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 The Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Under the Jews a stumbling block, under the Greeks foolishness, but under them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, here's your host, Thomas Ervin. Jesus paid it all well, we're going to be in Matthew chapter 17 we are continuing to make our way through this book and see what the Lord does in Matthew 17. It's been a blessing to go through this book. This book is one of the books I used in Uganda to help the young men there learn to teach Sunday school. And so for about two years, I taught through the book of Matthew and I didn't do it chapter by chapter at that time. I was doing it on a more verse by verse or section by section basis and then began to work the young man who were in Bible school into the Sunday school rotation. And then eventually I was out of it completely and they were doing all the Sunday school teaching and doing a great job. And so It's exciting to come back through all these and it's always exciting to see what the Lord's been doing or what he did when he was on earth and all that he went through. And so we will, in fact, we'll start this morning with the transfigured Jesus Christ in his glory. Let's read verses 1 through 13, Matthew 17. And after six days, Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John, his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light, and behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man save Jesus only. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man until the Son of Man be risen again from the dead. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come and restore all things. But I say unto you that Elias is come already. And they knew him not, but but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. Right now, it's an interesting passage. First, It's important to note, we've talked about repeatedly how Mark presents Jesus Christ as a servant. Luke presents the man Christ Jesus. This is the primary context of each of these books. John presents his deity. He is God. He's not just a king. He's not just a man. He's not just a servant. He is God. Now, in line with that and perfectly in tune with that, Matthew presents Jesus being transfigured. So the King is transfigured. Mark presents Jesus being transfigured. Again, Mark presenting the Lord as a servant. And so the servant is transfigured, and we see him in his glory. Luke presents the Lord transfigured, but it's not in John. And why would that be? Because God doesn't need to be transfigured. He is already in his glory. And so you're not going to see that presented in the book of John because it doesn't need it. The servant needs it. The man needs it. The king needs it. But God is already in his glory. He already obtains or owns that glory and is that glory. And so there's no need to present him transfigured before the people. Now, in this passage, we see Jesus Christ in his glory, not the shame that he endured on the cross, not the constant ridicule and mocking that he got from the scribes and the Pharisees. We see Jesus Christ high and lifted up on a mountain in his glory, which is a blessing. Then we see Moses glorified as the representative of Old Testament saints who have gone on to paradise or into glory. Moses is there, and he's fully conscious. He looks like Moses. When the men saw him, they didn't say, wow, look at those wings. He was a man, he looked like Moses, and was alive and well. Elijah is there, and he was also in the midst of this glory, and he represents the redeemed who enter the presence of God through translation rather than through death. He didn't die. He was translated. He was taken up to be with the Lord. And so that's what essentially is going to happen to us. Now, Peter, James, and John are there, but they are not in this glorified... They were not given this glorified body or were transfigured in any way. They're there, and they're terrified. But they're not glorified, which is representative of Israel in the flesh, in the future kingdom. Now, in that millennial kingdom, there will be people who are there, who are married, given in marriage, having children. I mean, life will go on in the Lord's kingdom. And so Peter, James, and John are representative of the Jews that will be there at that time. And then the multitude at the foot of the mountain, who are following the Lord, They are representative, or they are a picture of the nations that will be in the future kingdom. So in that future kingdom, the millennial kingdom, the Gentile nations will be required to come to the feet of Jesus and pay homage. and worship him, and it'd be good for them to do that. So this is all typical of that typology picture in that format. Now this passage also indicates that being in the presence of God is potentially terrifying. When Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured and heard God speak from heaven, they fell on their face in terror. They weren't all excited like, wow, there's that big teddy bear everybody's been talking about in the sky. Let's give him a hug. No, they're terrified. And so they fall to the ground in horror. So if you stand in the presence of God without Jesus Christ, it's not going to be a good experience. So now, you think about that in terms of lost people who are going to be judged by God, and all of them think that