I'm on. Look at that. Okay. The left. Door. Hang. Move. Entrance. I am laid low in the dust. Preserve my life according to your word. I recounted my ways and you answered me. Teach me your decree. Let me understand the teaching of your precepts. Then I will meditate on your wonders. My soul is weary with sorrow. Strengthen me according to your word. Keep me from deceitful ways. Be gracious to me through your law. I have chosen the way of faith, excuse me, I have chosen the way of truth. I have set my heart on your laws. I hold to your statutes, oh Lord. Do not let me be put to shame. I run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free. Free. Good stuff. Okay, here we go. If I can get to the page 20. You'd think I'd have this ready for everything. Not a very good planner here. Okay, the last day. Thomas Cranmer had the misfortune of being Archbishop of Canterbury for King Henry VIII. But he survived by bending to the wind. He approved the king's divorces. He condemned the king's wives when necessary. He renounced the Pope when expedient. He took no heroic stands. But Thomas grew as the years passed. He composed and compiled the Book of Common Prayer and increasingly loved Reformation theology. That's a terrible sentence. It makes no sense. Anyway, when young King Edward died, Thomas sought to deny the throne to fiercely Catholic Mary. Mary nevertheless assumed rule, and she forced the archbishop to watch as his two best friends, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, were burned at the stake. Thomas was imprisoned and subjected to torture. After months of coercion, the old cleric broke down and signed a series of recantations. Queen Mary then planned a spectacle, Cranmer publicly reading his recantations and reaffirming loyalty to the Pope and Queen at the Church of St. Mary's. On the eve of the spectacle, March 20, 1556, Thomas sat wearily at a small desk in an Oxford jail. reading the speech plan for the next morning. His hand slowly gripped a pen, trembled, and started writing a second version. The next day was cold and rain swept. Thomas was escorted to St. Mary's with the two speeches secretly stowed in his shirt. He rose to speak, saying, I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that I ever said or did in my life. and that of setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth. He declared that his recantations had been signed under duress, and he boldly embraced the pure gospel. Guards rushed through the aisles. Thomas was pulled from the pulpit and hustled to the stake. As the fire was lit, the old man thrust his arm into the flame, saying the hand that had signed the recantations should be the first to burn. Thomas Cranmer had waited till the last day of his life to be heroic, but it was the last day that counted. When the council members heard Stephen's speech, they were angry and furious, but Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit. He looked toward heaven when he saw our glorious God and Jesus standing at his right side. Okay, and I've never known, some people have Stephan, S-T-E-P-H-E-N, and they say Stephen, and some people say it's Stephan. So I don't know which is correct, and if you're a Stephan or a Stephen, I didn't mean to offend either of you, but that does come up from time to time where I'll say Stephan, and they'll say, well, my name is Stephen. I just call him Steve. Steve, that would do it. Just call him Steve and be done with it. Steve Cranmer, there you go. So, Let's see here, Les, this guy isn't asking for anything. He's a guy in India and he's with Tribal Gospel Ministries. He's an Indian in India with a ministry and he was registered in some state by the government back in 2011. And since then, I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but you have to appeal through the government in order to get a permit license for foreign donations. and the government is now asking more questions. They make it very hard in India on Christians. Anybody but Hindus. Hindus get a break. Muslims, Christians, all others get a real difficult time. But Les is asking for prayers for this guy to get his license from the Indian government. So there you go with that. His name is Banjara Tribal Gospel Ministries. So, or I'm sorry, that's the name of the ministry, Banjara Tribal Gospel Ministries. So we'll pray about that, asking the Lord to help them to get what they need to continue, you know, receiving foreign donations. And Sue had a liver scan and now they now recommend a specialist due to the results. Fatty liver and fibrosis something anyway she's got a couple things wrong with her liver and so please keep Sue in prayer and then Mike Kane is his wife. I think I said this last week. I may have said it, but I'll repeat it in case I didn't. Mike Cain's wife came through surgery and he wanted to thank everybody for praying for Megan. And so far I haven't heard anything bad. So apparently she's doing well. Otherwise I would have heard something about it. But anyway, and then we have one final thing. You know, you never know when somebody is going to die. And you talk to people and, you know, we got a couple a lot of old people in this church and it could be any Sunday that you come in and one of them has died okay or it could be like Kelly Carlin who was you know in her 30s or maybe 40s at the time and if she just she got a brain hemorrhage and died and it's always shocking because you expect to see the person again the next week and sometimes that doesn't happen And then you're kind of left with this void. Did I say everything I should have said to this person? Did I treat this person the right way? Could I have had our last conversation different? All those kind of things come to mind, and they come to mind every time somebody around you dies. We had a person, and a lot of you have heard me talk about him over the years, there are two people that have made this church possible. Okay, now I'm not saying that there aren't other people that have helped this church throughout the years, but two people that actually made this church possible. Actually, three. Paul Stoll was one of them, too. He was there from the very beginning, and he's actually the one that got us into the building and all that. So, Paul also had, but as far as the church itself being a church, Paul was overseas at the time. We were already established when he came back, and he made things work. But the two people that have actually made this church possible, one of them is sitting here right now, and if it wasn't for him, there would be no church, just because of the way that things fit together. That's Sergio. Everybody knows that. And we wouldn't have the live streaming. We wouldn't have YouTube videos. And because we wouldn't have YouTube videos, then we wouldn't have, you know, any outreach. We'd just be a teeny little church. I would still be working a full-time job. to make sure that I could support my wife and children, and my wife takes a lot to support. But I don't have to do that. I got some part-time jobs, and there are other things that I do, but if it wasn't for Sergio, that would never have happened. The other person His name is Mike Conrad, okay? And Mike was not his real name. It was his middle name, but he told everybody, my name is Mike. And Mike was somebody that I contacted every single day since we became a church, every day. He saw us when we had like three views on YouTube and out on the beach, and he said, you know, you need to do this and this and this to get your church noticed. And I was like, I don't want to do that. And he said, no, if you do it, people will watch your sermons. And I said, okay, then I'll do those things. And so that's why we do certain things in this church the way we do it, is because of his input. He checked everything I did. He would check every commentary I did every day. He was the last person to look at them. Other people review them now, but he's done this for 13 or so years. And Mike, he was just the most meticulous person. He would find little things that nobody would ever look at. Sergio would say, how did he even find that? But he was geared toward perfection in administrative ways. And anyway, I didn't hear from him after about 23 February. And I was wondering what's up and after a few days because you know you get sick and you're in the and you got the flu which has happened a couple times and you think Well, maybe he's got the flu. So after about a week, I emailed Sergio and another guy, Wade, and I said, have you heard from Mike? And they both said, no, we haven't. And so we waited and we still hadn't heard from him. And, you know, let me stop right there before I finish this story. And I will say that I have another person that also checks the things I do, the daily commentaries and about Two months ago, maybe a month ago, something happened to him, something physical. And I told him, I said, you know what? It may not matter to you, but it matters to me that if something happens to you, I want to know. You're my friend. If I need to fly up there and help you, I will. And so he appreciated that. And so he actually contacted somebody else and said, if something ever happens to me, I want you to let this guy know. I mean, if he's in the hospital and he's okay, I can send flowers. But at least I want to know that he's okay. Mike would not do that. Mike would help this church. I would have, we needed a missionary, help for a missionary. And it was something that touched his heart. And so I would get an envelope the next week when I'd come in here, and it would be an envelope with, say, $50 in it. This is for the missionary over in wherever, okay? And it would have no return address, and I would ask him repeatedly over the past 12 or 15 years, however long it's been, Mike, you know, give me your address. I want to send you something. I wanted to thank him for all he's done for this church, and he wouldn't allow me. He wouldn't tell me his birthday. He wouldn't tell me anything. He wanted it to be