Welcome to the Plenteous Redemption podcast, where the cross and the culture are on a collision course for discussion. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign Now, here's your host, Thomas Ervin. All right, Matthew chapter 19, we are making our way through this book. We are nearing the end of the book, which is a blessing to even consider. Matthew, let me get my place here, chapter 19. And of course, the further we go, The closer we get to the death of Jesus Christ and His death on the cross, let's read verses 1 through 12 together. And it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these sayings, He departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him, and saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? What a question! I mean, what, you know, so of course the Lord tells us they asked him, tempting him. Their intent is to entrap the Lord. That's their goal. But we're going to find out in a moment that this question is a little nearer and dearer to their hearts than is actually expected or anticipated. So is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? I mean, I mean, just think about that. How is that even an idea in your mind? I don't like her hair today. I don't like those shoes. I mean, for every cause, is there any reason that, I mean, are you that petty and childish that you would divorce your wife and rip your family apart over tiny, minor, little issues? Because when you say for every cause, basically you've just decided you don't want to be there anymore. And you're looking for a way out. And in a religious society, they need a way to have a way out. So can we divorce her for every cause? Verse four, and he answered and said unto them, have you not read? Well, there's your answer. So when a man comes into a pastor's office and says, I think I need to divorce my wife. Or a wife comes in and says, I think I need to leave my husband. The answer is, have you not read? You obviously don't read your Bible. All right, so the Lord immediately responds with, you clearly don't read what I have written to you. If you had, you wouldn't be asking me such a foolish question. Have you not read that he which made them at the beginning, made them male, female, non-binary, gender confused, gender fluid, gender this, gender that. You know, there's like 100 plus genders now based on this. twisted ideology. I mean, there are not a hundred plus genders. There's only two. And it's so interesting because even the new ones they make up are based on the only two that exist. Nobody's made up a new term for a new gender to identify a person that is not male or female. It's always some sort of play on the reality, which is that you are either male or female. Those are your only options. Now, you can enter into a state of confusion in which you don't know which one you are, I suppose. I mean, you really got to fall pretty low to get there. But that obviously exists, and it's obviously a thing in the world today. But God said he made them male and female. And there's no indication in the Bible that you can transition back and forth between the two. When you're born, you are one or you are the other. In fact, God said, when you look back at the law, there are certain requirements for a mother based on whether she gave birth to a male or whether she gave birth to a female. You read about Jesus when he was born and Mary had to go through the eight days of purification, then the 40 days of purification. Well, all that is based on the law that was given to a woman who gave birth to a man child. And she carried that out exactly as she was supposed to. Well, it's slightly different if you gave birth to a female. Because they are different. They're not the same thing. You are a male or you are a female. And those distinctions, look, I understand that you understand that, but I feel like you have to repeat it militantly today because it's one of the greatest forms of confusion of our day. and you're some sort of hero if you can demonstrate the extent to which you're confused about your gender. The more confused you are, the more they elevate you, the more they pretend like you're some sort of heroic figure who's bold and forward thinking. You're not thinking at all. Your brain is broken. It doesn't function anymore. For you to take a man like Bruce Jenner and put him on a magazine as woman of the year, It's done, it's over with. Do you think America can recover? No, I don't. I think it's done. I think you need to do the best you can with what remains and just prepare for the fall, because it's going to be ugly. Verse 5, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. Now, if you follow the progression of thoughts, the Lord is saying, first of all, God made a man and a woman. Right? That's the first thing. As he corrects this statement, can a man divorce his wife for every cause? Well, the first thing you need to do is you need to go read the Bible. Secondly, if you read the Bible, you would understand God made them male and female. All right? Now, when they want to join together in marriage, they are to leave their father and their mother. There's not like an extended umbilical cord that you run around with. You detach. You move out. You get your own place. You take care of your own family. You start your own life. You don't run back and forth, and you don't get mommy and daddy involved in your affairs and all