Scoffers in the Last Days – Aaron Cozort – May 10, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Authority of God, Christian living, False Teachers, keywords Bible, Last Days, Morality, prophecy, Scoffers, Scripture, Second Coming by Aaron Cozort

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Good afternoon.

Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to 2 Peter.

I lost the page in my notebook that my notes were on.

There it is.

Starting too far back.

In scripture, a scoffer, generally someone who mocks truth, rejects correction, ridicules

righteousness, or treats God’s warnings with contempt.

Peter as he is writing in the closing chapter as we have it in our English Bibles of this

second letter writes in 2nd Peter chapter 3 beginning in verse 1, Beloved, I now write to

you this second epistle.

In both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder.

that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of

the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first, that

scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts.” This

afternoon, I want us to

consider this phrase, this statement made by Peter concerning scoffers in the last days.

Now we’re not going to delve into a highly uh deep view of what are the last days.

I’m gonna give you what they are and let you do your own study on it, but the last days

are the Christian age.

It is the period of the age of the church.

uh beginning in Acts chapter two, starting with the day of Pentecost and going forward

from that time.

That’s what the New Testament speaks of as the last days.

So we’ve been in the last days for 2,000 years.

We’ve been in the last days since the day of Pentecost and since the church began.

That is what the New Testament identifies as the last days.

But Paul, sorry, but Peter,

has reminded us that the prophets spoke clearly that there would not be an end to those

who reject God’s Word or God’s message just because the Kingdom had come, just because the

Church had been established, just because Jesus came to the cross, died on the cross, and

ascended back into heaven didn’t mean that there would not be a time when people began to

reject Christ.

or even when the church began to reject Christ.

This is also consistent with what Paul wrote.

Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica and told them that there would be the return of

Christ, that Christ would come back, He would come a second time, but that before that

point there would be a falling away, there would be those who would arise teaching

perverse things and

would draw away those after themselves, if you combine what he said in Thessalonians to

what he says in Acts chapter 20 to the elders at Ephesus.

So the point is this, yes, the last days at large are the Church Age, but there were

events that were spoken of, that were prophesied in the early days of the Church that

still had some fulfillment to come in the days ahead.

and Paul, sorry Peter, I’m gonna get my words out eventually.

If they could just get their names changed where they didn’t start with the same letter,

that’d be easier.

uh But Peter is going to speak and write to these Christians and inform them as he’s

getting older, as he’s nearing the end of his life, there is still a departure that is

coming.

And he tells the Christians that coming in the last days there will be those who will be

scoffers.

and they will be opposing the Word and the works of God.

So I wanted to spend some time with this idea of what a scoffer is, what it means to be a

scoffer, and perhaps from this text and a few others, what we can learn about the scoffers

that Peter was writing about.

First, you should notice the reality of the situation.

Peter makes it clear in chapter 2 verse 3 he says, this first.

Let me just begin with that phrase, knowing.

He doesn’t say, you know what, I think, uh I have great expectations there might be.

He doesn’t couch it in terms of potential.

He says, this is known.

This is without doubt.

Peter is writing to these brethren that the things that are going to be talked about are

already happening and they were going to continue.

He says, knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days.

Peter has already said that the things that he’s writing to them about were things that

were spoken of by the prophets.

He is indicating that there were those who had inspired miraculous knowledge delivered to

them by God in the early church who said, this was coming.

But he also points out that even the apostles had stated that this was coming.

The apostles had been teaching that there would be those who would rise up within the body

of Christ who would teach people to reject God.

Now that shouldn’t surprise us.

It should not surprise us that there were those who were coming in the first century who

were going to teach Christians from within the body of Christ to depart from God.

For that’s always been Satan’s tactic.

Satan has always utilized those within as the primary way he could get individuals to

depart from the Lord.

And it’s a reasonable thing in the sense of strategy.

Let’s face it, when Christians are around those who are outside the church, they are

outside the body of Christ, they are those who reject God, they reject his testimony, they

reject his word, they’re guards up.

They look at those individuals and go, I’m not going to do everything that they do because

they’re not Christians.

And yet, here comes along a nice looking young preacher or teacher and he’s well-schooled

and he sounds educated and he seems to know what he’s talking about.

And he starts teaching the doctrine of Christ mixed with the doctrine of pagans.

and he starts intermingling it.

Or he starts teaching that you must keep the law and be circumcised in order to go to

heaven.

And well, I mean, he came from Jerusalem.

He came from where the church and the gospel message originally came from, so he must know

what he’s talking about.

Peter is going to warn them.

Not that there would be those outside the church that would reject the message of God, but

rather that there would be teachers inside the church that would reject the message of God

and that had already been prophesied.

And when it occurred and when they observed it, when they witnessed it, when they

experienced it, they weren’t to be surprised.

They were to know this was coming.

But as you notice in the text,

He says, I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder.

When Peter writes these things to them, he writes to them having already told them these

things in person.

He is reminding them of what he already taught them when he was with them.

what he already wrote to them about in his first epistle, what Jude is going to write

about, what Paul is going to write about, what James is going to write about.

He says, we’re reminding you and reminding you and reminding you and reminding you.

Because we do not want you to be susceptible to being deceived.

I bring up the reality simply because of this.

There are times and there are individuals who act as though there are no false teachers

that we need to abstain from fellowship with, that we need to not listen to what they say.

We should just take all information and just put it in a big pot and just eat the stew

that comes out.

That’s just false.

we are to do as the church at Ephesus is spoken of as doing.

If you turn to Revelation chapter two.

Revelation chapter 2, we read to the angel of the church at Ephesus, right, these things

says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven

golden lampstands, I know your works, your labor, your patience, that you cannot bear with

those who are evil, and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and

have found them liars.

There were teachers going around to the churches, including Ephesus, in the first century,

and they were claiming to be the apostles of the Lord.

And the church at Ephesus had put them to the test.

They had used properly the miraculous gifts to establish that these individuals were

liars.

They had tested them and they had proven them to be false.

Now, if there were false teachers in the first century that John writes and tells us are

liars and that you should not follow them, you should not adhere to what they’re teaching,

therefore you should not give them a platform to teach it.

Why would we imagine there aren’t today?

Why would we imagine that we’re somehow exempt from that and that everybody who claims to

be a Christian is clearly a Christian and everybody who claims to be a Christian, they can

just teach whatever they believe and it’ll be fine?

Nonsense.

Scoffers were coming in the last days and Peter says they’re already here.

But he also

will state in considering the reality of this that the things which were spoken by the

scoffers had already been settled by God.

The things they were going to teach were going to be a rejection of what God had already

said.

One of the easiest ways we can evaluate whether or not someone is a false teacher or

teaching the truth is this.

Take what they say and lay it against the Word of God.

And if they don’t agree with the Word of God…

We don’t have to discuss it anymore.

We don’t have to have an evaluation any further than that.

Do they teach what the Scriptures teach?

Or are they rejecting the very word they are claiming to uphold?

Then consider number two, the rejection of the message.

You go down to verse four and Peter is going to point out one of the specific things that

he has in mind that these scoffers who would be coming in the last days would reject.

Verse four says, they would be saying, where is the promise of His coming?

For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of

creation.

For this they willfully forget, Peter says, that by the word of God the heavens were of

old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, by which the world that

then existed perished being flooded with water.

But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for

fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

Peter says there are some who are coming out among you and will come out among you who are

going to come and they’re going to teach and they’re going to preach and you’re going to

hear what they have to say and they’re going to say Jesus isn’t coming back.

They’re going to say there is no second coming.

There is no eternity to be worried about.

There is no return of Christ.

There is no judgment day for you to be prepared for.

Everything’s existed the way it’s always been and it will always be the way it’s always

been.

So you just live your life and enjoy it.

Peter would point out that the rejection of the message would be couched in a denial of

history.

Peter says.

They willfully, they willfully forget.

The problem is not that the teachers were unaware of what the Scriptures taught.

It’s not as though the teachers were going to open up their Old Testament Scriptures and

suddenly the first half of Genesis is missing.

He says they just ignore it.

They just pretend that it’s not true.

They willfully forget that there was a point in time where God had created the world and

then because of the evil that existed in the world, God wiped the face of the planet off.

Peter points out that as the scoffers come, they’re going to reject the message.

They’re going to reject the history.

Turn to John chapter 3.

In John chapter 3, Jesus as He is speaking to Nicodemus…

We’ll say to him beginning in verse 17, for God did not send his son into the world to

condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already,

because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world and men loved

darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

Jesus would point out that the actions of the false teacher become self-evident when you

shine light on them.

The actions and the words of the false teachers start to become evident when you compare

them to the Word of God.

Jesus points out that the false teachers in His day, the chief priests, the elders, the

Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, had all rejected the very message of God for their

own traditions.

And the only light that was going to expose them was the Word of God.

As you consider the text of 2 Peter chapter 3 and in verse 4, you’ll notice

that they rejected Christ’s appearing.

But if you go further into the book of Jude, you’ll find that Jude also warned concerning

the scoffers.

And in Jude chapter 1, beginning of verse 16, he says, These are grumblers, complainers,

walking according to their own lusts, and they mouth great swelling words, flattering

people to gain advantage.

But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord

Jesus Christ, how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would

walk according to their own ungodly lusts.

These are sensual persons who cause division not having the Spirit.

Jude will point out they not only rejected Christ appearing, they rejected Christ’s

morality.

They rejected the teaching of His laws concerning their actions, their lifestyle, and the

things that they could and could not participate in.

If you were to go down the list of things that Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 5, 6, and

7, and you look at that Sermon on the Mount and you read the words where Jesus said, you

will not enter the kingdom of heaven unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness

of the scribes and the Pharisees.

You shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

And these scoffers would have wiped those pages away.

They were not interested in the morality that Jesus taught.

They were not interested in the lifestyle Jesus taught.

But if you go over to James chapter four, you’ll also find as James will reach back into

the Old Testament to give a statement concerning humility.

We read in James chapter four and in verse six, but he gives more grace.

Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

That’s from Proverbs and we’ll be back to that in a moment.

But he says in verse seven, Therefore submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee

from you.

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Lament and mourn and weep.

Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.

Do not speak evil to one another, brethren.

He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges

the law.

But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.

There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy.

Who are you to judge another?

Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such a place, such a city, spend a

year there, buy and sell and make a profit.

Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow, for what is your life?

is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

Instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live to do this or that.

But now you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil.

Therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” James will

point out that there were those in his day, there were those within the church

who because of their pride, because of the things that they desire to participate in,

because of those actions that there was their lifestyle, he says you are rejecting God’s

authority.

Consider, when a person starts teaching that which contradicts scripture, for instance,

that Christ is not going to return, that there’s not going to be a resurrection, that

things will just continue on as they always have.

They don’t just reject the message of the appearing of Christ.

They don’t just reject the Second Coming.

For when you examine their lives, they rejected the morality of God, and when you examine

their teaching, they rejected the authority of God.

I’ve heard people say at times when they examine why one group, one religious body or one

group practices and worships one way and another group practices and worships another way

and the church teaches that we ought to worship the way the New Testament Christians

worshiped and that we ought to worship the way the first century church worships.

They say, well, the only difference between this group and that group is this instrument.

Nonsense.

The difference between the church and not the church is the authority of God.

And whether or not we will accept God’s authority or replace it with our own.

Because if we replace it with our own, we are the scoffers.

We are the ones who have chosen to live according to our desire, our lust, our passions,

instead of His.

Instead of His Word.

consider Proverbs chapter twenty-one.

Solomon would write concerning scoffers, would write concerning those mockers that he

warns his son about.

And in Proverbs chapter 21 and in verse 24, he writes, a proud and haughty man, scoffer is

his name.

He acts with arrogant pride.

Over in Proverbs chapter 3,

Solomon will write in Proverbs chapter 3 and in verse 34, surely he scorns the scornful

but gives grace to the humble.

This passage is where James’ statement from James chapter 4 verse 6 comes from.

The point that James is making, the point that Solomon was making is God rejects the

scorner, he rejects the scoffer,

He rejects the prideful because they have rejected Him in their pride.

But then consider the root, the root of the problem.

In Proverbs chapter 22, Solomon will write in Proverbs chapter 22 and in verse 10, cast

out the scoffer and contention will leave.

Yes, strife and reproach will cease.

Sometimes we find that there are those who are ignorant and are learning.

And they’ll say things that are incorrect.

They’ll believe doctrines that are incorrect.

And over time, they will learn the truth.

They’ll grow, they’ll mature, and they’ll replace their opinions that they’ve been taught

by culture and the world around them.

their parents and their grandparents and the people that they’ve known at work, they’ll

replace those with the authority of God and they’ll suddenly realize, I always thought it

was different than that.

And they’ll put God’s word where it belongs and they’ll learn and they’ll grow.

That’s not what he’s talking about here.

What he’s talking about here are those within the assembly, in this case, the Old

Testament assembly, the people of God, modern.

view of this would be in Peter’s day the church and they have no interest in replacing

their opinions with God’s word.

They have no interest in replacing their rejection of God’s authority with their

authority.

They have no interest in replacing their ideas with God’s commands.

And Solomon writes, you know, when you take the contentious person and you remove them

suddenly

All the problems go away.

He says, the scoffer is cast out, the contentions are gone.

Sometimes we do ourselves and our own congregations a disservice when we allow the scoffer

to stay.

When you allow the scoffer to remain.

Over in 1 Thessalonians.

Paul, as he is writing to the church at Thessalonica, will warn the brethren that those

who will not admit that the things that the apostles taught were the Word of God were to

be removed.

They were to be put out of the assembly because the things that the apostles taught were

backed up by the miraculous.

The things which they spoke were backed up by the…

Spirit of the Lord.

The things that they taught had the authority to validate that they were from God.

And Paul’s point is, if they won’t adhere to the message that’s been authorized by God,

they don’t have any business here.

We need to be mindful of that in our own assemblies today.

In Isaiah chapter 28, Isaiah chapter 28, beginning in verse 16,

Isaiah has an interesting comment here in his prophecy concerning scoffers.

and it’s quite interesting that the context that it falls into.

Isaiah chapter 28 and in verse 16

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried

stone, a precious cornerstone, uh a sure foundation.

Whoever believes will not act hastily.

Now, if you are familiar with Isaiah’s prophecy, there is a single individual that Isaiah

describes as the cornerstone.

There is a single individual that Isaiah has prophesied about that God will lay the

cornerstone in Israel and anybody who rejects him will be destroyed, will be ground down,

will be broken to pieces by that cornerstone and it’s Christ.

So in this context, Isaiah writes, behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a tried

stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation.

He says, verse I also will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plummet.

The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies and the waters will overflow the hiding place.

Your covenant with death will be annulled and your agreement with Sheol will not stand.

When the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it.

As often as it goes out, it will take you.

For morning by morning it will pass over and by day and by night it will be a terror just

to understand the report.

For the bed is too short to stretch out on and the covering so narrow that one cannot wrap

himself in it.

For the Lord will rise up as at Mount Perizm.

He will be angry as in the Valley of Gibeon that he may do his work, his awesome work, and

bring to pass his act, his unusual act.

Now therefore…

Do not be mockers.

Lest your bonds be made strong, for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a destruction

determined even upon the whole earth.” Isaiah, as he’s writing concerning the Messiah, as

he’s writing concerning the foundation that God says he would lay, as he’s writing

concerning the cornerstone, says, uh trust me, you don’t want to be a mocker.

You do not want to be found on the other side of God’s plans because when He enacts His

plan, you’re going to be judged and you’re going to be destroyed.

In Proverbs chapter 15,

Proverbs 15 and in verse 12 we read, scoffer does not love one who corrects him, nor will

he go to the wise.

As Peter writes about the scoffers that would come,

He uses a term that the Proverbs writer has already identified the primary issue with

these people.

It’s not their ignorance.

It’s not their lack of knowledge.

It’s not that they’re young in the faith.

It’s not that they’re babes in Christ.

It’s that they refuse to be taught.

They have decided that they are the expert and they will follow their own wisdom to their

own destruction.

We need to be careful when we realize that we perhaps are refusing to be taught.

In Titus chapter two, Paul will write to Titus and after he gives a number of

admonishments about some groups within the body of Christ, teaching other groups in the

body of Christ and setting an example for them, he will write, for the grace of God that

brings salvation has appeared to all men.

Teaching.

us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, should live soberly, righteously, and godly

in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God

and Savior Jesus Christ.

Paul writes to Titus and he says, you need to be taught by grace.

Too often,

We find individuals who are scoffers, they’ve rejected the message of God, they’ve

rejected the morality of God, they’ve rejected the authority of God, and the only thing

they want to talk about is grace.

and yet they refuse to be taught by grace.

Grace is something that is extended from God because salvation has appeared to all men.

But grace teaches us to deny ungodliness, to deny worldly lusts, and to live soberly,

righteously, and godly in this present world because there is coming a day when Christ

will return.

So in order for the scoffer to reject the teaching of grace, he had to reject the teaching

of the second coming of Christ.

In order to reject the second coming of Christ, he had to reject the Old Testament

history.

In order to reject the Old Testament history, he had to reject the authority of God.

If you turn back to 2 Peter chapter 3,

You’ll notice what Peter will say or will write after this warning about these scoffers.

He will write in 2 Peter chapter 3, beginning in verse 9, the Lord is not slack concerning

his promise as some count slackness, but is long-suffering to us were not willing that any

should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.

in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with

fervent heat.

Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to

be in holy conversation or conduct and godliness?

Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will

be dissolved, being on fire and the elements will melt with fervent heat.

Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which

righteousness dwells.

you meet someone who says, yeah, I just don’t believe in the second coming.

You’ve just met a scoffer.

But if you meet someone who says, yeah, I just don’t believe that we have to live

according to all those rules and ordinances in the New Testament, you’ve met a scoffer.

If you meet someone who says, yeah, I know that’s what the New Testament says we are to do

in worship, but I just don’t think it’s a big deal, you’ve met a scoffer.

If you meet someone who doesn’t understand grace teaches us to live righteously and

instead they want to use grace as an excuse for sin, you’ve met a scoff.

Peter says, be careful, because they’re coming.

And we need to be aware.

And we need to be understanding enough to discern that when we meet a scoffer, we don’t

start instilling their doctrines into our lives.

If you’re here this afternoon and you have needed the invitation of Christ, there is

coming a day when this world will be destroyed.

There is coming a day when the elements will melt with fervent heat because God has said

that is exactly what He was going to do.

There is coming a day when whether or not you live to see that day or not, this life will

be over.

And after death comes the judgment.

Are you prepared for it?

Are you living according to the message of Christ?

Are you living according to the morality of Christ?

Are you living uh in accordance with the authority of Christ

If not, why not begin today?

If you have need of the invitation, it is open as

Mark 15 (Lesson 2) – Aaron Cozort – May 13, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, atonement, Bible prophecy, biblical lessons, Christian faith, crucifixion, faith, keywords Jesus, New Testament, resurrection, temple veil by Aaron Cozort

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Good evening.

take your bibles and open them to mark chapter fifteen

Let’s get into our study after we have a word of prayer.

Gracious Father in heaven, we come before your throne grateful for the day that you’ve

blessed us with.

grateful for the opportunity that we have to serve you and to glorify your name.

We are grateful for the opportunity to edify one another and encourage one another, lift

one another up in the spirit and in boldness to proclaim your word throughout each and

every day.

Lord, we pray that you be with those who are striving to declare the truth in countries

where it is very difficult because of persecution.

and because of the threat that comes upon them for doing so.

Lord, we pray that you help them to always be bold to speak the truth and remain steadfast

and sound in the faith.

We pray for this nation and we pray for its leaders and we pray for the leaders throughout

the world.

They might make decisions which are wise that are in accordance with your wisdom and your

word and the understanding that we have from scripture that we might know how to walk, but

that we might have peace as well, that we might be able to

to focus on preaching and teaching the gospel.

All this we pray and ask in Jesus’ name, amen.

In Mark 15, the record of Jesus’ trials and His time before Pilate and ultimately His

sentencing to be crucified are given in this chapter.

We got down to about verse 14.

Pilate said to them, why, what evil has He done?

But they cried out all the more.

crucify him.

So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them, and he delivered Jesus

after he had scourged him to be crucified.

Many evil things have been done in history out of a desire to appease someone else.

You think all the way back to Genesis chapter 3.

And while we’re not explicitly told that Adam partook of the fruit to appease Eve,

We are told that Eve was deceived and Adam wasn’t.

So Adam, knowing what he was doing and knowing that he was sinning, participated anyway in

eating of that fruit after it was given to him by Eve.

In this passage, you find those chief priests and the crowd and the Jews coming to Pilate,

and they are insistent.

They would rather have a murderer back in their midst.

They would rather have a seditious person and a leader of a rebellion in their midst.

that killed his own countrymen rather than Jesus.

And it is somewhat of a testament to the fact that oftentimes the facts of the matter, the

truth of the matter has very little to do with the circumstances and the actions that

people participate in.

sure certainly be great for all of society if every court case, every legal decision was

based upon truth and based upon facts and if the law actually reigns supreme, but more

often than not, in most places in the world, people reign supreme.

You’ll notice that Pilate made this decision out of selfish.

reasons.

He made the decision because he wanted to appease the people.

We mentioned two weeks ago when we were discussing this that Pilate had been dealing with

revolts amongst the Jews and he was under pressure by indication of tradition and some

historical evidence that has been found through the years.

He was under pressure because of those revolts that if he didn’t get the revolts under

control, it would be his head.

that would be on the chopping block from Rome.

And so it is for his own interests that he will choose to send Jesus to the cross.

Now, we know from the other texts that Pilate will wash his hands of the situation

publicly and even physically as a demonstration that I’m not doing this, you’re doing

this.

and the people would cry out, let His blood be upon us and upon our children.

They were so motivated and so desirous to see Jesus dead because they trusted their

religious leaders.

because they were willing to accept the Word, the testimony, and the incitement of those

who were supposed to be their teachers, were supposed to be teaching them how to live and

how to be obedient to God, and instead they were inciting them to kill an innocent man

because of their selfish ambition.

Selfish ambition put Jesus on the cross.

We need to be careful that we do not allow selfish ambition to destroy congregations.

when John is writing about diatrophies and he is writing in those letters about this

individual who loved to have the preeminence.

That’s the type of person who put Jesus on the cross.

That’s the type of individual now in that scenario in the body of Christ that would have

gladly sacrificed his Lord to keep his power.

Verse 16, then the soldiers led him away into the hall called Praetorium, and they called

together the whole garrison, they clothed him with purple, and they twisted a crown of

thorns and put it on his head, and began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!

Then they struck him on the head with a reed and spat on him, and bowing the knee, they

worshiped him.

the mocking and the attitudes of the soldiers so that they mocked his situation.

Now, for a Roman, who would they have considered king?

Caesar, Caesar.

For a Roman, they would have considered Caesar to be king.

They would have considered any individual who sought to be a king over a province that

Rome had rule over to be someone who was already bound for destruction.

Somebody who was not quite all there thinking they could oppose Rome.

And so you have them carrying out this mocking, you have them uh behaving in such a way as

to ridicule the very idea that he was the king of the Jews.

Verse 19, then they struck him on the head with a reed and spat on him and bowing the knee

they worshiped him.

And when they had mocked him, they took the purple off him, put his own clothes on him and

led him out to crucify him.

Then they compelled a certain man, Simon of Cyrenean, the father of Alexander and Rufus,

as he was coming out of the country and passing by to bear his cross.

The text indicates that as Jesus has gone through the scourging, He’s gone through the

beating, He’s been up all night.

And if you pay attention to the text before that, He had been up quite some time even

before that point, that His exhaustion and His weakness is such that He cannot bear on

Himself or His own uh ability.

the beam that would be carried from the city center out to Golgotha.

And so they lay that beam partly on Jesus and partly on this Simon.

They brought him to the place Golgotha, which is translated place of a skull.

Then they gave him wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but he did not take it.

And when they crucified him, they divided his garments, casting lots for them to determine

what every man should take.

Now it was the third hour and they crucified him.

And the inscription of his accusation was written above the king.

of the Jews.

With him they also crucified two robbers, one on his right and the other on his left.

So the scripture was fulfilled, which says, he was numbered with the transgressors.

And those who passed by blasphemed, wagging their heads and saying, Aha, you who destroy

the temple and build it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross.

Likewise, the chief priests also mocking among themselves with the scribes said,

He saved others himself he cannot save.

Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross that we may see and believe

even those who were crucified with him reviled him.” What was it that the Jews had said so

often to Jesus, just show us one more what?

Sign!

Just show us one more miracle and we’ll believe.

The scribes, the elders, the Pharisees, always one more sign, one more sign.

Jesus said that He wouldn’t show them one more sign except save this.

What sign did He say He would show them?

All right, the sign of Jonah as he references Jonah going down into the belly of the fish

for three days and three nights and then being spat back up on the seashore to go into uh

the city and to proclaim the word of God.

It is that sign.

He says, go look in your Old Testament.

You’ll see the sign.

And when you see it, you’ll know.

Quite often, we find that the Scripture identifies there were things that Jesus taught,

there were things that Jesus said, where people had to listen to them, then they had to

remember them, and then eventually they would see the reason and the actual enactment of

the thing which He taught.

good reminder for us that it’s important as we’re listening to the Word of God, as we’re

being taught the Word of God, that we don’t let it go in one ear and out the other.

For those who were casual with the word that Jesus spoke, they were casual with the things

which Jesus said, they lost the opportunity of hearing the very Son of God and being

impacted by those things.

You think about the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus would say in the Sermon on the Mount there

at the end that the one who hears these sayings of mine and what?

And does them.

him I will liken to a wise man who builds his house upon the rock and he describes how

that when the person hears these sayings and does them, there’s a long-term continual

blessing that comes from building your life on the Word of God.

But the comparison is to a man who does what?

Build this house on the sand, is the analogy of doing what?

He hears the sayings and then doesn’t do them.

It’s not that he didn’t hear the sayings.

It’s not that he never heard Jesus speak or heard Jesus teach.

It’s that he heard it, didn’t do anything with it.

We have to be admonished and we need to be reminded that it is not just the hearing of the

Word of God that is important.

but the hearing, the retaining, the enacting in our lives and the building of our lives on

top of the Word of God.

If people around you don’t wonder why you live the way you do and why you act the way you

do and why you do the things that you do and don’t do the things that you don’t do, maybe

you should be looking a little closer at Scripture.

Because trust me, when you live like the scripture describes, people wonder why you are

the way you are.

as they mocked him.

They mocked him because he claimed he could save others.

They mocked him because he performed miracles to deliver people from blindness, deafness,

being mute, being dumb, being imprisoned by evil spirits, and even from death.

And their accusation was, if he can save others, but he can’t save himself, he certainly

isn’t the son of God.

He can’t possibly be the king of the Jews cause he’s about to be dead.

So again, we’re reminded and encouraged to consider.

that what many people believe to be true is only true because they don’t understand the

actual situation.

So often in the first century and later on in the second century and the third century as

well, Christians would be persecuted by Rome, they would be taken into the Coliseums, and

they would be fed to the lions.

and they would be rejoiced over in their deaths that they died and that they were able to

be killed.

And the thought and the mindset of the people was these individuals not only were

deserving of death, but they were powerless to stop it and they were defeated.

Were any of the Christians who were killed in the Coliseums defeated?

Or were they, every single one of them, victorious?

See, that’s the message of the book of Revelation.

that when you give your life for the testimony of Christ and when it costs you everything

in this physical life, that’s not defeat.

That’s victory.

And so as the chief priests and as the elders and as the Pharisees are standing there

mocking him, claiming that he’s not able to save himself, they’re actually proclaiming the

very act of him saving himself and everyone else to be the exact opposite of what it is.

They considered it defeat.

He knew better.

Six hour had come.

There was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, lama sabachthanai, which

is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Some of those who stood by when they heard that said, Look, He is calling for Elijah.

Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed and offered it to

him to drink, saying, Let him alone, let us see if Elijah will come down, will come to

take him down.

And Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last.

Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

So when the centurion who stood opposite him saw

that he cried out like this and breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the Son of

God.

Do you believe or do you think that the centurion’s reaction is a casual one?

think the centurion had been paying very close attention because he had been at guard

during the proceedings.

He’d heard all of the things that had been said.

He even probably heard the one thief who started off reviling him, and Mark doesn’t record

the occasion of the thief turning his…

perspective around.

But through the midst of this, he observes all of these things.

And what are some of the things that would have been a clear sign that this wasn’t just

another criminal dying?

The way you spoke, what else?

The darkness, we mentioned two weeks ago as we were talking about it, the darkness here is

not the idea of, uh yeah, it was kind of a shadowy day.

It’s not the idea of uh the clouds covered and blocked out the sun.

The darkness and the idea here is the darkness like on Egypt during the plague of darkness

where they could not even move.

They did not come out of their beds because they couldn’t even see in a house.

They could light a candle and they still couldn’t see the candle.

darkness came upon the face of the earth.

And it wasn’t a momentary thing.

wasn’t an eclipse of the sun.

It was for three hours.

And as the centurion has been watching these things and listening to these things, he has

the honesty.

compared to the Jews.

to state at the end of these things, surely this was the Son of God.

the Jews had been so bent on their destruction of Jesus.

It didn’t matter how many signs they saw.

It didn’t matter how many scriptures they witnessed being fulfilled by the actions and the

statements of Jesus.

None of those things mattered.

None of those things broke through the barrier of their hate and their self-interest.

But for this, perhaps you could call him disinterested centurion.

In other words, he didn’t have a dog in this fight, he wasn’t a Jew.

he could honestly as a third party stand back and go that had to be the son of God.

and saints rising from the grave.