they're going to stand there and argue with God, or have a conversation with God, or tell God what he should have done or shouldn't have done, or whatever the case may be. Peter, James, and John, who loved God, who were on God's side, if you will, when they were in the presence of God, they fell to the ground in terror. So what do you think is going to happen when you're an enemy of God who rejected his son? You're not going to stand there, I'm glad to see you, I need to talk to you. No, you are going to cower in paralyzing fear. He's not a figure that you're just going to stand in front of and wag your finger at. That's not going to happen. And so being in the presence of God without Jesus Christ is a terrifying idea. You should fear God. And what frustrates me is when I hear preaching about that, people say, well, what this means is, it doesn't mean be scared of God. Yes, it does. It means you should be terrified of God and what he can do to you. And then a healthy fear of God will help you to walk straight throughout your day. Because if you knew, if you feared God the way you're supposed to, if you read this and understand that if God were to show up and look at what you're doing, it would so, you would, you would, You would just be consumed with terror. That might help you think, you know, maybe I shouldn't do this. Maybe I shouldn't go there. Maybe I should act right. And it'll help you out. But when somebody teaches you, well, you shouldn't fear God. Yes, you do. You should fear God. It's essential that people have the fear of God. The reason we're in the mess we're in in our country is because there is no fear of God. And when there is no fear of God, you don't think God's going to do anything, or you don't think God's watching what you're doing and how you're going to live. You'll go out and do all sorts of wicked things. What's going to stop you? The police? If they show up, if they catch you, maybe. And a few people will be concerned about what the law might do to them, but not enough. That's a measure that God put in place. God says the government, they wield not the sword in vain. They are there to help keep you in line, but they can only go so far. When you're alone in the dark and you think you want to do something you shouldn't be doing, if you know that God's watching you and you fear that God, it'll make you reconsider. But when you've been told all your life you're a bunch of wild animals that evolved from apes, Well, how do you think you're going to act? You're going to act like a wild animal. And that's what we see today. That's why young people attack the elderly and do horrendous things to them. And that's why rape is so prevalent and murder is so prevalent. And people will just steal your property with no concern whatsoever. Because they don't know that God was watching. They don't know that one day you're going to stand before that God, and you're going to answer for what you did. And it's not going to go well. It's a terrifying idea. It's a terrifying prospect. You should fear God. You should not stand before God without the blood of Jesus Christ. If you do, it's going to be a terrifying experience. Jesus Christ, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. You want him between you and the Father, because you are not ready for that experience. You want to be prepared, and the Lord Jesus Christ makes that preparation. Standing before God without Jesus, you'll be terrified. Now, then it says they saw no man but Jesus. And at this point, Moses and Elijah are gone. But the picture here is that the law and the prophets are gone. Moses was the lawgiver. He delivered the law. Elijah is representative of the prophets and all that they brought to us. And so now you have the law, gone. The prophets, gone. Well, what's left? Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the law and the prophets. He is the completion of it all. He is the summation of it all. And so, once all that is gone, all you have left is Jesus Christ. It's why the Jews struggle. It's why religious people struggle. Well, what do we do? Trust Jesus. Well, no. I mean, aren't we supposed to have like a religious checklist? No, it won't help you. Just throw that idea out the window. Well, surely I got to do something. You do. Trust Jesus. He is the end of the law, and he is the fulfillment of the prophets. You just want to trust him. And so that's the picture. The prophets are gone, the law is gone, and all that is left is the one who fulfilled them, and that's Jesus Christ. And then he goes into this discourse about Elias, and that Elias must first come. And so the question is interesting. They are asking why the scribes say the things that they say. And they're not asking why the scriptures say a certain thing. They said, why do the scribes say Elias must first come? They didn't say, doesn't the Bible say that Elias must first come? Or don't the scriptures say that Elias must first come? They're asking, why are the scribes saying this? which indicates that the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees have been teaching the people some things that may or may not be true, and that may or may be problematic. And so, that's where we've gotten in terms of Christianity today. You have men standing in pulpits, and they're not teaching the scriptures. The basis of your question should be, why does the Bible say this? Not, why