something, a gift to God. And so that was his thing, and I tried not to interfere with it, but it bothered me because I'd like to at least show him appreciation. Hedico goes in the hospital, she sends him a hello kitty, you know, kitty. And there she's got it in a picture by her head, you know. And so he was a very, very wonderful person, and he did so much for this church. And we would not be here if it wasn't for Mike Conrad. Finally about I'm almost beside myself with Wade and Sergio over the past couple weeks. Have you heard anything? what can we do and finally the one that knows how to get into the Bowels of the internet and research things that no other human on the planet can research That's one of these two men that I'm just talking about did a search and he came up with nothing He searched literally. He had a picture of Mike. I had one picture of Mike that Mike had a brain aneurysm and he had a band-aid on his head and he sent me a screenshot of him. That's the only thing I had of Mike. I had nothing else. And that was taken and put into the AI and it checked over 13 billion photos and nothing came up. His sisters when they went into his computer everything was cleared every single day But he did websites for churches all over he developed them. He would follow them He did all of these things for these churches, and he loved the superior word because we kept it up He did it and it wasn't like well. He did the site now. We can just every day I would add to the website and every day he appreciated it and so Somehow, our great internet sleuth found him. I knew a couple things that he had done. He had another website called Latin Arabia. He loved Mexican food. He went to, taught himself Spanish and he loved the Arab people and he loved the Latin people and so he did a website of the Arab people that live in South America. Okay, he was an amazing author. He wrote so many wonderful articles for The American Thinker. He was one of the greatest thinkers you would ever imagine. You've read his articles if you read The American Thinker, and you wouldn't know it, but you can do a search on Mike Cain and it'll come up with many, many articles. And there were many more articles, I know, because he would send them to me to proofread, and they wouldn't publish them because they were too well thought out. We can't publish this because, and it was always a reason that did not hold water. It wasn't anything like the content or the quality. They were well-researched. And Mike, Mike was an amazing person. So, you know, we can't have a funeral for him because none of you knew him other than through what I've said, but I want to make this part of this Bible study a testimony to him as a person. We finally found out that he died on, what was it, the 25th of February? Okay, the end of February and... on the eighteen he was uh... and his sister what i was able to contact his one of his sisters and i'll be talking to her on the phone probably tomorrow with his mother uh... but um... he he was uh... a person had some brain aneurysms and one of them killed him and he was dead and he had no pain he he just was gone and uh... you can't complain about that but uh... the reason why i'm saying these things is one to thank mike We'll be seeing him again really soon. I will say this, nobody understood grace better than Mike. He would pick apart every preacher on the internet, and he would talk about why they were wrong, what they didn't understand. He knew theology better than any person I've ever known, and I mean that sincerely. But Mike could not understand how grace applied to him. Even though he understood it, even though he knew the theology, He could not understand how grace applied to him. And that tells me that he was the most saved person I've ever known, because I don't understand how grace can apply to me. Okay, when you struggle with the thought that God could save a person like you, that means that you understand what grace means. Okay, Mike didn't do anything to earn his salvation. One time he told me, we had a Bible study and he was listening and I was talking about grace and the next morning he said, I cried through the entire Bible study. Why would God save me? Okay, so this is the type of person we're dealing with here. He would never tell where he was, he would never ask for anything, except once in a while he would say, you know, I've got this problem, would you please pray about this? Don't tell anybody, just pray about this. And maybe allow Sergio to pray. And that was about it. He was a wonderful human being. Bringing all this to a conclusion, if you friends with people the best thing you can do is to let them know what you're doing when you're doing it and to at least have a backup if something happens to you where other people will be able to find out about that because people care they may not say well you know I need to know what happens to you when you die but they do need to know and so if you are a part of this church even if you don't you know I have people that will show up here on Sunday morning they'll say I've been attending your church now for 12 years. I've never missed a sermon. I've seen that several times and yet I've never heard from him. I'd like to know if something happens to you that you were a member of this church and that you're gone now. That would be important to me. So I would like for you wherever you are and whoever you are, to let people know that if something happens to you, you would contact the Superior Word Church and let us know that you were a member of this congregation. If you want a funeral done on a live stream, we can do that. If you don't, if you just want to be, at least I'd like to know. Okay, and I'm so appreciative of my friend that I talked to a month ago about that because he now knows that if something happens to him I care and that I I want to know and if he's in the hospital, I want to come visit him and I Make sure you do that Mike was a wonderful person and I'm glad that we were able to find out his background because now I'm in contact with his family and I'm telling them all of the wonderful things that he did so anyway, there you go Heavenly Father We're very grateful to you for the chance to come into your presence to pray for the prayer requests that were brought before you for the Indian missionary and for Sue, who's got the liver problem. And Lord, we would, as a group, even though we didn't know Mike personally, I'm sure that every person here would like to thank you for him in his life and what he has done for this church. Things that none of the people in the church even know. They had no idea that there was somebody out there that was literally making the church run. And it was without any fanfare, it was without any recompense, it was without any even desire to be known. Lord, how few people there are like that that are just so willing to serve you because they understand that they don't deserve your grace. Lord, thank you for the grace you've bestowed on Mike and on the rest of us who are waiting to be like Mike. in a moment when we can be raised to be with you. And may that day be soon. Thank you, Lord. We pray for this class and we pray for the family of Mike. And we just pray that they'll have good memories of him until the day that they meet again and in your presence. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So there you never met him never met him and he was gonna come one time to the church He was in Florida and he I think he just got scared that I would do what I just did and recognize him He didn't want any recognition at all. He wanted zero and as I said, I didn't say this so I'll add this in is that he built the website from Nothing. And here's what he did. He said, you know, I want to get you onto Twitter. I want to get you onto Facebook. And I want to get you onto all these things that I didn't even know existed. And this is a person that just emailed me out of the blue. I didn't know anything about him. And he said, I want to do this. Here's a couple of my websites I've developed. And he said, I want to do this for you. And he said, all I need is your password to your email. I need your password to your Facebook. I need your pass. And I'm like, how much of this would be permanent if he was not a right person? And I thought, well, I'm going to give it a shot. He's got all these other websites. And so I did. And he knew every password. that I have. One other person does too, but I'm still wondering if I can trust him. Anyway, he knew he had access to everything. And that changed over the years because finally he said, I don't need this anymore. We don't need your email. So I want you to change your, for example, Gmail password. So he doesn't have anymore. But when he establishes, he asked for everything. And then he built up an infrastructure of sending out everything that went onto the internet would go to Twitter. And then I got rid of Twitter for a while because it became so liberal. But then Facebook, it would automatically post things. He had this thing where everything went out everywhere, but he developed all of it. All of it. He wanted no recognition at all. He did everything without being asked and without wanting anything. And when I tried to give him something, he would not take it. So thank the Lord for people like Mike. He made this church possible along with Sergio. And to this day, we are reaping the benefits of what he did. And I'm just sorry that I could not have been at his funeral. If I knew that he had died, I would have gotten on a plane. I would have said, Hidiko, I don't like going anywhere, but I am going to go up. I'm going to be gone for the next eight hours and I'll be back tonight. I would have gone to his funeral. But I couldn't do that because we had no idea. And he was literally a ghost on the internet. everything he did was erased immediately because he didn't want people to give him any attention. What a human being. So there we go. Is it built in such a way that it can still be