of that. You need to stand up and take care of you and your family. Not everybody needs help every now and then. I'm not saying you shouldn't go get help, but you shouldn't be wholly dependent upon your family. You should be able to take care of yourself. You have people today, they're in their mid-20s, 30s, 40s, still living at home with mommy and daddy. It's a problem. Something is wrong with you. Something has gone terribly wrong and you need to fix it. I mean, just you got to grow up sometime. And people don't want to do that. They want to sit at home, play video games, watch YouTube, play on Facebook. They don't want to go out and work. They expect to be able to sit at home, be self-absorbed, and that everybody else is going to take care of them. And it's ridiculous. So the Lord said, the first thing is, first thing is, they're male and female. That's it. Those are your only two options. And then that male and that female, they leave their mother and father and cleave one to another. All right. That's your part. That's our part. So if I got married to my wife, God expected me to leave my mother and father and cleave to my wife. If you cleave to a woman, it's real hard to separate the two of you. And if you mess with a woman who has a husband that cleaves to her, you're putting your life in danger. Or you mess with a man who has a wife that cleaves to her husband, you might as well go step in a bear trap in the woods somewhere. It'd be better for you, because you're inviting some real trouble into your life if those two people cleave to each other. You don't want to try and come between them. It's not going to go well for you. That's the way it should be. People say, well, he's just jealous over me. He's supposed to be. He's your husband. I'm not sharing my wife in any way, in any form, in any shape. She is my wife. And so the world looks at that and say, well, you're just controlling. I'm not controlling. If she didn't want that type of relationship, she should have married somebody else. I'm not sharing, and neither is she. I'm not going to go spend part of my time with some other woman, flirting and playing, and then come home to my wife and act like everything's OK. That's not OK. It's horrendous. It's a violation of that relationship, and it's going to cause you to lose trust, which is going to break the marriage. It's a terrible example. It ruins your children. It tears up everybody else involved. It's horrendous. So if you can't keep it together, and you're not going to cleave to that man or cleave to that woman, then don't get married. Find something else to do. This world has lots of options for you. Go do that and don't call it marriage. And, you know, ruin your own life. Don't ruin everybody else's. So, they cleave together and they twain shall be one flesh. All right, once you cleave together, that's your part, then God makes the two of you one flesh. then God seals the deal. There's no separating you two. And once you've done that, once you stepped out in that direction, and you made that promise before God, you know, everybody likes the wedding. They spend tens of thousands of dollars on a wedding. We were talking to Brother Nathan and Miss Holly yesterday. My wife and I, we got married. The wedding, the ring, The food after the wedding and the honeymoon all together cost about $3,000. We have friends, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, and then some people just lose their minds and get up into hundreds of thousands of dollars to get married. And then after they get married, they're drowning in debt just to pay off the wedding ceremony. Why would you do that? You just destroy your life from the start. Don't do that. Just have a nice, simple wedding. We had 200 plus people at our wedding. And it was all family and church members. Our wedding was like a Bible conference. We had two preachers. We sang a bunch of hymns. And then it was like an hour and a half, the whole wedding. And then at the end, the last 10 minutes, Kristen and I come up and stand in front of everybody and say, I do. And that was it. hour and a half, like 10 minutes of it, was a wedding. My pastor, he said, you know your family's going to hate you. I said, well, they don't go to church. They haven't been to church in years. So we'll make up for it all today in one fell swoop. So it turned out great. and praise the Lord for it. You don't have to do all that. You don't need to blow all that money. And that's all about status. That's not, there's no reason to do something like that. Just keep it simple and move on. And it was enjoyable. We enjoyed it. I mean, some people said, well, I've never seen a wedding like that. Well, that's all right. Most people enjoyed it. Few people complained because it wasn't traditional. I just, I don't, I don't know what traditional is. So, whatever your idea is of what you think it should be, if it involves me, you probably shouldn't have that idea, because it's probably not going to turn out that way. But that's all right. Verse 6. Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. You're not going to find any evidence in the Bible that would allow you or that would permit you to divorce your husband or your wife. It doesn't exist and people use this passage. If you continue reading look down verse 7, they immediately respond. All right, so he tells them so here before we read verse 7, here's the progression Lord said. I made them male and female. I expect you to leave your mother and your father, by the way, which are male and female. That's how you came to exist, is a male and a female got together and produced a child. Not one place in the Bible does it say, where's your father and your father? That doesn't work. That's the end of that bloodline. It's not going anywhere. I can guarantee you that. And so he says, I made them male and female. You leave your mother and your father. You cleave together. And when you do that, I make you one flesh. You're no longer two separate individuals. You are one. So what he does highly impacts what she does. What she does highly impacts him. So it goes back and forth. You're one flesh now. And God said, when I join you together in that way, let nobody tear it apart. It's not an option. It's not open. And so they immediately have a response, verse 7. And they say unto him, why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement? Now, what they're doing here They know that Moses wrote this commandment that allowed for the Jews to get a divorce, and now they're trying to put Jesus against Moses. And they know that that could bring about legal trouble for Jesus Christ. They think it's a brilliant move in terms of trying to entrap him. The problem is you're dealing with God who wrote the law. So, you're not smart enough for this. So, the command to give a writing of divorcement and to put her away. And so, here's the Lord's response, verse 8, He said unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, So God allowed Moses to write this commandment because you're a bunch of bitter and angry people and he couldn't handle two million bitter and angry people marching around in the wilderness. So God allowed Moses to write this bill of divorcement and he said because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives, but Here's the contrast. All right. So God allowed Moses to do this because there is no Holy Spirit. There's not much in terms of the Word of God at this point. It's just Moses trying to manage these people. And so God allowed Moses to write this commandment to allow the Jews to write a bill of divorcement. But Jesus Christ going to put a strong line of contrast between what God intended and what he allowed Moses to do. So he says, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication. So there you go. People read that and they say, see, there is at least one reason in which it's permissible for you to divorce your wife. Let me ask you a question. What is the word, who is, what is the word adultery, to whom is the word adultery applicable? married people, right? To whom is the word fornication applicable? not married people. Now we'll talk about why this is mentioned here in just a moment and who it would be applied to. But except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery, and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. So you're setting yourself up for trouble. Now the example that this would be applicable to is Joseph who was minded to put away Mary privily. They were espoused, but they were not married. They were engaged is our modern term. Now, when you enter into that point of engagement, God, in his eyes, There's no leaving this. I mean, you are expected to follow through unless you find a valid reason not to. And I just changed my mind. It's not a valid reason. You don't toy with these relationships. God takes it very serious. To the point that in order for Joseph to put Mary away, because seemingly he had a valid reason, I thought I was marrying a virgin, and she's got a baby. We got a problem. Now, praise the Lord, the angel came down and spoke to Joseph and informed him what was going on, and he's an honorable man, so he followed through and carried through with it all. But if that wasn't the case, it just so happens that this is a virgin with a baby, that excuse doesn't carry in any other situation. And so you promise to marry each other and you're both pure and you have kept yourself from fornication. And then you come together and you find out he or she... cheated on you or violated the promise to get married. Well, God said, then you write at that point, you write her, you write him or her a bill of divorcement. But if that's not the case and you divorce, you're going against what God intended. You're going against the will of God, who said repeatedly in the Bible that he hates divorce. And you're also setting yourself up for a life of adultery. When you marry someone else because you divorced your husband, you divorced your wife, you essentially are putting yourself in a position for lifelong, continual adultery. Well, praise the Lord. What does that say for a lot of people in the United States of America today when you can just divorce people for no reason whatsoever? It used to be, and I don't know what the laws in Mississippi are, but it used to be, I remember growing up hearing in Mississippi and Tennessee, you wanted to get a divorce, you had to have a reason, a valid reason, and had to go to court and demonstrate that reason. Not anymore. I want a divorce. Well, why? Because it's Tuesday. I mean, well, what's going on? It's one o'clock on Tuesday. I need a divorce. You don't have to have a reason. You just do whatever you want. Just run out on people and not maintain any aspect of your responsibility to people whatsoever. And