did Brother Thomas say this? Or, why did Pastor so-and-so say that? Now, if the question is, why did he say that? Then there could be a problem there. It could be that you just misunderstood or that I need to explain further. That certainly could be the case. But if the foundation of our problems here are that I am not clearly presenting the Scriptures and that you don't get the idea that what you have been taught is the Word of God, then your questions are going to be about me. not the Word of God, and that's going to be a problem. Here we are, these people are standing before Jesus to say, why did they say that? Now imagine that on Judgment Day, when you stand before God and give an account for your life and say, now Brother Thomas said this, it better be right, because if I misled you and didn't teach you right, that's going to be a not so fun moment. And that is my responsibility. It's also your responsibility to allow me the freedom and the liberty to teach you what I believe is right from the Word of God, and to allow me to lead you in that way. And so that when we all stand before God, and God says, well, Brother Thomas, you taught them this, this, and this. And I say, well, Lord, that's what was in your Bible. Okay, no problem. Good. But when the question is, why did he say this and why did he say that? And so if God's going to mediate that situation and say, well, you should have believed it. It was right. It was from the Bible. Well, praise the Lord. That's what I hope will be the outcome. But if it's, I don't know why he said that, that's not good. And so I really try and stick strictly to the word of God and specifically to the Bible and go verse by verse and line by line. It's really hard to mess things up that way. And I mean, it's still possible, but it's much harder. And so they're questioning, why do scribes say this? Which means the scribes are being problematic. They're not a helpful source in this scenario. The disciples understood that when the Lord spoke of Elias coming, that it was John the Baptist who actually came. And that's an important detail. Look real quick at Malachi chapter 4. Malachi chapter 4, let's just read the whole chapter. I know it's long. All six verses. give you the context. Verse 1, For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble. And the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. He's going to burn the whole thing down. Verse 2, But unto you that fear my name, you see that? Fear God. And now look, God's about to lay out positive consequences for people who fear Him. Every time you read about people who don't have fear of God in the Bible, it's always bad. You need to fear God. And in order to fear God, you need to have a healthy understanding of what He is capable of doing to you. And then be thankful that through Jesus Christ, he's not going to do that. He's going to bless you abundantly because of your faith in the Lord. Now back to verse 2, but unto you that fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. Now, you see that son, S-U-N, is a capital S. It's a person. It's Jesus Christ. All right, and you shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall and you shall tread down the wicked for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this sayeth the Lord of hosts. Now listen to this verse for remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgments. Now, first of all, who is the law for? Israel. Who did he give the law to? All of Israel. Not the church, not the Gentiles. It was given to Israel. Now verse 5, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers lest I come and smite the earth curse. Now, the person who, if you read in Luke chapter 1, Luke chapter 2, you know, the coming of John the Baptist, it says specifically that John the Baptist came to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers. He is that person. Now, this is what's interesting. People call this space between Malachi and Matthew, it was about 400, 450 years, and they call that the silent years, because God didn't speak to them during that time. Well, there have always been large amounts of spaces of time where God didn't speak audibly to his people. But what did he tell them? Verse 4, remember ye the law of Moses. You have my word. Do that. You don't need to hear from me. The next time you hear from me, it'll be in the spirit and power of Elijah, which is John the Baptist, who came in the spirit and power of Elijah. And so this connection between John and Elijah, the Lord said in Matthew 17, that if you would have received it, this was that coming. John came and had the same message, came in the same way. Elijah was a wild man. John the Baptist was a wild man, living out in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild honey. dressed funny, all those things. But he's out there preaching and doing these things. The Lord said, I have nothing else to say to you until John comes, until Elias comes, which is John. He's coming in the spirit and power of Elias. And so I have nothing else to say to you until that time. And then John came. And they rejected him. They didn't receive it. And then Jesus came. John came to prepare a people to make the way straight and prepare the way for the Lord. The Lord came. A little handful group of people followed him. Everybody else liked the tricks. They liked to see the miracles. It was neat, but they didn't