And yet, the Chief Priest and the

the temple’s curtain was torn and they saw all this stuff and yet they still tried to

cover things up.

Absolutely.

It’s interesting to uh note, know, we’re not told, least no recollection in my memory, are

we told how many people were raised from the grave?

But…

It does make you wonder if some of those 120 that are there 50 days later with the

apostles had been dead 120 days or had been dead 50 days before.

And so here they are.

He’s cried out.

He’s quoted the Psalms.

He’s fulfilled so many different prophetic statements concerning the Messiah.

and the veil of the temple is torn from top to bottom.

First of all, any inkling for how big the veil of the temple was in the temple?

My memory serves me correctly and I could be wrong, but I was thinking it was 30 cubits in

height, which would be about 45 feet.

So you have a not small object.

And it’s not torn the way it would be torn if a man were to tear it.

If you have a man tear it, you get one really strong guy and you start cutting and one guy

pulls one way and one guy pulls the other from the bottom and it tears from bottom to top.

That’s not how it tore.

It tore from top to bottom.

But at end of that…

Who’s allowed to be in the temple?

in the holy place on the front side of the veil, the priests are going in throughout the

day, offering the offerings, offering the incense, doing the things that they would do

with the sacrifices and with the things pertaining to the showbread.

You have the table of showbread that would be there.

So, there things that were going on throughout that time.

And so throughout the day you would have the priest entering and exiting the holy place.

But in the most holy place, on the other side of the veil, only the high priest was

allowed to go.

And how often was he allowed to go?

Once a year.

There wasn’t a single priest.

alive and serving at the time of Christ who, excluding the high priest, who had ever, by

all indications of text and scripture and ordinance, who had ever passed through that veil

to see the Most Holy Place.

But here’s something else maybe you haven’t considered.

When the tabernacle was first built and when Solomon’s temple was built, when the most

holy place was erected and the temple was consecrated and the tabernacle was consecrated,

what was inside the most holy place?

Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat, which was on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant.

the cherubim that were there over the ark, all of these things would have been inside the

Most Holy Place.

What did the mercy seat signify to Israel?

What would happen on the Day of Atonement when the high priest had offered that sacrifice?

Remember there were the two lambs.

One was the scapegoat that was let go.

and one was sacrificed, what would the high priest do with the blood of the sacrifice?

Alright, there would be a sprinkling of the blood.

and the blood after there was a consecration of the high priest and atonement for his

sins, atonement for the people’s sins, the blood would be carried into the Most Holy

Place.

And on the day of atonement, the high priest wore a garment that had bells on it because

they were instructed that the bells were to essentially announce their presence as coming

into the Most Holy Place.

And so they would wear the garment, they would wear the bells, you would hear the sound of

them going in, going into the most holy place, and then going in, or going into the holy

place, then going through the veil and going into the most holy place.

And there was a process to it, but when they got inside the most holy place, then they

would take the blood, and the blood would be poured out on what?

On the mercy seat.

as an atoning and a reminder of the sins of Israel year by year, according to the book of

Hebrews.

Now, when Jesus dies, who is our atonement?

Christ.

John would write in John chapter 1, grace and truth came by who?

Jesus Christ.

when the temple veil is torn, when those regular priests, as we could call them,

saw perhaps for the very first time inside the Most Holy Place, what did they see?

The answer is an empty room.

The Israelites in the first century didn’t have the Ark of the Covenant.

They didn’t have the mercy seat.

They didn’t have the cherubim.

They didn’t have the articles that would have been in the most holy place in Solomon’s

day, in the most holy place in Moses’s day.

When the veil was torn,

all those who were in the temple could see through to realize that Israel had an empty

presence where God was supposed to be.

because God was out there on Gotha’s Hill on a cross.

Their sacrifice was the one they had just killed.

Their atonement was the one they had just put to death.

and there was no representation of God inside the temple.

And so it was fitting as a testament to who Jesus was.

that everyone could look in and see it’s just an empty room.

as go down through the text.

Verse 40, there were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary

the mother of James, the less of Joses, and Salome, who also followed him and ministered

to him when he was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

Mark highlights the presence of the women, the women who followed Jesus.

They didn’t follow Jesus because they were his adoring fans.

They followed Jesus because they knew who he was.

It was Mary who anointed Jesus there at that supper at Simon’s father’s house, or Simon

the father of Judas.

It was these women who had provided for Jesus in so many different occasions.

And as they are witnessing this, you’ll notice where are they.

They are far off.

Now, who was closer?

Who was a woman?

His mother.

John will tell us that she was at the foot of the cross.

as Jesus life ends.

There are those who are.

mindful of what needs to come next.

among which are these women.

There’s an interesting thing as you’re going to see him buried and what the women will do.

First of all, they will prepare the body or they will prepare to to prepare the body for

burial.

But they observe the Passover.

In spite of everything that they’ve witnessed, in spite of everything that they’ve

believed, in spite of everything that they’ve done, number one, they still consider Him to

be their Lord.

Number two, they will not forsake the command of God and the binding law and God’s

ordinances on the matters of the Passover for their own personal grief.

as they are waiting until that Sunday morning.

Why would they wait until the Sunday morning to go and to actually finish preparing the

body for burial?

All right, first reason reason number one, they weren’t allowed to touch a dead body.

Otherwise they were no longer able to participate in the Passover.

What else?

All right, it’s a Sabbath day.

Can’t work on the Sabbath.

They couldn’t prepare the body for burial on the Sabbath day.

The body is taken down that night so as to be down before the Sabbath begins and before

that uh Sabbath day starts.

And so as a result of that, there are these events that are leading up.

They’re simply not time to do.

all the things that need to be done before the Sabbath.

So they’re waiting.

Have you ever experienced a worship service where because of the loss of a loved one, you

can’t concentrate at all on what’s going on in the worship service because all you can do

is think about the person who you’ve lost.

I imagine those women went through a Sabbath day very much like that.

where their only thought was continually on Jesus.

So we find verse 42, now when evening had come because it was the preparation day, that is

the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member who was

himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, went into Pilate and

asked for the body of Jesus.

Pilate marveled that he was already dead.

and summoning the centurion, he asked him if he had been dead for some time.

So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.

Why do you think that Pilate wanted to know if he’d been dead for a while?

So there are many skeptics who still to this day in spite of zero evidence whatsoever for

it will argue for the swoon theory.

Jesus just appeared to be dead.

He had passed out and it was so it was so thoroughly that he had passed out that no one

realized he was still alive when they put him in the grave.

That’s why he came out of the grave.

He was still alive.

There are some things that the Roman centurions weren’t good at, but knowing when someone

was dead or alive wasn’t one of them.

If the Roman centurion said he was dead, he was dead.

They were quite skilled at telling the difference and fixing the difference.

Mark doesn’t record it, but what had one of the centurions done as Jesus was there on the

cross after they observed that he was dead?

They took a spear and they shoved it into his side and what was the evidence that he was

dead?

Out came blood and water, meaning that the blood had begun to separate from the water in

the body, which happens after death, not before.

As I mentioned, they’re pretty efficient at knowing whether or not somebody’s dead.

One action was all it took.

Now,

Based upon the other texts, what did they not do that was customary in the crucifixion

process because he was already dead?

Didn’t break his knees.

fulfilling again prophecy that not one bone would be broken.

Allsuit tells you that he went through all of that pain and all of that suffering, the

scourging, the beating, and not one bone was broken, but there was a whole lot of pain

that was inflicted.

The Romans gave witness to the fact that he was already dead.

Joseph of Arimathea, who is a disciple of Christ, he is waiting for the kingdom.

comes to Pilate and asks him, and Mark points out he was one who took courage.

You’ve just had the person who you knew to be the son of God killed not for anything that

he did, but just for being who he was.

takes a whole lot of courage to then go associate yourself with him publicly before the

person who ordered the execution.

But he comes to Pilate and he asks for the body.

So verse 46, then he brought the fine linen, took him down, wrapped him in the linen and

laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock and rolled a stone against the door

of the tomb.

And Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joseph, observed where he was laid.

They’re watching.

You can visualize if you would a hill and the body being taken down by Joseph.

I imagine Joseph had some servants.

Because if Joseph had taken the body down himself, he couldn’t have observed what?

The best of the Sabbath.

So the body is taken down, the body is carried away to the tomb.

What was unique about the tomb according to Scripture?

It was among the rich.

It was a tomb that was unused.

It was intended by all indications for Joseph when he died.

So this is a man of wealth.

This is a man of prominence.

This is a man of oh means.

Yes.

I don’t know that that would have been his thought process, but perhaps it certainly would

be true.

um Now, of course, because, you know, we know everything about history and every single uh

identifying mark was uh immediately notated.

We know exactly where Jesus’ tomb is,

Now if you go on a tour…

You’ll find Simon’s house is still standing and Jesus’s tomb was right here and this…

aah Anything for a dollar.

Now when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome

brought spices that they might come and anoint him.

Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, came to the tomb where the sun had

risen, or when the sun had risen, and they said among themselves, Who will roll away the

stone from the door of the tomb

for us.

They’ve put all the preparation into preparing his body for final burial.

They’ve brought everything that they need.

and they come into the place where the tomb is and it occurs to them.

we’re not gonna be able to this stone.

Why was the stone there?

The argument from one side was to keep the disciples from stealing the body and claiming

that he had been risen.

The argument from the other side would be to keep the chief priests and the elders from

getting their hands on the body.

But what else was in front of the tomb?

centurions and guards.

But when they arrived at the tomb, they looked up, they saw the stone had been rolled away

for it was very large.

And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the

right side, and they were alarmed.

But he said to them, Do not be alarmed.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.

He is risen.

He is not here.

See the place where they laid him.

As they walk into the tomb, they observe this young man sitting there.

He’s on one side, body would have been on the other side.

You could almost mentally picture it.

He’s not here.

We’ll put a pause in it there.

Come back next week.

On His Mind Before Death – Aaron Cozort – May 17, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Christian life, death, eternity, Faithfulness, Gospel, keywords Paul, perseverance, preparation, spiritual readiness, trust in God by Aaron Cozort

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Good morning.

Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to 2 Timothy chapter 4.

Hebrews chapter 9 tells us that it is appointed unto men once to die.

And after this, the judgment.

Death is something that is coming for all of us.

If the Lord delays His return, long enough for us to reach that point.

James tells us that death is the separation of the body from the spirit.

And yet as we consider…

our lives, circumstances we find ourselves in, our nature and our existence.

As we consider the ultimate end of our physical lives in the form of death, we understand

and we comprehend that not all of us will, as far as humanity goes, will reach an old age.

Some will die young.

Some might be

because of disease, perhaps because of war, because of other circumstances.

Some might die when they’re old, some die when they’re older than everybody else.

But in 2nd Timothy chapter 4…

we see a glimpse into what was on Paul’s mind when death was approaching.

Yes, over in Philippians, Paul’s going to write to the church at Philippi and tell them

that he desired to depart.

He was already ready at that point, earlier on in his life, to depart and be with the

Lord.

He knew that for him, death was an opportunity to leave this life and all of its cares and

go be with the Lord.

And he desired that to be the case, not because he didn’t desire to live.

Matter of fact, he said, I know it’s more needful for me to remain.

for the benefit of the church.

He desired to live, to continue working, and he knew that either way Christ would be

served, but his desire was to go and to be with the Lord.

But here in 2 Timothy chapter 4, later in Paul’s life, Paul has reached the point where he

knows his time is short.

He knows that death is coming.

And as a result of that, as he is writing to Timothy, as he sits once again in a Roman

prison for the second time,

He will write to Timothy about things that were on his mind when he was approaching death.

So we’re going to go through 2 Timothy chapter 4 in that view.

As these are the things that were on Paul’s mind when he was nearing death, so what should

we be learning about that is important for our lives so we can be prepared for death the

way he was?

Consider chapter 4 verses 1 through 5.

When Paul was near death, preaching was on his mind.

2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 1, charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ,

who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season.

Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their

own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers.

And they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.

But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist,

fulfill your ministry.

As Paul was approaching death, he was concerned about the preaching of the gospel.

He was concerned that the preaching of the gospel would continue after he was gone.

He was concerned that the preaching of the gospel would remain sound and faithful to the

message of the gospel after he was gone.

He was concerned about the teachers and the preachers and their faithfulness when people,

Christians, the churches no longer desired to hear a message of faithfulness.

They no longer desired to hear the truth in its clarity, in its sincerity, in its

simplicity.

They wanted their ears to be tickled.

They wanted to hear something that was pleasant, something that was easy, something that

was enjoyable.

If you could find any way to describe many of the religious worship assemblies of the

world around us, it is entertainment.

Paul tells Timothy, when the church wants to be entertained, preach them the truth.

When the church doesn’t want to listen to you, preach them the truth.

When the church desires sincerely to hear the truth, preach them the truth.

when the individuals in the congregation are not living in a right way before God convict

them of the truth and rebuke them.

when they’re struggling because of the difficulties of this life and the world that we

live in and all of the things that we face, He said, exhort them and uplift them and

encourage them, but preach the truth.

He says to Timothy, you be watchful in all things.

It’s hard to watch everything at once.

But that’s what Paul told Timothy to do.

He said, you be watchful.

You be careful.

You be aware of what is going on.

so the truth can continue to be preached.

but he also wanted him to be one who endured, who did the work, who fulfilled his service.

That’s what the word ministry means.

Paul, as he reached the end of his life, had his mind on the preaching of the gospel and

its continued preaching after he was gone.

Well, Paul also had his mind on the price that he had paid.

In chapter 4 and verse 6, Paul writes, for I am already being poured out as a drink

offering.

and the time of my departure is at hand.

I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the race.

I have kept the faith.

As Paul thinks back concerning his life, he can see the price he has paid to reach the

position that he’s in.

Paul didn’t say,

I’m approaching death, I’m nearing death, and boy was it easy.

Not at all.

Paul says, I have fought the good fight.

I have fought diligently to be obedient to God, to be faithful to Him.

to serve him in a way that is acceptable and right in his sight.

You do not fight the good fight by fighting your own fight.

As far as Paul was concerned, you only fight the good fight when you’re fighting the

Lord’s fight.

Paul is very clear that his definition of good here is that it is acceptable to God.

If we are fighting as we finish out our days here on this earth and if we are fighting in

accordance with the commandment of God, accordance with the will of God, in accordance

with the order of God, then we have fought the good.

But it is important to realize that Paul will point out the same thing that Jesus pointed

out when Jesus was approached by a young man and said, I desire to be your disciple.

And Jesus would reply to that individual, no man putting his hand to the plow and then

looking back is fit for the kingdom of heaven.

It is important to realize that in view of what Paul is saying, Paul is saying it is not

the case that someone can fight the good fight and then give up on the fight and go home.

Paul is making it clear, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have

kept the faith.

At no point had he ever discarded his fight, his race, or his faith because it was too

hard, because it was uncomfortable, because someone made him upset, because someone

disagreed with him, because someone decided that…

Paul wasn’t all that and they wanted to follow someone else.

or even because they had preached the gospel just to encourage more pain and punishment be

brought upon Paul.

As Paul was approaching death, he considered the price he had paid to reach the point he

was at.

But he also considered the prize that was available.

You consider chapter 4 and verse 8, he says, finally there is laid up for me the crown of

righteousness, which is which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day

and not to me only, but also to all who love his appearing.

As Paul was nearing death, he was focused on the prize.

He was considering and dwelling on and thinking about the prize for the righteous, the

prize for the faithful, the victorious crown of the one who runs the race, endures the

race, and wins the race.

Paul says you don’t get a crown simply by participating.

You get a crown by enduring to the finish.

But also Paul made it clear that you don’t just get a crown if you come in first.

You get a crown if you cross the line.

He says it’s not for me only, but for all those who love his appearing.

Paul was certain and Paul had clarity and Paul was dwelling on the reward of the righteous

in eternity.

and Paul had no doubts about eternity.

oh Paul certainly understood that there were things Paul didn’t know about eternity, but

those weren’t doubts.

The lack of knowledge, the absence of knowledge is not doubts concerning what we have full

knowledge about.

Paul didn’t have doubts about eternity.

Paul had confidence in every promise and every statement God had made about eternity.

And so Paul could say, there is, not there might be, not I hope there is, not well, we’ll

find out.

No, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.

Paul was looking forward to a day where the reward for the price paid would be delivered.

Paul had in mind as he was nearing death the preaching of the gospel, the price he had

paid, the prize that awaited him.

But Paul also had in mind the peril that had been going on and would face Timothy in the

future.

In verses 9 and 10, we read, Be diligent to come to me quickly.

For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world.

and has departed for Thessalonica, Cretians for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia.

uh As Paul looked at his circumstance, as Paul considered his time as he was approaching

death, he understood the peril of being alone.

It is sad.

It is unfortunate that some will go through this life and as they reach the end of it,

they will be alone.

Maybe they’re alone because of the circumstances they find themselves in.

That was Paul’s situation.

Paul would not have chosen to be where he was if he could have chosen to be somewhere

else.

But Paul was in prison.

Paul wasn’t getting to do the choosing.

But so many individuals are alone because of the choices they’ve already made.

So many individuals are alone because they’ve forsaken their spouse and chosen to live for

themselves instead of for their marriage.

Some individuals are alone because they have neglected their family and served their own

selfish desires.

And so when they become old, their family is no longer interested in them.

Some are alone, out of no fault of their own.

It just so happens that all the people they’ve always been surrounded with have already

gone before.

Some are alone because they’re simply waiting for those who are their companions to

arrive.

So Paul encourages Timothy, diligent to come to me quickly.

But then consider as well that he’s warning Timothy about the peril that Timothy can face.

You notice he mentions Demas, he says, for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this

present world.

Paul is going to remind Timothy that there is peril in this world.

There is peril in the circumstances we find ourselves in because it is tempting in the

state that we’re in, in the world that we’re in, to love this world.

John would tell us though, that if any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not

in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of

life, are of the world and they’re not of the Father.

We need to understand, as Paul understood, as Paul admonished Timothy to understand the

peril of this world.

We sing the song, this world is not my home.

I’m just passing through.

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.

We are reminded of Abraham.

We are reminded of Sarah.

We are reminded of Isaac.

We are reminded of Jacob, who though they knew,

that they were dwelling in a sojourning capacity, though they were dwelling in tents made

with hands, they had a home.

in a city whose builder and maker was God.

Paul warns Timothy, don’t get caught up in the troubles of this world.

Keep your eyes open.

Be watchful.

Understand that there are those around you who will love this world and they will forsake

God because of

But then consider as well that as Paul reached the end of his life, Paul was concerned

with personal relationships.

He was thinking and dwelling on people who had been with him and who were separated from

him.

You find there in the end of that verse that Cretians had gone to Galatia, Titus to

Dalmatia.

We know Titus was one of the young preachers that Paul had written to, that Paul had

trained.

But then you also find in chapter 4 verse 11, only Luke is with me.

Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for the ministry.

As Paul is considering his circumstance, he’s thoughtful of personal relationships, of his

time with Titus, of his time with Cretians, of his time with Luke, Luke being the only one

who was present still with him.

but he’s also thinking about relationships he’s had in the past.

So Paul is going to tell Timothy, you need to go get Mark.

John Mark was that young man who had started off on that missionary journey with Paul and

with Barnabas and had gone some way and then had turned back.

And when that missionary journey had concluded and Paul was ready to go back out on

another missionary journey, Barnabas wanted to take John Mark and Paul said no, because he

turned back the first time.

The years have transpired and apparently John Mark has developed and certainly we know

that he certainly would as he is the writer of the book of Mark.

But now as the years have gone by, Paul is ready to say, know what, bring Mark with you.

He’s beneficial to the ministry.

Paul looks back on his personal relationships and realizes that there are profitable

relationships in the present that perhaps had not been in the past.

Paul realized that there were those who, while they were young and immature in the past,

now have matured and now they’re profitable.

It’s important in life.

that we do not take the circumstances of the past and make them override the scenario of

the present.

Paul could have said, you know what, I’ll never do anything with John Mark ever again.

But that’s not what Paul said.

Paul said, bring Mark with you.

He’s profitable for the ministry.

But Paul also was mindful of the parchments.

He would write in verse 12 in Tychicus, have sent to Ephesus, bring the cloak that I left

with Carpus at Troas when you come and the books, especially the parchment.

The indications of the text seem to be that the parchments that Paul’s talking about are

the Scriptures.

Paul had his written Scriptures and he desired to have them with him where he was in Rome.

So Paul desires for Timothy to bring the Word of God to him.

As Paul is nearing death, Paul wants to read the text.

from God again.

Now you think about that and consider that Paul is an inspired apostle.

Paul has access to divine revelation directly from God.

And yet that doesn’t satisfy Paul’s desire to have the Word of God.

He desires to have the written Word of God that he can dwell on, that he can read.

And he wants Timothy to bring it to him.

As he is reaching the end of his life, he doesn’t look at the book that God has given and

say, you know what, I’m kind of done with this.

I think I’ve probably read it enough times.

No, Paul said, I want to read it again.

as Paul was nearing the end of his life.

He also thought about people and the past.

We find in verse 14, he says, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm.

May the LORD repay him according to his works.

Paul is not vindictive.

But Paul knows who belongs to the Lord and who doesn’t.

And Paul is concerned about Timothy and his ability to operate and preach and teach and

help the church.

And he knows there’s an enemy of the church who is out there looking to do harm to the

body of Christ.

And it’s evidenced by their continued actions exactly the way they had been participating

in that harm back when Paul…

was there.

Alexander the coppersmith will be one who will cause many to riot and will cause

disruption among the church because Paul was affecting his profit margin.

So Paul was concerned about people in the past.

You consider as well, verse 15, he says, you also must beware of him, for he has greatly

resisted our words.

Paul says, you watch out for those who become the enemies of God and who persist in their

attacks.

You be watchful of Him.

You beware of Him because if He hates me, He’ll hate you too.

You know, that was the message that Jesus gave to His disciples, that the world had hated

Him and they’ll hate you as well because if they hate me, they’ll hate you.

If they hate the Master, they’ll hate the servant.

And so, Paul is reminded and thoughtful as he nears the end of his life concerning the

people who have acted in opposition to God in the past so that Timothy can be forewarned.

but he’s also mindful of personal forgiveness.

when we are done harm.

When we are neglected, when we are forsaken,

We can hold that and we can hold that and we can hold that all the way till our dying day

in animosity towards those who did us harm, who neglected us, who forsook us.

but not Paul.

As Paul was nearing the end of his life, Paul was concerned about personal forgiveness.

You notice in verse 16, he says, at my first defense, no one stood with me, but all

forsook me.

May it not be charged against.

As Paul examined his life and Paul examined his scenario, as Paul was thoughtful about his

life and where he was at, he said, don’t hold this to their charge.

He exhibited much of the same mindset of Christ on the cross.

When Christ looked at those who were surrounding him, who were mocking him, who were

beating him, who had scourged him and said, do not lay this to their…

Paul looked at those who had forsaken him, who had left him to stand on his own.

Who had the ability to come and stand with him, but didn’t.

Paul was willing to forgive.

Then you also look and you notice that Paul was concerned with preservation and

protection.

verse 17, but the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.

So the message might be preached fully through me and that all the Gentiles might hear.

And also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion and the Lord will deliver me from

every evil work and preserve me from his, uh preserve me for his heavenly kingdom.

to Him be glory forever and ever.

Amen.

As Paul was looking at his scenario, his past, his personal relationships, the peril that

was facing Timothy, the things that he had in regards to the price that he had paid and

the prize that he had been working for in the preaching of the gospel.

Paul was mindful of the preservation of the Lord.

Paul said, I didn’t get here by myself.

When everyone else forsook me, there was one who stood with me, and it was the LORD.”

As Paul thinks about the preservation of the Lord, he’s not just talking about his past.

If think about it, many of us who spend a lot of time with people who are up in age know

one thing that we’re probably going to experience when we spend much time with them, it’s

called stories.

They’re gonna talk about stories.

They’re gonna talk about the past.

Paul’s not aimlessly talking about stories.

Paul’s pointedly making a statement to Timothy that Timothy needs to have confidence in

the Lord.

that when no one else is there to help Him, when no one else is surrounding Him, when no

one is standing with Him, there’s still one who’s never forsaken Him.

turn over to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 13.

the Hebrew writer will make a statement concerning Christ.

He says, verse 5 of chapter 13, Let your conduct be without covetousness, be content with

such things as you have.

For he himself said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

So we may boldly say, the Lord is our helper.

I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

That is the message of Paul as he is approaching the end of his life.

That is the declaration that Paul makes to Timothy.

The Lord never forsook me.

But it is with that same boldness and with that same confidence that Paul will also speak

concerning the Lord’s deliverance.

He says in verse 18, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for

His heavenly kingdom.

Paul knew as much as he had confidence in the Lord in earthly matters, he had just as much

confidence in the Lord in spiritual and heavenly matters.

Paul said that God deserves the glory forever and ever.

As Paul was nearing the end of his life, Paul was concerned with personal greetings.

One last time.

Tell so-and-so hello.

He will write, verse 19, greet Prisca and Aquila and the household of one Cyphorus.

Erastus stayed in Corinth, but Tromophus uh Trofimus, I have left in Miletus sick.

Do your utmost to come before winter.

Eubulus greets you, as well as Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brethren.

It’s interesting as you read Paul’s letters that Paul always finds time for the personal

greetings.

a reminder to us that eternity is important, spiritual matters are important, but personal

relationships are also important.

But as Paul closes the book.

as Paul pens what to our knowledge are the last words?

that the Holy Spirit had the foresight and the willingness to hold onto and preserve for

our reading for the rest of eternity.

Paul had in mind the precious grace of God.

The Lord Jesus Christ be with you, be with your spirit.

Grace be with you.

Amen.

Life is not easy.

and death comes for everyone.

and this world.

throws its onslaught against God’s people incessant.

And Paul was going to remind Timothy one more time.

of God’s grace.

It is a challenge for us to face death.

It is a challenge for us to watch others face death.

It is hard to watch people grow old.

And I’m learning more and more every day.

It’s going to be hard to grow old.

but when we near death.

and long before we do.

We should be thinking about where we will be thinking when that time comes.

If I can get through this, I will.

a new man when I was young.

By young, mean a child.

He was the great grandfather of good friends of mine.

We spent time with them a couple of times a year.

We would go to a camp that was near them.

We would stay with the grandparents, and the great-grandparents were just down the hill.

As he got up into his late 80s, he started to lose track of things mentally.

It got bad enough that the grandparents finally moved the great grandparents up the hill

and into their house.

and every single morning.

He woke up.

got dressed for church.

walked out to the living room and asked, is it time to go to services yet?

when his mind had failed him.

The only thing he had on his mind was going to worship God.

Now I know the mind plays a lot of interesting tricks on especially with age, especially

with things like dementia.

And sometimes people turn into people they never were.

and it’s hard.

It’s hard to lose the person you’ve always known and some people have.

But it’s beautiful when a person reaches that point where they no longer have control over

what they’re doing or what they’re thinking.

And the thing that’s left is a prime example of what they’ve always been and how they’ve

always lived.

We need more Christians that are ready to face death thinking about what Paul was

thinking.

because too many times.

the only thing that’s on their mind.

are the things they didn’t do.

the things they didn’t say.

the acts and the service they didn’t participate in.

And so it is with that reminder that I will remind you, you are preparing today what you

will be thinking about when your life is almost over.

So how prepared?

How are you preparing to have the things that you will consider when this life comes to an

end?

You’re here and you’re outside the body of Christ.

One of the things Paul had great confidence in was his eternal destiny, his soul and its

state.

He didn’t have it because of some

small feeling.

He didn’t have it because of an emotional experience.

He didn’t have it because he had a small voice in his head that whispered to him at night.

He had it because he had fought the good fight.

He had kept the faith.

He had finished the course.

And he knew that the promise of God was to those who would be found faithful.

So we look at our life and we have to ask, will I be found faithful?

If you’re outside the body of Christ, you haven’t even begun to be faithful.

You haven’t begun to obey the command of the Lord.

But if you are in this audience this morning and you have been faithful in the past and

you have turned back.

When you reach death, will not be confidence that awaits you.

it’ll be regret.

Have you noticed in all that Paul wrote, as he neared death, he didn’t write anything

about regret?

Well, there were certainly times where Paul expressed his regret on persecuting the

church, doing things that he had not desired to do.

And certainly there were things that Paul mentioned in many of his letters where he

recognized that he sinned and that he failed and that he had faults.

But that wasn’t on his mind when life was over.

Paul had work to do.

Paul had assurance to prevail that preaching and teaching would continue because he had

planned for it.

Paul had people that he cared about.

and a Lord who preserved him.

You have need of that confidence.

It is found not in this world, but in the Word of God.

If you have need of the invitation to come forward to renew a right relationship with God,

because here’s what we all know.

There’s coming a day when this life will be over.

you have need of the invitation, why not come now as we stay.

Footprints Of Jesus – Jacob Kennedy – May 17, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Christian walk, Faithfulness, Following Christ, keywords Footprints of Jesus, sacrifice, Salvation, service, Spiritual journey by Aaron Cozort

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footprints of Jesus.

Sweetly Lord, have we heard Thee calling, come follow me.

And we see where Thy footprints following lead us to Thee.

Appreciate Aaron leading that song for us today as we begin this lesson and looking at the

footprints of Jesus.

Now, as a younger brother, I have to say what I saw my brother do is most often what I

did.

You follow as siblings, you follow in the footsteps of your older brothers or your older

sister.

And when we think about Christ, He is our older brother, if you will.

He is our brother just as much as He is our King.

And so we follow His example, but it’s hard to follow an example that we don’t know.

It’s hard to follow in Christ’s footsteps if we don’t know what His footsteps are.

If we don’t know how He walked.

If we don’t know where those footsteps lead.

And so as we go through this lesson, I want us to keep in mind this image of looking on

the sands, as you see behind me on the PowerPoint, the idea of looking at these footprints

on the sand.

And what does that cause us to do?

Well, first thing is that when we see footprints on the sand, if we know who made those

footprints, it calls us to follow after them.

It calls us to follow in those footsteps.

Now, when we think about Christ, we think about the footprints that He left for us, we

think about the fact that He is calling.

We see His calling.

But the question that comes is, well, who is He calling?

Who is it that Christ is calling?

In Luke 15 verses 4 through 7, we have the example, or the parable rather, of the lost

sheep.

And this section of scripture where Christ is trying to get the Pharisees and the Jews to

understand how they are to view the lost.

To understand how they are to view those who come back to God after having been gone away

for a long time.

He tells the story of a shepherd who loses one sheep.

Now he had a hundred sheep, but he lost just one.

Well, what does the shepherd do?

He goes and he looks for that sheep.

He does not say, well, I have ninety nine, so that’s fine.

What’s one sheep?

Right?

No, he goes and he searches for that sheep.

He calls for that sheep.

And when he finds that sheep, what does he do?

He rejoices.

And he calls all of his friends and neighbors together to say, come and rejoice for I have

found that which I lost.

I found that sheep that went astray.

When Christ, when we look at who He’s calling, Christ is calling the lost to come to Him.

He’s calling those sheep that have gone astray to come back to the fold.

But He’s not just calling the lost.

He’s also calling the weak.

Look with me at John chapter 9.

John 9, starting in verse 1.

Here we have a situation in which Jesus finds a man who is in need of help.

Being blind, he is weak in the sense of not being able to sustain himself back in culture

such as that in the first century.

John 9 starting in verse 1, and Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from birth.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin?

this man or his parents that he was born blind.

Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God

should be made manifest in him.

I must work the works of him that sent me while at his day the night cometh when no man

can work.

As long as I am in the world, I am, notice this, the light of the world.

And this light of the world shines a light for the man who has never seen light before.

Verse 6, when he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and

he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go wash in the

pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation, sent.

He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

As the light of the world, Jesus is calling those who are weak to come to him for sight,

to come to him to have strength.

to come to Him to have what is truly their problems corrected.

This man, they had a serious problem of being born blind, of not being able to see, but

there is a problem that is far worse.

The problem that we talked about first off with being lost.

Jesus calls those who are weak, He calls those who are lost, but He also calls the rich.

For this, at, look with me at Luke chapter 18.

Luke 18.

Here Jesus has a conversation with a man we call the rich young ruler.

Now this man he was a devout Jew.

He had lived his life following the commandments of Moses keeping to the old law.

And when Jesus sees him Mark Mark’s account notices that he loved him.

He loved him for his attention to law of Moses but he noticed something about this man’s

heart.

He noticed a problem that this man needed to correct.

something that was going to keep him out of eternal bliss, something that was going to

keep him out from having eternal life as he asks in verse 18 of Luke 18, good master, what

shall I do to inherit eternal life?

This is the man’s question.

He’s coming to Jesus knowing that he is a good teacher, knowing that he is different from

others.

And he says, what shall I do?

What must I do?

Jesus starts off by noticing the commandments of the old law.

Of course, the man says that he’s done these things and notice verse 22.

Jesus heard these things, he said unto them, unto him, yet lackest thou one thing, sell

that thou hast and distribute unto the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and

come and follow me.

Jesus calls this man who is rich, this man who by the world standards had everything.

Even by a Jew’s standards, he would have seemed to have everything because not only did he

have riches, but he also was diligent in keeping the law.

But Christ saw the one thing that he truly needed.

The one thing that was keeping him from having that eternal life.

The one thing that was lacking in his life was that he needed to remove covetousness.

and that greed that had taken hold of his heart.

When we look at the man’s response, it’s less than favorable, unfortunately.

Verse 23 it tells us that he went away sorrowful for he had much riches.

The calling that Jesus offers is not one that is irrefutable.

It is not one rather that is unable to be denied.

Sadly, as we see with this rich man, he denied the Lord’s call.

He denied it when he denied Christ when he told him the one thing he needed to do.

But so we notice that he’s calling the lost.

He is calling the weak.

He is calling the rich, but he’s also calling the strong.

Look with me at Philippians chapter three.

Philippians chapter three, starting in verse four.

The apostle Paul notes, though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man

thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, more.

Paul is saying I have all that I need to trust in myself.

If anyone wants to have a self exaltation, it’s him.

He had the right to do so by the world’s standards.

But notice what he says as his pedigree.

Circumcise the eighth day of the stock of Israel.

of the tribe of Benjamin, notice this, and Hebrew of Hebrews as touching the law of

Pharisee concerning zeal persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in

the law blameless.

But that what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ.

Notice this by the Jews standards.

Paul was strong.

by what we would consider to be strong and conviction and zeal.

Paul was strong.

But yet Christ called him to be weak, to humble himself, to realize that he was in the

wrong and to correct his life.

And Paul does this so much so that he, as verse seven says, he counted all for loss.

He said none of this matters.

He accepted the call of Christ to follow him.

As verse eight says, Ye doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of

the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.

And do count them but dung that I might win Christ and be found in him, not having mine

own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the

righteousness which is of God by faith.

Paul gave up all when he heard the master’s call.

when the Lord says, You’re persecuting my church.

Paul repents.

He changes his life.

He starts following Christ.

But when we think of, so when we understand this idea of who is God calling.

He’s calling the lost.

He’s calling the weak.

He’s calling the rich.

He’s calling the strong.

But there’s one more person he’s calling.

You.

Christ is calling every single one here.

Every single person on this earth, Christ is calling.

In 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 14, we read the following.

Whereunto He called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus

Christ.

What we hold in our hands, this word of God.

is not just for those who have already named the name of Christ.

It is not just a set of guidelines for how we should live.

It is not just a analytical study of how God loves man or how sin entered the world.

This is a call from our Savior to come and follow.

This word is a call from our Father in heaven to serve him.

This word is a call to each and every one of you.

But what are we being called?

What is it that this call is saying?

What is it calling us to do?

Well, if we back up to verse 13, Paul writes, but we are bound to give thanks always to

God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you

to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.

Whereunto?

This idea of sanctification of the spirit, belief in the truth, the idea of salvation.

whereunto He called you by our gospel.

We are called to salvation.

The message that Christ has left in the gospel, the message that is left for us in the

word of God is come to be saved because you’re in need of it.

And truly every single person here today is in need of salvation.

We can’t do it on our own.

Praise be to God that he does offer that call whereby we can be saved.

But he doesn’t just call us to salvation, he also calls us to faithfulness.

In Revelation 2 and verse 10, John by inspiration writes, Don’t worry about these things.

Fear none of these things which thou shalt suffer.

Behold, the devil should cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall

have tribulation ten days.

But notice how the verse ends, but be thou faithful.

unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

the gospel calls us to be faithful.

Even in those moments when sin surrounds.

Even in those moments when it seems like we can’t win.

When it seems like the only logical response is just to give up.

even in those moments when we feel discouraged and alone.

God calls us to be faithful.

And what does he say is the reward?

A crown of life.

But not just any life.

Eternal life with the Father.

Eternal life with our God.

We’ll know more about this as we continue, but when we think about the calling of Christ,

it is a call to faithfulness.

It is a call to salvation, but it is also a call to share the Gospel.

How was it that the Thessalonian brethren had heard about the call of Christ?

How is it that any of us understand the call of Christ?

It’s not because we have some miraculous uh conversation with God.

He doesn’t part the clouds and say, you need to be saved.

But what he does is he calls us through the gospel, a gospel which we as Christians are

called to preach and to share.

Mark 16 verses 15 and 16 tell us this very plainly, that we are to go and to preach.

We are to go and teach the gospel which Christ has left for us to proclaim.

Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be

condemned, shall be damned.

In March 16, we are not only told the command to go and share the gospel, we are not only

called to go share the gospel, we are also told why it is so important.

because if they don’t believe, if they aren’t baptized, if the gospel isn’t shared to the

lost world, then the lost world dies.

and not just for a moment.

We have a weighty task on our shoulders, brothers and sisters.

We have been called to share the gospel.

But as we see with this calling and as we know in the song, the question is, will we

answer the

Or will we simply ignore it?

Whenever your phone rings that someone is calling you, you have a couple options.

You can let it ring and do nothing.

You can answer it.

or you can hang up.

Imagine that God is calling you right now.

Your phone’s ringing.

Will you set it down and say?

I’ll get to that later.

Will you, will you, on an iPhone, hit the power button and silence it so you don’t think

about it?

You ignore the call?

You deny the call?

Or will you answer?

Here’s the call.

What will you do?

Another aspect of the footsteps of Jesus is not only seeing the call that they set forth,

not only seeing the calling of His steps, but also how He walked.

We see His walking.

How did Christ walk?

He walked in sacrifice number one.

When we think about Christ and we think about songs that discuss what Christ did for us,

one of my favorites is a song is, if that isn’t love.

He left the splendor of heaven knowing his destiny was the lonely hill of Golgotha.

There he laid down his life for me.

If that isn’t love, the ocean is dry.

There’s no stars in the sky and the sparrow can’t fly.

If that isn’t love, then heaven’s a myth.

There’s no feeling like this if that isn’t love.

When Christ came to this earth, gave up so much.

He lived in poverty.

Think about that.

The one who had an eternity with God, the one who is in the place of majesty, heaven, the

place that we are all trying to get to is the place that Christ left to as a newborn baby

be set in a manger.

Luke 2 and verse 7 tells

not because it was some special manger, no, it was a common feeding trough.

The King of Kings.

became a carpenter’s

The Son of God became known as Mark 6 and verse 3 tells us as Joseph’s son, the carpenter.

In Mark 6 verse 3 specifically it talks about this idea of how they were rejected and were

offended at Christ claiming to be the Messiah because they said, we know who your dad is.

We know Joseph.

We know your mother.

We know your brethren.

What are you talking about being Messiah, being the Christ?

He was also looked down on for being a Nazarene.

Being from the city of Nazareth.

When Philip goes to Nathaniel, he says, we found the Messiah.

We found the one we’ve been looking for.

Nathaniel says, wait a minute, hold on.

You mean he’s from Nazareth?

Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?

The same Jesus who lived in eternal glory traded it for a place that even the Jews hated.

A place that was not seen as a great city where great men came from.

but a city of less than desirable means.

but he also lived in poverty in the fact that he had no home.

Matthew 8 and verse 20 tells us that this man comes to Jesus and he says, Master I’ll

follow you anywhere you go I will follow you I’ll be your disciple and he says birds have

nests, foxes have dens, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.

and searching for a place to live after I moved out of school, that thought of, I’m about

to have no place to lay my head has come into my mind a few times.

But I’ve also heard from several members of the church of, we got a room for you.

Don’t worry.

If you need a place to stay, we’ll take care of you for a while.

And I appreciate that greatly, but when we think about Christ, He didn’t necessarily have

that.

there were some places where He had refugees, some places where an individual would say,

hey, Jesus, you’re staying with me tonight.

We got plenty of room in the house, you’re coming over to stay.

There were times of this, yes, but He had no home.

He had no brick and mortar to call his own.

He left a city built of eternal beauty.

a city that is indescribable in heaven to come to a place where he would have no place to

call home.

That’s what he gave up.

That’s how he walked in sacrifice.

But he also walked in service.

We think about his service to his servants, which inherently sounds completely insane.

Well, why would you serve your servants?

Isn’t that backwards?

Aren’t you as the master supposed to be served by the servants?

But in John 13, when the disciples keep in mind are arguing over who will be the greatest

in the kingdom.

Well now Peter, I know you think you’ll be the greatest, but I just think it’s going to be

me.

You have a disagreement going on between the disciples of who is going to be greatest and

while they’re all bickering.

Jesus gets up from the table.

He guards a towel around him, and he starts to wash their feet.

A job for a lowly servant was being performed by the King of Kings.

The one who had, as Matthew 28 tells us, all authority had been given to him in heaven and

in earth.

And he was sitting there, washing the feet of his disciples, who were just arguing about

who would be the greatest.

Jesus shows us an example of service.

It doesn’t matter who we’re serving.

What matters is that we are to have the mindset as Christians that we will serve.

because we will glorify our Father.

We will love our fellow man.

He walked in service of his servants, but he also walked in service of his father, of the

father of the Lord Jehovah.

Philippians 2 verses 5 through 8.

Philippians 2, 5 through 8.

Paul in showing the greatest example of what it means to be humble, of what it means to

have a heart that submits to God, that does not seek for self-gratification, he offers

Christ as the example.

And notice what he says in verse 5,

but made himself of notice this no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and

was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he exalted himself and

he disagreed with God and he did what he wanted.

Is that what that says?

No, I should see more hands shaking their head.

That’s not what it says.

He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

I don’t know about you, but if I were in Jesus’s shoes, I wouldn’t want to go on the

cross.

Jesus did not want to endure the agony.

He did not want to suffer the loss that He was going to have to face.

In Matthew 26, we find Him in the garden begging God.

Sorry.

Begging God, if there be any way, let this cup pass from me.

He is on the ground, the very ground that He spoke into existence, and He is begging the

Lord.

But notice how he concludes that prayer.

Nevertheless, not as I will.

Lord, it’s not about what I want, but I will do what it is that is your will.

He walked in service to the Father and John 8.29 tells us that he did, he does always

those things that please the Father.

As Jesus lived on this earth, he did exactly what God wanted him to do.

And he shows us an example of how to walk in service to our Father.

but he also shows us an example of how to walk in diligence because he did just that.

He focused on what his work was.

His focus was not on pleasure.

His focus was not on entertaining himself, on gathering up riches.

His focus was on doing the Lord’s work.

John four in verse thirty four tells us as he has had this conversation with this

Samaritan woman at the well as he has told her things that he should not have known as a

normal man and as she realizes that he is the Messiah and that was prophesied to come his

disciples returned from the city and they say Lord well here’s some bread here’s some food

and he says I’ve already eaten.

I’ve been satisfied.

And in verse 34, he tells his disciples that his bread, his essence, his life is not tied

to the things of this world, but to glorifying his Father.

Have you ever been so happy to do something or so invested in something that you forget to

eat?

Growing up, my dad, whenever he had a project to do in the yard or whenever there was

something going on, some kind of project that he had my brother and I out there helping

him, we would get to the point where it’s about noon and we’re getting hungry.

We want something to eat.

And we start saying, hey, dad, why don’t we take a break from this and go get some food?

Why don’t we go stop for lunch?

And he said,

Work ain’t done yet.

The job ain’t finished yet.

Why would we stop?

In essence, that’s what Jesus is saying.

The work’s not finished.

There’s more important things than to stop and eat a sandwich.

What nourished Christ was not physical food.

That kept up his body, yes.

But what truly nourished him was doing the Lord’s work.

That was his focus.

And we see a aspect of that in John 9, 4, as we’ve already read, and that he must work the

works of him that sent him while at his day.

the night cometh when no man can work, he understood the immediacy with which he needed to

work.

He understood that there was coming a day when he would not be able to any further.

And so he served.

He walked in diligence.

and he walked in diligence and undesired work.

There are things that we have to do that we don’t want to do.

I can tell you right now there’s some assignments at school that I don’t want to do.

I still got to get them done.

There are some papers that I wish that deadline would get pushed out a little bit further.

But the work comes due.

And when we think about Christ, when we think about how he would have wished for the cross

to be a little bit further off, he would have wished that there was another way for him to

be the sacrifice for sins of man.

but we also read Romans 5, 8, and 9.

Look with me there, Romans 5, 8, and 9.

Don’t miss this how that Christ did not want to suffer.

No one truly does.

He did not want to face that agony that he would on the cross.

But notice what happens.

Notice what Romans 5 tells us.

But God commendeth his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for

us much more than being now justified by his blood.

We shall be saved from wrath through him.

Christ understood the job.

He understood the work that was to be done and ultimately his love for the Lord for the

father his love for each.

Each one of us that needed His blood overcame His fear of the cross, overcame His desire

to not be put in that agonizing pain.

He walked in diligence.

But finally today we notice where this walking leads.

Where do these footsteps lead?

Every trail, every time that tracks are followed, there is a destination that is reached.

Whenever we’re walking, even if we’re not intending to, we walk somewhere.

We reach a destination.

Well where is it that Christ leads?

When we follow His footsteps, having heard His call, having seen the way He walked, when

we follow in His steps, where do we end up?

John 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Notice this, no one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus didn’t say you can pick the way you want.

Just follow whatever way feels good to you.

Just obey when you want to.

Follow me as it’s convenient.

No, he says there is only one way to the Father.

There is only one way that leads to God and that’s through Christ.

Walking in His steps.

Jesus tells us that, or rather Paul tells us that Jesus will deliver up the kingdom to the

Father.

Those of us that are Christians, those of us that are part of the kingdom of Christ, we’re

going to see the Father one day.

We are going to be reunited with the Lord.

We will be able to dwell with God for all of eternity.

And what a day that truly will be.

And so he leads us to the Father, but he also leads us to rest.

Matthew 11 and verse 29.

Jesus calls us to take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart

and ye shall find rest unto your soul.

He calls us, He asks us to walk in His footsteps because His footsteps lead to rest.

yes, it’s hard on this earth.

There are times when we have to deny ourselves.

There are times when situations are less than optimal,

but his leading, when we follow his steps, they lead to rest.

Hebrews 4 and verses 8 through 11 give us a contrary comparison of how the children of

Israel were denied rest, denied the promised land because they allowed sin to separate

them from God.

And there is a warning contained within Hebrews of do not follow in their footsteps

because their footsteps lead away from God.

They lead away from Christ.

They lead away from rest.

But if we are diligent to God and serving Him, then we will have rest.

But his steps also lead to a reunion.

Following in Christ’s steps leads to a reunion.

First Thessalonians 4 and verse 16 gives us a comfort knowing that those who are asleep in

Christ, those who are dead in Christ, will be raised at the last day.

They will be reunited with those of us who are still alive.

Paul in writing this to a people that were concerned about never seeing their loved ones

again never seeing faithful Christians again who were concerned about what would happen in

the resurrection.

He writes, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the

clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

There is comfort to be had in the reunion with those who are faithful.

1 Corinthians 15, 51 through 58 also give us a similar depiction of what will happen in

that last day, of what will happen when the trumpet sounds.

And there is this idea, this beautiful concept of reunion with those faithful who have

gone on before.

There are many people that we talk about who do we want to see in heaven.

oh I would like to go meet Paul.

I would like to go ask him some of these questions.

What did he mean in some of these passages he wrote?

I would like to go see Peter and talk to him about his dedication to God even through

denial.

Even in turning away from that sin that he committed.

Is there a faithful Christian, maybe a family member, that you can’t wait to see?

when my papal passed, having lived a life that was dedicated to God.

faithful Christian.

My mamma looked at those of us that were there and she said we got to work even harder to

get to heaven.

because not only are we going there to see our Father, not only are we going there to see

our Savior, not only are we going there to see others who have gone on.

But we in the Kennedy household, we’re going there to see our papo.

What a reunion that will be.

footprints of Jesus.

that make the pathway glow.

We will follow the steps of Jesus where’er they go, but will we?

Are you?

Christ is calling.

He showed us the way.

He showed us how to live.

He’s told us how to be saved, but the choice is ours.

And as many of us here today are Christians.

Having named the name of Christ, having been baptized into His death, being raised to walk

a newness of life, maybe it’s the case that you haven’t been walking.

Maybe it’s the case that you saw these footsteps and you started off walking that same

way.

Oh, but there’s a seashell.

Oh, but here’s something else.

Before you know it, you’re off the path.

If it is the case today that you have strayed from the path, have fallen away from Christ,

come back.

As long as there is breath, it is never too late.

Come home and we’ll pray with you and for you.

If we can help you to be right with God, to be walking in the footsteps of Christ, then

come now as we

Mark 16 (Lesson 1) – Aaron Cozort – May 20, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, biblical lessons, disciples, divine plan, faith, Humility, keywords Jesus resurrection, Mark 16, Mary Magdalene, trust in God by Aaron Cozort

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Good evening.

We are in Mark chapter 16 this evening as we come close to, and we might finish out the

Book of Mark, but I’m not uh overly optimistic that we’ll finish it out tonight.

But by the end of July, I think we ought to be able to be done.

All right, let’s begin with a word of prayer and then we will get into our study.

Gracious Father in heaven, we bow before your throne, grateful for the day that you’ve

blessed us with, grateful for the life that you have blessed us with, the opportunities

that we have to serve you, to bring honor to your name, to glorify your name.

Lord, we pray and ask that you will forgive us when we sin and fall short of your glory.

Help us to walk in the light as you are in the light.

We pray for this nation and we pray for its leaders.

We pray for them to have wisdom.

and discernment in the things which they choose to do and the things which they lead this

nation in.

We pray that they will enact your wisdom from your word, that they might seek justice and

mercy and tender kindness to those who are in need.

All these things that we pray and ask in Jesus’ name, amen.

As we closed up last week, Jesus was being buried in Joseph’s tomb.

And they brought the body in fine linen, took him down and wrapped him in the linen and

laid him in the tomb, which had been hewn out of the rock and rolled a stone against the

door of the tomb.

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses observed where he was laid.

Chapter 16 begins, now when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of

James and Salome brought spices, excuse me, bought, I’m gonna get the words uh right here,

bought spices that they might come and anoint him.

Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun

had risen.

So as the Sabbath concludes and as they are no longer under the restrictions of the law,

both from buying and selling and uh being able to work and do labor, they go first thing

in the text seems to indicate in the morning, early in the morning.

They weren’t wasting any time.

They weren’t waiting around until midday.

They were getting there as soon as they could.

And so they came on the first day of the week in the tomb to the tomb where the sun had

when the sun had risen, they said among themselves, who will roll away the stone from the

door of the tomb for us as they arrive?

And as they’re approaching, it seems they’re they’re wondering.

how are we gonna get this stone out from the tomb?

Now, different depictions, know historically I always saw the artist’s renditions where it

was somehow a cut solid flat stone that was round, that was rolled in front of the tomb

and that the tomb was always on a slight hill crest and the doorway was flattened.

I’m not.

quite so certain that that’s exactly what we have here.

It is actually a little more likely that the tomb would have been, uh we know that it was

underground, but it would have been inset into some location and then a regular round

boulder would have been put down and the force of gravity, of course, would hold the

boulder uh in place and it would have required significant force.

uh not one or two people to move that boulder out of the blocking position in front of the

tomb.

uh The closing of the tomb with this particular stone also does not seem to be necessarily

the original design of the tomb.

If you think about it.

There’s no indication that the boulder or the stone that was placed in front of the tomb

was there for any reason other than security.

It’s just a square hole that goes back into the hillside.

But there’s no stone around there that…

capable of being rolled or pushed or…

Right.

So this would have been intentionally brought in for the purposes of encapsulating,

closing, blocking the tomb from being accessed.

And as we mentioned before, there’s motives on both sides, both the disciples and Pilate

and the Jews.

There’s motives for wanting the tomb

uh secured during the Sabbath and during the feast to make sure that the disciples didn’t

come and steal the body and also desire by the disciples to make sure that the uh chief

priests and elders didn’t come and steal the body or do anything to it.

But fact of the matter is, as the women are approaching, they realize they have a problem.

Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?

But when they looked up,

they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very large.

uh When the scripture says something was very large, this wasn’t the size of large

watermelon.

This was a large stone meant to impede uh access even by those who desired to get in.

And so they come to the tomb and they find the stone is already rolled away.

And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the

right side and they were alive.

What did they expect to find?

Jesus’s body wrapped in linen, needing to be prepared for his actual long-term burial.

uh Without too much of a divergence, consider the lesson that, you know, sometimes we

worry about things that we will never actually have to deal with.

They were worried about how to move the stone.

They could have out of their worry gone, you know what?

Might as well turn around go home.

There is no way possible for us to move this stone on our own.

There’s not gonna be anybody there who’s gonna be willing to move it for us.

The Centurions certainly weren’t going to move it for them.

So they could have determined that based upon their concern about the impossibility of

moving the stone to just turn around and go home.

Just forget it.

Sometimes we worry and we are overly concerned and sometimes we even change our choices

and our direction on matters that have never happened to us, that are not yet actually

realized and there’s no real evidence that they will be a problem.

Now you say, well, Aaron, the evidence was the stone was put there to begin with and there

was no indication that they should believe the stone had moved.

Well,

Actually, there was indication that this stone should have been moved and would have been

moved if they had understood what Jesus had taught.

And it is the reminder that we should be humble enough to realize we don’t have to

understand how God does everything.

We just have to trust that He will do what He has said He will do.

And in Jesus’s case, Jesus made it clear that He was going to go down into the grave

for three days and is going to come forth.

somewhat of a parallel example of this.

You know, there was a time when there were some sailors and they were very worried about

what was going to happen to them if they took a particular prophet and threw him

overboard.

Weren’t they?

They were concerned.

They almost didn’t do it because they were concerned about their own safety and the

situation they would find themselves in if they had thrown over one who had paid for

passage.

yet Jonah convinces them, just do it, just throw me overboard.

Now Jonah, I am firmly convinced, does not know how God is going to deal with the

situation, but he does know that they’re in peril because of his choice, and that the only

correct decision was for him to align his choices with God’s.

And in both of these scenarios, you find that the correct answer is, do what the will of

the Lord would have you to do and let God deal with the rest.

These women were coming out of a sense of honor and repayment for all that Jesus had done

for them, had taught them in honor of who He was and what He had been while they were with

Him on the earth, and so they were living out in their acts of service the will of God.

even though to a degree they were entirely ignorant of, or at least somewhat ignorant of,

how God was going to accomplish His will.

We’re challenged as we go through life to realize that we do not know what’s coming in the

future.

We don’t know what will happen an hour from now.

We don’t know what will happen a day from now.

We don’t know what will happen a month from now or a year from now, let alone 30 years

from now or 50 years from now.

And yet we are challenged continually by scripture to trust God and do His will.

not because we know how it will turn out, but because He told us to do it.

Jonah could have confidence to tell the men of the ship to throw him overboard knowing

that if for no other reason they would be better off with him overboard than with him in

the boat.

These women…

could have looked at this concern, could have worried over the potential of the

impossibility of completing the task they set out for themselves and they could have

turned back.

And the consequences of that is they would have missed the opportunity to see Jesus, which

Mary Magdalene did.

and also to witness the presence of God’s angels and the actions and the miracles that had

occurred.

Now let’s flip that on the other side.

Where are the disciples?

Where are the apostles?

Should they as the students of Jesus not been the first ones at the tomb Sunday morning?

Should they not have been the first ones looking to honor and bestow honor upon the one

who had been their teacher?

There’s a reason why Jesus will say to them, oh, you of little faith.

because here are these women who are acting more in alignment with the will and the

responsibility and the position and the glory of His teaching than the apostles are.

So they enter the tomb, saw a young man clothed in a white robe sitting on the right side,

and they were alarmed.

But he said to them, Do not be alarmed, you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.

He is risen.

He is not here.

See the place where they laid him.

But go, tell his disciples, and Peter,

that he is going before you into Galilee.

There you will see him as he said to you.”

as the individual who is there in the tomb speaks to them.

He shows them the place where the body was laid.

He shows them the empty tomb.

He makes it clear He is risen.

This individual reveals to them, you didn’t get here too late, somebody didn’t already

take the body.

You got here too late because he’s a lie.

as he instructs them to go tell the disciples, find it interesting that Mark includes the

and Peter.

uh They’re likely, I think it’s a good possibility based upon both scriptural evidence and

historical evidence, that Mark is related by marriage or blood to Peter.

And so, Peter is specifically mentioned here

We remember from the other text that Peter is going to be one of the two disciples that

runs back to the tomb after the women have come and told them that Jesus is risen.

He’s going to run.

He and John are going to run back to the tomb and stop at the tomb and look into the tomb.

Actually, John’s gonna stop, look into the tomb.

Peter’s gonna run right in.

ah

But the instruction by this individual to the women is to go tell his disciples and Peter.

Why do you think it was Ann Peter?

uh I think there’s some, whether the not being around anyone else or not, think Peter was

taking it hard that he…

He most likely would have been very retrospectively examining all the times and all the

situations and all the things and all the conversations and all the things.

said, no, absolutely, I’m going to go to death with you.

And then he denied it.

So likely because of Peter’s struggle is the reason and not because there is some.

significance of Peter needing to know or that Peter wouldn’t have been with the disciples,

the indication is Peter was with the disciples, but rather let Peter know.

Amazing that none of them understood the resurrection.

None of them expected it.

Yet back in chapter 10, he told them a third time.

none of them apparently expected it.

So uh in view of that uh fact that none of them expected it, it is somewhat of a reminder

to us as we teach others.

If we teach somebody something and they don’t get it and then we teach them again later

and they don’t get it and we teach them later and they don’t get it, that’s a human trait.

And Jesus faced the same thing with the apostles and we need to be careful to not be too

hard on the people we know because the apostles have the same problem.

And you know, it’s interesting that you have Mary Magdalene who got

the fact that he was going to die and not the fact that he was going to be buried because

Jesus said she’s come to anoint me before.

But didn’t get the resurrection.

ah again, we have the benefit of uh hindsight and looking back at these things.

But what does he tell the women to tell the disciples?

that he is going before them to Galilee.

I don’t know that anyone else is like me but sometimes I remember thinking and growing up

thinking that after Jesus was resurrected he spent all of his time around Jerusalem before

ascending into heaven.