the world we live in facilitates that mentality. So, verse 10, his disciples say unto him, if the case of the man be so with his wife, it is good not to marry. Now, he just destroyed their thought process. Because of this Bill of Divorcement that Moses allowed, these men in Israel had gotten real comfortable with just, you don't like your wife? Throw her away. Go get another one. There's lots of women out there. You don't have to stick with this one. You got a problem with her? Just write the Bill of Divorcement, send her on her way, and go find another one. And now the Lord is telling them, that is not how God intended things to be. That is not how God did things. If you get married, you stay with that woman. It's a lifelong commitment. Now, the disciples look at him and saying, oh man, we probably shouldn't get married then. Now think about that. What that means is, if I have a problem with her, I need to be able to get rid of her. Now I've got to stay in the marriage and work it out? Yeah. Yeah, that's how it works. That's God's expectation. Yeah, but he, or yeah, but she, no. Get over it. Move past it. Work it out. Fix it. You don't get to get a divorce. That's if you're going to follow the Word of God. Now, this world, you drive down certain interstates and you've got billboards posted all over the place saying, need a divorce? I mean, it's not like it's a jug of milk you can run and get at the store. What do you mean, need a divorce? That's your product? That's what you want to sell people? Is divorce? That's insane. It's really sad. I couldn't imagine having a business that advertises the destruction of families. How come they don't have billboards that say, need a divorce? Work it out. Fix it. Come see me and I'll counsel you. But no, $99, get a divorce today. And people call and that man's probably making a killing. And we're at a point where, in churches, the divorce rate is almost as bad as in the world. How can that possibly be? That means that somebody's not preaching the Word of God. Somebody's not holding people accountable. Somebody's not dealing with these families and telling them, you don't have an option to get a divorce. Not according to God. So you getting a divorce, well, you'll have to go do that independent of the Word of God. You'll have to go separate yourself from the God that you claim to love and serve. You have no room for that in the Word of God. It doesn't exist. It's not a thing. And yet they go and do it anyways. And if you won't give them permission, they'll just go find somebody else and say, you know, that preacher over there is mean. He wouldn't let me divorce my husband. You have children. You have children. You have assets together. You have finances together. You have a home together. You can't just up and leave each other. But people don't care. They get to the point where I'm just not happy. Join the club. Where did you get the idea you're supposed to be happy? What does that even mean? Happiness is such a fake term. It doesn't even exist. Happiness is a temporary state of mind based on a temporary situation. If everything could stay as it is right now, never change, then I'd be happy. Until you're no longer happy with this form of happiness. And then you want it to change. It doesn't work. So if being happy is your goal, that's a fleeting goal that will never be accomplished. That's something that comes and goes. Cherish it when it's there, but it's not always going to be there. You're going to struggle with some things. You're going to have some difficulties. And if you don't have the joy of the Lord, happiness is fleeting. It's not going to help you in any way, so don't get a divorce. If you do, I'm going to make fun of you. All right, verse 13. Let's read verses 13 through 15. Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them and pray, and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven. Verse 15, and he laid his hands on them and departed thence. The Lord says repeatedly about little children. He warns repeatedly, do not prevent children from coming unto him. It's a warning. It's brought up multiple times in the Gospels and in the Word of God. It's something you should take very serious. That doesn't mean you spoil children and ruin them or don't discipline them. In fact, that discipline, you know, a child having a father in their life and having a mother in their life, that structure and the discipline that comes from that is what helps them to better understand God. Without that, it ruins them. It destroys their mind and makes it difficult for them to be able to even. I didn't have a father growing up. So what does it mean to have a father in heaven? How would I understand that? You don't have a clue until it took me years later. Growing up, you just want to be careful how you treat children. Me, my brother, and sister, we watched a man beat my mother for eight years violently. And it was destructive to the three of us. We would lay there at night hearing her screaming in the other room. She would occasionally pop her head out and beg us to go call the police or go tell somebody. And then he'd come out, drag her back in, and come tell us what he's going to do to us if we did go call the police. And you talk about just being frozen with terror. That really messes up a child's mind. And eventually, I would build up the courage and go running out and go next door and tell