trust him. And as a whole, the nation rejected him. They rejected Elias and his coming, which is John the Baptist, and then they rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not have this man to reign over us. They didn't want anything to do with the Lord. The disciples understood this. The Lord said, he's talking about Elias coming, and the disciples said, oh, that's John the Baptist. They made the connection in their mind. And so that's an important detail to understand. The idea is that John came in the spirit and power of Elias. The preaching, the message, his faithfulness, all was the same as Elijah. And they rejected John. Eventually, they rejected Christ as well. Let's read verses chapter 17 Matthew 17 verses 14 through 21 verse 14. And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and sore vexed. For oft times he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto him, because of your unbelief, for verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit, this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. Now, this is very interesting. Here you have a lost man who is lunatic. And the hope is that he could be cured of being a lunatic. He's out of his mind. And so in the Bible, when someone is out of their mind and acting insane and doing ridiculous things, the idea is that they have been possessed with the devil. What do you think is wrong with people today? Right now, I'm not telling you they're possessed with the devil, but it is awfully interesting that the way you act and the way you live on a daily basis aligns with people in the Bible who were possessed with the devil. cutting yourself, throwing yourself in the fire, harming yourself, acting insane, harming other people. Something is wrong with you, and it could be some sort of spiritual depression. It could be that you've been possessed or under the control of a devil. And now, we don't go casting out devils. That's not our responsibility. A man tried that in the Bible, and it didn't go well for him. The devil turned around and said, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know, but who are you? and ended up doing all sorts of interesting things to him. We don't do that. We preach the Gospel. That is the solution. So, are you just going to tell them that Jesus died on the cross and was buried and rose again? Yes. As they'll trust in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will move in, and if the Holy Spirit moves in, guess who's got to move out? Whatever spirit is inside of them that is enabling them to act insane or lunatic has to go. It can't stay. Now, that's the answer to the insane asylum, to the prisons, to the wars, all this stuff, to the drug addiction, to alcohol, to pornography. It's Jesus Christ. It's being filled with the spirit of God. And the only way to be filled with that spirit is to trust in the death, the burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I can tell you all day long, I can give you 12 steps on how to defeat your addiction. That leaves it up to your willpower. And if it's up to your willpower and you're under the influence of a devil, guess what's not going to happen? Now, we read it not long ago about a man who kicked the devil out. And then what happened? That devil came back with seven others. And it was far worse. So you're not going to do this in your own strength, in your own power, in your own ability. It's great if you have the discipline. I've told you before, my stepfather, for almost the majority of the time that we had known him, was a functioning alcoholic. And it nearly put him in the hospital. It did put him in the hospital. It nearly killed him. He was nigh unto death. He was just about to die. And the doctor told him, we will not help you any further if you don't admit to what this problem is and let us properly help you. Well, finally, he did that. And that day in his hospital bed, he said, I won't touch alcohol again. And that's been 10 years almost, and he hadn't touched it. Now, that's rare, to have someone who can just make his mind up and say, I'm not doing that anymore, and they don't do it anymore. That's unbelievably rare. Almost nobody else can do that. One of my favorite writers, he's a psychiatrist from England, or he was. He's retired now, and now he just writes essays. a George Orwell-type figure. He's a great essayist. He writes really well. And he has a book called Admirable Evasions. And the book is about how psychiatry is harmful. And he was a psychiatrist. And he's got another book about addiction. And basically, he says in the book, I mean, it's just the guy is incredibly intelligent, very sharp in his wit and the way he describes and explains things. And he says in the book that the addiction industry is addicted to addicts. They need them. You get rid of the addicts, well, then your industry doesn't need to exist anymore. You get rid of the addicts, your hospital, your drug addiction center doesn't need to exist anymore. So that might have something to do with why the addiction industry's success rate doesn't exist. They have about an 80% fail rate. And that 20%, 15%, 20% that make it through are nothing more than people who just had enough character left, and they were able to just overcome the addiction or replace the addiction with something else, something positive, like exercising or something. But that has no bearing on their spiritual