sustained? Oh yeah. Everything is there now. As a matter of fact, he gave over the website to somebody else. Wade takes care of it now. So yeah. But all of this was just, he just wanted to get things going and to make sure that the church was here. He appreciated the church. he so he had everything where it could take care of itself and because of that it's just it runs but that's only one like I said once something was done he'd say okay I don't need that and change your password and that was over so it was just it was an amazing relationship that we had and when I I didn't get a commentary today that happened a couple times three days while he had the flu one time and it was three or four days but after a week or so we knew there was a problem we knew and we just how do you find him we try and then we kind of give up for a week thinking maybe you know maybe and then we try again and Wade was out there doing internet searches and AI searches and nothing so anyway there we go we got to get into the Bible study and we are in one to Timothy 1 Timothy 2 is it 2 Timothy 2 Timothy 2 verse 11 yes and I'll just lead up to it is 8 remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead descended from David this is my gospel for which Unbelievable. You know what, these next three verses, 1 and 2 Timothy both do this. You got a couple chapters, they come to a point, which this is the point, a little poetic offset, and then they go in the opposite direction. And it's everything hinges on what he says right here. And 1 in Timothy, what's that? Well, it's kind of like a chiasm, but it's more a, it's like a literary device where everything, it doesn't actually repeat itself, but it's just, it's a very purposeful thing that he's done here, or that God did through him. So anyway, Wow, I can hardly think now because, and I hope I said everything I could say about Mike. One thing I will say is that I in no way am diminishing Paul Stoll's role when I say that he helped start the church, but then I talk more about Mike. Paul, his role was to get the mechanics of how we operate. And that came later, when we were looking for a building, when we found a building, how are we going to set it up? We do not want to be 501c3. How do we do those things? And he knew those type of things. He was kind of like a financial guy, so he understood that. But the other things, actually the mechanics of how we do things are solely Sergio and Mike 100% between the two of them as a matter of fact Mike and Sergio talked a lot about things you know I wouldn't understand what he's talking about and so I just take it and I'd send it to search I don't know how to do these things. They're talking about, you know, HTML and ZZIP, and it was just way too much for me, so. But do recall, you were able, we were all able to have a service for Paul. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, this is, you know. Yeah, this is his service, even though it's a Bible study, this is his recognition right now. Because, like I said, there would be no point in having a big service when people don't know him. But to know what he did for the church, I think it's right that we bring him up. And just so you know, I mean, because I never told him these things. I mean, we just were friends. And just because somebody doesn't say to you how appreciated you are, it doesn't mean that they don't appreciate you. Sometimes you just take things for granted, and we don't wanna do that. Make sure you hug your friends, tell them you love them, Because there's a day when either you or they are going to be gone, unless the rapture comes. I've hugged you more than any human on this planet. I've hugged you more than my mother, buddy. You know what I did? I apologized to him. He came in here on Sunday. He always shows up for church late. He shows up, and he walked over, and I was typing something. I was ordering something for somebody that needed something. So I'm sitting there doing it, and I don't process things well. I either do this or I do this. I can't do two. He walked up, and I always get up and hug Sergio. Always. I didn't. I talked to him a little bit, and then I got back to what I was doing. And actually, after I finished all the work, it was the next morning, wasn't it? I said, Sergio, I just realized that I didn't hug you when you came in. And that wasn't intentional. He was probably crying when he went home. Was he crying on the way home? He was. Oh, it was terrible. I always give my friends a hug if I know that they are that type of person, but I didn't. I felt so bad. Okay, let's get into 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 2, verse 11. Like the Book of 1 Timothy, Paul's second letter to his young protege centers on a poetic saying. Paul now begins that poetic saying for us to consider. He has just spoken of the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. That's what he just said. That's his words. With that in mind, he says this is a faithful saying. As with the words found in 1 Timothy 1, 15, 3, 1, and 4, 9, the Greek reads, faithful is the saying. Thus, this refers to what precedes it, meaning the eternal glory. So you have the eternal glory, faithful is the saying. From there, he begins his words. It is believed by some that what he says forms an ancient Christian creed that was already in use, being a part of the liturgy of churches. There is really nothing to substantiate this, but it is possible. They do that with a couple things in the book of Acts, too. They say, well, this is the first Christian prayer, and blah, blah, blah. And that's just speculation. We don't know if it actually was or not. But certainly after it was written, whether it's recorded in Acts or Paul, people probably would say these things, okay? So whether it predated Paul's words or if Paul's words come, initiate it, people would have said these things later, at least. Let's see here whether or not what he says is also reflected in other parts of his writings. Okay, so what he's saying here is not anything really distinct, but the way he has structured it is so beautiful, and it gives us real truths about salvation that we can hold on to. Anyway, Paul is ever consistent to relay the truths of the works of Christ. For now, he begins with, for if we died with him, that's his words. This is speaking about our death to sin, it being crucified with him. You know, and that's what I try to close with every single week. I try not to say the same thing every week, but I try to close with the thought that there are a couple of things that are paramount importance when it comes to understanding what Jesus did. The first is that God has given law, okay? All people are under law. Now, we're not under THE law, meaning the law of Moses, but we are all under law. The very first words ever spoken by God to man were words of law. okay on the day that you eat of the fruit you shall surely die you shall not eat of this fruit okay so it was a law that was given to him god put us under law for a reason okay and we need to understand that the reason was because you cannot receive grace without first having a need for grace. Okay? The law was given, man fell. All people are under the law of Adam. In Adam, all died. Okay? Death spread to all because all sinned, and that came through Adam. That's Romans 5. Anyway, and I misquoted that, so go back and check it. Anyway, so We have law. We have that that keeps us at enmity with God. Our fallen state keeps us at enmity with God. John 3, 18 will tell you about that. Okay, so with that, by law, is the knowledge of sin. Sin comes because of law. If you don't have a law, you do not have sin imputed, okay? Here's an example. I use this once in a while so that people that don't understand this, it's very simple to understand. There is no speed limit on Midnight Pass Road. It doesn't matter if you go 8,000 miles an hour or if you go 10. Nobody can say anything because there's no law that was passed. Midnight Pass is where I live. The county says we've had a lot of accidents out there, we've got old people that are driving 15 miles an hour, and we need to have a law that they must drive 30 miles an hour. Obviously that's not the case. Instead, they will take the opposite and they'll say, we're setting the speed limit on Midnight Pass Road at 40 miles an hour. Once that law is introduced, if you violate that law, you can now get a ticket. And the chances are you're going to because the cops are ready to give you a ticket because it's a new law. All right? After a while, they stop, you know, hounding you for the most part. But there is a law that says that this is how fast you go. Before the law, no ticket. After the law, ticket. That's the way law works. Without law, there is no imputation of sin. So let me read this again to you now. It says, if we died with them, this is speaking about our death to sin, it being crucified with him. Jesus Christ came. God gave, through Moses, a law to the people of Israel. When I say God, that includes Jesus. He was there giving the law to Moses, okay? Moses was the administrator of that law. The Levites were the ones that did the sacrificial system, okay? So there's a system set up. This law is what allows sin to be imputed in the people of Israel. Okay, here's a question for you. Let's see if you can get this right. Are Japanese people under the law of Moses? Were they ever under the Law of Moses? No. Is anybody on this planet outside of Israel under the Law of Moses? Nobody was ever put under the Law of Moses. So right there, thinking that through, that should take the Hebrew roots, the Judaizers' movements in the world, and it should alert people that they have just condemned themselves. Okay? God gave a law to the people of Israel and said, if you can live If you can do the things of this law, you will live. Meaning you're not going to die. Okay? Nobody could fulfill this law. Nobody. And that is evidenced in the Old Testament for 1,500 or so years. A little less than that, but about 1,500 years. Christ came. He lived the law. He put himself under the law that he had given to Moses and the people of Israel. He was born into Israel under this law. He fulfilled the law. The man who does the things of the law will live. He gave his life up in exchange for the sins committed under the law. But he also did that for Adam's law. Christ died not just for the law of Moses. He died for regaining the people of the world from Adam's transgression. We are no longer under law. Paul says that, but he's not talking about the law of Moses. He's speaking about law. There is now no law between God and man. Everybody got that? No law. We now have grace. And that's what I was talking about with Mike a minute ago. People can't get that. How can that be? There's laws everywhere. There's laws everywhere. I've got to do something. He's going to condemn me if I don't do something. There is no law. Grace is getting what you do not deserve. Jesus Christ gave grace because he took care of the law problem. The sin, as it says, it being crucified with him. Jesus Christ died so that we are no longer under law. If you're in Christ, you are no longer under law. Paul says it several times in several different ways. He says explicitly in 2 Corinthians 5.19 that God is not imputing us sin. The imputation of sin, by default, arises because of law. If he's not imputing us sin, then that means we're not under law. Everything Paul says confirms itself. So this is the point that we have to understand about what God has done in Christ. No law meaning grace. Law and grace are absolutely 100% mutually exclusive. They do not fit. They cannot fit. They will never fit. If you are putting yourself under a law in order to be saved or think you need to do it in order to keep being saved, you have set yourself apart from God. Okay? That doesn't mean you've lost your salvation, but it means that you are not living by grace, okay? That doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing the things of the New Testament. But if you don't do the things of the New Testament, after being saved, you cannot lose that salvation. That's another point that people cannot understand. Eternal salvation means that you cannot lose your salvation because you have no way of losing your salvation. You're not under law. Law is what separates you from God. It's very hard to talk to people that believe that you can lose your salvation, because they have nothing to stand on, and yet they proclaim, of course you must do something, but there's nothing to stand on based on that, okay? So, and that's fine. If people disagree with me, that is fine, but they are the ones that have to justify why they teach something that isn't scriptural, okay? Why is it that we can lose our salvation? And they'll say, well, because you're not showing fruit. Well, fruit from what? Fruit is an extension of your salvation. It's not a basis for it. Okay, so all of these things have to be thought through. This is speaking about our death to sin, it being crucified with him. Okay, this is going to play more, not in this verse, but in the one to come, or maybe the one after that. It will play into it. Yes, okay. Although we are still physically alive, all of us here are alive, I don't see any dead people here, but we're all physically alive. God no longer views us in this light. This is the thing about Christ. He is not looking at us as if we're alive sinful beings or God looking at us in Christ, okay? Through faith in the work of Christ, meaning His death, Jesus Christ's death, we are counted as having died with Him. That's what Christ did. When Christ died, we died with Him. Okay? I'm sure you understand that. I try to explain it every Sunday. Our sins went into the grave with Christ. Christ came out of that grave. If Christ came out of that grave and our sins went into the grave with Him, that means our sins are there forever. Because if they weren't, he would not have come out of that grave. It also means that he had no sin of his own, because if he did, he wouldn't have come out of that grave. So it's a dual thing that's going on there. He had no sin, but he took our sin as well. He became our sin, 2 Corinthians 5.18. He who knew no sin became sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. What that means is that we're here, he's here, He transferred. That's the doctrine of substitution. He literally became our sin, okay? He took it into the grave, and yet he came out of that grave, okay? So when God sees us, he is no longer seeing us in the state that we were before he did this act. He now sees us as covered by the death of Christ, the blood of Christ. Understand this that the word blood is equated to death. It's a one-to-one. It's like a metaphor Okay, the blood of Christ means the death of Christ. They mean exactly the same thing in The life is in the blood if he shed his blood then he's dead. Everybody see that? So when you read blood in the New Testament, you're reading death, okay, or life, but it's one or the other. Okay, so when we speak of the shed blood of Christ, or the blood of Christ covering us, it means the atoning death of Christ, because that's what he did. He atoned for our sins through death, okay, through blood. All right, so, if people get, yes, I don't know if you see this. I see, I seem to see this a lot. People that struggle with grace in their own lives. Yep. Also have trouble with last second real conversion. I mean, there's a parallel because Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer or Hitler. Yep, I hear it all the time. So when they struggle with that because they're trying to put themselves in there, their sins aren't as great as someone else's. That's right. They have a struggle with grace in the first place in order to equate. I'll give you an example of that. Second conversion. Yep, now did they hear him? Could they hear him because of that? Okay, good. All right, so I don't have to repeat it. I was watching, and you may not have heard me say this, other people have, because I brought it up a couple times, but you're only here, you know, a couple weeks a year. So, anyway. I'm just digging on it. Okay, so here's the deal. I was watching, you know, it used to have, what was it, Discovery Channel, and there were a couple others that had, you know, they always had these theologians come on. They talked, like, we're going to do something about the law of Moses. We're going to do something about the death of Christ. And there was a guy. Baptist minister, like from, we'll say, North Carolina. You know, he was in the Bible Belt. This is a Baptist minister, and he said, I do not believe in last-minute conversions. He said, those people have gone to hell. And I thought, that is a man that does not understand grace. He's in the pulpit, and he's telling people that you have to do something in order to be saved. And if you wait to the last minute of your life, you are not going to heaven, you are going to hell. And I thought, That was the perfect person for this liberal channel to put in there, along with all these, you know, the Jesus movement and all these people. They always brought these people in that had the most twisted theology. They found a Baptist minister that would say something like that. I do not believe in last minute conversions. That person doesn't understand the word grace. Grace means that I believe that God has forgiven me of my sins. And I've tried to make that clear in conversations with them. That's right. I'm better than they are. That's right. But that's what they're doing. That's right. But there's a difference between Mike's struggle of grace and other people's struggle of grace. Mike never said, well, that person can't be saved. That was not, he was on the exact opposite of that spectrum. Everybody can be saved but me. He understood the magnitude of sin in his own life. He was probably a pretty nice guy, but some people just understand when they compare themselves to the infinitely holy perfect God, I don't know how he could save me. And I think that all the time. I'll go outside and I'll see this beautiful world, which is nothing compared to the glory of God, and I'll say, how could you save a guy like me? I just don't understand that. And Mike was way, way over here on that. All he could do was just cling to Jesus, and yet he knew Jesus had his arms completely around him. He understood it, he just couldn't grasp it. And that's the difference. Some people don't understand it. There's another thing too that the point that you brought is that if it's like, if it is Hitler or somebody like that, it's like, this is somebody who has been, you know, rightfully so demonized, like, you know, history books and like, you know, everything is like, okay, so like this guy is as bad as they can possibly get. It's like, you know, so I can see where there would be that, question because it just has been blown up to a point. Yeah, but that comes to the bell curve. There is no bell curve with God. It is black and it is white, but the bell curve always gets introduced by people that don't understand grace. There is no bell curve. Biting into a piece of fruit is Bad enough. Bad enough. To get you like so. Absolutely. Infinitely. To destroy every human being that ever will exist after you bite into that fruit. Right. That one act has destroyed every person without Jesus Christ. Right. That ought to tell us that, you know, it doesn't matter what you do. You are already condemned. So what you need is Jesus and it doesn't matter if you're Jeffrey Dahmer. If he converted he is saved. That's all there is to it. I'm not one of these people that even struggles with that. I struggle with him saving me. That's what I struggle with. But I don't struggle if Jeffrey Dahmer believed... Thank you. Okay, so here we go. We're going to move on after that very nice comment. Although we are physically still alive and although we continue to do the things which could be considered sin, I could do something today that could be considered sin, God no longer