my aunt, who would tell my uncle. And my uncle was a pretty big guy. And he'd come over and deal with the guy that was brutally beating my mother for eight years. Now, I'm not telling you that. That's not for sympathy towards me. I'm telling you that when you put children in that type of environment, I can't imagine what God is going to say to that man or do to that man when he stands before God and is held accountable for what he did to children, or children who have been violated, molested, and had all sorts of horrendous things done to them. I'm telling you, you ruin the psychological and mental and emotional state of a child, and then they struggle to understand or come to God because you mistreated them. You don't want to stand before God having done that not with what you read in the Bible about children and what Jesus Christ says to them about them. You want to facilitate them coming to Jesus. You don't want to do anything that would prevent them from coming to Jesus and too much of that exists in the world today people people are deliberately going after your children and purposefully teaching them to be confused to hate God to hate anything about Jesus Christ. And I'm telling you It works. They've done a great job. You have generations of children who now hate God and don't want anything to do with Him. And those people are going to stand before that God and have to explain what they've done. And God have mercy on their souls. It's not going to go well. All right, let's read 16 through 30, and we'll wrap it up here. We've got some important things to talk about in this passage. Verse 16, And behold, one came and said unto him, Good master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honor thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The young man saith unto him, all these things have I kept from my youth, from my youth up. What lack I yet? Now imagine that mentality. Now, the Lord didn't say you're a liar. It's very possible he may have. And what's interesting is the Lord mentions these commandments. These are only part of the of what we know as the Ten Commandments. And this is only the part of the Ten Commandments that deal with how you treat your neighbor. not how you treat God or your relationship with God. And that's the balance of the Ten Commandments. Some of them deal directly with your relationship with God. Others of them deal directly with your relationship with your neighbor. And here the Lord only mentions the ones that deal with his neighbor. And he says, yeah, I've done that. What else? You got something else? And the Lord doesn't say, no, you hadn't done that. But he is going to reveal to this man, yes, you physically did those things, but your heart, your mentality is in the wrong place. And that's where Christianity really greatly separates itself from religion. Because religion says, here's the list of things you've got to do, and here's the list of things you don't do. And you do these things, and maybe in the end, God will be happy with you. And none of that is true. And then what Jesus Christ says, he says, don't commit adultery. Well, who doesn't? Well, I've never committed adultery. OK, have you looked on a woman to lust after her in your heart? Well, but I never touched her. Yeah, but did you go through the exercise in your mind? And if you did, you committed adultery with her already. All right, so the Lord is taking it much further than, well, I've never physically touched a woman. I've only been with my wife. Yeah, well, physically, but what about in your heart? What about in your mind? All right, so this rich young ruler, he comes up and he says, yeah, I've done all that. I've done every bit of that. And the Lord's about to reveal to him, You don't get it. Have you done great things for your neighbor and practiced these things? Sure. But none of it was with the right motive and in the right spirit and in the right mindset. And so it's really going to throw this man for a loop. He wasn't ready for it. And so, he says, what like I yet, verse 21, Jesus said unto him, if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come and follow me. Well, now we got a problem. Lord, I've already done all these things for my neighbor that you're talking about. Yeah, but I want you to get rid of those things and come follow me. I don't think I can do that. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. What did he love more, Jesus or his possessions? Did he love eternal life or everlasting life or his possessions? See, his possessions facilitated an image of a man who took care of his neighbors. And as long as he had the money, he could keep up the image of a good man who took care of his neighbors. Now, praise the Lord, he was kind to his neighbors. Praise the Lord, it seems that he was willing to give of his wealth for the betterment of his neighbor. But when it came down to it, are you going to choose those possessions or Jesus? He said, I got to go. going to hang on to my possessions. Verse 23, Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again, I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the what? kingdom of God. All right. Now, he just said in the same verse or in the same passage, look at verse 23 at the end, shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. But then at the end of the second of verse 24, the kingdom of God, he's telling you either kingdom in