future. And if ever put in a situation where they're tempted with that again, guess what's going to happen? They're going to do like so many and return right back to it with no change. Now, the victory comes through Jesus Christ, but it's not easily won. You start heading down that road and you start acting like a lunatic and living like a lunatic. The problem with drug addiction is that you develop a lifestyle. And once that lifestyle is deeply embedded, it's no longer the drug. It's the life. And it becomes such a deeply embedded habit that you can't break the habits. And the drug is just connected to the habit. It's the way you get it. It's how you get it. There's an entire atmosphere to that lifestyle that that's what they become addicted to. The drug is just kind of what got them there. And in order to break that, You need something supernatural. You need Jesus Christ. And so the Lord shows up, and he rebukes not the man, not those around him. Now, he did rebuke. He had this broad rebuke, you faithless generation. Now, what's the problem? God promised Israel, if you obey me and you keep me first, obey my word, this stuff will never happen in Israel. Your enemies will never be here. Disease will never be here. People running around possessed with devils would never happen if you would trust me. And so he rebukes them. He's like, the reason this exists is because you were a perverse and faithless generation. And if you would fix that, It would naturally fix all the other problems, and they refused to do that. And so the Lord rebukes the devil inside that man. And when the devil leaves that man, what happens? All of a sudden he's normal, sane. You see that repeatedly all through the Bible. There was a man throwing himself in fires and cutting himself and acting like a wild man, and they would bind him with chains, and he would just break them and keep going. Soon as he meets the Lord Jesus Christ, he's sitting down, talking, acting normal. Why is that? Only Jesus Christ can fix these problems. You can throw as much money at it as you want. You can beg people, plead with people. The answer is Jesus Christ every time. They get filled with the Spirit of God through faith in Jesus Christ. So if the Lord can look at them and say, you faithless and perverse generation, then what's the solution for America? To be a faithful generation. The more people will trust in Jesus Christ, the less of this garbage you will see. Now, America's past definitely has problems, but you didn't see anything like what we see today, the widespread violence, murder, theft, rape, confusion, all the things that our country faces today when the majority of the country had some form of fear of God. It just didn't exist. You see pictures all the time of a high school, and every one of the boys in the high school is carrying a knife or a gun, and nobody got shot or stabbed. Why? They feared God. They may not have been Christian, but they knew that there was a God in heaven who was watching them. And we're a long way away from that. So Jesus rebuked the devil. In order to heal the sickness, the Lord cast out the devil. Now, what do we do? We treat the symptoms of the sickness in the hopes that it will come. If you drive around Losedale right now, you'll see all the, I don't know if they're still up, I haven't seen one in a while, but there for several weeks, you had these little black and white signs that said, for Suboxone, call this number. Now, you know what that is? That is a drug addict who is addicted to drugs can call that number and instead of going in the street and buying an illegal form of heroin or fentanyl or crystal meth, they can call those people and they will give them a government approved synthetic form of the same drug. Isn't that a blessing? That's what your tax dollars are paying for. And now, what will happen is, you'll meet one of those people, and they'll say, I've been clean. I'm no longer on drugs. And if you ask them, and I don't suggest you do this. I, for some reason, end up dealing with these people quite often. It's been a while, which I'm semi-thankful for. But I'll ask them, are you on Suboxone? Well, yeah. Well, then you're not off the drugs. Who convinced you that you were off drugs? When you go and you take a government-approved synthetic form of the drug, you're still on drugs. You still have the same problem. You have not been healed. What someone did was just get you away from buying it from the local drug dealer. Well, at least the government-unapproved local drug dealer. Now the government is your drug dealer, which is a blessing. As long as the government approves the sale of the drug, then it's all right. Now, that's not helping anybody in any way. And those people, then they become convinced, well, now I'm off the drugs. No, you're not. You're just taking a pharmaceutical version of it rather than a street-made version of it, which is probably safer. But you're not off the drugs. You still have a very serious problem that needs to be dealt with, and you're only going to deal with it through Jesus Christ. It's the only way you're going to get help, and we want you to get help. Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, the Lord cast out the devil and it removed the sickness, and that doesn't mean that everybody's sickness comes from a devil. You know, and you don't want to make that mistake. It doesn't even mean when someone's lunatic that it comes from a devil. There's a good possibility, but you don't want to make that assumption. Regardless of whether they're possessed with a devil or they're just insane themselves, guess what the answer is? the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter. Well, I need to determine if you have a... I went street preaching one time in Memphis, and there was this guy there that was a little off his rocker. And so somehow he ended up giving a testimony, which nobody wanted him to do. In fact, the guy leading the service, he said, you know, is there any testimonies this evening? And several people stood up, and this one guy was going, oh, oh, oh, oh, me, me, me. And he was like, all right, there's nobody else. And the guy's jumping up and down, and finally he had to say, all right, come up. And so the guy comes up, gets in the pulpit, and lays on the pulpit like this, and starts giving this testimony about how you know, and he knows, if everybody would be honest, that Christians are possessed with devils. And it's like, oh boy. It's supposed to be a testimony about us out street preaching, and now he's laying on a pulpit talking about Christians being possessed with devils. And he said, the way you know is you walk up to them and you say, are you in there? And the hair on their neck will stand up, and you know that the devil's in there. He said this publicly in front of everybody. And the guy who was leading goes, all right, yeah, thank you for that testimony. Have a seat and be quiet. And so, no, once you're sealed with the Spirit, that's it. Now, you can be entertained by devils. You can give your attention to devils, but you're not going to be possessed by them. Now, if you choose to go and follow some devil in this world, that's up to you. But that'd be a choice as a Christian you made. But in terms of possession, not going to happen if you're sealed with the Holy Spirit. That's his house, and we need to act like it. Then he talks about the faith as a grain of mustard seed. That reminds me of another story. When I was in Egypt, there was a cave church in Cairo. It's a Catholic church built into a cave. I mean, it's pretty wild to see, but the story behind how the cave church came to be there, is that there was a man, I don't remember his name, there's a whole website where they have the story up there, and they said that this man was, he was the most holy man in this area. And at the time, in this part of Egypt, there were Jews, Muslims, and Christians. And the Muslims had come in, and they did what Muslims do. They murdered all the men and raped all the women and took over the country, you know, to spread their religion of peace. And so the Jews and the Christians had gotten into a spat. And so the Jews went to the Muslims and said, you know, their Bible says that they can, because of their faith, they can move mountains. And so we don't believe they can do that. And if they can't do it, then you should get rid of them. And so the Muslims went to the Christians and told them, you have until, you have seven days to prove to us that you can move a mountain with your faith. And so... They were like, what are we going to do? The Muslims are going to kill us. And they're probably going to kill you anyways. It doesn't matter whether you can move them out or not. And so they went to this guy who was supposed to be the most holy man in the area. And the reason they knew he was holy is because he was a shoe cobbler. And one day, a woman came in, and he was working on her shoe. And he looked at her leg, and he knew that that was wrong. So he plucked out his eye. Jesus said, if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. And so to demonstrate how holy he was, he plucked his eye out. And so then something else happened with his hand. So you can imagine what he did next. He cut his hand off because his hand offended him. So rather than just getting his body under control, He just starts cutting off body parts. And so they knew that this man is holy. This is our only hope for this to happen. So they tell him what's going on, and the Muslims come back seven days later and said, OK, you better be able to demonstrate what your Bible says is true, or we're going to kill all of you. And so this man goes up to the mountain, the side of the rock, and he tells it to move. And a huge chunk of the mountain took off flying and went flying somewhere else and landed somewhere else. And it left this huge cave inside. Now, he didn't move the mountain, which is what the Bible said. Instead, he just kind of ripped a cave out and threw it somewhere. And so then they built a church inside the cave. And they got to stay. And it was all exciting. So we went to visit that church. When I was in Egypt, I lived there for a year, and the brother that I was there with, we went and witnessed a lot all over the place. So we went to visit this place just to see it, because it is interesting to see. It's literally a cave in a church. It's a big open auditorium type area, and has a stage or a platform carved into it and all that. It's very Roman Catholic. It's not Roman Catholic, it's Coptic. So the Coptic Church is the Orthodox is a form of Orthodox Christianity in Egypt. And the Egyptians used to be Coptic. That's what they're, as a people, that's who they used to be until the Muslims came in and raped and killed