views us in this light. Okay, that's the thing that people don't get. Oh, you can lose your salvation because Well, what is it? You're not under law. You can still do things that would be considered sin before God, but because Christ has covered you with his shed blood, God is not imputing sin to you. If you can't get that, you can't get it. You need to just read the Bible some more, okay? Through faith in the work of Christ, meaning his death, meaning his shed blood, we are counted as having died with him. Thus, when God looks at us, he no longer sees us as we were, meaning dead in sin. Instead, we are reckoned in a new way. As Paul says, alive in Christ. Man, that is confirmed by the next words, we shall also live with Him. Okay? We're going to. It's not maybe. We shall also live with Him. We are positionally in this new state already. Our hope and faith stands in the fact that it will be realized in us actually at some future point. This is a sentiment similar to Romans 6 verse 8. Now, while I'm turning to Romans 6 verse 8, something just came to mind. Like I said, I could not do a funeral on Mike. I had no information on him. What I said is pretty much all I know. But since he died, I have found out things about him. they are posted on the Superior Word website. If you'd like to read about Mike go to the home page about halfway down Wade has put a link in there a little thing of red it says like attention or I can't remember what it says but right on the Superior Word website it will take you to a page that we did in honor of him and then it will also take you to his obituary. So that's about all I could give you because I knew nothing about him other than what he had done for us personally. So please do that. Go to the Spirit Word website and read about Mike and what I would like you to do. I would so much appreciate if you did this. If you appreciate this church, you don't have to know Mike to appreciate the fact that we are here having a Bible study or that we will be having a church on Sunday, which I will try to repeat some of what I said right now. I would like you to make a just a short comment about how appreciative you are of Mike's efforts on his obituary page. You can do that. You can just sign in, and you can, you know, give a comment. And I know that his family would appreciate that. So if you're willing to watch this Bible class, the only reason why you're doing it is because we had a Mike Conrad. So please make a comment on his funeral page. Sorry I forgot that earlier. It's hard to remember all these things, but it would be very appreciated for his family's sake. What? It was a little hard to work, his page. Oh, I bet it is. They make those things not easy, but if you know how to navigate those type of things and make a comment, please do. If you can't figure it out, that's fine. I understand that, too, because it takes me forever to figure out the most basic things on the internet. I do the same thing every single day of the week. Every Sunday, everything I do is exactly what that guy over there taught me, and I don't touch anything else. I'm not kidding. I know nothing about how to access things, and I don't have the brain pan for it. So if there is a problem with what I'm editing on Sunday, I have to stop what I'm doing, and I have to wait until he answers my message, which is maddening if he doesn't do it for 30 minutes, because I got, what am I going to do? I can't go on until he's fixed my mess up. So anyway. Romans 6, 8. Now, if we died with Christ, here he is, we believe that we shall also live with him. I'll even read from 9 down a little bit. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once, for all, but the life he lives, that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also be reckoned yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Let me ask you this question. Did Jesus die to his sin? No, he had no sin. So if it says right here, he died to sin once for all, what does that mean then? our sin. You see what I'm saying? It's exactly what I was saying a minute ago. Eternal salvation and all of the doctrine and theology that goes beyond that. He had no sin. He died to sin for us. You tell me how God is going to take that away. Find a verse that will actually be in context that will override what Paul just said there. He's going to do the same thing again here in 2 Timothy. So get ready, get out your pen, get out your typewriter, and tell me how you are going to override what God has done in Christ because of your neuroses or your old pastor said. Okay? It's not going to happen. He died to sin for all. Okay? So, going on. What occurred here is explained by Paul in a very detailed way. You know, I've already quoted it twice, but we're going to read it anyway, because I'm sure I misquoted it. That's me and my bad memory. But here we're going to go there. 2 Corinthians 5. Come on, Charlie, three, four, five, okay. And we're gonna go down to verse 17. I've already quoted it, but here we go. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. We were under the, we'll call it the dispensation, although it's not, but we'll call it the dispensation of sin. We were under the dispensation of sin. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new." We're no longer under that status, that state. Now, all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, here it is, that God was in Christ God, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and he is committed to us the word of reconciliation. Okay, there you go. Now, I said earlier, I think that I cited a verse and I said it was 2 Corinthians 5.18. It's not. It's 5.21. For he made him who do no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So I want to make sure you got the right verse there. It's 2 Corinthians 5.21. But 5.17-19 will give you all of the background of the theology we're talking about right here. Okay. Dying with him. Oh, and what does it say here? Here's another one. I want to go back to what I just read you. This just came to mind. All right. But it's a good thing to remember because we got people out there that teach that this is not the case. they say that Jesus was a man and not God. It says in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17, 18, 19. That is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. Jesus Christ is God, okay? That's theology, okay? Anybody that says to you at the Jehovah's Witnesses that Jesus Christ isn't God is mishandling the Bible. He is the God-man. It is God uniting with humanity. Once again, I said it a week or two ago, Genesis 1. everything reproduces after its own kind. You know how brilliant it is? They have now hundreds if not thousands of types of mangoes. Just go online and you can scroll through and read about mangoes all day long. Guess what we don't have? Non-mango mangoes. Genesis 1 said everything will reproduce after its own kind. I don't care how much we fiddle with a mango, it's still a mango I just replanted a Kent mango after 77 years of having one on our property it died and so I replanted one this past week if you want to see the video go watch it on YouTube I published Wednesday okay and we also got an avocado and guess what we have right there I went to Lowe's today to get a third tree I've got a something what's it called no it's it's a guava but it's a like a royal purple or it's some special guava Yeah, pink guava. Okay, anyway, it's right over there. That'll get put in the ground. Oh, she's already drooling. She wants the first guava. Okay, make sure you give Rhoda that. Write it down so we remember. Rhoda gets the first guava. She got the first coconut off of one of our coconut trees. And then her husband opened it and spilled it all over the place. So we had to get another one, but she got the very first coconut off of the one down by the bay. Okay, so we'll go on. I'm not embarrassing Sergio too much today. So 2 Corinthians 5, 17 through 19. Yeah, so we got a ruby, ruby red. So it's a, I think it's a ruby red, ruby something guava. I don't know. Anyway, so we're going to plant it and we'll see. It's all they had. I wanted another fruit tree. They had a fruit tree. I bought it. So as long as it makes it from here to the house, it'll be planted tomorrow. You just shut the hole in your plant that you bought, but in the words you're saying, into evolution. Oh, yeah. It's got a hole in it. It's gone. It's gone. Mangoes are mangoes are mangoes. It doesn't matter. The amazing thing is, I'm not kidding this, it's like avocados. The lady at the, she's Vietnamese, they have a hair salon in the mall I take care of. Every year she gives us mangoes, avocados. I may have given you one, if I haven't, this year I'll give you one. She gives us when they're ripe every year. They taste like butter. They're the most amazing avocado I've ever had. They're the most unique, and yet it's still an avocado. It tastes nothing like what you get from, and that's the way these mangoes are. Tart, big, small, lots of fiber, no fiber. It's still a mango. it might be Ruby Supreme it was something like that anyway read about it and tell me if I'm gonna have good fruit or not because they said good okay I'm very happy because you know Lowe's usually sells pretty good stuff okay let's go on dying with him 2 Corinthians 5 17 through 19 It's raining. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Dying with Him means that our sin nature, even if we are still actually sinning, sin has died with Him. As we are dead to sin through Him, God no longer counts our sins against us. That is what 2 Corinthians 5 19 is telling us. Even though we sin, even though we do things that would be considered as sin, because we are in Christ and we are covered by his blood, we are not being imputed that sin. It is done. It can never happen again. Okay? Trust me on this. The Bible says it, okay? So, don't trust me, but trust the fact that the Bible says it, and I know that I'm telling you correctly. As we are dead to sin, God no longer counts our sins against us. As the wages of sin is death, and we no longer have sin imputed to us, then we are alive with Christ. That is what Paul is telling us here. It's what Paul tells us in Romans. It's what Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians and elsewhere in his writings. We have died to sin. We are no longer being imputed sin. We have Not maybe. We have eternal life when we believe it is now eternal life, okay? And it's not talking about this physical body because my friend Mike just died. He's no longer with us, but he is alive in Christ. God is not going to forget him when he makes the call. Mike will be raised, okay? One of my friends said this, and it doesn't matter. Anyway, okay, so wages of sin, we are no longer having sin imputed to us, then we are alive to Christ. And so, even if our earthly body dies, we must, we must, no ifs, ands, or buts, resurrect to eternal life. Okay, here's a question for you. This is from 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Have we, and I'm talking about the dead in Christ, have they been raised yet? No. Okay? That ought to tell you something. They are waiting for Christ to call them, just as we are waiting for Christ to call us. Okay? Think that? Yeah. Rest in peace. You know, that's where the word cemetery comes from. It's from the Greek, which the Bible uses for a resting place. Okay? That's what we're doing when we go to a cemetery. Oh, you know another thing? I put this in the commentaries in Matthew, and I'd forgotten that I had thought this through. Okay, I'd forgotten that I had thought this through. It's in the commentary, and I didn't know it until I listened to Daniel read the commentary, because I listen to him every day. He reads the commentary from the UK, right? So I'm listening to Daniel, and I thought, isn't that insightful? When I'm the one to type the thing, Christ didn't get buried. Christ was interred. And when I was typing that commentary, I'm not going to translate it buried because he wasn't buried. Christ was interred. He was put in a tomb and a stone was put over it. We use the term buried and that's not a correct term for what happened to Christ. But we do it so It's so in our head that that's what we think. Christ was never buried. He went into the tomb. He was interred. There's a difference, okay? I mean, it's a fine point. Now all the King James only people are going to be condemning me to hell because I'm sure it says buried there. He wasn't buried. Nobody dug a hole, threw him in there, and covered him with dirt. That didn't happen. They already had the sepulchre, I guess you call it, or the tomb dug out. Nobody had ever been laid in it. They laid his body in there, okay, and then he came out of that tomb. He was interred. So, anyway, to be specific about burial, He wasn't. He was interred. So I'm going to try to remember that after, you know, I type these things at three o'clock in the morning, and that's when I'm thinking with the Lord. And so I'm not really paying attention to what I'm thinking. I'm just typing whatever he and I are talking about. So after listening to Daniel, I thought, oh, I need to make sure I have my terminology proper. Okay. Anyway, okay, so just as it was impossible for death to hold Christ because he had no sin, it is likewise impossible that death can hold us. We have died to sin. Sin is not being imputed to us. I've cited that verse three times now, and thus it is not possible that death can hold us. If you believe the words of the Bible, that ought to be the most comforting thing on this planet to you. This guy that we read about just a little while ago, Thomas Cranmer, right? He recanted, but you know, people always bring up these, the minutiae. They bring up minutiae and they like, okay, this guy was under duress, right? He was being tortured. They may have been opening up his back. They may have been cutting his arms open. Who knows what they were doing to him. They may have deprived him of food for two months or something, or they may have put him with Job's wife. Something was terrible in his life, okay? And he, said things that he wished he didn't say. In the end, he recanted of his recantings, okay? I mean, I have no idea. I am not the guy to sit here and judge if somebody says, I deny Christ, okay, because he's under duress. I have no idea what I do. I have no idea what the limitations of my physical body are. I have no idea. I know in my mind and in my heart I would never deny Jesus Christ. Ever. But I have no idea what my physical limitations are. So don't be one of these nitpicking minutiae people. That guy was willing to go to the stake and be burned and he actually lit the firearms. Give me that. I'm going to light that myself, okay? I am willing to do that for Christ. But when you're under all kinds of emotional stress, I could go on all day about that type of thing, but I won't, okay? You get the point. You're saved. It is done. Okay. Going on. Okay, so not being imputed to us and that it's not possible that death can hold us. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. Okay, great verses here. Great, great verses. 1 Corinthians 15 is such a nice chapter that if you're just depressed, if you have read the Psalms enough and you're still depressed, go to 1 Corinthians 15 and read that. Okay. It's got to lift you up. It's just got to, okay? But the Psalms, I usually go to a couple of the Psalms, and they lift me up, and I don't need to go any further. But we're going to go to 1 Corinthians 15. I'm going to start in verse 54, which is on the next page, because it's a really long chapter. It says, so when this corruptible is put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, which hasn't happened for anybody yet, no person has had this happen, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin. And the strength of sin is the law. That's what I talked about earlier. Adam was given law. He violated the law. Sin entered the world. Okay, the law is the strength of sin. If there was no law, there's no 40 mile an hour speed limit out there. You can't be given a ticket. But once the law is written, you have to abide by the law. You have to obey it, or you're going to get the ticket if you get caught. God is going to catch you in your sin. Be sure your sins will find you out, okay? But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Wonderful words there. Thank you, Jesus, for what you've done, because we could not have done it ourself, okay? Indeed, if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. That's the good news of Jesus Christ. You shouldn't worry about your salvation. You might question why God would save you. I cannot understand why God would save me, but I've never denied the fact that I know that God has saved me. I know that's true. I just can't believe it. And I don't mean it in the sense of non-belief. I'm talking about unable to grasp it, okay? life application. Beloved, if you have received Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have died to sin. The process of resurrection to eternal life is more assured than the next sunrise. Absolutely, we may not have another sunrise. You know, I watched a short video waiting for Hedecho last night. Oh, she was gone. I cooked my own dinner last night. I had canned chili. It was great. Okay, so I was waiting for dinner and I was watching a short video about the Tsar Bomba. Biggest bomb ever. Man, this thing went up 45 miles in the sky. It was so big. It was blowing out windows like 300 miles away. People could feel it. It made a shockwave around the world three times. And they said that we now realize we can build a bomb of any size. They limited it to a certain size. They recalculate. They did all these things. They finally just shoved it on the plane and said, here's what we're going to do. The crew had a 50% chance of coming back. They had no idea. So they said goodbye before they left, just in case. They can build a bomb that can destroy the entire world. We have the capability of doing that based on nuclear physics. We have no assurance of tomorrow's sunrise. None. Because somebody out there may have done it. But we have the absolute and 100% assurance of being raised by Jesus Christ. Nothing can take that away from us. Christ did not die to give you a possible hope. And the Bible is not written to teach you eternal insecurity. Rather, Christ died for us to give us a sure hope. And the Bible records that eternal salvation is found in the blood of Christ. Death is swallowed up in victory, and nothing in all of creation, Paul, I think it's Romans 7 says it, can separate you from God's love, which is found in Jesus Christ our Lord. Absolutely nothing. Okay? That's why people are willing to say, give me that, I'll start the fire myself. Okay? When you're under duress, you have no idea what you're going to do. But once your clarity of thinking comes back, you can do all things. Okay? All things. All right. So, 212. Okay, and before the right ends, you should probably go into the Bema Seat, because with no law, people will say that, well, now you're just like, you can do whatever you want. Yeah, absolutely not, and Paul never says that, and Jesus never, the Bible never says that you have license to sin. It never gives that. It just means that you are going to be judged at the Bema Seat of Christ. What's that? Absolutely, he says it explicitly. People that say that are just looking for an argument to be argumentative over something they don't understand. They have no answer to their own presupposition, and so they make up something that is a non-starter. I agree. Yep. But anyhow, okay, 12. If we endure, we will also reign with them. If we disown him, he will also disown us. Okay. There we go. This one says, if we endure, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us. See? You can lose your salvation. No. Verse 15 has not come around. Okay? We've got to get to verse 13, and we're not going to... What? You're right. 