He answered them, I interrogate you. I interrogate you all. I also, an answer. I want you to give me an answer. That word logo on there, I want you to give me an answer. And you tell to me. I want to ask you just one thing. And you tell to me. You answer me. To baptisma ewanu x uranu en a x anserpon. The baptism of John. That baptism that John preached. The baptism that John preached, was it out of heaven? Or did it keep on being out of human authority? You tell me now. The baptism of John the Baptist, the preaching of John the Baptist, the gospelling of John the Baptist. John the Baptist preached the same gospel that Jesus did. Jesus preached that he would come and die. John the Baptist preached that the one, behold the lamb of God, the one, the lamb that takes away the sin of the world. Now what happened to the lamb? What happened to the lambs on the day of Yom Kippur? What happened to the lambs on the Passover? What happened to the lambs? The lambs were killed. They were killed. They were killed. The lambs were killed. Our Jesus, our savior had to die for us that we might have eternal life. I was watching a program here a while back when I was in Nevada. We have the internet up there that we can watch what we need to. We can upload as much as we can, whatever. And I was watching this liberal, like History Channel type thing on the Gospels of Jesus Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And they said that not one of these people were eyewitnesses of Jesus and not one of those Gospels. This is what they said. Not one of the Gospels were within 300 or 400 years of what Jesus said. I don't know with what authority they said that, because it's a lie. It's an absolute lie. I have seen a fragment of the Gospel of Mark that was printed before A.D. 70. I have seen different Gospels and fragments of Gospels that were preached, that were many of them that were during the first century. That means before 100 A.D. I study Greek. I use an SLL in text. And in the SLL in text, it will tell you there are different readings. It'll add a little something. The Gospel of Mark, later on, when it talked about Tiberius over there, it said, epites gais, upon the land. The oldest manuscripts did not say that. But later on, the land was so changed and destroyed there that they had to say, they thought they had to say, epites gais upon the land when it talked about the area. because it had been so destroyed by the Roman armies. Because of the Jews, by the way. You can trace every little phrase that may have been added to the original languages from what century it came. You can study the Word of God in the original language and you can As far as we have it, as far as the Nestle-Allen text is concerned, as far as I'm concerned, and I have studied the Bible and the textual criticism of it, and I'm not talking about critiquing the text, I'm talking about studying the history of the text, where this family of manuscripts and this family of manuscripts and what made little tiny variations there might have been. From the oldest manuscripts, we have thousands of old manuscripts. before 300 A.D., way before 300 A.D., thousands of manuscripts. People would like to say that Jesus didn't live. If we didn't have a Bible at all, there is more historical evidence of Jesus' birth, miraculous amenity, death, burial, and resurrection than there is in the Bible. But the Bible is accurate, and we're talking about that accurate Bible right now. We're reading it. We're reading the Greek, translating it in. He said, the baptism of John, was it out of heaven, or did it keep on being out of man's authority? Now, these are the serpents that are surrounding him, the snake pit, the den of snakes that he has fallen into around that temple area now. and the ones they kept on debating together for themselves 3rd person plural, 1st Aries, indicative middle. They kept on debating among themselves. What to say? Saying that if, we may say, out of heaven, he will say, why did you not believe him? Why did you not believe him? If we say out of heaven, he will say, why did you not believe him? why did you not believe in him? 20 and verse 6 and if we may say out of mankind by the authority of men the people all They shall each and every one of them stone us. Every man will pick up a stone to stone us. Having been persuaded, for having been persuaded, he is, John, the prophet to be. That John was the prophet. Now, who did Jesus say that John the Baptist was? John the Baptist was, he said, I'm one crying in the wilderness. I'm a voice crying in the wilderness. Jesus said he is Elijah. Malachi said that Elijah would come before that great day of the Lord. The Bible says that he would make straight the way of the Lord and he did. The snakes are positioning themselves to strike with all the poison that they can muster up. but Jesus turns their fangs upon them at this point. 20 and verse number eight, or seven, that is. Calculated evil and repread premeditated sin. Kai apakrethason, me adeneh pothan. And they answered not to know. from where it is. They said, we don't know from where it came from. If you're going to err, err on the safe side. That was their idea. If you're going to err, err on the safe side, we'll just say we don't know. They did know. They knew where John the Baptist's authority came from. They knew why Jesus, or his authority, came from. Kai ho esu sephan altois uthe ego lego himen entoi. Exousia tauta foia. And the Jesus, he said to them all, to all of them, neither I, I say to you, in what authority these things I do. No one ever healed a blind man born from his birth. That was a specific messianic credential. The Old Testament prophets, they did raise the dead, didn't they? Some of them. Some of the Old Testament prophets actually healed lepers. Old Testament prophets stopped rain. They had power over the weather, over nature. But Jesus, the Messiah, had power over all of these things, did he not? Colossians the first chapter Colossians chapter 1 let's go there and read for just a moment Like bind it in my Bible Now I'm gonna read this from the Amplified Bible Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, to the saints, the consecrated people of God, and believing and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae. In other words, this is a church letter, isn't it? Grace to you and heart, peace from God, our Father. We continually give thanks to God, the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, as we are praying for you. We've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus. Do you out there have this faith in Christ Jesus? Do you have this faith in his word? Do you have this faith in his promises? Confidence in his power and wisdom and goodness, and of the love with which you have shown for all the saints of God and consecrated ones. Let's jump on down. In verse number 12, it said, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified and made us fit to share the portion with which is an inheritance of the saints of God in the light. The Father has delivered and drawn us to himself out of the control and dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the son of his love. The son of his love. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. And whom we have our redemption through whom? Through his blood, which means the forgiveness of our sins. Now he is the exact likeness of the unseen God, the visible representation of the invisible. He is a first or the head of all creation is what actually it says first born but it means head of all creation. For it was in him that all things were created in heaven and upon the earth. Things seen and things unseen, whether thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities, all things were created and exist. and are held together by his power and intervention, and in him and for him, for he himself existed before all things. In him all things consist and cohere and are held together. He also is the head of his body, the church, seeing he is the beginning, actually the head of the firstborn from among the dead. so that he alone in everything and in every aspect might occupy the chief place. Stand first and be preeminent, for it has pleased the Father that all the divine fullness, the sum total of the divine perfection and powers and attributes should dwell in him permanently. And God proposed that through and by the service, the intervention of Him, the Son, all things should be completely reconciled back to Himself, whether upon the earth or in heaven, as through Him the Father made peace by means of the blood of His cross. And you that were one time estranged and far away and alienated from Him, and a hostile attitude of mind in your wicked activities, yet now has Christ the Messiah reconciles you to God in the body of his flesh through death, in order that to present you holy and faultless and irreproachable in his, the Father's presence. Our Heavenly Father, we send this message out. Father, I tried my best to preach the gospel this evening. I pray if there's one out there that doesn't know you and exact has not been born again, has not tasted of the goodness of you. So your son that they will this night and those that are out there father that they might also know that they're sealed in Jesus Christ forever in his blood and by his power that once they have tasted of that great goodness and glory and that great forgiveness. and reconciliation to you, that forevermore they'll be held in your hand forever. Father, forgive me where I failed you, and help us to glorify you in every way. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.