It’s not the case.

ah He doesn’t dwell in Jerusalem or remain in the Jerusalem area after he is resurrected.

He goes back to Galilee and the disciples go to Galilee and there will be journeys between

Galilee and Judea during the time of this period and the 40 days that he is on the earth

after his resurrection.

So notice verse 8 says,

So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed, and

they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene,

out of whom he had cast seven demons.

Now Mark includes a detail about Mary’s history.

and some context in this that, you know, helps reveal a little bit of the central role

that Mary has played in these events.

Mary was not just someone who had heard the teaching of Jesus.

She was not just someone who had believed the teaching of Jesus.

She is someone who previously had

had seven demons dwelling in her and had had them cast out by Jesus.

So you grasp in this the difference and why she was so close to Jesus.

She was so focused on hearing what Jesus had to say and on being there and showing him the

honor that he was due and all of the things that you find

revolving around Mary as the actions that she participated in is because she had perhaps,

shall we say, more indebtedness to Jesus than many who were just simply taught by him.

I think it’s also interesting to point out that while Mary is mentioned and is described

in different scenarios throughout the different gospels,

The introduction to Mary isn’t with her healing, isn’t with the casting out of the demons.

It’s rather just, she just pops on the scene.

And uh Mark only mentions this in passing at this point.

So he rose early on the first day of the week.

He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons.

She went and told those who had been with him as they mourned and wept.

And when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.

Mary and these other women are the ones who first and foremost focused on honoring Jesus.

Then they’re the first to witness the angel at the tomb.

Then they’re the first to be confronted and actually speak to Jesus, though the other

women were already gone when Mary sees Jesus there in the garden.

And they’re going to go and going to tell the disciples what it is that they saw, what it

is that they had heard, what they have been told.

And in spite of the fact that all of those things were true about these women, they’re not

going be believed.

It is.

In this text that we should be reminded that we’re maybe a little too harsh on Thomas.

As Thomas wasn’t the only doubting disciple.

All of them were.

Because all of them denied the very first time they were told that he was risen.

They denied the testimony of the women.

Thomas denied the testimony of the other ten and the women.

The fact of the matter is all of them doubted that which they were being told.

Verse 12

After that, he appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the

country.

And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either.

It’s not just the women they didn’t believe.

The two that Jesus met on the road to Emmaus and as he was speaking to them, they did not

understand who he was.

They did not understand who was in their presence.

And so as they’re going, they’re talking, they’re telling Jesus about all the events that

have occurred and the one who has been crucified.

And then he turns around and tells them concerning all the things that the prophets had

said concerning the one who was crucified.

And all the way down the road until they arrive at Emmaus, they don’t know who he is.

At what point in time do the two disciples realize who he is?

They beg him to come in and to eat bread with them.

They sit down and he takes the bread and blesses it.

And it is that moment at which God allows them.

And I think that is the correct way to understand it.

It is that moment which God allows them to know who is in their presence.

Now Mark uses a terminology to say that he appeared to them in another form.

ah How much that is accommodative to he looked different or they didn’t recognize him.

I don’t know.

ah We know in the text, I believe it’s in Luke as he records it, that the text says that

their eyes were open.

It say that he changed forms.

It says their eyes were opened to understand who he was.

ah But as they come back, you remember Luke?

describes the events, describes the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, describes the

events as they discussed the things with Jesus, describes the blessing of the bread, and

that the moment that they realized who he was, he disappeared from their sight, and then

they traveled back to Jerusalem.

And they come back that very night, and the text seems to indicate here that they went

straight to the disciples.

to tell them Jesus is risen, Jesus is alive.

We talked with him on the road to Emmaus, he’s alive.

They still didn’t believe.

later, verse 14, he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table and rebuked their

unbelief and hardness of

Why do you think they didn’t believe when they were told?

every day that you see.

All right, so being raised from the dead, not exactly a common thing though, they had

witnessed Lazarus raised from the dead just a few weeks before that.

their vision, their mental clarity to see.

But would it have been grief if Jesus then rebuked them for unruly and heartless heart?

oh I believe a lot of it has to do with that idea, Rebecca.

These apostles all the way up until Acts chapter 1, Jesus is about to ascend back to the

Father and they’re going to ask him, are you now going to restore the kingdom to Israel?

You remember just a few days ago they were asking who’s going to be the great, they were

arguing who’s going to be the greatest in the kingdom.

They had one pair of them whose mother was coming and saying, when you come into your

kingdom, can you give the right hand and the left hand seat to my kids?

They’re not thinking about a spiritual kingdom.

They are not comprehending what Jesus came here to build.

They’re stuck in a mindset of what their teachers and their traditions and the Jewish

doctrines had framed up as what God was going to do.

And it is no surprise that the prophets will reiterate over and over and over again that

God would do something in the future on a day and the people would marvel at the thing

that was done.

because they didn’t expect it.

They didn’t comprehend it.

They didn’t even know what they were looking for.

So go over if you will.

help a little bit because when he appears to them…

They don’t still understand that that’s who’s standing before them.

And both Luke and John record that they did not understand that it was Jesus.

And then after he gets food from them, verse 45 of Luke 24 says, and then he opened their

understanding that they might understand scripture.

And it’s after that point when he opens their eyes to that, that they understand now that

this is Jesus, that this is who he said he was, that this is

because he says thus it was written and then he’s going to basically repeat what he has

said that Christ would raise himself or that he would be raised on the third day.

So maybe that’s part of it is that it fits with what Rebecca was saying.

They still don’t understand to the point that he has to open their eyes to actually see

what is right in front of them.

That they are so, you know when you’re not looking for somebody or expecting somebody, you

couldn’t pick them out of a crowd, but you put them in the right situation, in the right

setting, and now you recognize them.

They wouldn’t have recognized them if they weren’t looking for that because they were

convinced.

it didn’t happen.

He wasn’t there.

Does that make sense?

Here’s where I want us to maybe bring some of this home by way of application.

Turn to Hebrews chapter 10 verse 32.

The Hebrew writer has been talking and writing to these Christians about having boldness

to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, verse 19, by a new and living way which he

consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh and having a high priest over the

house of God let us draw near with a true heart.

in full assurance of faith.

Now, set that phrase and that terminology in contrast in your mind to, oh you of little

faith and being rebuked for your unbelief.

This is their disposition in that moment of time and here’s the Hebrew writer saying,

here’s what you can know, here’s what you can have assurance of, here’s how you can

operate in your life, in your salvation.

incomplete and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil

conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our

hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful.” Now you go down to verse 32 and he

says, but recall the former days in which after you were illuminated, you endured a great

struggle with sufferings, partly while you were made aspectable both by reproaches and

tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so

Question, was there ever a time in which the apostles were companions together with those

who were being mistreated and treated poorly by their brethren?

their brethren being the Jews.

Absolutely.

The apostles were present when Jesus was nearly stoned, when they desired to take Jesus

and throw him off the top of a mountain.

The apostles were present when the chief priests and the others wanted to arrest him.

The apostles were present when the soldiers were sent to go arrest Jesus at the temple.

The apostles were present and witnessed all these things.

They had suffered, they had gone through, and they had been faithful through all of these

things.

Now, I understand the text here is talking about these Christians, but I’m pointing out

they had operated just the same way these Christians had.

they had operated previously after they had understood the truth in a way that said, know

what, it doesn’t matter what comes, we’re going to be faithful.

But then he says,

For you had compassion on me and my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your

goods, knowing that you have a better and enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.

Therefore, do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.

You can use that to sum up what the disciples had done since Friday.

They had cast away their confidence.

until the events in the Garden of Eden.

you would not have been able to find one of those eleven who had a doubt about Jesus,

about who He was, and about what He was going to do.

What did I say?

Okay, yep, that’d be the other garden.

Not a gardener, I wouldn’t know the difference, but anyway.

think I would know the difference.

All I have to say is it was a good thing that I wasn’t the one told not to eat of the tree

in the midst of the garden because I can’t tell the difference between one fruit and

another and one tree and another.

it’s just not my talent.

Yeah, I know.

All right.

But notice he says, for you have need, verse 36, of endurance.

So that after you have done the will of God.

you may receive the promise.

The Hebrew writer is speaking to these Christians who were dealing with a crumbling

confidence.

and he admonishes them to go back to what they knew to be true and operate on the

confidence that they had previously until their assurance could be had by their faithful

obedience.

When we as individuals start to struggle with our understanding, start to struggle with

scenarios that cause us to doubt things, start to struggle because times are now hard and

we always imagined by this point it would be easier.

I cannot express to you how many times I have talked to people who were in their

50s and 60s and 70s who thought that back in their 20s and 30s that by the time they got

to this age it’s going to be so much easier.

And lo and behold, it’s not!

And the Hebrew writer is confronting these Christians and he is telling them, go do the

will of God.

and stop trying to figure out all the things that don’t belong to you to figure out.

He says, verse 37, for yet a little while, and he who is coming will come and will not

tarry.

Now the just shall live by faith.

But if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving

of the soul.

Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for.

The evidence of things not seen.

Hebrew writer goes, stop operating on your knowledge.

start operating on God’s promises.

because God doesn’t fail to deliver on His promises.

So when we go back to the text and we go back to Mark, we go back to what Eddie mentioned

about what Luke tells us, how he opened their eyes to what the prophets had already said.

we are to be reminded, you know what?

If we would spend less time trying to discern for ourselves what it is God wants us to do,

and instead just do what He told us to do.

We could leave the area of doubt and go back to the area of confidence and trust in His

promises because He’s faithful.

The entire chapter of Hebrews chapter 11 is just one iteration over another about people

who didn’t have an explanation of why God said to do what He said to do, but they still

did it.

because they trusted the promise without understanding all the details.

Verse 14.

concludes with, because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

They’re going to be among the people who will see Jesus.

But is it not interesting that in spite of their doubts, in spite of their lack of

confidence, in spite of their refusal to believe, Jesus didn’t choose them?

to be the ones that he appeared to first.

You know, so much of scripture revolves around the act in the New Testament revolves

around the actions of the apostles in one form or another.

But it is not the apostles Jesus appears to first.

He’s going to appear to Mary first.

He’s going to appear to two disciples

who are on the road.

Could Jesus not have just shown up there with the eleven?

Clearly He could have because the angel knew where to send the women to go find the

eleven.

The women knew where to find the eleven.

Jesus could have just shown up and met them there.

Why, we have to ask, why go through all of this of sending person after person after

person back to the apostles before appearing to them Himself?

My answer is always, he’s teaching them something.

It would have been easy for him to just show up.

He’s teaching them something.

it would have been easy for them to be the obvious choice of the first ones to see Jesus

are clearly his inner circle.

And yet it’s not John and it’s not James and it’s not Peter, it’s Mary.

There is.

There is a very distinct struggle to describe the humility difference in the apostles from

the end of the book of Mark and Luke and John and Matthew to Acts chapter 2, 3, 4.

the humility difference from before the cross and before the resurrection and even after

the resurrection to the institution of the church.

They are getting an accelerated learning, an accelerated course.

on God accomplishing His will.

and that they…

are not the most important thing to God accomplishing His.

Days before, they’re arguing who will be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus’s answer was what?

He who be greatest will be servant of all.

And as they were nearing that final week and in that final week and the events that

transpired, while they were all bickering about who would be the greatest, which woman was

serving Jesus?

And Jesus said as she anointed his feet,

This will be a memorial to her everywhere, forever.

and then he appears to her.

my opinion, this would be extra biblical.

I think Jesus is teaching them humility.

I think Jesus is teaching them that they must faithfully believe and obey God, and if they

don’t, God will still do His will.

God will do it without them.

Same thing that Esther was taught by Mordecai.

Mordecai tells her, whether you do this or not, God’s going to save His people.

But know this, if you’re not going to go in before the King, your family won’t be saved.

I think that is the lesson that the apostles are needing to learn.

That they are God’s tools as long as they’re willing to submit to God.

And they’re willing to believe God.

And they’re willing to operate on trust in God.

But if they’re gonna try and do it their way, they’re gonna get it wrong.

And God doesn’t need them, they need Him.

Okay, thank you for your attention.

Lessons from Fallen Soldiers – Aaron Cozort – May 24, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, biblical heroes, Christian living, Christian perseverance, faith, Jesus Christ, keywords Bible lessons, moral doctrine, resurrection, sacrifice, spiritual warfare by Aaron Cozort

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Good morning.

It’s good to see all of you here.

It’s good to see many visitors in our presence and we appreciate your presence with us.

We encourage you, if you will, to stick around for a few minutes afterwards so we can get

a chance to greet you and get to know you better.

For those who are returning visitors, we’re always grateful to see your faces and of

course our members as well.

As was already mentioned, tomorrow is Memorial Day here in this country where we remember

those who have fallen in battles going back through the years.

The first Memorial Day was as a remembrance to those who fell in the Civil War.

Some of you may not know it goes back that far, but it does.

But this morning, what I wanted to do is consider some lessons

from some fallen soldiers, not from the U.S.

military, but rather from God’s army, and consider a few lessons we learn from their fall.

We’re going to begin with John the Baptist.

In Matthew chapter 14, we read of the events of Herod beheading John the Baptist.

Now, you need to combine a little bit of the text in Matthew 14 with Mark chapter 6

because…

Mark will tell us some of the backstory behind John being beheaded.

Because Mark is going to tell us that John had come to Herod and had told Herod that it

was not lawful for Herod to have Herodias, his brother, Philip’s wife.

And as a result of the fact that Herodias and Philip had divorced and then Herodias had

married Herod,

Herod was committing adultery and that it was not lawful for Herod to remain married to

Herodias.

He needed to return his brother’s wife to his brother.

Well, this caused a great deal of consternation in Herod’s household and Herodias hated

John.

But Mark will tell us that Herod would imprison John, but he would continue to bring John

before him.

to hear what John had to say.

Herod was interested in the message of John.

He considered John to be a righteous man, a just man, and so while he had imprisoned him

because of his wife, he knew that he was imprisoned unjustly.

So John will come before Herod on a regular basis, it seems.

Would teach him, would preach to him, would proclaim to him concerning matters of justice

and judgment.

And then one day arrives where Herod is throwing uh a big to-do before all of his

counselors and others.

And in chapter 14 of the book of Matthew, we find at that time Herod the Tetrarch heard

the report about Jesus.

and said to his servants, This is John the Baptist.

He is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.

For Herod had laid hold of John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of

Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because John had said to him, It is not lawful for

you to have her.

And although he wanted to put him to death, he feared the multitude because they counted

him as a prophet.

But when Herod’s birthday was celebrated,

The daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod.

Therefore he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.

So she, having been prompted by her mother, said, Give me John the Baptist’s head here on

a platter.

And the king was sorry.

Nevertheless, because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he commanded it

to be given to her.

So he sent and had John beheaded in prison and his head was brought on a platter.

and given to the girl, she brought it to her mother.

Then his disciples came and took away the body and buried it and went and told Jesus.”

As we consider John and the end of his life, certainly many of the things that John taught

we could look at and examine, but won’t for the sake of time.

We consider that John lost his life because moral doctrine matters.

We live in a society that would be more than happy in general to take the moral doctrine

of Christ and ignore it.

They would be happy to take the moral teachings of God and consider them nothing but the

whims of the past.

And yet we learn from this fallen soldier of our king that moral doctrines matter enough

to give one’s life for them.

what God teaches about how we live.

What God teaches about what is moral, what is upright, what is righteous, what is just,

and what is not.

Is truly that which we will be judged by.

Jesus would say in John chapter 12 and verse 48, by my words, you will be judged.

We learn from this fallen soldier that moral doctrine matters.

But then, could turn over to Acts chapter 6.

In Acts chapter 6 and also in Acts chapter 7,

We find Stephen.

Stephen is one of the men who was assigned earlier on in chapter 6 to help feed the

Grecian widows.

Because there were those who were widows among the church, among the Christians, who were

being neglected in the daily administration, and they were the Grecian or the Hellenistic

widows that were of Jewish descent, but Grecian location.

And so Stephen, among six others, are full of the Holy Spirit and they’re faithful in

their service and they’re chosen from among the congregation and among the Christians to

help provide for these widows and they do so.

Coming out of that work, it seems, Stephen was one who had gained boldness to teach and to

preach.

And so he begins to teach and to preach and to debate.

uh

concerning the matters of the Messiah.

We find in chapter 6 verse 8, Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and

signs among the people.

Then there arose some from what is called the synagogue of freedmen, Cyrenians,

Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia, disputing with Stephen.

And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.

Then they secretly induced men to say, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against

Moses and God.

And they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him, seized

him and brought him to the council.

They also set up false witnesses who said, This man does not cease to speak blasphemous

words against this holy place and the law.

For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place.

and changed the customs which Moses delivered to us.

And all who sat in the council looked steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an

angel.

And Stephen will begin to preach.

But you’ll notice the witness that these Grecian descended Jews would bring forth and the

false witness that they would bear against Stephen was that he had said blasphemous words

against God.

He had spoken that God would change the things which Moses had handed down to them.

That he would speak that they would destroy the temple.

and among the council, the temple, its worship, and its traditions were the center of

their power, their authority, and their position.

So as Stephen begins to preach in chapter 7, we go down to verse 51 and Stephen will

conclude,

by saying, You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears.

You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did so do you.

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?

And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one, of whom you now have become

the betrayers and murderers.

who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.

Stephen accuses them of seeking to put him on trial because of the false witnesses that

were saying he was striving to tear down the law, and he says, you’re the ones who won’t

keep

You’re the ones who have refused the law and those who bear witness of the Messiah.

When they heard these things, verse 54, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed at him

with their teeth.

But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed up into heaven and saw the glory of God and

Jesus standing at the right hand of God and said, Look, I see the heavens open and the Son

of Man standing at the right hand of God.

Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord.

And they cast him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their

clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.

And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my

spirit.

Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this

sin.

And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

from the death of Stephen.

We learn that men’s power is based on existing beliefs.

and that when they are confronted with the gospel, when they are confronted with the

truth, and when it demands that their beliefs be changed.

There is likely to be someone whose power is reliant upon those beliefs remaining the

same.

and for Stephen that resulted in his death.

We should be careful to examine our beliefs.

We should be careful to examine our preconceived ideas.

We should be careful to examine the things that we’ve always been taught to see whether or

not they are in accordance with the Word of God.

And if they are not, we ought to submit to God instead of holding on to our false beliefs.

But then consider another fallen soldier.

In Acts chapter 12…

James, one of the apostles, one of the inner circle of Jesus, the three that are often

pulled aside by Jesus to special occasions, Peter, James, and John.

The brother of John the apostle, the one who by all indications of history and tradition

would outlive all the other apostles.

James’ brother will be the first of the apostles to die.

James is going to be killed by Herod in Acts chapter 12.

We read, Now at the time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the

church.

Then he killed James the brother of John with the sword.

And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter.

Now it was during the days of unleavened bread.

So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of

soldiers to keep him intending to bring him before the people after Passover.

James is going to be killed by Herod.

And we learn from this deliverance of James over to be slain with the sword that evil men

will do evil things for they have nothing better to do than evil.

Herod didn’t care about James.

Herod cared about Herod.

And when Herod realized that killing a Christian made the people happy, he was ready to do

it again.

We were to use our common terminology, his numbers in the polls went up.

And based upon that, you know what?

There’s some more Christians we could get rid of.

Sometimes as we serve on behalf of our Lord, as we fight the spiritual battles against

principalities and powers and mights in heavenly places, we will be faced by men who don’t

care anything for heaven or for spiritual powers.

They simply love the evil they do.

They love the power they wield, and they will take a life, and it will mean absolutely

nothing to them.

except one more opportunity to gain prominence and power.

Doctrine Matter.

The truth matters.

Our beliefs should accord with the Word of God.

And we should not fear evil men.

But then if we jump over the book of Revelation, we learn about another of God’s people

who is going to be put to death.

In Revelation chapter two, we don’t know much about this man, but we read as John writes

to the church at Pergamos, to the angel of the church in Pergamos, right?

These things says he who has a sharp two-edged sword.

I know your works.

where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is.

As Jesus and John write to this congregation, as they write to this group of Christians,

they say, we know what you’re dealing with.

We know the persecution that is enthroned in your midst.

And we even know about Antipas.

He says, I know your works where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is, and you hold fast to

my name and did not deny my faith, even in the days when Antipas was my faithful martyr,

who was killed among you where Satan dwells.

There was a place among the church in Pergamos.

There was a people in the presence of the city of Pergamos that were so evil.

that Jesus described them as the throne of Satan.

They were so bent on doing that, which is in opposition to God, that they were described

as those who had the dwelling place of Satan.

one of the Christians named Antipas.

We don’t know much about him.

What we know about him, we read right here.

when they threatened the Christians, when they tried to force the Christians to give up on

the testimony of Jesus Christ, Antipas would not

and they killed him for

and the church didn’t turn back.

The Christians who were there did not deny their faith.

They did not turn back.

They did not denounce Christ, even at threat of their own lives.

We are reminded and we should learn and understand from this lesson that Satan is the real

enemy.

There are those in this world who will do His bidding, who will welcome Him to sit as the

ruler and reign over their lives and their decisions and their attitudes and their

actions, and they will oppose everything that God does.

But Satan is the real enemy.

over in Revelation chapter 13.

as John sees in the vision.

the persecution that would be coming against the church.

John writes, then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name,

verse 6, His temple, and those who dwell in heaven.

And it was granted to him to make war with the saints and overcome them.

And authority was given him over every tribe and tongue and nation.

All who dwell on the earth will worship him whose names have not been written in the book

of life of the Lamb.

as John looks in this vision and he sees the power of Rome coming for the church, seeking

to persecute and destroy the people of God.

He looks amongst the vision, He looks amongst the people, He looks at what is going on,

and He says, they’re going to succeed in many scenarios.

They’re going to overcome the Christians, they’re going to kill them.

but they’re not going to have power over

For He describes those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book.

But if you notice the remainder of verse 8, which we didn’t read, He says, All who dwell

on the earth will worship Him whose names have not been written in the book of the life of

the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.

Here’s something we need to know as we consider lessons from the fallen soldiers of our

King.

Is that our King is a fallen soldier.

Just as Ben described before the Lord’s Supper, He was one who came and was given that we

might have life, that we might be saved.

And it was in the plan and the decision-making of God before the world was founded.

That a sacrifice would be needed, that redemption would be necessary.

And that salvation could come to mankind through it.

over in 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

Paul will write to the church.

a church that had so many struggles, so much difficulty in the city of Corinth, and He

will write to them as those who were enduring great difficulty.

Paul writes beginning in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 7, he says, but we have this

treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not us.

He’s speaking about the revelation of God, the message of the cross, the message of Jesus

Christ.

He says we have this and we deal with it in our earthly life.

We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed.

We are perplexed, but not in despair.

Persecuted, but not forsaken.

Struck down, but not destroyed.

Always caring about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be

manifested in our body.

For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake.

that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

So then death is working in us, but life in you.

And since we have the same spirit of faith according to what is written, I believed and

therefore I spoke.

We also believe and therefore speak, knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will

also raise us up with Jesus and will present us with you for all things are for your sakes

that grace

Having spread through the many may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.

Therefore, we do not lose heart.

Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more

exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Therefore,

while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are

eternal.

Paul will write to the church at Corinth and he will describe the death that they’re

dying.

He will describe the persecution they’re suffering, the threat that they’re enduring on a

continual basis just for speaking the gospel.

and he will freely admit some of us are going to die.

But in our death, the life of Christ is made clear.

And in our death we are reminded Jesus Christ is not in the grave.

That tomb had a stone that was rolled away.

That tomb is empty.

in our time.

making trips to Washington, D.C.

One of the places that Eddie and I have had the pleasure of getting a chance to go to on

one occasion was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

For those who have been there, the ceremony is something to observe, something to see.

The honor that is shown, those who are unidentifiable when they come back for more.

and those who are missing, who’ve never come back from it.

But Jesus’ tomb isn’t a tomb that we honor each week because we can’t identify who’s in

it.

Jesus’ sacrifice is something we honor each week because He didn’t stay in it.

because He was resurrected from the grave on the third day and is alive forevermore.

And from that we are admonished and reminded that when we serve Christ, when we go to war

against the powers of Satan, when we do battle against principalities and powers in this

world and in the world to come,

when we are faithful to the testimony and the gospel of Jesus Christ and if we lose our

lives as a result.

That is not the end.

That is merely one moment on a journey to be reunited with our Lord and Savior in

eternity.

Paul would further write to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you, which also you

received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word

which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our

sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the

third day according to the Scriptures.

and that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.

After that he was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part

remained to the present, but some have fallen asleep.

After that he was uh seen by James, then by all the apostles, then last of all he was seen

by me also, as one born out of due time.

For I am the least of the apostles who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I

persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain, but I

labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believe.”

There’s coming a day.

when your tombstone will have your name on

There’s coming a day when if you are a soldier of the king, there will be another fallen

soldier.

Paul says don’t worry.

Don’t be concerned.

Don’t grieve as those who have no hope.

because this world has never been our home.

we’re just passing through.

Our treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.

If you’re here this morning and you’ve not been commissioned as a soldier of the king,

you’ve not entered into his army, you think it’s sufficient to just sit on the sidelines

as the battle goes on.

not because there’s only two armies and you’re on one side or the other.

When Joshua…

was on a hillside overlooking Jericho.

and looking at the first battle of the promised land.

someone approached him.

And as Joshua looked at the one who was approaching, he asked him, are you for us or for

them?

And that one who appeared before Joshua, who was the angel of the Lord, said,

but as the commander of the Lord’s host.

I am…

We do not serve ourselves.

like Joshua in days before we serve the Lord.

And we follow at His command.

And we do it His way.

Joshua had been planning to defeat Jericho.

I don’t think that walking around the city seven times, once per each time, seven days in

a row, and then seven times on the seventh day and blowing trumpets would have been his

plan.

And I know for sure that if we had asked people how they thought their sins ought to be

forgiven and what they ought to do in order to have their sins forgiven, baptism wouldn’t

have been their suggestion.

But we didn’t get asked and it wasn’t our decision.

Just like it wasn’t Joshua’s.

So Jesus said, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.

He that believeth not shall be damned.

When the Jews who put Jesus to death asked Peter, men and brethren, what shall we do?

Peter answered, repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.

You shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

If you’re here this morning and you’re outside the body of Christ, you’re outside the army

of God.

You’re outside of the place of being a soldier of the king.

May I encourage you from the lives of these fallen soldiers to know that when these

individuals left this life, they were not concerned.

They were not worried that this life was all there is.

They were anxiously looking forward to going home.

Are you ready to go home?

If you have need of the invitation, why not come now as we stand.

The Sickness of Selfishness – Walker Cain – May 24, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Biblical Principles, Christian living, God's love, keywords selfishness, love your neighbor, sin, Spiritual Growth by Aaron Cozort

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Aaron, just led us in the song, Have Thine Own Way, Lord.

Have Thine Own Way.

I am the potter, Thou art the potter, I am the clay.

It’s a beautiful song that shows the fact that our lives, what we do, the things we say,

what we think, it should all be modeled off of God, off of what He desires.

But we have a world that has a different focus, a world that is oftentimes focused on

self.

Toby Keith said it well when he said, I want to think about me.

I want to think about I.

I want to talk about number one, oh my me my.

What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see.

I like talking about you, you, you, you, you, usually.

But occasionally, I want to talk about me.

He saw selfishness in this relationship, or at least the writer of the song did, and said,

you know what?

I see the selfishness where we’re always talking about you.

I want to talk about me every now and then.

He thought that the antidote, the thing that was needed in the relationship was a chance

for him to be selfish instead of the other person.

But what is it that God has to say?

Now in our world we see selfishness easily.

The way that our dictionaries define it, it’s someone that cares too much of self.

Someone who sees his desires or his impulses as greater than anyone else’s.

Let’s take a look at Scripture and see how God defines it.

Now at least in our King James versions the word selfishness doesn’t actually appear, but

the idea does.

And how do we best understand it?

Well, let’s understand selfishness based on its opposite.

And that opposite is what is from God.

Matthew 22 verses 37 through 39 give the greatest commandment.

Matthew 22, 37 through 39.

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy

soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

This is the greatest commandment because everything else relies on this.

Now, what we want to focus on is this word love.

And we often hear about agape.

We even hear about it being a selfless love.

Let’s take a look at it more deeply.

Usually we look at this word and we think deeply affection, but if we look at the verb

form when it’s in an action, those definitions show the idea of value, of setting store

upon something, looking at something for what it is worth.

Christ says, thou shalt agape, this word, thou shalt agape love the Lord thy God with all

thy heart.

you will look at the Lord and say, love you because of your value.

Any decision you make, you make because it’s worth it to you.

I love you because you’re worth it.

That is the love that we are to have for God, and it’s the love that He has for us.

Now, what this love is going to do is shown throughout Scripture.

Christ was willing to give His life, John 3, 16.

In addition, 1 Corinthians 13 describes how this love is going to act.

And if we had time to look through all of it at this moment, we would see that every

single one of the aspects of love, the fact that it doesn’t think any evil, the fact it

doesn’t puff itself up, the fact it doesn’t vaunt itself, all of these things are the

exact opposite of what we would consider selfishness.

We can conclude that the love God has for us and the love we are to have for God is the

exact opposite of this kind of selfishness.

Now.

We see selfishness, but now we can also see what is at its heart.

And there is no way in which we can serve God if we do not have this kind of love within

us.

He who does not love, who does not have this agape love, does not know God.

Now it’s also dangerous because this selfishness is at the very heart of the sin that

plagues our world.

Agape is when I look at someone else and say, love you because you’re worth it, because I

see your value.

Selfishness says, I am more valuable than anyone else.