everybody. And now they're more Arab than Coptic. And so I'm witnessing to the priest there. And we're going back and forth about water baptism, and I'm telling him about the gospel and all that, and I told him that if he didn't get that right, he was going to go to hell. He was like, I'm a priest. That's not going to help you. And so I'm witnessing to him, and he's supposed to take me to the big priest. He wanted us to meet him. He thought it was interesting that we knew how to defend our faith and knew this much about the Bible. He was going to take us to meet his I mean, this is a top guy in Egypt, and he's like just a few paces under the Pope. They have their own Pope in the Coptic religion. And so we're going back and forth, and I'm telling him he's going to go to Hell if he doesn't trust in Jesus and repent of trusting in baptism. And he said, he turned to me, we're getting ready to go and see this other guy. And he said, are you going to tell him he's going to Hell? I said, probably. And he's like, he's busy. I was like, well, can I change my mind now and still let me go see him? No, he's busy. You can't tell him that it won't go well. And so the cave church. Look, the idea is that you can do great things with your faith. If you have faith in Jesus Christ, you can do great things. Like we talked about with the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000, they came and they said, look, all we got is a few pieces of bread and some fishes. And so if you will take what you have and bring it to Jesus, then he can use your faith and what little talent you have to reach the multitudes, to minister to the multitudes. Alone, you can't do that. But if you'll bring it to Jesus and say, look, this is all I have. And if you'll use me, I would love to be used by you. And the Lord can take that and then use you to minister more broadly to people who desperately need it. All right, let's read verses 22 through 27, and then we'll talk about a few notes and then move on. Verse 22. And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him. And the third day he shall be raised again, and they were exceeding sorry. And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom, or tribute, of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast in a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up. And when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money, and take and give unto them for me and thee." Makes you want to go fishing, huh? I wonder where that fishing spot is. Now, There's just a couple things here that we should think about. First of all, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He tells them that he's going to the cross, he's going to die and rise again, and they're sorrowful, which means they didn't understand. There's an idea that is often taught where people will say, well, people in the Old Testament were looking forward to the cross, except that nobody in the Old Testament had a clue what a cross was, who Jesus was, and were not looking forward to it. They had no clue. And then people, after the cross, were looking back to the cross. That's kind of the generalized teaching. Well, here you have the disciples of Jesus Christ. And he tells them, I'm going to go to Jerusalem. I'm going to die. I'm going to be buried. I'm going to rise again the third day. Oh, no. They had no idea. They had no understanding. Now, he had to open their understanding later. And so they were not looking forward to the cross. They were looking forward to a kingdom. And they were not going to get that Kingdom right now. Christ came to die on the cross. Now, the tax. This is interesting. Many of our brethren, rightfully so, are angry about taxes. Who wants to pay taxes to an unjust government that's going to take it and use it on abortion, transgenderism? I saw a hearing in the Senate the other day where the US paid $250,000, $300,000 to an NGO to promote atheism in Nepal. Well, praise the Lord. Glad our tax dollars are going to good use. Right now, is the government misusing? Are they forcefully taking our money and misusing it? Yes. Should you pay the tax? Yes. Amen. That's exciting. I know that's that's good news. Yeah, Jesus Christ himself paid the tax to Herod to Caesar. You tell me those people were not misusing that money and doing wicked things with it right now. It's it's proper for us to go as far as we can not to be an offense. That's what he said so that they are not offended go cast the hook in the water catch a fish take the money out of its mouth and give it to him. That would be nice if we could do that, if the government comes and says, where's your tax money? One second, let me walk out to the pond and get it. But that's just not how it's going to work out for us. Pay the money, the Lord will reimburse you. The Lord will take care of you. The Lord will provide for you. If you do what's right, the Lord will take care of you. But if you don't do what's right, guess what's going to happen? You're going to ruin your name and your testimony, and you're going to ruin the name and testimony of Jesus Christ, because you didn't want to pay a tax. Just pay the tax. I don't want to pay the tax. Pay the tax. It's important. It's right. Even though it's going to people who are wrong, it's the right thing to do. 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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