order to enter that kingdom properly, You can only do it the right way. Now, the Kingdom of Heaven, you can get in, and you can be there under false pretenses, but you're going to be removed. The Kingdom of God, you won't even get in the door. You won't even look inside over the fence. It's not happening. Now, verse 25, When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? As is twice in this chapter, the Lord has blown their minds and fixed their warped view, first of marriage, and then secondly of salvation. He tells them, look, being rich does not mean you enter. In fact, your riches are probably going to prevent you. They're going to make it harder for you. I was, we were street preaching in New Orleans, and this black family sat down on the bench next to me, and every time people would sit on the bench, I'd start talking to them and trying to witness to them. And they were really kind, they were from Virginia, they thought it was so interesting watching, you know, some people would take the tracks, some people would say, you know, colorful things in response to trying to give them a tract. Most people just didn't care. They just walked like zombies, zoned out, don't even know where they are. How'd you get here? You tripped and fell in New Orleans, and don't even know how you got here. And so I was talking to the family, and the lady was like, so who takes the most tracts? And I said, well, it's interesting. Black people, 7 out of 10 black people will take a tract. 7 out of 10 white people will reject the tract. And she's like, I was noticing that. Why is that? I said, well, I don't know for sure why that is, other than white people, their hearts are just hardened against God. Black people right now, they're a little more open to it. Now, they're still less likely to go to church and to be faithful to church, but they are more receptive to the things of God when you talk to them out on the street. But in that crowd, I got out a lot of tracks. Now, I have been to Wall Street and tried to hand out tracts. And you're talking about rich, wealthy, powerful. They won't take a single tract. Won't even look at you. They don't need God. They don't want God. Do you know how much money and power I have? I don't need your God. You will on that day. You will change your mind on that day, and it will be too late. And so the richer, the more powerful they are, the less likely they are to be interested in anything related to God. So your riches can be a hindrance. And so they say, well, then who can be saved? And the Lord responds, look at verse 26, but Jesus beheld them and said unto them, with men, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. All right, so here's what he's telling them. If you show up wanting works to do to get into heaven, it's impossible because that's with men. If you show up with your riches, wanting to get into heaven. It's impossible. Those are the things of men. If you want to be saved, the only way to do it is to come through God. There's no other way. If you do all the work to get into the kingdom of heaven and did not trust God and did not get there the right way, you're just going to be removed. when Jesus Christ returns. If you claim to be in the kingdom of God, but you were never born again, you can fool me, you can fool everybody in this room. That rich young ruler, if he was here, we would all think, man, that's a godly, pious man. And yet he loves his possessions more than he loves God, and as far as we can tell, never trusted in Jesus Christ. That man's going to die and go to hell, and is probably more pious, more religious, more clean than half the people in this room. And he's still going to lift up his eyes in hell being in torment. It's good to live a religious life based on the Bible as best you can. It'd be better to get saved first and then do that. And that is obviously, you don't want to put the cart before the horse. You're going to stumble. And this man is stumbling right now in a terrible way. All right, let's read the rest of the chapter. Verse 27, Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee. What shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me. All right, now that stops in a comma. In the regeneration. All right, so the statement is, for those of you which have followed me, here's what's going to happen. Now, that means those of you who get rid of your riches, your possessions, who forsook all. Now, we've talked before, Peter was still married, still had a house, still had a fishing business. He didn't get rid of all that, but he put Jesus Christ ahead of all that. And that's the key. The key is not being impoverished. And the other day, we had a man show up here who obviously has been wandering the streets for quite some time. And he walked in the door, had a big beard and a little top hat on. And what did he say he was? Do you remember? He was a messianic evangelist or something like that. Trying to note some Jewish attachment to, you know, an attachment both to, you know, being a Jew and also to Christianity, which is just, in the end, is confusion. You're ultimately one or the other. But that You know, we've met these people before. I was street preaching in Miami one time and I met this, Kristen and I met this young girl. Very sweet girl, very knowledgeable, claimed to be a Christian, had a testimony of salvation, was confused doctrinally, but she gave up