What I desire, what I think, what I want to follow, that comes before God.

That becomes before anyone else that I see.

And now with that, selfishness in and of its very nature leads to sin.

Sin follows my desires.

James 1, 14, before that,

James 1, 13 and 14, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God.

For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.

But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of what?

His own lusts and enticed.

He’s not drawn away from his brother or sister’s lust.

He’s not drawn away from what someone else desires.

He’s drawn away of what he wants to do.

When what he desires,

is worth his decisions before anything else, before his God or before anyone.

That is when he is led into sin.

Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth

forth death.

This selfishness leads directly to sin in that it follows my wants, and also it follows my

own way.

If you will turn to Isaiah 55 for just a moment.

Isaiah 55.

in this book of prophecy regarding punishment and coming redemption and a chance to come

back to the Lord.

Isaiah 55 verses 6 through 9, Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him

while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he

will abundantly pardon.”

My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my

thoughts than your thoughts.” We live in a world of humanism, a world where so many want

to practice doctrines that say what man thinks comes above anything, what anyone else

does.

It happens in religion where we follow man who say, I want to do, that comes before God.

We’re going to write a creed.

And then there are those who want to totally be absent from what the Lord says so they can

follow their own ideologies, their own philosophies.

Now the Lord says, your thoughts are not my thoughts, your ways are not my ways.

Does that mean they can never be?

Is this saying, I am so great and you are down here, then there is no way you can ever

think the way God thinks.

Is that the point here?

He says, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts.

Why?

It’s because your thoughts are not my thoughts.

Your ways are not my ways.

The point is, they should have been.

Their thoughts should have been God’s thoughts.

Their ways should have been his ways.

Now there are aspects of God that we are never going to have.

We are never going to be, from what we understand, we’re not going to have the all-knowing

nature that he has, or infinite power.

But there are things about God that we can emulate.

But when we decide we don’t want to follow His word, we do not want to emulate the

characteristics of God, it is because we desire to follow our own way instead.

Let the wicked forsake His way.

This selfishness, we saw that it follows someone’s own wants, their own desires, but also

it follows someone’s own way of thinking.

It might be that it’s not about what I desire.

In fact, I might be trying to help someone else.

But I think I know a better way to do it than God.

I think if I lie on these taxes, it’s going to be better than if I help someone do this

honestly.

It’s not just my desires, it’s my ways.

And even with the best of intentions, my own ways are still selfishness in the sight of

God because it’s me exalting what I think above Him.

Selfishness is at the heart of all sin, and it is seen in every sin.

1 John 2, verses 15 and 16.

love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride

of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Lust of the flesh, when I follow what I think is desirable.

He even did it in the garden when she saw the fruit and said that it was good for food.

And then there is lust of the eyes where I see something and okay, it’s not just desirable

to me, I just think it plain looks good.

This is just something that I want because it seems desirable to my eyes.

And then there is pride of life where it exalts myself above others.

I climb the ladder of the status that I have put in my own reality and want to put others

down and when willing to put others down to get to where I want to be.

All of this sin,

starts with selfishness no matter how innocent sin might seem.

It is always over my own desires or following my way of thinking or even both or both.

Now we need to preface an idea here.

We’re looking at this idea of being self-centered.

Caring about your own self, caring about what you need is not selfishness.

Acts 2, 47, after Peter and the rest of the apostles had preached

the first gospel sermon and when people were being baptized they were told be saved, save

yourselves from this untoward generation.

Acts 2.47 is the wrong quote but in Acts 2 somewhere right there you will find that, 34

rather or 44.

We’re just going to move forward there.

Verse 40, and with many other words did he testify and exhort saying save yourselves from

this untoward generation.

See it is there.

They were told to do what?

They were told to save themselves.

Okay there is a concern for self here.

It is not wrong to be concerned about your own eternal destination.

That is something that is a command from God.

Not only that, James chapter 2 verse 8, if ye fulfill the royal law according to the

scripture.

thou shalt love thy neighbor as, as what?

As thyself.

See, if you’re going to love your neighbor properly, if you’re going to have the correct

view of how you should value your neighbor, you need to value yourself first.

The love that we are to have for others realizes that we are made in the image of God.

We, God looked at us and said, I’m going to send my son down to this earth for you.

And then,

we show the same kind of love toward others.

Now, we don’t have a perfect son to give to others, but we have all of our lives that we

can give in service of our fellow human beings, and most of all, our God.

Before we can love others, we must love, appreciate, value ourselves.

Again, selfishness, does not, self-care is not selfishness.

This even applies when we look at marriage.

Ephesians 5 28, husbands are to love their wives even as their own bodies.

A man is not prepared to be a spouse until he knows how to take care of himself, until he

desires to take care of himself.

Someone who doesn’t do that is someone that’s not in his right mind.

we’re looking at something different from self-care, of taking care of yourself.

In fact, if you were worried about just what was best for you, what was going to be the

best thing you could ever do for yourself, you’d look to God’s Word and you’d find the way

to go to eternal life.

This selfishness, it does something incredibly terrible.

If we actually went for what was right for us, what was going to benefit us, we would open

our eyes to reality.

We would look to God’s Word

as we do as New Testament Christians and realize, okay, this is what I have to do to

receive eternal life.

While selfishness says, I have a reality.

I have a way that I look at the world that’s better than God.

What He has for me, that’s not worth it.

I want to follow my own way, my own desires, my own lusts.

Selfishness is a terrible disease where it’s always about what I like, what I know, what I

want, what I see.

It’s a sickness that is throughout our world.

Now, we’re going to look at some other ideas today with this.

We’ll briefly look at the idea of what are the symptoms of selfishness?

How can we easily see where it is in our lives?

Who are the victims of selfishness?

Who is it going to hurt if it is within our lives?

And finally, the solution.

And spoiler alert, we’ve already mentioned it today.

It’s going to be the love of God.

Now, looking at the victims,

looking at the symptoms of selfishness.

Look at three major ideas, and it’s going to be the depth of where selfishness takes you.

First, selfishness is going to make it to where I follow my impulses, what I want in the

moment.

But then after that, it’s going to be willing to follow my goals, that which I desire, but

I’m willing to put off instant gratification to go towards something.

It’s just still not what God desires.

And then even further than that,

when it’s all about my own beliefs, when I have changed, as we mentioned earlier, the way

I view reality because I don’t want the way God says it.

First, looking at the idea of following our own impulses, Scripture talks about this time

and time again.

Proverbs 6, 27-35, can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

Can one go upon hot coals and his feet not be burned?

So is he that goeth into his neighbor’s wife.

Whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.

Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry, but if he be

found, he shall restore sevenfold.

He shall give all the substance of his house.” Okay, we’re looking at the symptoms of

selfishness, and part of this is the pain that it’s going to bring.

When a man is willing to follow after his own lusts, in this scenario it’s after a woman,

one who already belongs to another man.

it’s going to be like him walking on coals.

He is only bringing pain on himself.

When he sees what he wants in that moment and he goes after it, it is only going to harm

him.

The Proverbs also talks about this idea in chapter 23, 29 through 35.

Not only in the man who chases the impulse of that desire, who hath woe, who hath sorrow,

who hath contentions, who hath babblings, who hath wounds without cause,

who has redness of eyes, they that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed

wine.” It’s going to go to show, don’t look at this, don’t try to follow it, don’t follow

your own desires.

Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth

itself right.

At the last it biteth like a serpent, it stingeth like an adder.

When someone looks at that wine and says, it is so desirable, the lust of the eyes is

right there.

Look not upon the wine when it is red.

When they think about the desire, the physical gratification it can bring them and follow

after that, this symptom of selfishness, the following impulse is only going to bring

harm.

It’s only going to bring physical pain.

There’s the impulse of my desires.

There’s also the impulse of, there’s that impulse of alcohol I’ve seen previously now.

And there’s also the impulse of the things that I say.

James chapter 3 verse 5, even so the tongue is a little member that boasteth great things,

how great a matter a little fire kindleeth.

Now it’s not just after the things that I chase now.

That’s not the only impulse that there is that can be followed.

There’s the impulse of saying what I want to say because I want to say it because I think

it’s what needs said right here.

If we had time the Proverbs writer shows so much about how make sure your words

are seasoned with salt.

Make sure that your words are what is needed in the moment.

Whatever you say has a purpose, has a benefit.

When it’s just about what one desires to say because there is something to be said, that

is going to only cause fires.

That is only going to cause things that are painful.

Now there’s things that hurt that need to be said.

The kisses of an enemy are deceitful, but the wounds of a friend

Those are something that’s loving.

The Proverbs writer also shows.

It’s when things are said that are hurtful for no purpose or for the purpose of that pride

as was described earlier.

Selfishness will follow my own impulses.

But we also talked about the idea of goals.

Going past the idea of what I want in the moment and going toward, what do I want later?

In this world, we often exalt those who are able to build up riches for themselves.

We look at people who have a fancy house and we’re like, hey, good for him, and rightly

so.

Ecclesiastes’ writer shows a man’s joy, man’s blessing on this earth is to work, to know

he worked, to go to bed knowing he worked, and then to eat of the fruit of his labor.

It is good for a man to enjoy the things that he has.

But if we live a life that is focused on those things, on building up riches, where is it

going to lead?

Even if we won those riches,

Honestly, if that’s our focus, what does it do?

Luke 12 verses 16 through 21.

There was a man who did this.

Luke 12, 16 through 21.

And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth

plentifully.

And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do?

Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits.

And he said, This will I do.

I will pull down my barns and will build greater.

And there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine

ease, eat.

drink and be merry.

This man thought that he had it all and he now had the goal of saying, know what, I have

this great income, let me just store it in a barn, I don’t have to work ever again, I’m

just going to eat, drink, rest, just have a good old time.

What did the Lord say about what he did?

Thou fool, thy soul shall be required of thee.

Then who shall those things be which thou hast provided?

So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Matthew 6 33,

seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added

unto you.

This man wanted to build his barns.

He wanted to bestow all his goods to himself, but the Lord said that because he had not

been rich toward the Lord.

Because he had been so focused on what he desired, his soul would be required of him.

Someone is not going to be struck down by the Lord today because they are focused on their

riches.

But one day they will have to answer for how they use them.

We are thankful for members of the Lord’s Church who are willing to go out and work hard.

And we are so thankful

when they are able to enjoy the blessings that they have laid up for themselves.

And as the Apostles shown, whatever a man owns that is his own.

Ananias and Sapphira they were killed because they acted as though they gave everything,

but they only gave a portion.

And then what is it the Apostles said?

They didn’t say, you should have just given everything.

What they said was, while it was yours was it not your own to do with it what you will?

When something belongs to someone it’s their own.

The Lord is not a communist, but what he does desire is charity.

What he desires is loving giving.

Not out of some kind of mandate, but out of something that is willing and from the heart.

God loveth a cheerful giver.

But the one who is not a cheerful giver is as this man, who is focused on my barns, my

corn, my wealth, my houses, instead of what the Lord desired.

Selfishness follows my own impulses, going after what I want in the moment.

Or if someone has gone beyond the wisdom of that, he might just follow his own goals, even

spending his whole life going toward them.

He can be focused on the goal of riches, but also on the goal of pursuing authority.

Now this ties to pride of life, as riches could as well.

But there were those who were willing to do incredibly wicked things just for authority.

Saul did this countless times.

1 Samuel 20 verse 30.

1 Samuel 20.

In this chapter there is a feast occurring and in this feast Saul has built up his

jealousy and angst toward David and now there is this feast where Saul desires to have

David there so that he can kill him and then he realizes that he isn’t there and Jonathan

is talking with him about it.

Jonathan tells that

Jonathan unfortunately says the lie giving a false reason for him not being there.

But Saul sees the fact that there is a correlation between David not being there and what

Jonathan knows.

And then verse 30, then Saul’s anger was kindled against Jonathan.

And he said unto him, thou son of a perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou

hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy

mother’s nakedness.

For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor

thy kingdom.

Wherefore now send and fetch unto, fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die.” Now we’re

talking about the idea of goals and authority here.

There is something terrible about Saul here.

Not only is it about him being king, not only is he going against God saying, listen, one

day you aren’t going to be king again.

He goes against what God said when he said, your seed will not keep the kingdom.

Saul goes as far as to curse his own wife, his own person that was the mother of Jonathan.

And then he says, don’t you know that as long as David lives, you aren’t going to be king?

The kingdom’s not going to be established in your hands.

Saul took his own goal.

He took what he desired, and he

put it on Jonathan.

He impressed his own desire upon Jonathan, expecting him to follow the same thing.

It’s as though Saul acted as though Jonathan would have wanted the exact same things he

did.

There is the idea of authority here.

And there’s also the idea of a father trying to impress on his son the own life of the

father, what he desires.

There can be times where parents say, want you to go be a doctor, go be a lawyer, because

that’s what the parents were.

because that’s what their desires were.

That’s not for the benefit of the child when that happens more often than not.

It’s because the parents want to relive their lives again, to continue some kind of family

legacy and heritage.

When Saul did that he threw a javelin at his son.

When Saul did that his family ended in shame.

It’s not the godly way.

It’s a selfish way that says the way that I desire it is the way it needs to be.

While what God said was train up a child in the way he should go.

And when he is old he will not be

depart from it, the point being there a child should be trained in the way he has been

toward his tendencies.

Jonathan didn’t want to be a king, in fact it would have been wicked for him to want to be

the king.

What he wanted was the benefit of David, but Saul was too selfish to see any of that, to

see any of it God’s way, to see anything Jonathan’s way.

It followed only his own goal of trying to keep the kingdom.

There is the goal of riches, the goal of authority as has been seen.

Saul is not the only one who did this in Scripture.

We could also look at John 11, verse, in John chapter 11, and in this chapter the

Pharisees are going to be gathered together and they’re going to say, need to kill this

person, this person being Jesus, before the Romans come and take away our place and our

nation.

See, in this they are focused on their authority, on their place, and they say that even

before their nation.

It’s not just about their people.

They don’t just look at Christ and say, He’s a threat to national security.

No, He’s a threat to their bureaucracy.

When Jesus is a threat to your government, that government is ready for the judgment of

the Lord.

That is where the Pharisees were, and they would ultimately face the Lord’s judgment AD

70.

This selfishness occurs in the individual level when we want to follow our own riches.

And then it follows even further when we look at the idea of authority.

Moving forward, selfishness will follow my own goals or my own desires.

It will follow my own goals and finally my own beliefs.

In this I won’t see from other people’s point of view.

Proverbs 27 verse 9, the righteous consider it the cause of the poor, but the wicked

regard if not to know it.

the righteous consider it the cause of the poor.

He looks at it and he cares about them, but the wicked regardeth not to know it.

Now this idea of regardeth is the idea of seeing something from another person’s

perspective.

You see the wicked person, the fool, he is too selfish to even start to see it from the

way someone else does.

While the righteous one, he consider it the cause of the poor, as the righteous will do

for anyone else.

If we follow God’s way, we will be able to look at others and look at things from their

perspective, as the righteous will do for the poor, as we will do for anyone else in any

kind of disagreement.

We will be able to see it from someone else’s perspective, but if we are selfish, that

won’t be the case.

It will all be about the way that we think about it, rather than them.

Moving forward, it’s not just a, I can think the wrong thing about others and…

not understanding, and also not seeing past my own tendencies.

1 Corinthians 13 verse 5, the last part of it says that, “‘Charity thinketh no evil.'” The

selfless love that God has is not going to, it is going to take the benefit of the doubt.

It’s not going to immediately impress evil upon others.

While the selfishness that is the opposite of it,

It’s going to place upon others my own wickedness.

It’s going to look at others and say that their motives must be the selfish things that I

say that need to be the case, if those are things that we harbor.

It’s as though a child says, I know that you’re lying because that’s something that he

would often do.

That is not what the Lord’s love is going to do.

this selfishness is going to think the wrong thing about others in these beliefs.

being unwilling to look at them with a proper perspective.

It will also believe the wrong thing about self.

As we saw with Saul, he had a terrible complex.

This is a man who would ultimately be insane.

One of his issues was he thought he was always the victim.

1 Samuel 23 verse 21, and Saul said, and he said to some who had come and said, is where

David is.

Here’s this person you’re trying to kill.

He says, “‘Blessed be ye of the Lord, for ye have had compassion on me.'” He thinks that

He’s the victim.

He thinks that He is the one being wronged.

And it comes out in His words right here.

He believes the wrong thing about Himself.

He’s the one going after David, while He believes David is the one going after Him.

And then, as was described earlier with Saul, He wanted things to be His way with

Jonathan.

Another lesson we can learn from there is He thought He was always right.

He thought that David was the threat to the throne when Saul was himself.

He thought that the way he needed it was correct.

He thought that he was not his own worst enemy.

He thought he was just.

He thought he was correct.

And finally, believing the wrong thing about self, I can believe I’m the main character.

What is it that started all of it with Saul?

What made it to where he thought he needed to be to go after David?

The servant of Akish said unto him, I said unto Saul, Is not this David the king of the

land?

Did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying Saul has slain his thousands,

and David his ten thousands?

This is rather the Philistines and not uh David with the Philistines rather than with

Saul.

But this statement is what caused Saul to go after David in the first place.

When David killed his ten thousands, but Saul only his thousands.

he didn’t like that.

And that’s what started it all because he thought he had to be the hero in the main

character.

And it led to the domino effect of everything else that we saw.

If I start to notice that my actions are harmed because someone hurt my pride and it

starts to change the way that I look at others, the way I treat them, there might just be

a problem with selfishness right there.

We’ve looked at the symptoms of selfishness.

It brings pain and suffering.

And it brings pain and suffering through my goals.

through my beliefs, through my impulses.

And who are those that are hurt by selfishness?

Who are the victims?

Everybody.

Time will not allow for us to look at David and his house fully.

He was the one who went after Bathsheba.

He went after Bathsheba, he had his sin, he killed Uriah, and what happened?

The punishment came where the Lord said to him, through Nathan, all of your house is going

to suffer the sword because of what you’ve done.

What’s going to happen because of that one moment of selfishness David had?

He’s going to face children, forcing children.

He is going to face children rising up and trying to be king when there was one who was

supposed to be.

There would be a domino effect of what occurred.

Now, this will happen in our lives if we allow selfishness to take place.

One of the first victims of selfishness is the home itself, and David’s house was overrun

with it even though he was a man after God’s own heart.

If we desire our own impulses to take over, we will hurt our children, we will hurt our

wives, our husbands.

Do we really want that?

Just for one moment or one goal of pleasure, whether that be that impulse or whether it be

the goal of riches, am I willing to put my family on the line for that?

One of the first victims of selfishness is the home.

And before that, as has been described earlier, is the person who is harmed by his own

sin.

But moving forward, a person can be hurt by his own sin, the home can be hurt by his sin,

and then the nation can be hurt by sin.

Righteousness exalteth the nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

It’s going to harm a nation if they just follow after their own desires.

What about a nation who just wants to kill babies because it’s an inconvenience?

A nation who wants to put a casino wherever just so people can try to get money that isn’t

even theirs.

What’s going to happen to a nation like that?

Sin is a reproach.

It’s going to hurt the person, it’s going to hurt the home, it’s going to hurt the nation,

and it’s also going to hurt the church.

Diotrephes was one who wanted to have the preeminence as described by Paul.

He would not let some go out, he wouldn’t let some go in.

Rather, he wouldn’t let any come in who had any other doctrine.

He was one who was willing to hurt the church for his own pride, for the goal of

authority.

We’ve seen the symptoms of selfishness, the fact that it’s going to be based on whatever I

want, whether it’s short or long term, and the fact that it’s going to hurt everyone

around me.

But finally, what is the solution?

And it’s going to be the love of God.

It’s going to strain impulses.

It’s not going to go after those things I want to do.

It’s going to realign goals where I truly do seek first the Kingdom of God and His

righteousness.

And it’s going to change my beliefs.

It’s going to make it to where when I look at God’s Word I’m going to be objective enough

to listen to what He says because God’s Word is truth.

He has all the evidence He needs, all the logic He needs for us to look at His Word and

believe it for what it says rather than twisting it to our own devices.

His love will change my impulses, my goals, and my beliefs.

The love of God was willing to send His Son.

It was willing to make a plan for us so that we could be saved.

And now he is patient with us now, waiting for us to be saved.

He has his love that he has shown toward us, and he desires to live that love in our

lives.

If we just simply decide to live that way.

1 Corinthians 13, and this will be our final chapter, our final passage today.

1 Corinthians 13, this love

is the antidote to this selfishness that plagues our world.

even if someone is able to do miracles, he is able to do incredible things, he has the

tongue of men and of angels, and he does not have love, he is a sounding brass or a

tinkling cymbal.

If one has all the power in the world and he can move mountains, what good is it if he

does not have love?

And if he gives everything he has, what good is it?

Without love, no good power or no good deed is even worth doing.

But if we have this charity that is described throughout the rest of this chapter, it will

help us live in God’s way and one day be with him.

Charity suffereth long in his kind, charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, is

not puffed up.

Imagine if Saul just had that one verse, that one verse, how would it have changed his

life?

How would it have changed what he did?

Does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no

evil, rejoiceth not iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.

And it bears, it believes, it hopes, and endures all things, and it’s never going to fail.

If you want something that is truly worth your investment, then realize how much others

are worth.

That is the greatest commandment.

love your Lord, to see His value and put it before anything else, and then to see the

value of others.

If selfishness has plagued your life, if you have not come to your Lord, He has a way for

you to be saved.

He has a way that we must believe.

As we have described, selfishness is going to make it to where I am constrained to only

what I think, rather than looking towards God’s way.

But if we believe His Word for what it says,

and believe that word that says we must repent of our sins, we must confess and be

baptized in His name, Acts 2, 38, so that we can be saved.

We can then enjoy the love that He has for us after we have shown our love for Him and

continue to do so throughout our lives.

And for one who is a Christian who has experienced the love of God in your life, one who

knows what it is like

to be washed in the blood of the Lamb, but you’ve turned back to those things.

The Lord wants you, and He’s never going to give up on you so long as He hasn’t come back

to this earth or you have passed away from this earth.

While there is opportunity, will you come and take advantage of the love of God as we

The Eye (Part 1) – Aaron Cozort – May 31, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Eyes, faith, God, Hebrews, Isaiah, keywords Bible, Matthew, Proverbs, Psalms, Revelation, righteousness, Spiritual Sight, Wickedness by Aaron Cozort

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Good morning.

It’s good to have all of you with us.

It’s good to have our visitors with us.

We’re grateful for your presence, and we hope that you will come back and see us again

soon at your next available opportunity.

Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to the book of Proverbs.

Proverbs chapter 20.

We read in verse 12 where the Proverbs writer says,

This Sunday and two Sundays from now, I want us to spend a few moments considering the

eye.

The eye which God made.

Now we’re not going to uh delve into all of the scientific looking uh at or explanation of

the eye, though it is an incredible creation.

and certainly declares the glory of God, but rather we’re going to look at it from a

biblical perspective.

Beginning first with our eyes, or the eyes of the righteous.

Turn to the 121st Psalm.

In Psalm 121, the psalmist writer begins with these words.

Psalm 121 and in verse 1, I will lift up my eyes to the hills.

From whence comes my help?

He asks the question, I’m going to look, I’m going to gaze around, I’m going to decipher

and try to understand from where my help comes.

But then he writes verse two, my help comes from the Lord.

who made heaven and earth.

He will not allow your foot to be moved.

He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper.

The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve you from all evil.

He shall preserve your soul.

The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even

forevermore.

as the psalmist writer considers where his help comes from.

He looks around.

He looks to the hills.

You know, there was uh a king who once thought as he went into the land of Israel and did

battle with the people in Israel and was defeated in the hills, you know what?

That’s the problem.

We did battle with them in the hills.

Let’s do battle with them in the flatlands because their God must be a God of the hills.

So if we do battle with them in the flatlands, we’ll win because their God will be

powerless there.

The king had a false concept of God.

He didn’t understand Jehovah who made heaven and earth.

God says, I’ll defeat you in the hills.

I’ll defeat you in the flatlands.

I’ll send you to your grave.

The point is the psalmist writer uses his eyes and he looks ultimately to the Lord for

deliverance.

God’s people use their eyes to look to the Lord and rely on him.

As we consider additionally, if we turn

back just a few pages in your Bible to Psalm 119.

In Psalm 119 and in verse 18, we learn that the righteous have their eyes taught by God.

In Psalm 119 and in verse 18, we read, Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from

your law.

The prayer

and the request of the psalmist writer here is that God educate his eyes, that God teach

him what the law would have him to know, that he be caused to see the wonders of what God

had done and was doing.

The psalmist writer here is an asking

for some miraculous knowledge to be placed in his heart and his mind, he’s asking for his

eyes to be taught by the Word of God.

Matter of fact, the whole 119th Psalm in all of its verses is dedicated to glorifying and

magnifying and recognizing the value of the Word of God.

And here the Psalmist writer, Ash, opened my eyes.

that I may see.

As we consider the eyes of the righteous, we should understand that they are educated by

God.

They are taught to understand the things which the world does not perceive, does not

understand, does not conceptualize, because the thing they’re missing is divine

revelation.

from God in the form of His Word.

as the righteous we are to have our eyes taught by God.

Psalm 19

The psalmist writer in the 19th Psalm speaks concerning the revelation of God.

He begins by pointing out that God has revealed Himself through the firmament, through His

handiwork.

He reveals Himself every day.

Day unto day He utters speech.

Night unto night He shows knowledge.

There’s no language or speech in which their voice is not heard.

The line has gone out through all the earth.

and all the words to the end of the world.

He’s speaking about natural revelation.

He’s speaking about the thing which we see around us, the universe that we exist in, this

physical world which declares the glory of God.

But he goes on to write in beginning in verse seven, he says, the law of the Lord is

perfect converting the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

There was a time which historians have termed the time of the enlightenment, a time in

history where there was much discussion and cultural discussion and religious discussion

about God and about the creation and the world around us.

Much discovery was being made about the world and the universe around us and the way that

things were made and exist.

And yet,

God makes it clear as the psalmist writer brings forth that it is the commandment of the

Lord that enlightens, brings light to the eyes.

Most of us at some point, I imagine, have walked through a dark room.

We had a friend back in North Carolina that she was in their house, the house they had

lived in for years, and she was walking with the lights off.

and there just happened to be a wall where she didn’t think there was a wall.

And her toe ran into it and she hit her toe so hard she fell the floor passed out.

in a house she had lived in for years.

You know that wall had been there the entire time.

from the time that they moved into that house.

That wall hadn’t moved.

So why is it that she ran into the wall?

It wasn’t because it hadn’t moved.

It wasn’t because it was new.

It was because there was no light.

Imagine living in a world day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out, without

any light from the revelation of the commandments of God on how to live, on how to be in

this life prepared for the next.

in Ephesians, Paul, as he writes to the church at Ephesus, the church which he had spent

so much time with and had such deep, deep care for, will write in Ephesians chapter 1,

Verse 15, therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love

for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my

prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the

spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened,

that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His

inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who

believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He

raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in heavenly places, far above

all principality in power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only

in this age, but also in that which is to come.”

He put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church,

which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

as Paul writes to these Christians.

He expresses in this prayer on their behalf that they be granted eyes of understanding.

that they looked to God’s Word.

They looked to the revelation and the knowledge that God has given them.

Now in the first century, He gave it to them through the form of the miraculous gifts,

through the form of those who had inspired knowledge and revelation like the apostles, and

they gave that knowledge and information to the church, and the church was supposed to

learn from it.

You go over to Ephesians chapter 4, and you will find Paul mentioning,

the work of evangelists and elders and teachers and preachers and their function to

educate the church to maturity so that they wouldn’t be blown about by every wind of

doctrine that they encountered.

And Paul is praying on behalf of the Ephesian brethren that their eyes be opened to what

God had been doing and was continuing to do.

But he points out, he says, you need to see the work that Christ is doing.

You need to see his position in heaven.

You need to see his authority over principalities and powers in heavenly places.

Now question, how can you see that?

for everything that he’s describing is something that isn’t visible to the physical eye.

Well, if you turn over to Hebrews chapter 11, the Hebrew writer explains how you can see

it.

He says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

You ask, how can I see what is unseeable?

And in the entire chapter of Hebrews 11, the answer is, by trusting God’s Word.

So example after example after example in Hebrews chapter 11 begin by using these words,

by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith.

Now that’s not a hope in the dark.

That’s not walking through the dark room and hoping you end up in the right place.

That is God saying, let me shine a light in the room so you can see where you’re going and

I’ll tell you what I’m doing.

And so in Hebrews chapter 12.

The Hebrew writer writes, therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud

of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and

let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.

The Hebrew writer says, here’s how you do in the Christian age what the Old Testament

examples did in their age.

You set your eyes on Christ.

You look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set

before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of

the throne of God.

For consider him.

Put your mind’s eye on him.

Stop worrying about what your

physical eye can see.

And start allowing your eyes to be educated by God to see what the mind can know through

faith, through the Word of God, through the evidence that God gives and the testimony He

gives, and consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself lest you

become weary and discouraged in your soul.

Paul prayed that the Ephesian brethren have their eyes enlightened by God.

How do you do that?

It’s not some miraculous thing.

You put your eyes into the Word of God and you allow the Word of God to shine the light of

God in your eyes.

But when you don’t…

The Hebrew writer says when you take your eyes off of Christ, when you no longer are

looking to the author and finisher of our faith, then you’re going to become weary and

discouraged.

I have friends who have lived in Alaska.

Some of my friends have previously lived in Alaska, and some do live in Alaska.

But one of the things they would point out is how much of a struggle there is in the

society of people who live in Alaska with drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and other things like

that.