13 resolves it. It resolves it, and we're not going to get to it today. There's no way I'm going to be able to do both of these verses and do them justice. But 212, Absolutely, people say, see, you can lose your salvation. They don't know what they're talking about. Okay, here we go. Paul continues with his poetic offset, instructing Timothy on the mystery of our relationship with Christ. He now says, if we endure The word is properly translated. It signifies not just suffering, but bearing up under a load. All believers in Christ suffered in Christ, participating in the penalty of the cross through His substitutionary act. Okay? So even if we're not suffering in this life, which some people just don't, they suffered with Christ. That's a truth that cannot be denied. You believed in Christ, He suffered for your sins, you suffered with Christ. We have died to the law through His death, okay? His blood, His shed blood. Blood, death, synonymous. In accepting what Christ did, we bear up under the load of His work. This may continue on after receiving Christ, but it does, here it is, not naturally follow so. Okay? That's their problem. They say, well, see, you were saved. You have to follow up. It doesn't logically or naturally follow. And I always say, if that's the case, if you're right on that, go read 2 Peter 1, 1-9. Yeah, 2 Peter 1, 1-9, and explain that. Because there's a guy that doesn't even remember he was saved, much less not bearing up, okay? If you believe you can lose your salvation, you explain those verses, alright? Some receive Christ at the end of their lives. Oh, no. Remember, Rick said you can't be saved at deathbed, right? Didn't you say that? Yeah, okay. Okay, some receive Christ at the end of their lives and they're taken up to glory. Others have lives which are riddled with suffering, while others have to endure a lifetime of suffering because of their faith in Christ. Everybody's given a different burden. Everybody's got to face their own situation. Some people have it better, some people have it worse, but we've all got to face our own. Poor he to go ask to face me, so that's a burden. This is then obviously speaking of the penalty of the cross and bearing up under what it signifies. If so, if we so endure, Paul says it, we shall also reign with him. This is specifically stated again in Romans 8. We're going to go there. I'll take you to verse 16. Romans 5, 7, 8, 16. Okay, it says here, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. Join heirs with Christ if we suffer with him. Well, we've already determined that we suffered with him at the cross. Okay, the truth we shouldn't miss is that suffering in and of itself does not meet the necessary conditions for the glory of heaven's riches. People suffer all over the world. We got people that have been shot in the Alawite community in Syria by the bucketful. If they're not Christians, they're not saved, but they suffered, okay? Only suffering with Christ does. When we suffer with Him in this manner, Paul says that we will also be glorified together with Him. There's nothing shameful in suffering for Christ, that in fact it is the most honorable of all aspects of our Christian walk. To suffer with Him and to endure with Him is to have emulated Him in His highest moment leading to glory, which is the cross. I want the cross to represent me. That's why Paul says, I will boast in nothing but the cross of Jesus Christ, through whom I am crucified to the world, and the world crucified to me. I know I misquoted that, but you get the point. Okay? Paul's speaking not about his own sufferings. He's speaking about the sufferings of Christ. He's clinging to the cross, saying, that is my boast. It's not our suffering. It's not what happened to us. It's still raining. Thank you, Lord. Yes, to suffer for Him and to endure with Him is to have emulated Him in His highest moment leading to glory, the cross. We are to bear the reproach of the cross with us at all times. If that turns into actual suffering, well, we're to endure through it. This is the expectation of the faithful believer, and it is a proof that we shall reign together with Christ. Paul then gives the opposing scenario for us to consider by saying, if we deny him. Sounds like he can lose your salvation, Charlie. The verb is in the future tense and speaks of anyone who would deny Christ at any point into the future. The result of such an action is that he will also deny us. To deny Christ is to be denied by Christ. It's a one-to-one ratio. I don't want Christ. I deny him. I'm not receiving him. Then he's going to deny you, okay? He's not speaking about believers that have already accepted him. They haven't denied Christ. They believe the gospel. So it's not speaking about them at all. It's speaking about people that never come to Christ. They hear the gospel. Listen, I see Jose every day, almost, put out a video of what he's doing. He doesn't do it every day, but he's doing something every day. But he puts out a video, and he does a lot of them. And he hands people tracts. They say, I don't want Jesus, and they throw the thing away. That's denying Christ. Now, next year, that same guy may walk by him and he may hand him a tract and he may say, you know, you were here last year. Why are you doing this? Because I love Jesus. I want you to join me in Jesus. And he may say, well, tell me about it. He's not denying him anymore. He's questioning. And then all of a sudden he says, you know what? I believe this. Your testimony and your witness has convinced me that what this says must be true. And I believe it. And I believe that Jesus died for my sins. He's no longer denying Christ. He's accepting Christ. That is what this is speaking about. It's not speaking about you being a Christian saying, I don't believe anymore. That's not what it's speaking about. It's speaking about your state at any point in your human existence. denying Christ and then maybe you'll come to Christ. That is what this is speaking about. So you can't use this as a lesson for how you can lose your salvation because it's not dealing with that. He just said Take it back there. Read the verse again. Okay. If we endure, we will also reign with him. Okay, so he's speaking about the reigning, the enduring. Go ahead. If we disown him, he will also disown us. See, it's not disown because you were never owned by him. It's denied. Okay? That's the problem with that translation. Okay. I am denying him. You could say you disown him because he is the Lord. So it could be, but it's not a great way of saying it. Okay, but he's just giving the opposite of the same coin here. Somebody has come to Christ. He's enduring with him. Somebody denies him. Okay, so hang on a sec. Where was I? Okay. No, I read that. Okay, anyone who would deny Christ, it is a voluntary act of the free will. The implication is that to confess Christ is to be saved by Christ. Thus, receiving Christ is an act of the free will as well. Okay, which the reason why I'm saying that, I throw that in all the time, is because Calvinism says you don't have free will. Okay, and that's not true. That's not what the Bible teaches. It doesn't teach it here, and it doesn't teach it anywhere else. Okay, Calvinism is a failed theology in that regard. It's not completely failed. I mean, there are things that Calvinists teach which are correct, but when you come to the main five points of Calvinism, they just don't sync with what the Bible, yeah, Tulip, they don't sync with what the Bible is teaching. Anyway, so I'm going to take you, Paul makes this explicit again, back to Romans. I'm going to take you to chapter 10. Most of you can probably say this from memory, but I'm going to take you to chapter 10. Romans 10 and then we're gonna go to verse 9. People are already saying it to themselves. It says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Now, I'd like to qualify that because it says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ is God. This isn't saying, the word Lord here, kurios, in the Greek can mean a lot of things. It can mean a master. You could call me kurios and I wouldn't mind. My adonai, not adonai, adoni. Anyway, in Hebrew, adoni is my master. Adonai would be speaking to God. But kurios in the Greek, can mean pretty much anything. It can mean Lord, it can mean Master, it can mean, you know, the boss. Okay, you have to take the context. In this context, it is speaking of Jesus Christ as Lord, L-O-R-D, Jehovah. Okay, it's not speaking about Lord in the sense of Master. Okay, because there are Masters all over the world. I could say that, you know, I'm working for Sergio now and he is my Lord, okay? It wouldn't be speaking of God. In Romans 10, 9, it is referring to being the divine name, Jehovah, of the Old Testament. You just have to understand the context, and then you have to evaluate it from there. But that's just one of those things, is that it is speaking about His deity. Okay, I confess the Lord Jesus. I confess that He came in the flesh, which is what Paul is referring to all the way through his epistles. Okay, so he states the opposite of what is being referred to in Timothy. Okay, I deny Christ. I don't want anything to do with that Jesus. That is my denial. I receive Christ. I believe He is Lord. That is my acceptance. Okay? You can deny Christ for 20 years, and then on the 21st year, you can receive Christ. Okay? You are no longer denying Christ. It is speaking about your salvation, the point of your salvation. Okay? There you go. Romans 10.9 is a verse of salvation. It is applicable anytime and at all times. Like we were talking about earlier, the deathbed experience. Okay, I've wasted my life. My son walks in and he says, dad, You're gonna die. I want to tell you the gospel one more time. And the father finally yields and he says, you know what? I've been wrong my whole life. I accept Jesus. I receive what he did. That is salvation. It doesn't matter if it's a deathbed experience. It doesn't matter if it's Jeffrey Dahmer. That is salvation. I now believe what I did not believe before. The