everything. and just roams America preaching the gospel to people. And so they get this mentality that because the Lord told this man to get rid of his possessions and follow him, that what that means is you shouldn't own anything or have anything. And that is not what it means. The question is, what's more important to you, Jesus Christ or those things? And if those things are more important to you, you are in this man's position. You're in trouble. You have an inordinate relationship with God. If God is ahead of those things and you would not allow those things to become an idol, well then you're okay. And so you want to be very important. And so here he's saying, And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, In the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. But many that are first shall be last and the last shall be first. All right. Now here are a couple of important ideas that we need to talk about real fast. The Lord says that those of you that have forsaken all, they want to know what do we get? And the Lord says you're going to be handsomely rewarded in heaven, not here. Your goal with your Christian life is to build up riches in heaven by living in such a way that it pleases God here. The more you do that here, the more you lay up for yourself in heaven. So anybody comes along and says, you know, so you're a seed faith gift and God will make you rich here. That is not true. God could care less. As members of the church, God could care less about your financial status. He wants to know what you're going to do with the finances you have. God could care less about how fancy your car is. He wants to know if you're going to use that car to pick up a missionary or a pastor or a lost soul and bring them to church. Are you going to use the good health that you have? God could care less if you have good health or not. I wish that were not so. I wish the Apostle Paul could show up or one of us could have the ability to walk around and heal everybody that was sick. But that is not God's intent for the church. He wants that sickness to be used to minister to other people and so on and so on. What you're going to get for following Jesus comes to you in eternity and it'll be a blessed eternity. If you stay faithful to the Lord through these troubles and through these problems and now in the regeneration, this is a reference to the second birth. and what we often call the new birth. That's the regeneration. The term regeneration is used twice in the Bible. It's used in Titus 3, 1 through 7. We don't have time to go there, but it says the washing of regeneration, right? And so here, this is the context, trusting in Christ ensured that you were washed regenerated and given the Holy Spirit until the day of Redemption. That's what you find in Titus 3 verses 1 through 7. And that is the same thing spelled out in Ephesians 1 verses 12 through 14. You trust in Jesus Christ and the moment you trust in Jesus Christ, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit. You're born again. You are regenerated and this is all done through Jesus Christ. Now in Matthew 19, the regeneration is referring to is the Lord restoring the earth to righteous order. So he's telling them those of you that have followed me by trusting in me when I regenerate the earth when I restore it back to a righteous to rule in righteousness and all things are put back in order. Then you're going to be there with me now to the 12 tribes or the 12 apostles. He told them you're going to sit on 12 on 12 thrones and you're going to judge Israel. This is a reference back to the book of Judges when God would raise up a judge who would rule over Israel and who was supposed to direct them in a godly manner and they often failed. We're reading through the book of Judges as a family right now and man, it's a mess. But when God restores things and puts Israel, or the apostles over Israel, they're going to judge the 12 tribes of Israel. And that judgment will always be righteous judgment, be pointing them in the right direction. And that day is coming. All right. You know, this is just an interesting note. You know who's standing there of those 12 when the Lord says, you 12 are going to sit on 12 thrones and judge the 12 tribes? Judas Iscariot is standing there. He did. All that was available to him, and he chose to be the one that would betray Jesus Christ. Now, in Acts chapter 1, they voted and brought in Matthias, who became, who made the 11, 12 again. And so, in Acts chapter 6, It says up until Acts chapter 1, they're called the 11 because Judas died and went his own way. But then by the time you get to Acts chapter 6, they brought Matthias in, and Acts chapter 6 says the 12 all over again. So Matthias has taken the place, as Peter said in Acts chapter 1, of Judas Iscariot. then you have the other. So, the Apostle Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles, and then Barnabas is an Apostle according to the Bible, but it doesn't say that he has some special notation. Though he went with the Apostle Paul, so I guess you could infer that he also is an Apostle to the Gentiles. Anyways, alright. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. You can learn more about our ministry by visiting www.plenteusredemption.com. You can hear more Plenteous Redemption podcast audio at www.plenteusredemption.media. 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