And it is very much prominent during the six months where the sun doesn’t shine.

When it’s dark for six months, the human perception of things gets a little off-kilter.

It’s not helped too much when it’s bright for six months and the sun never goes down

either.

But the point is we are used to what God designed us to live in.

And the Hebrew writer tells us, put your eyes on Christ.

Stop allowing darkness to diminish your view of Christ.

We are to be those as we consider the eyes of the righteous who look to God.

Jesus would write or would say, as Matthew recorded it in his record of the gospel,

Matthew chapter six.

Matthew chapter 6 beginning in verse 19, he says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures

on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where

thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The lamp of the body is the eye.

As Jesus tells us, the light of your existence is determined by your eye.

He’s not talking about your physical eye.

He’s talking about where your heart is, what your heart dwells upon, what your mind

focuses on.

He says, the lamp of the body is the eye.

If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that dark.

Jesus says, set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

So as we consider the eyes of the righteous, we consider that they are to look to the

Lord.

We consider that they are to be taught by God.

They are to be given light by His word, and they are to look to God.

but then consider the eyes of the wicked.

If we turn to Isaiah chapter 6…

Isaiah chapter 6.

We read of the call of Isaiah.

In Isaiah chapter six and verse one, we read, the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the

Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Above it stood Seraphim.

Each one had six wings.

With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew.

And one cried to another and said, holy.

Holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out and the house was

filled with smoke.

So I said, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in

the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

As Isaiah sees this vision, he looks at himself and says, I don’t belong here.

because I am not righteous.

I am not a person of unclean lips or a person of clean lips.

I am a person of unclean lips and so are my people.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken

with the tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has

touched your lips, your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged.

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?

Then I said, Here am I, send me.

The seraphim comes and he touches his mouth with…

one of the coals from the altar and he says, I’ve purged your iniquity.

I’ve taken your sin away.

And then the question comes from the throne of God.

Who are we going to send on our behalf?

We need a messenger.

Who’s going to volunteer?

And Isaiah says, here am I, send me.

And he said, go and tell this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand.

Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.

Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they

see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts, and return

and be healed.

God says, I’ve got a message that needs to go forth to the people.

Who’s going to take it?

Isaiah says, here am I, send me.

I’ll take the message.

What’s the message?

God says, shut up the ears and the eyes and the hearts of this people.

Wait a minute.

I thought God wanted people to repent.

I thought God was long suffering and desired for them to be saved.

I thought God was one who was willing and gracious and desires for people to do what was

right.

Yes, he is.

How is it that Isaiah is going to shut the ears and the eyes and the hearts of the people?

The answer is he’s going to declare to them the word of God.

You see, God knows that his word has two effects.

And it has two effects, and which effect it has is determined not by the word, but by the

heart of the person who hears it.

And so God is going to send Isaiah forth to speak his word.

And the result of Israel as a wicked people is instead of having their ears opened to

learn, instead of having their eyes opened to see, instead of having their hearts opened

to be educated by God and repent, the word of God is going to be preached to them and it’s

going to have the opposite effect.

Same message.

different result.

And it’s because the eyes of the wicked are blind to the truth.

They’re not blind because it’s impossible for them to understand it.

They’re blind because they have their heart set on this world.

John would write in 1 John, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

For the things that are in the world are passing away.

But the wicked have their heart and their eyes and their mind locked in on this world.

And anything that is about anything else, they’re uninterested.

So God sends Isaiah to make the eyes of the wicked blind, because they had blinded their

eyes already.

Turn to Mark chapter 8.

Jesus will speak to His disciples after they had witnessed the things which He had done in

feeding the 4,000.

and he will speak to them about why they do not understand what he’s doing.

In Mark chapter eight and in verse 15, we read, then he charged them, take heed, beware of

the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

And the day the disciples, the apostles reasoned among themselves saying, is it because we

have no bread?

They were looking at their physical supplies and they heard the statement from Jesus,

beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, and they’re like, is he criticizing us

because we kind of forgot provisions today?

Is he faulting us because we don’t have the supplies that we need?

Jesus being aware of it said to them verse 17, why do you reason because you have no

bread?

Do you not yet perceive nor understand is your heart still hardened?

Having eyes do you not see and having ears do you not hear and do you not remember when I

broke the five loaves for the 5,000 how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?

And they said to him 12.

Also when I broke the seven

For the 4,000, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?

And they said seven.

So he said to them, how is it you do not understand?

Then he came to Bethsaida, and they brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch

him.

So he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town.

And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw

anything.

And he looked and said, I see men like trees walking.

Then he put his hands on him again, on his eyes again and made him look up.

and he was restored and saw everything clearly.

Then he said to him, oh sent him away to his house saying, neither go into the town nor

tell anyone in the town.

Jesus has just confronted the apostles, the disciples about their blindness, their

blindness of understanding, their blindness of lack of education, their blindness of a

lack of perceiving what

Christ was doing!

Any questions?

You have eyes.

Why can’t you see?

You have ears.

Why can’t you hear?

Why do you not understand?

We are taught, we are to understand that the eyes of the wicked cannot understand what God

is doing, not because it’s impossible, but because they won’t pay attention to what God is

doing.

They will not perceive what God is doing because they won’t accept the testimony that

comes from God.

But then as we conclude, we’ve seen the eyes of the righteous, we’ve seen the eyes of the

wicked, now consider the eyes of the Lord.

Psalm 34.

in the thirty-fourth Psalm.

The Psalmist writer

will write, beginning in verse 11, Come, you children, listen to me.

I will teach you the fear of the LORD, who is the man who desires life and loves many days

that he may see good.

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

Depart from evil and do good, seek peace, and pursue it.

But then he writes,

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry.

As you consider the eyes of the Lord, we’re not talking about physical eyes.

We’re not talking about the eyes on this earth, the eyes that eventually become dim, the

eyes that used to be able to see clearly and now they don’t see quite so clearly anymore.

The eyes that used to be able to focus long distances away and short distances away, and

now they only focus one or the other?

We’re not talking about those kind of eyes, we’re talking about the eyes of attention.

God’s attention is on the righteous.

His ears are open to hear their prayer and their cry.

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous for the ability to deliver them from harm.

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous because He’s ready to hear what they need.

quite often in raising children.

My children will love and appreciate this.

As you’re speaking to them and you’re trying to make a point, you say, look at me.

Why?

Because wherever your eyes are, most likely that’s where your mind is.

Well the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous.

That tells you that the mind of the Lord is on the righteous.

He cares about them.

in Proverbs chapter 15.

Proverbs chapter 15 and in verse 3.

We read, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

if you were to say, you know what, I’m focusing on everything.

Well, that’d be a little bit of uh a testimony about yourself and it would tell everyone

else you’re focusing on nothing.

Because here’s how we work as humans.

The more things we focus on, the less focused we are.

The more things our attention is on, the less attention we can give to anything.

We have limited capacity.

There is just only so much

we can do at one time.

My wife learned years ago when we were first married that I could focus on one thing,

driving or where we were supposed to stop as we were driving.

We would pull out of school, head back to the house, she would say, we need to stop at

Dollar General.

Dollar General was one mile down the road and we’d drive right by it.

because my mind was already on home.

And since that’s where my focus was, there went Dollar General and she’d look at me, are

we stopping or not?

We have limited focus.

We have limited attention.

Not so with God.

With God, see, the eyes of the Lord are in every place.

The wicked wonder, the wicked surmise, you know what?

We can get away with this.

God won’t see it.

yes, he

and the righteous.

can have assurance that no matter their circumstance, God sees it.

but he also, as he is keeping watch, does so.

And I love the way, as we close, that Revelation chapter 1 presents the picture of Christ.

For in Revelation chapter 1, as John is in…

is on the Isle of Patmos on the Lord’s Day.

And as he is worshiping, he hears a voice behind him and he turns.

And this is what John says he saw.

Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me.

And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven

lampstands, one like the Son of Man,

clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girded about the chest with a golden band.

His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like a flame of

fire.”

John as he sees this vision of Christ.

will see Christ manifested in the vision.

as if his eyes were on.

Christ knows what’s going on.

Christ knows what His people are about to come under.

And He’s And He’s ready to deal with the wicked.

It’s interesting when you go through the book of Revelation, we’ll do this a little bit

more in two weeks as we continue this thought, you see eyes and eyes and eyes all over the

place.

You see Christ pictured with seven eyes.

The picture of eyes all over the book.

But all throughout the book, the book is telling us, God sees.

If you’re here this morning and you’re outside the body of Christ, God sees you.

God sees you separated from Him.

at war, at enmity with Him.

Not righteous, not at one with Him, not holy.

God sees you in your sin.

but God doesn’t desire to see you that

God desires you to be a part of His family.

God desires to look upon you as a child of His.

God desires to not see your sin, but rather see the righteous blood of His Son when He

looks at you covering your sin.

If you’re outside the body of Christ, how can you change that?

You can hear the Word of God.

and believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God because Jesus said, except you believe

that I am He, you shall die in your sins.

But Jesus also said, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.

He that believeth not shall be damned.

So you can hear the word of God.

You can have your eyes enlightened and educated by the word of God.

You can believe what God says and then you can obey what he says.

And you can be immersed in water to have your sins washed away.

and you can stand before God not with your sins as a testimony against you, but with His

righteousness as a testimony for you.

as a Christian, as a family member of God, dead to the world, alive to Christ.

If you have need of that invitation this morning, it is open to you now and every moment

of every day.

If you have need of that invitation, why not come now as we stand and as we sing.

Let’s Not Argue About The Method (Lesson 4) – Rob Whitaker – 04-14-2025

In Admonition Podcast, baptism, Bible Study, church growth, church practices, community, conversion, evangelism, faith, Great Commission, keywords evangelism, objections, outreach, Salvation, Spiritual journey, teaching, tools, training by Aaron Cozort

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We want to encourage everyone to come in and get a seat.

I’m not the one that’s going to say Rob is long-winded, but if we don’t start, he won’t

end.

We are glad that everyone is out this evening.

We appreciate your presence and I know we’ve got a few people who aren’t able to be here

and are watching online and we appreciate their presence as well.

ah Just for the sake of time, because I know Rob has a lot to cover, we’re going to forego

what we would normally do in a gospel meeting as far as a song and a prayer and

everything, because this is a training session.

This is what this is intended to be.

ah And so I do appreciate

and want to reiterate how much I appreciate Rob and Nicole and Hannah coming and being

here to help us, to educate us, to train us.

uh Hopefully you’ve got your back to the Bibles with you, you’ve got your booklet with you

from last night.

If you do need an extra copy, pick one up on the table if you manage to get here without

it.

But I’m going to turn it over to Rob and let him get started.

Good evening.

Grateful for your presence tonight.

I know that a midweek of

The session is challenging, especially with Memphis traffic.

Getting here at 6.30, but we’re grateful you’ve made the trip tonight.

Have some students from the Memphis School of Preaching.

We’ll be at the Memphis School of Preaching in the middle of March.

We’ll also be at the Arlington Church of Christ.

Brother, uh I believe Tibbets is located there, and uh we’ll be doing some training

together.

uh Brother Clark asked us to come every two years and do the training at Memphis.

We’re grateful for that availability.

uh So we want to get started.

immediately this evening.

If you are visiting tonight and you have not.

use the QR code or sign the clipboard.

Please do that.

This is how we send you free evangelism material.

So we’re gonna fill your inbox with tools.

We’re gonna send something called Reaching the Lost.

If you’re not receiving that, use that QR code or just sign the clipboard on the back

table and we’ll be glad to provide you that information on a weekly basis.

So these are direct reports from churches.

If it works, you’re gonna see it.

It’s their words.

If it doesn’t work, you’re gonna hear it.

It’s their words.

So we just give you these reports.

up every week, you’re going to get about 75 congregations a week that are reporting and

they’re just telling you how things are progressing.

And so it’s not mandatory, but we ask churches to participate because it helps to edify

the local body and we learn from the test results or the work you’re doing at the local

area.

We have a YouTube channel if you’ve not already subscribed to it.

It’s called House to House School of Evangelism.

If you have your YouTube app, open it up now because you’re going to forget and just

subscribe.

There are 170 videos.

These videos range from one minute TikTok link to five minutes.

That’s about the American culture link.

And they’re all training videos and all those are for your learning.

We want to start this evening by introducing a tool.

So a fisherman isn’t very good without a fishing pole.

A carpenter is not very good without a hammer.

not have a tackle box, you’re not gonna be very good at your trade.

So we need to equip our members.

We need to equip the church.

And the fact is that most church members have no method.

They have no tools.

And so if they were going to have a Bible study, they don’t even know where they would

begin.

And what we wanna do is answer that question.

What do I use?

When I approach a family member, is there something simple that you can put in my hand

that I could use to have a Bible study?

oh

your hands tonight is back to the Bible.

in the Evangelism Simplified Guidebook.

Now, in 2016, let’s go ahead and just set the stage.

Christian University, and I have their other studies, I have all the analytics, but they

published a survey, a poll, and what they wanted to do was find out where we’re going and

what do the numbers look like for a projection.

And I revealed on Sunday, they found out that two-thirds

of our church members are over the age of 50.

And they pulled 9,500 Christians.

That’s a pretty good sample size.

These are just in the Church of Christ.

They found out that 13 % of our church members are under the age of 30, meaning we’re a

great headed church.

Now, then they ran their projections to find out, what does it mean?

They looked at the past rate of loss, the current rate of loss, and they began to make

their projections.

Here’s what it means.

In the year 2016, when they did the study, we had 12,200 churches of Christ.

That’s about where we

were and that’s the directory.

have a Churches of Christ directory.

It’s gonna get most Churches of Christ.

This is where we were in 2016.

Using those same metrics, in 2019, they said it’s gonna drop down to about 11,500 Churches

of Christ.

They were spot on.

That’s exactly what happened.

They said, OK, if the direction keeps going, where are we going to be by 2022?

We’re going to just have over 10,000 churches of Christ.

That’s exactly where we are today.

So they hit their numbers every time they made a projection.

All they did is take the current rate of loss, they took the past rate of loss, they took

the demographic, and they ran the numbers.

Where are we going?

What will we look like?

So here’s what they did.

Let’s pop it forward 25 years.

25 years from now, 2049, we’ll have 3,000 churches left.

All right, let’s go ahead and advance the slide.

What is that going to do to membership?

So what will our membership look like?

right, you’re 2016, about 1.2 million members of the Lord’s Church.

All right, that’s where we were according to their data.

All where will we be in 2022?

We’re gonna be down to about a million members left.

Here’s where it gets frightening.

They were spot on.

That’s exactly where we were in 2022.

We don’t even have a million members now.

So the numbers follow the chart.

Now where will we be in 2049?

They said we project you have about 275,000 members left.

Well if those numbers don’t stir your spirit tonight, if they don’t cause you to come out

of your pews and realize that we must focus on evangelism like never before, you’re

already half dead.

because this is a reality that’s setting in every single year.

Now, here’s the good news.

The good news is that these are just projections, and a projection is only as accurate as

the variables that are placed into it.

So if a variable changes, the entire projection changes.

So if we can take one of those variables that are being used and affect the number, and

that’s what we’re trying to do in evangelism, is we’re trying to affect the variables and

say, listen, we’re not gonna sit in our pew,

and watch the Church of Christ disintegrate, we’re going to get busy.

We’re going to get out of our pews, we’re going to create contacts, we’re going to

prospect the contacts, and we’re going to have Bible studies, so this never comes true.

You’re on a time clock.

2049.

If we don’t change those numbers, this is exactly what’s gonna happen.

I want you to take your back to the Bibles because we’re gonna spend some time looking at

these together.

And you have your evangelism simplified guidebook.

All right, Matthew 28 verse 19, what does the Bible say?

Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

Son and of the Holy Spirit.

This is called the Great Commission, but it is great because Jesus spoke it.

It’s not great because preachers preach it.

It’s great because Jesus spoke it.

It could be more accurately called the New Testament Commission.

The reason it’s great is there’s only one.

You can read from Matthew to Revelation, you’ll find only one great commission.

It’s stated in Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

It’s stated in Mark 16, 15 and 16.

It’s stated in Luke 24, 47 through 49.

It’s stated in John 20, 21 through 23.

In every gospel account, Jesus states it.

It’s then stated again in Acts 1.

verse eight, then it’s demonstrated throughout every New Testament epistle, so we find

that the Great Commission is the core of who we are.

It’s our purpose.

Our purpose is to make known to the world the manifold wisdom of God, Ephesians 3, 20 and

21.

That Great Commission has some characteristics to it that are inherent in the very grammar

itself.

Let’s look at one of them.

It says, ye.

That term, ye, is plural.

It’s not singular.

He does not mean just go me, but the go ye means go all.

Everyone’s gotta go.

We are an army of soul winners.

We can’t pin this on the back of Aaron.

We can’t pin this on the back of the Memphis School of Preaching.

We can’t pin this on the back of oh a missionary to do the work for us.

If this doesn’t become the culture of our churches, the Great Commission fails.

It will not function.

Go ye therefore and teach.

It’s a teaching commission.

We’ve got to teach.

If we’re not teaching, then we’re failing.

So the Great Commission is a teaching commission.

Now notice what happens when you teach.

You baptize.

So show me a church that’s having baptisms.

I’ll show you a church that’s teaching.

If their church is not having baptisms, then I would suggest your church probably has no

Bible studies.

And someone says, Rob, we’re struggling.

We don’t have baptisms.

My question is, how many Bible studies are going on right now in your church?

We’ve got five.

Well, tell me about those five.

Well, all five are studies with your memory.

We want to know how many you’re doing with the non-members, how many in the community, how

many friends, family, coworkers, ball team members, people that you grew up with, how many

of those studies are going on?

So I did not draw the correlation, I just connected the dots.

When Jesus said, ye therefore teach and baptize, he’s giving us the recipe for baptisms.

Baptisms are the result of teaching.

And so we must teach people the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So what’s happened?

So do we believe in the Great Commission and the Church of Christ?

Yes or no?

Of course.

Because we send thousands upon thousands of dollars to these countries.

Tens of thousands, hundreds, millions of dollars are flowing into India.

I know that.

Millions of dollars are being flown into South Africa and South America.

I know that.

We believe in the Great Commission because we’re willing to send teams of missionaries,

yes to missions, campaigns.

We’re willing to go all over the world.

But, brethren, I want to propose tonight that the Great Commission in South America has

become the great omission in the United States of America because we don’t do it.

We don’t do it here.

We don’t do it because our members don’t believe it works.

They’ve never been a part of it.

There’s no plan.

We don’t have any organization.

There’s no strategy.

There’s no tools.

There’s no equipment.

And so our members find it easier to get on an airplane, take the shots, get your visas,

go halfway around the world, live in difficult environments, but at least you got the

baptisms.

And those missionaries come back.

They give us the reports.

They show us the baptisms.

we’ve accomplished success.

One elder told me at polishing the pulpit, he said, preacher, he said, I’ll tell you why

we send our money to India, because it’s easier.

It’s easier to write the check.

What you’re asking us to do is hard.

What you’re asking us to do is, oh it’s just easier for us to send it to Tanzania.

Brethren, I’m not opposed to supporting Tanzania.

I’m not opposed to supporting Mexico.

But I am all for supporting Collierville.

Because if there’s no evangelism in Calderville, you won’t be able to support Tanzania.

In fact, one day, India will have to send their missionaries to Calderville because we’re

not here.

And so this is important.

This is vital to understand that the Great Commission starts with your next door neighbor.

It don’t start in Tanzania.

It don’t start halfway around the world.

It starts with the guy you work with.

It starts with your family.

It starts with your friends.

It starts with the very people that you are around every day.

And so we’ve got to learn how to apply this to the people that we know.

So I’m preparing for my Bible class one Sunday morning and uh this couple walks through

the doors and uh I didn’t know them.

I em identified them, my wife and I walked up and I said, my name’s Rob, this is my wife

Nicole.

said, I’m Jonathan Royals, m my wife Stephanie.

I said, well, we’re glad you’re here.

I said, you guys new to the area?

He says, we are.

I said, well, did someone here invite you?

said, you did.

and I’ve never seen him in my life.

And he said, well, someone in this church did, and he brought out a copy of House to

House, Heart to Heart, because as a church, we’re sending out that publication every

single month, and we’re inviting people to church.

And he tells me how that he got up this morning, he decided his family needed to go to

church, he saw that House to House, Heart to Heart, he says, why don’t we go there?

And that’s why he’s sitting in the church building.

I said, I’m glad you’re here.

After the services I walked up, I’m excited because all I could think about was step

three.

That’s all I could think about, Bible study.

I’ve got a Bible study sitting in the pews and I could not wait to get to them.

And as soon as services were over, my wife and I walked up and said, hey, Jonathan, said,

my wife is the best cook in Macon County.

And my daughter’s the best dessert maker you’ll ever see.

I said, why don’t you guys come over to the house?

She’s got enough food fixed and we’ll get to know each other.

I said, what do you think?

He looked at me, raised his little finger and said, I don’t know you and I don’t want to

go to your house.

That was a completely unexpected answer.

Like I never thought that answer would be given, but we do live in the United States of

America.

And we’re a very unique culture.

And every culture around the world

If you showed up as a visitor, they take you to their home.

I’m telling you, that’s what they do.

And I’ve been to these different nations.

And they’ll give you their house.

They’ll give you their bedroom.

They’ll give you everything they have.

That’s the culture, not here.

So when you meet people for the first time, and they invite you to their home, you’re not

going because you think they’re a serial killer.

We don’t do that in America.

In America, if you’re going to meet someone for the first time, the first thing you do is

invite them out to eat.

Very neutral environment.

I failed to do that.

I skipped that step.

I went right to the, let’s come to my house.

And so, so Jonathan looked at, I looked at Jonathan.

I said, well Jonathan, I’m sorry, I was so forward.

I just, you know, I said, what do you want to do?

I said, I’d like to get with you.

He said, huh.

He said, Tuesday I’m free.

Why don’t you come to my house?

Now he’s the serial killer now.

That’s exactly what’s going on here.

So I said, I said, okay, you know, I said, I’m coming.

And my wife said,

you sure about this?

You know we don’t know these people.” And I said, yes honey, said, I think everything’s

fine.

so sure enough we pull into their driveway, know, my kids get outside and their assignment

is to take their four children, they have four, Johnny, uh Julie Ann, Jen, and Jacy, take

them outside and play.

We’re going to do a Bible study.

So I walked inside the house, I got my little booklets, and I’m ready to go.

And so I’m just about to pull out my booklets, and I said, Jonathan, I said, I guess you

guys want to know more about our church?

He said, I kind

to do?” I said, you know I just so happen to have these little booklets that are called

Back to the Bible.

And I said, in fact I just brought enough sets for us.

And I said, if it’s okay with you, I said we’ll just open our Bibles and we’ll look at it.

And he said, well there are a few things I want you to know about me Rob.

I said, well what is it?

He said, he said we’re from Florida.

I said, I like Floridians, that’s not a problem.

I said, no problem.

He said, well Rob, he says I was deputy sheriff.

I said, I love law enforcement.

Not a problem.

He said, now Rob, said, I’m religious.

I said, I love religious people.

This is wonderful.

I said, he said, and by the way, he said, we went to this big community church.

He says, and my son was saved in that church.

He said, praise Jesus.

And I said, Jonathan, I said, this is wonderful.

I said, I can’t think of a better way to start.

And I said, is there anything else I need to know?

He says, no.

He said, oh, by the way, he says that you’ll have to prove everything you teach me.

I said, I like that.

I said, by the way, it’s called Back to the Bible.

Every answer will come out of the Bible.

He said, okay.

I said, Jonathan, take your Bible, John 832.

So we opened the Bible up, we started reading, and Jonathan reads the text.

said, Jonathan, Jesus says the blank will make you free.

And I said, what is it, Jonathan?

He said, how do you know it’s Jesus?

And I said, well, the letters are red.

And he said, that won’t work.

He said, how do you know it’s Jesus?

And I said, because verse 31 says, and Jesus said, will that work?

He said, that’ll work.

And he put the word truth down.

And every time we went to a question, he looks at it very carefully and he fills it out.

We’re walking through the study, halfway through the study, he stops and he says, I got

it.

He says, every answer comes from the Bible.

I said, bingo.

And now he’s just rolling the answers off his tongue.

He’s learned that if it doesn’t come from the Bible, we don’t believe it.

And he loves it.

We get to do that study.

Stephanie says, Jonathan, she said, I don’t think we’ve ever done a Bible study in our

life.

He said, man, I learned a lot.

I said, y’all like it?

He said, I said, Jonathan, would it be okay if you came to our house next week?

He said, well, yes.

I said, my wife is the best cook in Macon County.

And I said, you come over, we’ll cook a dinner and we’ll just have a good time.

We’ll learn a little bit more about it.

He said, that’d be good.

So they came over with the second study.

Could have gone better.

If it’s in the Bible, they’ll believe it.

Stephanie says, Jonathan, I didn’t know you’re

supposed to take the Lord’s Seppar on the first day of each week.

I never read this verse before.

And this is a kind of interaction you have.

And it’s very rewarding to watch people learn, to see them soak it up and be honest.

And you’re helping them see the clarity and the simplicity of scripture.

So then they come to the third study.

We’re walking through it.

Stephanie, her eyes get glassy.

She gets it.

Jonathan is real quiet.

And she looks at her husband, she says, Jonathan, neither you or I have ever been

baptized.

And I looked at them, I said, I know how we can fix that.

And we took them to the baptistry that very hour, baptized them into Christ, and Jonathan

and Stephanie became Christians.

That’s not why I’m telling you this story.

This is why, because I have a son, his name’s Johnny.

And so as soon as they’re coming out of the water, I looked at Jonathan, said, Jonathan,

said, Johnny, he don’t know, he’s lost.

I said, why don’t we set that Bible, study it with Johnny, he’s 15.

I said, he needs it.

And he looked at me, and I remember, because we’re back in the dressing room, he’s getting

dressed, and I’m waiting on him, and we’re talking, and he says, He says, I don’t want you

studying with my son.

And I thought I’d just lost all the progress I’ve made.

That kind of stunned me when he said that.

And I said, what do you mean?

He said, well, have you got any of those little booklets?

I said, let me see if I’ve got them.

Yes, they’re called back to the Bible.

I said, he just so happened to have three sets.

He said, good, because I need them.

I said, why would you want them, Jonathan?

He says, because we’re going to teach our son.

I want to know how it is that we’ve got brand new Christians that know enough to teach

people the gospel.

But we’ve got members of the Church of Christ who’ve been sitting in the pews for decades,

for decades, and they don’t know enough to have a Bible study.

You can learn a lot from new converts.

Here’s one thing I’ve learned from new converts.

New converts don’t know that Bible studies don’t work.

They don’t know that.

But our members seem to know that.

you know, it just won’t work.

We’ve tried this before.

Bible studies just don’t work today.

You’re just wasting your time.

We know that it works in India, but it won’t work in Calgarville.

Well, I’m glad they don’t know that.

It’s amazing what happens when you study the Word of God.

I remember the day that Jonathan called me.

They finished the Bible study.

and we baptized Johnny into Christ for the remission of his sins.

By the way, he went to the Memphis School of Preaching along with Hatton, and today

they’re preaching the gospel.

It’s amazing what happens when you help people, when you teach people.

So don’t ride off your community.

The gospel still has the power to save.

We can still reach people, but you need a tool.

And I had a tool for Jonathan and Stephanie.

I had a tool for Johnny, and I need to give you a tool.

So open up those back to the Bibles, everyone, and take some notes.

Number one, I like back to the Bible because it’s simple, and we need simple things.

Brother New Converts are using it.

Just three studies, 90 minutes to complete.

In most of the time, Nicole and I can do it in about 60 minutes.

And so if someone is not proficient in finding Bible passages, you extend it out to about

90 minutes.

But it doesn’t take you hours and hours and hours.

If it’s taking you two, three hours to do a study, you’re talking too much.

Stop talking.

We don’t need you to over-talk and under-teach.

We need you to use the tool.

And so one of the rules you’ll

learn when you’re fishing, Is let the fishing pole do the work.

Don’t fight it.

My dad, I remember him teaching me how to swing a hammer.

He said, son, your arm’s not gonna last about 30 more minutes and you’re done.

Let the hammer do the work.

And so the reason you have tools is because it does the work for you.

So your gift of dab is not needed, no disrespect.

We don’t need you to flash your Greek knowledge.

Keep it at Memphis School of Preaching.

They don’t need your Greek knowledge.

They don’t need your Hebrew knowledge either.

They don’t need grammatical constructions compared to passages, historical analysis.

They don’t need all that.

They need you to read the Bible.

Period.

Let the Bible do the work.

We’re our own worst enemies when it comes to Bible studies.

All right, it’s simple.

Yes, no, fill in the blank.

You’re answering questions.

All right, number two, I like Back to the Bible because it’s scriptural.

It’s based on the Bible.

So anytime we do a Bible study, all right, we need to use the scripture and allow the

scripture to be the power of God.

Now, the Back to the Bible series was written by Bobby Bates.

It’s written in the 1970s.

Brother Bates used the King James version of the Bible.

I grew up on the King James version of the Bible.

So when someone walks in my home, like Brittany Massey, and lays her Bible on the table

and goes maybe outside or to the bathroom, I’m gonna pick up her Bible.

You know why?

I wonder what version she’s using.

So I said, Nicole, hand me Brittany’s Bible.

the new American Catholic Bible.

Honey, how are we going?

We can’t do a Bible study with the new American Catholic Bible.

So I began to formulate my arguments.

How am I gonna get her not to use the new American Catholic Bible?

And I’ve got my gift of war Bible over my shoulder.