denial has ended. That's what's being referred to here. Okay? When a person receives Christ, that person is saved. Let me make a comment here. His salvation is from the time of Paul's writing, a future action which is passive in nature. In other words, Christ saves the person based on the proclamation. The same is true with denying Christ. His denial of that person is in the future tense as well. Okay, at any point that a person denies Christ, Christ will also deny him and he's going to continue to do it and maybe he'll die before he receives Christ or maybe he's going to receive Christ and all those denials will be swept away. Okay, it's our choice. God doesn't force this on us. This nonsense about God has selected you from eternity past and he is going to save you is Untrue. It's just untrue. You are the person that has been given the offer and you either receive it or you don't. And once again, I got this question twice in the past week. If God already knows that you're going to be saved, then how can that, how can that be free will? Doesn't deny free will at all. I know that my kid is going to steal that candy. I know he's going to do it, even when I tell him don't do it. And what happens next day? It's gone. it doesn't mean that I he didn't have free will it just means I know what that kid is gonna do you know I know that my daughter's gonna put her hand on that hot stove I know it's coming she she's always teasing with it I know it's gonna and then she puts her hand on the hot stove she burns her hand that didn't deny her free will I knew that it was going to happen and I'm not God. I'm just a parent. We're dealing with the God of the universe that knows everything that will ever happen in all of eternity. That doesn't deny free will. It just means that our free will is understood by Him. Okay? So that's not an argument. But you know, the Calvinist thinking is so drummed into people through, you know, just their analysis that they think, well, I don't have free will then. Of course you do. Okay. At any point, a person denies Christ. I read that. Okay. This cannot negate a later acceptance of Christ, which leads to salvation. All the denials in your life, all of them, will finally be eradicated when that guy comes to Christ. It's done. He is now a saved person. Okay. For example, Bill denies Christ. And so Christ denies him. However, five years later, Bill receives Christ. At that time, Christ no longer denies Bill, but rather saves him. Good for Bill. It is important to understand this because Paul's words here in Timothy cannot be referring to a loss of salvation. We'll see that in the verse next week, but yes, this will become clear with the third verse in its poetic offset, meaning verse 13, which we're not going to get to today. I apologize, but I would rather have spent my first 20 minutes speaking about Mike. You know, and his life has fit well into this particular Bible study anyway. If you just think about what I talked about, what a humble, wonderful guy he was. You know, and when I sent the picture of Hedekah with that little hello kitty to his sister, she said, that was Mike. That was just the way he was. He was just the most tender guy. Oh man, what a great guy. Life application. Does the Bible teach that one can lose his salvation? Taking verses out of their context could lead to believe that this is possible. In 1 Timothy 1.12, it may lead to someone to believe that such is the case. But it is a part of a larger section of thought. which Paul is fleshing out for us to consider. Okay, we have to take things in context. Sometimes it's the immediate verses, which is great. I mean, it's very nice if that is all we need to do is look at the immediate verses. It may be more than the immediate verses, though. It may be Who is he speaking to in the immediate verses? In other words, Matthew as opposed to Paul. Matthew is writing about Jesus speaking to Israel. Paul is writing about Jesus working through him for the Gentile people. So there's a different context, okay? You have to know that greater context. Sometimes the context actually requires you going through the whole Bible to get an answer, okay? People want to believe that the rapture is mid-trib? You have to go through a lot of the Bible to figure that out. Now, in the ultimate sense, that's not true because the doctrine of the rapture was given as a mystery. It was given by Paul. So that means that before Paul, there was no doctrine of the rapture, okay? So we know that the ultimate answer of what is going to be expressed in the rapture is going to come from Paul's hand. It's not going to come from the Gospels. People use the Gospels, the Synoptic Gospels. That's not the context. Paul said, behold, I show you a mystery. The mystery had not been revealed until Paul had showed them the mystery, okay? So we can't use Jesus' words there, but we can go back and look at identifiers elsewhere in the Bible to come to a full understanding and appreciation of what Paul has said. But only Paul revealed the gospel. Okay, but there are certain things that we have to have a much broader context for. The doctrine of eternal salvation is one of those things. We have to go all the way from Adam, all the way through until the cross of Jesus, and then read the explanations of that by Paul, by Peter, by the other apostles, throughout the book of Acts they speak. Now what does it say? Salvation is found in no other name. Who said that? Peter, right? So he's telling us that's an exclusive claim that leaves out Muslims, that leaves out anybody that is called on a false Jesus, oh he's not God, that leaves them out. There is no other name by which men may be saved. That was Peter that told us this. Now Paul reaffirms it, but you have to take sometimes a giant view of the Bible to understand a particular doctrine, okay? That's the context. What is the context? Okay, so he has already said that if we die with Christ, we will live with him. It's a done deal for those who have accepted the finished work of Christ. He now says that if we deny him, he will also deny us. How can the first sentence be true if this verse overrides or these words override it? The full and final thought must be considered as a life application. Keep things in context. Context is needed to derive proper interpretation, okay? If we properly interpret things, it's because we are keeping things in their proper context. And that's not, you know, I know I get a little bit, we got two more minutes, I get a little bit demeaning sometimes on people like Calvinists, but it's because these people have chosen to analyze the Bible. They have chosen to present the Bible incorrectly, okay? Now, and I say this every class, so you need to make sure that you agree with what I say. I could be wrong. I try to say that every class. I could be wrong. And if I am wrong, then it's your job to determine what I said wrong and to not follow what I said. Okay? That's your job. Your theology is not based on Charlie Garrett. Your theology is to be based on what the Bible says. I'm doing my best to teach you. But when I see that somebody has mishandled the Bible, I get a little upset about it, especially when it's a pretty obvious thing, okay, or it's something that's just not clearly thought through. And the doctrine of Calvinism and of regeneration is wrong. It is wrong and it has led a lot of people to a lot of bad positions in their lives. That also leads to a thought of smugness in Christ. It leads to a thought that I don't need to do anything. I don't need to send missionaries out. Don't get me wrong, they say they do, but the thought behind it is I don't need to because God is going to choose whoever He wants and it has nothing to do with my assistance or their choice. He's just going to do it. okay that harms people so I do get angry about things like that and you know it's just that's Charlie Garrett I just sometimes get a little bit picky about things but I am passionate about what I believe because I believe it's true and I wouldn't teach it otherwise it's not worth you know I was I always send these to Sergio every time I see one I sent two in the past couple weeks. Take a picture. I turn on YouTube, I watch my Bible Bite, and then I start scrolling through whatever's presented. And without fail, the Nephilim of North America, remember that one from last week? I take a picture of it. 277,000 views in five days. I could do that video. I could lie to people like that. And I could get the revenue from 277,000 views That's shameless, but I could do it. Sergio and I are always kidding about that. If you want to become literally self-sufficient, where you don't have to spend any money and it just keeps rolling in, is make up a YouTube channel about the Nephilim. And once a week, put out a video. on something that is wholly untrue. Just put it out, and you're going to get from 250,000 to a million views consistently, week after week after week. You're going to be able to support yourself, pay all of your bills, and have a nice car, wouldn't you, Sergio? Just by making stuff up. I'm not gonna do that, okay? I spend a lot of hours from 3.30 in the morning until whenever I'm done at the end of the day. And Hedico knows it's usually six o'clock. It's seven days a week to get you something that I believe is proper. That's what I believe in. Okay, you wanna watch Nephilim videos? You're wasting your time. Heavenly Father. Thank you for this precious word. I pray that I'm teaching these people properly, and I prayed more that they will check it out, and if they find out I'm wrong, to not believe it, because your word is too valuable to trust with any one person or any certain denomination. Our relationship with you is so important, and help us to have a right walk with you. Lord, give these people that are listening wisdom to check things out. and give them the wisdom to figure out what is being said to your glory. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, good, good. Put this over here, back this up.