I’m gonna give it to her so we can swap out Bibles.

And so I’m trying to figure out how to have this discussion with Brittany about this Bible

she’s brought.

She sits down, thank God I came to myself and realized that I’m about to violate principle

number seven.

oh

Remember what principle number seven is?

Anybody remember what it is?

Hesitate.

Hesitate.

Do not climb Mount Versin.

Climb Mount Conversion.

We do not need to take down Mount Versin now.

We’ll take Mount Versin later.

And so I said, you know, we’ll just use the New American Catholic Bible.

And we did.

You know what happened?

She was baptized.

After the baptism, she’s sitting around the table at our house.

doing a new convert study.

She says, Rob, have I ever told you the study about my Bible?

I said, no, Brittany, you have not.

She said, Rob, that’s the family Bible.

Grandma gave it to me before she passed.

What would have happened if I insulted the family Bible?

Anybody?

There’s no Bible study.

There’s not gonna be a Bible study.

And so I’m not gonna teach Melk, she doesn’t use it today because we have tackled that

together.

It’s a family heirloom now.

So I’m not gonna start with Melk version.

I’m gonna…

Start with Mount conversion.

Now it requires Bible reading.

She had to read her Bible because all answers come from the text.

Any Bible study that does not require you to read the Bible, run from it.

All right?

We need people reading the book because Psalm 19, seven says by the words of the Lord,

right?

By the word of God is conversion.

It’s God’s law that converts people.

We don’t want them to read some type of track, right?

Without reading their Bible.

I’m all in favor of tracks, but we want people

to open the scripture because this is where the power of conversion is.

Every Bible study should require you to read your Bible.

I know that some Bible studies like to write down all the scriptures for you.

I don’t like that at all.

You’re not teaching them to read a Bible.

right, what makes it easier?

know, just because it’s easier doesn’t mean it’s better.

All right, teach them how to open a Bible.

Teach them how to find the book of Matthew.

Give them the page number.

Don’t give them the page number.

Let them learn how to find Matthew.

Take it from someone who’s had hundreds of Bible studies.

My wife and I have had hundreds of these.

You will be better off if you teach them how to use a Bible.

You’re gonna be better off if you build their confidence up so they know how to find

places in the Bible.

Because when they go home, you can’t give them the page number.

So if you teach them how to find Matthew, they’re better off.

You know, it’s not hard.

You know when my wife and I, about halfway through the study, they’ll find Matthew, Mark,

Luke, John, Romans, and Revelation.

Halfway through one study.

It’s amazing how smart the mind is if we just let them learn.

All right, so we’re gonna require them to read their Bible.

We’re gonna require them to open their Bible, get the answer from the text, and we’re

gonna follow the scriptural order.

So what’s the scriptural order?

Well, let’s go to Acts chapter eight.

Let’s go to Acts chapter eight and let’s look at verse number four and five.

So I’m gonna give you what

with Wilma, Bobby’s widow, and this is who talked to me about Acts 8 and 4 and 5.

It was Wilma Bates, we were at her dinner table, uh and she said, Rob, have I ever taught

you about how Bobby wrote back to the Bible?

I said, no, but I would love to hear it.

Well, Rob, followed the scriptural order.

uh Well, I’ve been preaching for several years.

I’ve never heard of the scriptural order.

So I said, well, I want to know more about it.

All right, she said, go to Acts 8, and let’s look at verses four and five.

Therefore, they that were scattered abroad, whenever were preaching the word.

All right, she said, now, Rob, watch out.

Then Philip, the inspired evangelist, let me be clear tonight.

Philip is inspired, I’m not.

Philip is inspired, you’re not.

So whatever Philip does, it’s right.

Whatever Philip does, it’s gotta be better than what you do.

So I need to listen to Philip.

And whatever Philip does is what I’m going to do.

So what did he do?

What is his modus operandi?

How does he achieve success?

Well, Philip opened, notice Philip opened, went down to the city of Samaria, he opens the

gospel and he preaches what?

Christ.

He preaches Christ.

So if we wanna evangelize, what should we do, everyone?

Preach Christ, well what does that mean?

Does that mean preach Jesus in the manger?

Does that mean preach Jesus when he was 12 in Jerusalem?

Does it mean preach Jesus at the wedding feast in Cana?

Does it mean preach Jesus in John 4 at the Samaritan woman?

What does that mean?

How about Nicodemus, John 3?

I mean there’s a lot of things that could be incorporated into this.

Not if you read your Bible.

because he tells you what that means.

So I you to go down to verse number 12.

Everybody go down to verse 12.

But when they believe Philip’s preaching, what was he preaching?

Christ.

What does that mean, brother?

Let’s just read.

All right, verse number 12.

When they believe in what’s preaching, the things concerning the kingdom of God, the name

of Jesus Christ, he baptized them, both men and women.

Everybody get out there back to the Bibles.

Right here, there’s three of them.

It’s not hard.

I everybody to hold them up.

All right, there you go.

You’re not very good at it, just I’ll teach you how to do it.

It’s on the wrist, brother.

You got to do that.

All right, there you go.

All got three of them.

Now, everybody, let’s hold up the green booklet, everybody.

Hold up the green booklet.

This is not hard.

All right.

is the name of Jesus Christ.

Okay, this is called Bible authority.

It’s the name of Jesus Christ.

Let’s hold up book number two.

All hold up book number two.

That is the kingdom of God.

This is a book about the church of Christ.

That’s what the kingdom of God is.

It’s the church of Christ.

Let’s hold up book number three.

That’s baptism.

That is the salvation of Christ.

So when Bobby Bates wrote back to the Bible, he wrote a Bible study series based upon what

Philip did.

Philip talked about the authority of Christ, the church of Christ, and the salvation.

of Christ.

So I would strongly recommend that if you’re going to do a Bible study, you cover those

three things because you’re never going to come up with a better method than Philip.

You’re not inspired.

He was.

So I’ve heard a lot of evangelists in my day and every now and then I run across a brother

that says, we shouldn’t be teaching them about the church before they’re saved.

Says who?

because Philip didn’t know that rule.

Philip taught him about the church, where they said in Acts two, you know, they didn’t

talk about the church, how do you know that?

Acts two, verse 41 says what?

With many other words, they testify and exhort saying, save yourselves from this crooked

and ordained towards you.

What words?

We don’t have those words.

By the way, the church was in her infancy.

She was just being established.

Okay, we didn’t have all the ins and outs of the church in Acts two.

It wasn’t until verse 47, she’s in existence.

and pay very close attention to what the evangelists did and act and let’s just duplicate

it.

Let’s just do what they did.

If we do what Philip did, would we be wrong?

Yes or no?

No.

If we don’t do what Philip did, could we be wrong?

Yes.

Of course.

All right, number three, it’s successful, works.

Why do I love back to the Bible?

Why do I love evangelism?

Because New Testament evangelism works.

And when you put a tool in the hand of a member of the church, it’s incredible what

happens.

So I said, Ms.

Wilma, I said, when you and Bobby did these Bible studies, what was your rate of

conversion?

She said, oh, 90%.

We kept records,

So Nicole and I went home after that trip.

I got out my black little notebook.

I started counting all the Bible studies out because I kept records of all the studies

we’ve done.

You know what I found?

92%.

92 % of the people we study with become Christians when they finish back to the Bible.

Brethren, you don’t believe those numbers, then I’m gonna ask you to consider what I’m

about to do in the next five minutes.

Because I ask my daughter to go back to the churches enrolled, and I wanna know their

percentage.

I wanna find out is it working.

Because if what we’re teaching isn’t working, I’ll just close the school.

There’s no need for me to go from church to church.

I just go back to local work.

Here’s what I found.

I remember a, Jonathan Royal called me one day.

He said, Rob, says, eh he said, Mimi’s coming.

I said, what is a Mimi?

He said, that’s my mother-in-law.

And he says, I’m gonna convert my mother-in-law.

And I thought to myself, well, man, it can’t be wrong to convert mother-in-laws.

I said, that sounds like a good plan to me.

And I said, how do you plan to do that, Jonathan?

He says, I’m going to do what you do.

He said, I’m going to invite the Mimi over when she moves in, and Stephanie’s going to

make her mother supper.

And after supper, I’m going to ask her the transition questions.

And Mimi, uh what do you think about the church uh you’ve been attending?

Well, I kind of like it.

Mimi, do you know a lot about the Willette Church of Christ?

I really don’t know a lot about it.

Mimi, would you like to know more about the church?

Yeah, I just so happen to have these little booklets that are called Back to the Bible.

And he said, Rob, we’re gonna do a Bible study.

I said, good.

I said, Jonathan, let me know how it goes.

Nine o’clock that night he calls me.

Rob, we just finished Back to the Bible book one with the Mimi.

I said, how did she like it?

She loved it.

Three weeks later, he calls me and he says, I need help, Rob, I’ve never baptized anybody

before.

I said, I’ll be right there.

That’s baptisms that happen at Collegereville, the ones that Aaron doesn’t do.

It’s the ones that you do.

It’s when the members get involved.

It’s when the members are calling you and they’re asking for help because they’re the ones

that will determine whether this church grows or not.

will not be Aaron.

All right, you ready?

Fasten your seatbelt.

So here are the churches.

First, let’s go up to Aberdeen.

Every one of these churches baptized 10 % of their membership in one year.

Aberdeen, Maryland, this is Will Brown.

His church is right across from the baseball park built by Cal Ripken from Minor League

World Series.

I’ve been up there, Will is involved.

Incredible church, they hit their 10 % every year.

fact, they’ve hit about six of them already this year.

This right here is go down to Texas, Bryan College Station, BCS Church of Christ, 16.

By the way, that’s where the Texas School of Preaching is located.

I expect y’all to do better.

I challenge every school of preaching.

They can baptize 16 at BCS.

Every school of preaching, those students need to focus on souls.

Let’s reach the lost.

Let’s help Forest Hill reach the lost.

Let’s Collierville reach the lost.

I can think of a better work for a school of preaching for the students to incorporate

themselves into that local church and help reach lost souls.

What about central Kentucky?

is where Adam Fawn is.

18 baptisms.

Every year they hit it.

This is Chapel Hill, Isaac Bourne, Fred Hardman grad, 19 baptisms.

This is Covington, 19 baptisms.

This is Coyote, Oklahoma.

Never went to a school of preaching.

Homegrown preachers, named Keen O’Shrum.

They set the record in 2023 with 31.2 % baptism rate.

In fact, he’s been so good, we hired him.

Now he’s one of our regional trainers.

Excellent church.

from 22 to, they got up to 70 members, two and a half years.

Let’s go over here to East Flushings, we’re in New York, we’re baptizing in Queens, every

year he hits his mark.

Every year he hits, he started with a very little number of members.

Now there are about 50 or so.

And every year he hits his mark.

Let’s go back down to Tennessee, East Maine, Murfreesboro, 19 baptisms.

Let’s go to Forest Hill, Memphis last year, 11 baptisms.

You add in your restorations, you hit your mark.

That church got busy.

I could not be more thankful than the work that Scott Kane and those elders did last year

as they focused that church on soul winning.

Let’s go back to Glencoe, seven baptisms, that’s where we attend.

When my wife and family, when my children, we got there, they had 45 members.

They’ve from 180 to 45 in 10 years.

In two and a half years, we’ve gone from 45 to 120.

and we used evangelism and we made it the folk, we’ve had six already this year.

We’ve got five Bible studies going on right now at Glencoe.

Right now, Granbury Street, Cleveland, Texas, 10 baptisms.

Let’s go back down to Alabama, Hatton.

This is 17 baptisms.

Chris Miller, this is Honolulu, Tagaluma, Essene, Memphis Grad, 13 baptisms.

He has hit the mark every year.

When we first went to Honolulu, they had 90 members.

Now they have 150 members.

Ask him if it works.

because we hired him.

He’s one of our regional trainers too.

Then we have the Decarne’s Church of Christ.

This is Knoxville, Tennessee, 43 baptisms.

So here we have a congregation, Steve Higginbotham.

They’ve had a hundred baptisms in two years.

This is where the Southeast Institute of Biblical Studies is located.

Does it work?

Ask them, because they’ve had a hundred baptisms in two years.

This is Lafayette Church of Christ.

David paid in nine baptisms.

He had Lou Gehrig’s disease.

They literally had to carry him into the pulpit.

He just passed away not long ago and that church is continuing.

In fact, the elders just called me and they said, Rob, we’re gonna retrain the church

again with this new preacher and they’re doing a great job.

Lake Regions, New Hampshire, you know, you can’t, it doesn’t work in the Northeast.

You know, they’re kind of, you know, they’re kind of European up there, you know, they

don’t really believe in God up in the North.

They don’t know that at Lake Regions because they just baptize people.

Every year they hit their mark.

Here’s La Plata, here’s Eric Sykes, 50 baptisms in two years.

He’s one of our regional trainers.

So Eric has set the mark.

50 baptisms, two years.

He goes around to those churches up there around the DC area.

In fact, we were just up there with him.

And so we went to a church.

Eric follows up.

And we’re in the Beltway.

You know the Beltway around DC?

Brethren, they need some evangelism in DC.

If there’s any place on earth that needs evangelism, it’s those politicians.

And that’s exactly what we gave him, a strong dose of it.

We’re going back in the fall.

This is right here, is Linville Forest.

This is Kernelsville, 11 baptisms.

This right here is Madisonville, Russell Klein, MSOP grad, six baptisms.

This right here is McKenzie.

Here’s another MSOP grad, no, McKenzie is, uh Steele, I think he’s an MSOP grad.

This right here is Terry uh Townsend, nine baptisms in Ohio.

This is Niceville, Joe Palmer, 16 baptisms.

This is Northern Oaks, Church of Christ, 27.

grad, we graduated together, 27 baptism.

This is Oak Hill, 14 baptisms, that’s where Matt Wallins at.

This is Paintsville, homegrown preacher, Zach Collins, never went to a preaching school,

he’s about your age.

11 baptisms.

This right here is Raven County, this is McKinley, McKinley has an MSOP grad, he had six

baptisms, this is a church of like 20, it’s a mission work in Georgia.

and he revitalizes a church, he surpasses his goals.

You know how many baptisms he’s had this year?

He’s already had four.

They get 35 in attendance Sunday because of evangelism.

But it doesn’t work, it?

Let’s go back over here to Risen, Arkansas.

This is Keaton Shrum, little church about 50, five baptisms.

This is Sanford, a church of 60.

They’ve had four baptisms, two restorations.

I’m not talking about people saying, I need you to pray for me.

I’m talking about true prodigals, people who’ve left the church and come home.

Southside, Grand Rapids, Michigan, seven.

Sunset, this is where Zach Williams is located.

18 baptisms from Zach, incredible soul winner.

Union, South Carolina, Terry Hale,

This is a, Warner Robbins, Daniel Steersman, 17 baptisms, Woodstock, Georgia, Matt Amos,

15 baptisms.

Is that enough evidence?

Brother, I want you to look at the names of the churches.

These are the churches that are succeeding.

These are the churches that are reporting and keeping that 10 % threshold.

So how many baptisms does that mean Collegue of Real Needs?

You need six.

Is that a reasonable goal?

Six baptisms next year at seven.

You know what happens if you baptize 10 % of your membership seven years in a row?

Anybody know what the rule of seven is?

Anybody know what happens?

You double.

You double in seven years.

What happens if you baptize 20 %?

You do what Keno Shrum did and they tripled.

It’s amazing what happens when we start putting things in proportion.

here’s some more.

Maybe you know some of these churches.

These are the churches that are baptizing.

These are the churches that are evangelizing.

These are the churches that do not take no for an answer.

These are the churches that when they hit a brick wall, they run through it.

They don’t give up because souls are at stake.

I thank God for churches.

that evangelize, because the Church of Christ can grow.

We don’t have to have popcorn machines, vending machines.

We don’t have to fill our churches with coffee bars.

We don’t have to become the next social network church.

What we need to do is focus people on evangelism.

And when we do that, we can grow.

I want to spend a few minutes this evening demonstrating the power of a Bible study.

So I want to baptize somebody tonight.

I hope your baptistry is ready.

And so we’re going to demonstrate it.

And I need a volunteer.

So I’m looking for somebody that can help me.

Who here can help me and volunteer?

uh who can volunteer?

Josh, put your hand down.

You know, preachers, they always want to steal the limelight.

And they always want to steal the limelight.

And brother, you want to come up here?

You want to help me?

m

I know you will.

You’re going to be fine.

And I’m like, can you get that man a chair?

Someone get him a chair.

Bring that chair up.

Brother, can you bring that chair up for him?

He needs a chair.

So I’m going to use this brother right here.

And we’re going to put him right in the chair.

And did I warn you I was going to do this?

No.

So this is real.

This is real.

I feel like you’re going to give me a prayer cloth and put me on the ground.

Brother, does it look like I can throw you on the ground?

I don’t think I can.

And so sit right there.

All right.

And you’re going to need a Bible.

oh

happen to have these little booklets and so you’ll need the booklets and you may need your

Bible and someone go give his Bible for him.

He may need his Bible.

So we’re gonna demonstrate the effectiveness of back to the Bible.

Now on page 102 of your evangelism simplified workbook, everybody open their workbook,

they’re going to notice that we have a survey and on that survey we have questions and

those questions there and those are questions

is designed to evaluate where the church is at.

So where is the congregation located?

In other words, is that church, okay, as you are working with people, working with people

who believe in God, or do they believe in the Bible, or do they believe in Jesus, find out

where they are on the map.

And that’s very important.

That a church finds out where people are located.

And every church is located in a different place.

So when you’re in Queens, New York, you have a little bit different clientele.

When you’re in New Hampshire, little bit different makeup.

When you’re in Austin, Texas, it’s different.

John Garza said, Rob, about 25 % of all the Bible studies in Austin, Texas don’t use back

to the Bible.

We use believe the Bible.

We have to use a different tool because they don’t believe in God.

So I’m going to find out first where he’s located.

And so uh the best way to do that is to have a conversation.

So I’m going to suggest that we’ve been spending time together.

And we kind of hit it off.

uh You came and visited one Sunday.

uh

uh We found out that you were just moving into the area and uh my family invited you out

to eat and uh we immediately hit it off at that Memphis barbecue and uh you enjoyed it and

I enjoyed it.

Then we found out we’re both UT fans and uh we even went to a game.

Let’s say we went to a game together.

We watched some football together and we’ve been.

Who’d we be?

Alabama.

All Alabama.

right.

So any case, sorry brother.

Any case, so we built this little relationship.

Now I always do that.

I’m never gonna rush into a study.

I’m gonna build a little bit of a friendship with people.

I wanna get to know them.

So one of these days, maybe we’re just talking one day and say, I tell you what.

What do you think about the Collierville Church of Christ?

You’ve been visiting, what would you think about the church?

I figured you’d say that because they’ve sent you cards, they’ve taken you out to eat,

they’re nice hospitable people.

You know, I’m kind of on the inside.

I don’t always see clearly.

By the way, do you know a lot about the Call Your Real Church Christ?

I do.

No, you don’t.

You just moved here.

You don’t know much about it.

Boy, he’s going to be tough.

You got to role play with me, okay?

You want me to play you?

Yes, right.

Number three.

Number three.

All right.

Hey, since you’ve been visiting with us, would you like to know a little bit more about

us?

Sure.

Okay.

Hey, my wife, we’re smoking a brisket.

It’s about ready.

Why you come over tomorrow night and we’ll talk about the church.

I don’t like Texas barbecue.

That’s okay.

It’s Memphis version.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

So I told you he’s going to be hard.

And so any case, so we’re going to, I want to have more of the house.

And as I’m sitting there with him and I, you know, we’re just talking, I said, Hey man, I

was thinking, oh

You know, if I got lost and I was trying to head over to your house and I called you and

say, man, I’m lost.

I don’t know how to get there.

And I said, could you give me directions?

Would you help me if I got lost?

Sure.

OK.

What’s the first question you’d ask me?

Where are you at?

That’s right.

When we study the Bible, it’s kind important to know where we’re at.

And I think I know the answers to these questions, but I guess we both believe in God.

We’ve talked about God and we both believe in God.

That’s right.

And you said you’d like to read your Bible every day.

So I suspect you believe the Bible is the word of God.

you believe God will do everything he said in this book.

No mistakes, no issues, no conflicts.

You believe in that book.

That’s right.

And you said that you believe in Jesus.

You’re Jesus is a son of God.

He was born of a virgin and buried and rose the third day.

Yeah, that’s right.

Me too.

And I assume we both believe in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We both believe in that.

And I assume we both believe we’re saved.

I remember I was 15 years old when I was saved.

Greatest day of my life.

You remember how old you were when you were saved?

Okay, how old were you?

38.

I want you to tell me what you did to be saved.

You mind sharing that with me?

I think I went down to some, I had some service.

went down and then they asked me uh if I wanted to be saved, I guess.

And I said, I think so.

And what happened?

Tell me about the experience you had up there.

What was it that?

They had me say a prayer.

Say a prayer.

And you said the prayer and you knew you were saved.

I felt it.

You felt, of course.

felt it.

Do y’all vet your members before you let them in at Calgarville?

I mean, I’m just kidding.

All right.

So any case, whatever he says,

You know what you don’t see right now is my wife is writing this down.

And she’s gonna write down whatever you say.

She’s writing it down too.

So they’re writing it down.

And so whatever it is that my wife is gonna write this down.

So I’m trying to establish a baseline.

Where am I going with this?

So if he said, you know, I’m not so sure I believe in God.

We’re not gonna start with back to the Bible.

But what I found is he’s a religious guy.

He’s just not been taught properly.

He respects God, the Bible, Jesus.

He just needs a Bible study.

And so I’ve got all the answers.

And then I’m gonna ask one more thing.

Hey, have you ever been baptized?

Yes.

And how long was it after you were saved that you were baptized?

About three weeks.

Three weeks, about three weeks.

I’m gonna get that recorded.

I got everything I need.

I’m gonna make sure I get this information.

And here’s the difference between Robin Nicole today and Robin Nicole in 2016.

Here’s the big difference.

In 2016, I’d have taken that sheet on page 102, I’d have photocopied it and I’d given it

to him and I said, fill this out.

It’s awkward.

It’s very awkward.

And he’s gonna feel like he’s taking a test and I’m evaluating him.

Now the Rob of today has realized that if I just have a conversation with him about those

questions and my wife writes down the answers, we’re just as good.

And he’s not uncomfortable.

And in fact, it’s kind of like I shared a little bit about my life, he shared some about

his life, and now um I’ve got the answers I needed, because I need to know where he’s at.

We can progress into back to the Bible.

So my suggestion is,

a conversation, don’t test them.

That’s my suggestion.

Alright, let’s go back to the Bible.

Green Booklet, and we’ll go to page number one, and we’re gonna take our Bibles to John

chapter eight, verse 32.

I’m always gonna have him read the passage, and sometimes I’ll ask the question and let

him answer.

So go ahead and read that passage, brother.

Yes sir, if you would.

Okay, Jesus says the blank will make you free.

What is it?

The truth.

True.

Really easy.

How many of you can do that?

Raise your hand if you can do that.

There’s a few of you who are a little slower.

It’s okay.

We’ll do another one.

All right.

It’s not hard.

This is real simple stuff.

go to John 424.

It’s okay.

We’re going to go.

I’m going to get everybody’s hand up.

John 424.

So read that for me.

John 424.

God is spirit and those who worship me are most

Okay, God says we must worship him in spirit and in?

True.

How many of you can do that?

Raise your hand.

It’s unanimous.

So that’s as hard as it gets.

All you’re doing is asking a question and you’re filling in the word based upon what the

study says.

If you want a visual of back to the Bible, book one, take your evangelism simplified

guidebook, go to page 66, chart two, that’s your visual.

I love visuals.

Most of those visuals I don’t use in a Bible study.

It’s a safety net.

If I need them, I’ll pull them out.

I hope I don’t need them.

normally don’t, but if I do, I’ve got them.

That’s why they’re called a safety net.

A trapeze artist needs a safety net.

You hope they don’t need it, but if they do, you’re glad it’s there.

All right.

So this is one of my just simple illustrations.

So what is he going to learn in book one?

He’s going to learn that all the truth starts with God the father and the father gave all

that truth to the son and his son gave all that truth to the Holy spirit.

The Holy spirit took all that truth, inspired the apostles.

The apostles took all that truth, wrote it down in the

Bible.

We’re under the New Testament and not the Old Testament.

That is the name of Jesus Christ.

That’s book one.

It’s not hard.

It’s real simple.

But it’s important because it’s the foundation of everything else he’s going to learn.

So in book number one, we’re going to learn some fundamental truths that we’re under the

New Testament, not the Old Testament.

That’s book one.

Let’s go to book number two.

All right.

Book number two.

Let’s go to page five.

I’m just going to demonstrate just a very few examples of why Bible

Bible studies are important.

Now notice the Great Commission did not say go ye therefore and read the Bible, did it?

It didn’t say go ye therefore and read the book of Acts.

So I’ve asked what’s your strategy for a Bible study?

Why just tell me to read the book of Acts?

That’s not what Philip did.

He didn’t say go read the book of Acts.

So a Bible study is not just reading your Bible.

How can I accept some man guide me?

So your goal is, you’re a teacher, you’re a guide, that’s your job.

And so how do we guide people?

You need a tool.

So the Great Commission says, go either for and teach.

So the gospel is a teaching gospel, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

We’re trying to boil it down to some fundamentals.

And so this study is designed to guide you, to outline you, to provide a simple.

systematic approach for the student and to keep the teacher on point so the teacher

doesn’t chase rabbits.

And back to the Bible is excellent.

Let’s go to page five, Acts 20, verse seven.

Hey, uh I’m gonna ask you for some allowance here.

I know you’ve been reading these passages.

Would you let me read Acts 20, verse seven?

Okay, here’s the reason I wanna do it.

Acts 20, verse seven.

And I do this in every study.

If I mess it up, if I misquote it, would you stop me?

Would you say, hey, that’s not what it says?

Yeah, what are you quoting from?

OK.

Acts 20, verse 7.

You’ll see, it’s very clear.

You cannot miss it.

Verse 7.

All right.

So I’m going to start it.

And if I misquote it, if I

If I read it wrong, I want you to stop me.

You ready?

Upon the last day of the week when the disciples came together.

You gonna stop me?

Okay, let’s try that again.

Upon the last day.

It says first.

It says first, okay.

So I’m always gonna misquote it.

This is one of the techniques that I use.

I always misquote.

Upon the last day of the week when the disciples.

So here it is.

the first month of the.

week.

This is last first day of the week.

First day I said month, didn’t I?

Yeah.

Okay.

Try this again.

On the first day of the year when the disciples came to…

What’s wrong with that?

It’s the first day of the week.

The week.

What did I say?

Year.

Year.

I’m going to get it eventually.

All right.

Here it is.

Quarterly, the disciples came together to break bread.

The first day of the I know it’s exciting, isn’t it?

uh Monthly, the disciples came together to break bread.

On Christmas, the disciples came together to break bread.

On Easter, the disciples came to…

Every other month, the disciples…

He would come every time then too, but it’s still the first day of the I knew he was going

to be a lot of fun.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to read it wrong every time.

Why am I doing that, everybody?

To get him a seat.

OK, that’s right.

And we call that self-conviction.

He’s convicting himself.

You know why?

Because somewhere in that answer is what he’s been doing all his life.

I didn’t call him out.

I didn’t tell him he’s wrong.

He told me he was wrong.

He said, no, that’s not right.

It’s not monthly.

Now, I didn’t have to ask him how you did it growing up.

He said, it’s not right.

It’s not quarterly.

It’s not every other month.

It’s his first day of the week.

OK, that’s what you think.

So what I do is I’m going to let him correct himself.

It’s called self-correction.

It’s the most powerful form of correction.

When someone realizes and reasons through it.

Now,

We’re going to read it correctly now.

Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread.

Now here’s your questions.

When God told the Israelites in Exodus chapter 20 verse 8 to remember the Sabbath, did he

mean for them to keep every Sabbath?

Yes.

What happens if they skip the Sabbath?

What happens if a man said, you know there was a bad storm last night and there’s a bunch

of sticks in my yard and I’m just going to pick up the sticks.

after all, Moses didn’t say you got to observe every Sabbath.

What would happen to that man?

Anybody know?

Are you sure?

That’s exactly what happened to him.

He was stoned because we have an example of that.

What if we went to Moses and it doesn’t say every Sabbath?

Moses says, remember the Sabbath and you skipped one.

It’s interesting how we can understand it in the Sabbath.

I wonder if we can understand it in Acts 20 verse 7.

No one seemed to get confused.

Let’s keep going.

We’re gonna ask again questions, this is how you teach.

So we’re just gonna keep asking questions.

Here we go.

When those Christians met upon the first day of the week to eat the Lord’s Supper, did

they do it on the first day of each week?

Yes.

So Christians did they eat the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week?

Should we do that too?

Yes.

Okay.

So I’m just building slowly truths.

All right, now what we need is to establish contrast.

If you want a conversion, you got to establish contrast, not camouflage, but contrasts.

Contrasts are very important because contrasts are the reason why you have conversions.

If you don’t have a contrast, you don’t have conversion, why convert if there’s no

difference?

So we have to build in those contrasts so he sees a difference between what he’s been

doing, you know, throughout his life in the religious world, what the Bible says, and this

is a big one.

This is the Lord’s Supper.

And if you can’t get the Lord’s Supper right, I wonder what else you got wrong.

You know, the Lord’s Supper is a pretty big point.

If you can’t get it right there, there may be some other points where you don’t get it

right.

But we’re not done.

I want you to go to 1 Corinthians 16, 1 and 2.

Everybody go there.

Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I’ve given order to the churches of

Galatia, even so do ye.

Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you live by his door, as God has

prospered, that there be no gatherings when I come.

Now, what are we talking about in 1 Corinthians 16?

What’s the subject matter?

You know what the subject matter I’ll read the passage now concerning the collection for

the saints as I’ve given an order to the churches of Galatia even so to ye upon the first

day of the week let every one of you laid by in store as God has prospered there be no

gatherings when I come what’s the subject what are we talking about our means our means

we’re talking about

giving, right?

So by the way, you said you’ve gone to church all your life.

When you go to these churches, you know, did they ever pass the plate and ask for money?

Okay, they do.

And what day do they do that?

What day do they ask for the money?

Every Sunday?

Okay.

And have you ever gone to one of these churches that skipped a Sunday that said, you know,

we’re just not going to pass the plate today?

So when it comes to the collection, they always pass the plate.

And if you were to ask the preacher, well, preacher, why would we pass the plate on the

first day of the week?

Well, they might say because in first Corinthians chapter 16, it says, you know, upon the

first day of the week.

And they not cook the scriptures.

So you’re telling me in all the years you’ve been going to church, you’ve never seen a

church skip a Sunday.

They always pass the plate for the money.

So when it comes to taking your money, they always get it right.

But when it comes to memorializing the Son of God and taking the Lord’s Supper, same

language.

First day of the week.

They get confused.

Why is it that they don’t, why is it that they skip the Lord’s Supper but not the money?

Let me be very clear.

When it comes to taking your money, they will never misunderstand the scripture.

They’ll always get it right.

But when it comes to memorializing the Son of God, we get confused.

I just don’t know if I can understand that or not.

That’s got a contrast.

It’s huge.

And Bobby makes it very clear in this booklet.

Let’s look at that question.

Is it God’s will that we give as we’ve been prospered?

Yes.

OK.

And should we make a contribution on the same day we’re to partake of the Lord’s Supper?

That’s what it says.

That’s what it says.

You know what he’s going to do with that?

He’s going to wrestle with it.

He’s going to go home.

He’s gonna try to sleep and as he’s sleeping, he can’t sleep because he can’t rectify what

he just read because his church doesn’t do that.

He’s trying to figure out why my pastor just does it once a quarter when the Bible says on

the first day of the week and he’s gonna say, pastor, pastor, why don’t we take the Lord’s

Supper every Sunday?

Well, you know, if you take it every Sunday, it doesn’t mean as much.

You know, they don’t say that about the money.

When’s the last time you told your wife you loved her?

Today?

How about if he didn’t tell you he loved you for a whole year?

And you say, honey, are you ever going to tell me you love me?

Honey, if I just do it once a year, it means more.

You think that would work in your marriage?

Isn’t it interesting how people get confused in religion?

Those arguments just don’t make any sense, do they?

But people are trying to figure, why aren’t we doing the Lord’s Supper like we’re supposed

to?

Because it says on the first day of the week.

Moses didn’t get confused.

We shouldn’t either.

We’re going take a little break.

I’m going to put you back in the hot seat.

You’re too much fun.

Will you come back after the break?

Five minutes?

OK.

We’re not done.

Aaron, did you ever find it?

OK.

OK.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

If I could have everybody come back into the auditorium.

Michael and I have had a little fun this evening and we’re going to spend about 10-15

minutes and finish this lesson and move to lesson five.

If you have your red booklet, open your back of the Bibles.

Eric, could you advance the screen wake it up for me?

We’ll go ahead and…

There you go.

right.

One of the important…

considerations in a Bible study is the the fact that although Michael and

have done these studies and he’s realized that there are differences.

are truths that he did not know.

He didn’t know when to take the Lord’s Supper.

He didn’t know how the church was organized.

couldn’t even find his church in the Bible.

He read about the Church of Christ.

He learned about worship.

He didn’t realize he was just supposed to sing.

He didn’t understand elders and deacons and the qualifications of elders and deacons.

There’s a lot of differences.

He didn’t understand the Old and New Testament.

Although,

Michael has learned all of these truths, Michael still thinks he saved.

That’s important.

All right, so it’s important to understand the psychology or the makeup of the prospect.

And it’s taken me years to come to an understanding that when I’m in a Bible study, just

because they realize they were wrong about the Lord’s Supper doesn’t mean they realize

they’re lost.

It just means I was wrong about the Lord’s Supper, but I’ve said the prayer, so I’m saved.

So we can all disagree on the Lord’s Supper, but we can all go to heaven.

And so we can all disagree about elders, we can all go to heaven.

We can disagree about deacons, we can all go to heaven.

We can disagree about the…

you know, all these other issues, but we can go to heaven.

The issue is that in order for Michael to become a Christian, Michael has to know he’s

lost.

Michael thinks he’s saved.

So I’ve got to get Michael to a point where says, I’m lost.

Now, in order for that to happen,

All right?

I’m going to need help.

Because if I looked at Michael and said, you know you’re going to hell, don’t you?

Well, that’s the end of that study, right?

That’s not a strategy for success.

So there’s a book, and it’s titled How to Close the Study.

And it gives you uh suggestions on how to bring people across the finish line, how to get

them to make that final decision.

All right.

One of the keys to a successful close is to anticipate objections.

the objection before they do.

Let me give you an example.

So if I was trying to sell a house and maybe I’m a real estate agent and I know this house

has some deficiencies, some things that you’re not going to care for, what am I going to

do?

I want to point those out immediately oh as you walk onto the property.

And I’m going to frame them.

And I’m going to try to get you over those humps.

If you’re trying to go buy a car, and the car

He either knows that the price tag of $56,000 is out of sight and most people are going to

be scared away.

He’s going to frame that.

He’s going to frame it in such a way that it doesn’t run you off.

And I’m sure the plumber does the same thing.

When the plumber comes to the door, and this is a good example, you’re going to frame the

injection.

You’re going to handle it yourself.

You’re not going to wait for them to come at you because then you’re defensive.

You’re going to prepare them for it.

Everybody does this.

The Navy recruiter does it.

Hey, $20,000 signing bonus.

Okay, the Navy recruiter knows how to frame the argument, all right?

He knows that, hey, you’re going to see the world.

You know, you’re going to be operating, you know, know, $10 million equipment.

You know what mean?

I mean, he knows how to do it, okay?

So here’s what I’m trying to suggest.

We know there are landmines in Bible studies.

We know there are objections.

We know there’s going to be issues that are going to have to work past.

The question is how do

you get past them.

Now either you have to rely upon your experience, your wisdom, your intellect, your study,

which we’re going to eliminate just about every church member.

We’re going to scare them and they’ll say I don’t know how to do that.

Or we use an organized method.

Back to the Bible anticipates all the objections.

There’s hardly an objection they can raise that will not be dealt with in the Bible study.

And that’s why we do Bible studies.

We use a method because it helps us get through those objections.

And so whether it’s sprinkling, as he brought up, it’s in back to the Bible.

We’re going to frame it.

We’re going to bring it up.

We’re going to answer it.

So when it comes down to time for gospel obedience, it’s no longer an issue.

We’ve already dealt with that.

So whatever it is, we’re going to deal with it in the booklet.

So that’s why you need the book.

Who needs a Bible study?

He needs a Bible study because it makes it

Simple.

He needs the Bible study because it’s organized.

It’s systematic.

It anticipates objections.

You know who else needs it?

I do.

So I don’t overteach.

I don’t over talk.

I don’t insert things that are not needed.

And so I don’t have to be the intellectual giant.

All I’ve got to do is read my Bible.

And so Bible studies are designed to help the average person bring people to Christ.

Let’s go to page number nine.

And go to page nine.

On page nine, we’re going to uh look at the first close.

Back in the Bible, it’s four invitation songs.

This is number one.

And so this is the close.

And we’re going to try to bring them to the cross.

We’re going to use Romans 6, 3 through 5.

So I want to talk about the gospel.

Jesus died for our sins.

Jesus was buried.

Jesus rose again.

I’m going to show him this picture.

So on the screen, you’ll see a picture.

You can see it there on the monitor.

And it’s a beautiful picture.

It’s a picture of Jesus dying on the cross and being buried.

in his ascension on the third day.

That’s important.

So we’re going to focus on the gospel.

Why?

Why do we want to focus on the gospel?

Because the gospel is what?

It’s a power of God to save.

So let’s use the power of God.

Let’s use that power.

So I’m going to focus him on the cross.

I’m going show him the picture.

I’m going to ask, Michael, do you recognize that?

Do you see that?

What do you think about that?

Is that powerful?

Do you believe in that?

It’s the core of who we are.

Michael, let’s read Romans 6, 3 through 5.

And I want you to think about that as we read it.

All right, here we go.

Now, Michael, want you to notice we’ve used the word into twice, twice.

has said, whatever it is we’re talking about here transitions us.

moves us from the outside to the inside.

location to another and so therefore we are notice this Michael buried I would like you to

put a number one right by the word buried put a number one right by the word buried

because there we identified the burial all right so therefore it’s I’m sorry you go back

to death therefore we are let’s go back to the beginning no he not there’s so many of us

who were baptized into Jesus Christ or baptized into his death put a number one by the

word

So we’ve identified the death.

That’s important because this is the process of the gospel, the death.

Therefore we are buried.

Put a number two by the word buried.

So now we’ve got the death and the burial.

All right?

Death, burial.

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism in two.

That’s the third time we’ve used that word in two.

So we’re transitioning.

We’re moving locations.

It’s obvious three times God has said baptism is an in two process.

Michael, I’ve got news for you tonight.

There’s no one

sitting in this auditorium that didn’t come into the building.

No, not one.

Michael, I’ve got another question.

Do you think it’s possible that someone could be in the building if they did not come into

the building?

No.

No.

And I’ve been asking this question for 25 years.

And there was an engineer.

He raised his hand.

He said, preacher, it’s possible to be in the building if you didn’t come into the

building.

I said, enlighten us.

He said, the building could have been built around you.

I promise the church wasn’t built around you.

So you’ve got to go into it.

So into is important.

Here we go.

Therefore we are buried with him, but that doesn’t end to death.

like his cross was raised.

Let’s put a number three by the word raised.

So now we’ve identified three things.

We’ve identified the death, we’ve identified the burial, and we’ve identified the

resurrection.

Michael, is that important to you?

Absolutely.

Yeah, me too.

It’s the core of who we are.

Death, resurrection.

Now notice this.

That like his cross was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so he said,

walk in doing

of life.

Michael, when does the new life happen?

Before the baptism or after the baptism?

After the baptism.

after the burial, when we’re resurrected, we get new life.

Michael, know you love your wife.

What’s her name again?

Michael, your wife.

What is her name?

Shelly.

Shelly.

he forgot.

forgot.

That’s all right.

came home one day and he says, know, my anniversary is coming up and I’m so blessed.

I love my wife.

She’s such a good woman.

uh And we’re going to celebrate.

My wife has always wanted a dog.

And you know, I’m going to go get my wife.

I’m going go get her dog.

So Michael goes down to the dog place and he pets Mark.

He sees this little white little dog, know, little poodle.

just puffy little thing.

He said, oh she just loved this little dog.

And Michael says, you know, I’m gonna get her the dog.

So Michael buys this dog and he brings it home.

He says, honey Shelly, he said, I’ve got you a dog.

And for your your anniversary.

Oh Michael, that’s so nice.

You said you never have a dog.

You love me so much.

And so, know, Shelly’s got, she’s excited.

And when Michael bought the dog, there was a name on the dog.

It said Poopsy.

And she said, the name of the dog is Poopsy.

Michael didn’t really put too

together.

doesn’t know why it’s called the Poopsie, but he finds out quickly because this is a

doodling dog.

He doodles all the time.

He can’t stop doodling.

And so it’s not been house broken.

So he keeps doodling in the house.

Now Michael, you love your wife Shelly.

And Michael says, honey, don’t worry.

I’ll clean up the doodles.

And so Michael cleans up the doodles.

He does it several times a day because, you know, Michael loves his wife.

Now this goes on for period of a week or so.

And finally Michael says, that’s it.

He said, we’re taking this dog to disciplinary school.

So Michael pays the school.

takes the little poopsie to school, teach the dog how to doodle outside.

Well, the dog flunks.

And so they give the dog back to Michael, and he said, honey, I love you.

You know that if that dog doodles again in this house, it’s over.

And so they leave for church.

Come back from church, there’s Poopsy.

And there’s doodles again.

And Michael has had enough.

And Michael loses his cool.

He says, no more doodles.

And he says he goes and grabs the dog by the collar.

He takes the dog outside, grabs the shovel, and he starts digging.

And he digs and he digs and he digs.

And then he puts the Poopsy in the hole, covers up the hole, and he says, that’s it.

What do think the neighbors are going to do to Michael?

They’re going to call the police.

Why?

Why are they going to call the police, everybody?

Because you don’t bury living things.

Now, listen, we don’t bury living things.

Is that right, Michael?

That’s correct.

Except in religion.

Oh no, religion we do.

You know what we tell people?

Let’s talk about it.

Well, you know, Michael, you said that prayer, you were born again, brand new Christian,

baby in Christ.

By the way, in about three weeks, we’re gonna bury you.

We don’t bury living things, we bury dead things.

But in religion, we take things that we’re told they’re living, we’re told they’re born

again, we’re told they’re a baby in Christ, and we bury the baby.

The only people that get buried in the word of God are people that are dead in sin.

When you’re dead in sin, you get buried.

uh We only bury people that are dead.

They’re lost.

We don’t bury living things.

If you buried a living dog, you go to jail.

What happens if we bury living souls?

There’s a day of reckoning coming.

Brethren, we gotta follow what the Bible says.

You can’t just make it up.

Okay, what is the biblical order?

The biblical order’s important.

No ye not, don’t you know, that so many of us have been baptized into Jesus Christ, were

baptized into his death.

We die, the old man dies, the sinner dies, therefore we’re buried.

What do we do with the dead sinner?

We bury the dead sinner, we bury them, all right?

So we bury poopsie, we bury the dead things, not the living things, the dead things,

right?

Then notice what it says, they’re like as Christ was raised, now he weighs up.

Just like Jesus rose from the dead, we rise up and we’re a new creature.

What does that say in verse five?

life and we’ve been planted together in the likeness of his death so we die like Jesus

died so then shall we be planted in the likeness of his resurrection it’s a beautiful text

it’s teaching us the order death burial resurrection it works in life we don’t bury living

people we don’t bury living animals and we should not be burying people alive spiritually

we bury dead people spiritually dead in their sins

Now, with that being said, Michael, does the Bible describe the one baptism as a burial in

water?

Should we be buried, Michael?

Is that what the Bible says?

Yes, Michael.

Where do we get the benefits of the death of Jesus?

What must we do?

We must be what?

We must be buried and baptized, right?

Okay, Michael, if you are baptized the way the Bible says, could you be wrong?

No.

No, Michael, if you are not baptized the way the Bible says, could you be wrong?

Now let’s stop there and analyze that.

So let’s make sure everybody understands where we are.

If you are baptized the way the Bible says, you’re right.

You can be right.

But if you’re not doing it the way the Bible, you do it your own way, then you could be

wrong.

So what’s my job right now?

My job as a teacher is to find out, is Michael done what the Bible says?

That’s up to Michael and God, it’s not me.

I’m just here to help Michael determine, have you done what the Bible, is your baptism

according to what the Bible says?

Now in order to do that, I just ask questions.

It’s up to him and God, and that’s not up to me.

I’m not the judge.

All right, here it is.

Michael, do you want to take a chance on missing heaven?

No, I don’t either.

Michael, do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God?

Michael, as we have seen, Jesus commands repentance.

Are you willing to start making the changes in your life that Jesus commands and live for

God?

Yes.

OK.

I believe that.

believe that.

And Michael, have you been baptized into Christ for the remission of your sins?

You know what you’re going to tell me every time?

Yes.

Yes.

He’s going to say yes.

Every time he’s going to say yes.

You know why?

Why does he say yes?

Anybody know Justin?

Why would he say yes?

because he feels that way, because he’s Red Axe 238, that’s what the Bible teaches, that

must be what I did, but what’s the problem?

Anybody understand the conflict here?

What’s the problem?

He hasn’t been.

How do I know that?

Remember those answers he gave me before we started?

Three weeks after.

Yeah, yeah, he was saved.

He was saved three weeks before his baptism.

So I already know that’s not true.

I already know he’s got a conflict here.

Now, there’s a conflict right now.

So what do do with it?

I just let Michael keep answering questions.

He’ll see it.

I don’t have to tell him.

oh Michael, oh if you were taught you had your sins forgiven before the baptism when you

said that prayer and they said, Michael, your sins have been forgiven.

You’re a new Christian.

You’re a baby in Christ and congratulations.

You remember that day?

Yes, you do.

Michael, if you were taught your sins were forgiven before the baptism, then can you go

get baptized to have your sins forgiven?

Does that make any sense?

Now think about that.

If you were taught your sins were forgiven before the baptism, can you then go get

baptized to have your sins forgiven?

No.

No, you can’t because you were told they were forgiven before.

So in order for them to be forgiven, you’ve got to know you still have them.

But you don’t even know you have them because you were told they were gone when you said

the prayer.

I am too.

Right?

No, it’s confusing.

So normally at this point, he’s going to look at you and that don’t make sense.

And he’s right.

It is confusing.

How can I be baptized to have my sins forgiven?

But they told me when I said my prayer, the sins were forgiven.

So it doesn’t make sense.

Things aren’t adding up right now.

And he knows that.

Now I just have to help him make application.

Here he is.

Watch.

Michael, if you were taught you were saved before the baptism, could you then go get

baptized to be saved?

Don’t answer that.

Let me ask you.

Michael, have you ever been taught this before about baptism?

Have you ever seen this before?

Has anybody ever taught you this before?

No.

No.

Michael, since you were never taught this, can you, in order to obey the truth about

baptism, does someone have to teach you the truth about baptism?

But you were never taught this.

So these are just questions.

I’m not making any statements.

This is important.

Do not make statements.

It’s up to Michael.

Michael, to be baptized properly, does someone have to teach you properly?

I would think so.

And Michael, can you be taught the wrong thing and obey the right thing?

No.

Can you be taught the wrong thing and then obey the right thing?

In order to obey the right thing, someone has to teach you right.

Correct.

But you weren’t taught that.

No.

Can you accidentally be baptized?

No.

So in order to be baptized in the truth, someone has to teach you the truth.

You weren’t taught the truth, and obedience is not an accident.

So I’m making all these statements to help Michael what?

Think.

So the real question is on the screen.

It’s Michael, if you were saved before the baptism, could you then go get baptized to be

saved?

Could you do that?

No.

So now Michael begins to realize, wait a minute.

I was never taught any of this.

Brethren, can you be baptized accidentally?

So someone has to teach you the truth.

Is it possible that we have

people in this world who were not taught the truth about baptism, but they think they were

baptized correctly, but no one ever taught them.

And that is exactly where we are in this world.

People who were not taught the truth, they didn’t know the truth.

They’re convinced, but no one ever taught them this.

And you can’t be accidentally baptized.

Now Michael realizes this.

He realizes this is scary.

Listen, I didn’t know any of this.

So let’s just ask this question.

John 14, 15, the Bible says, if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments, Michael.

Michael, if we really love Jesus, will we want to obey him?

Michael, do you love him?

Michael, do you want to obey him?

Me too.

And Michael, since Jesus wants you to be baptized, and now that you understand the

importance of being baptized right now, wouldn’t it please Jesus for you to be baptized

right now?

Yes, sir.

It would.

90 % of the people I study with are baptized right there.

And the reason is they were never taught.

No one ever taught them the truth.

They did not know any of this.

I cannot tell you how important it is that someone teaches you the truth.

You’re not gonna stumble on it by accident.

And if someone misled you, and they may be sincere, I’m not questioning these people.

But the point is that we’ve gotta do it the way the Bible teaches it.

If I do what this book says, I know I’m right with God.

If I do not do what this book says, I could be wrong, and I’m not gonna take that chance.

I will not take it.

And I will do exactly what this book says.

And I’ve used a lot of examples tonight, but that’s what a Bible study does.

And so it helps a person.

look inside themselves and ask difficult questions.

And you do it with love.

I love Michael.

I’m not trying to hurt him in any way.

I love him enough where I would sit down, ask those questions and let him come to an

understanding.

I am not the judge.

It’s not up to me to tell Michael if he’s going to heaven or hell.

That’s between him and God.

But Michael is smart enough to read his Bible and know the truth.

All right.

So we’re going to finish that.

Thank you, Michael.

You’re, you’re, you’re ready to be baptized.

Anybody, if you want to see Michael baptized raise your hand.

Would you like to do it?

You all take the left side, I’ll take the right side.

I think it would take more than just me.

All right brother thank you very much.

You may leave.

Shelly is waiting.

Shelly’s waiting.

She wants poopsie.

Go give her poopsie.

Do you have a dog Shelly?

We have Django.

Django.

Okay good.

Is it a doodling dog?

It’s a pig.

Okay.

boy.

Poodles or poodles.

All right.

Very good.

All right, let’s go to the next lesson.

Aaron, would you bring up lesson number five?

We’re going to abbreviate the lesson tonight, but I do want to cover some important

points.

So evangelism is not a theory, and it cannot stay in the classroom.

The classroom is what we call sterile environment, meaning that I control the temperature,

I control the context, and it’s easy to make it look simple.

when we don’t have the interference of the world.

What I want to do now is take the world and infuse it into evangelism.

I want you to deal with the real world.

All right, so we’re going to go out into the real world and they’re going to ask

questions.

And they’re going ask a lot of questions.

And oh it scares Christians.

Like, I don’t know the answers.

I don’t know what I’m going to say.

Well, let’s talk about that.

Lesson number one in our principles, of the seven principles, is what?

What should we do with all questions?

defer them.

We do not answer questions.

And so if you’re in a Bible study and someone says, well, I want to know about the

thousand year reign of Christ.

That’s a great question.

I want you to open your back to the Bible and I want you to write that question down.

We’ll get to it later.

So I’m not there to play Bible trivia.

I’m not there to answer all the questions.

I am not there to try to prove I know more Bible than they do.

So it’s very, very important that we understand, we need to understand that you don’t have

to

all the answers.

Okay, if someone has to know all the answers, then none of us are qualified, because I

don’t know all the answers.

What we do need to know is the authority of Christ, the Church of Christ, the salvation of

Christ.

Keep it simple, all right?

Keep it real.

Do not bury yourself into theological concepts, all right?

So you don’t need to be afraid.

No one in this audience needs to be afraid.

Just use the tool that God gave you.

right.

Now, 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, verses 19 through 23.

I have.

made all things to all men that I might be, all men save some.

Paul’s talking about how he approaches people.

He said, when I’m with the Jews, I’ll use the custom of the Jews.

When I’m with the Gentiles, I use the custom of the Gentiles.

When I’m with the Greeks, I use the custom of the Greeks.

When I’m with the Romans, I use the custom of the Romans.

In other words, I adapt.

And so when it comes to Bible studies, we have to adapt.

What does that mean?

Not everyone is ready for back to the Bible.

Because we have people that don’t believe in God.

And if they don’t believe in God, I’m going to change out my lure.

I want to use believe the Bible.

Some people are not ready for a Bible study.

And so I’m going to spend a little bit more time building relationships.

So we’re going to treat people differently based upon where they’re at.

That’s important to understand.

We’re going to adapt.

Now, Callie Hudson walks in the church building.

She sits down.

I’ve never met her.

She sits right next to Clifton, must be Clifton’s girlfriend.

Clifton is a faithful member of the church.

We get to know Callie.

She is a wonderful young lady.

And over a period of time, after she keeps coming, Clifton comes to me and says, Rob, he

said, I really would like your help.

I would like your help to convert Callie.

I said, Clifton, I’d be glad to help you.

I said, let’s invite Callie over to the house.

Let’s have a game night.

And let’s just talk a little bit.

And I think the Bible study will come.

That was my plan.

So we put this plan together before the game night.

He calls me.

He’s frantic.

He said, Rob, have you heard the news?

I said, what news?

I could tell he’s frantic on the phone.

He said, Rob, says, Calhoun’s dad just had a heart attack.

I said, Clifton, I’m sorry.

I said, what hospital?

I’ll be right there.

He said, Rob, he didn’t make it, Rob.

So at that point, she’s lost her dad.

It’s a sudden passing.

It’s a tragic, it’s trauma.

No one expects this to happen when you’re 20 years old.

And so I know that Callie’s going to need a lot of love.

So the church wraps their arms around Callie.

We send the cards.

We send the flowers.

We go out of our way to endear ourselves to this young couple, especially Callie.

A year passes by, and I realize it’s time.

And so we again have that game night.

to the house, Callie starts to study.

She does excellent.

She knows all the answers.

She could have taught me book one.

She’s been listening to all the sermons.

She’s very intelligent, couldn’t have gone better.

So we finished book number one.

OK, we have her over next week.

We have another meal.

We do book two.

Callie’s going through the answers.

Once again, she gets them all right.

fact, when it came to the Lord’s Supper, I asked a question.

I said, Callie, do these passages?

Do they cause you to have any questions?

Well, Mr.

Rob, I know my church doesn’t do the Lord’s Supper like the Bible says, but you know, the

Bible says the first day of the week and I think that’s when we need to do it.

So, okay, she accepts it.

She doesn’t argue with it.

And so I can see that she’s getting the concept.

She’s not arguing with the Bible because there’s some conflicts and she might look back at

her home church and says, you know, they just do it monthly there or quarterly there.

so Callie accepts it.

So now we’re in the third study.

She’s sitting across the table.

She’s going to ask.

So let me stop.

One of the traits or characteristics of an evangelist is that you need to anticipate the

questions.

What’s she going to ask, Michael?

What’s she going to ask me?

Where’s my dad?

That’s right.

Where’s my dad?

You know it’s coming.

I mean, she’s 20 years old.

She’s lost her dad.

She’s going to ask.

So I know I’m sitting across the table, and I’m going to get that question, so I’m

prepared for it.

I’ve thought about this.

I’ve spent a year thinking about it.

In fact, the very night her father passed away, I’m thinking about it.

Because I know that if I don’t have a prepared answer for this, my words could either hurt

or heal.

They can either help or…

are hindered.

And so at this point, it’s coming.

So we’re going through this Bible study, right, and she’s accepting what the Bible says.

On sin, she’s all in, right?

She couldn’t be any more clear and understanding.

We go through belief, she’s there.

Repentance, she’s there.

Confession, she’s there.

We go through baptism.

She gets it.

Her eyes filled with tears.

They drip down her face.

They fell on the table.

They pulled up.

And she lays her head on the table and she just falls.

She knows.

My wife put her arm around her and held her and I just let her cry.

One of the men that I consulted with before I did this Bible study was Keith Mosher.

I said, over to Mosher, I need help.

I know what’s coming.

What do I do?

He says, when she cries, let her cry, Rob.

Don’t stop her.

He says, you can’t stop this.

You got to let her cry.

I reached out to a lot of preachers.

What am I going to do?

Because it’s going to come.

tears started to clear up.

Callie picked her head off the table, looked at me and I said, Callie, said, I know why

you’re crying.

I said, you’re worried about your dad, aren’t you?

And she said, Mr.

Rob, what about my dad, Mr.

Rob, what’s going to happen to him?

I said, Mr.

Callie, said, you know what, I’m not the judge.

I don’t determine those things.

I said, Callie, I can help you.

And she said, what do mean?

I said, well, I just need to know more about your dad.

I said, tell me about your dad.

Was he a good man?

Well, yes, Mr.

Rob, he was a good man.

I said, well, tell me, what does that mean?

She tells me some stories about her dad.

Now she’s smiling.

That’s what I wanted.

I said, Cali, was your dad a religious man?

Did he believe in?

yes, Rob, he believed in God.

I said, well, great, Cali.

I said, Cali, was your dad a hardworking man, an honest man?

Yes, Mr.

Rob.

I said, well, tell me.

Hey, Cali, did anybody ever teach your dad what I just taught you?

She said, I don’t know Mr.

Rob.

I said, okay.

I said, Kelly, if your dad could come back right now and he could talk to you and you

could listen to his words, Kelly, would your dad to tell you to do what the Bible says?

She said, well, Mr.

Rob, my dad would always tell me to do what the Bible says.

I said, I believe that.

I said, Kelly, I’ll make a promise to you at this table.

I will ask you to do no more or no less than what the Bible says.

And I think if your dad would want you to do what the Bible says, you probably should do

that.

Callie looked at me and she said, Mr.

Rob, the Bible says I need to be baptized.

I said, that’s what the Bible says.

I said, what do you want to do, Callie?

She says, I need to be baptized, Rob.

And I said, good.

I said, let’s go.

So we got out of the table.

We started walking to the Baptist tree.

We got halfway there.

She turned around and walked back.

She sat around the table.

I said, Callie, everything OK?

She says, Mr.

Rob, she says, you know what?

I’ve decided to wait on my brother.

You know, my brother’s been coming, Mr.

Rob.

And I think I need to wait on my brother.

I said, well, Callie, I said, uh I wish every brother had a sister like you.

And he said, well, why is that, Mr.

Bob?

I said, because you want him to become a Christian.

I said, every brother needs a sister just like you.

And she said, well, I want him to be a Christian too.

I said, me too.

I said, Callie, how are you going to get your brother to become a Christian?

Remember, I just ask questions.

I don’t make statements.

She said, well, Mr.

Rob, I was thinking we’d use these little booklets.

I said, well, that sounds good.

And we’d sit down and do these Bibles.

I think that’s a good approach.

And Callie, when do you want him to book them?

Well, Mr.

Rob, when we finished about.

Mr.

Robert, you tried to tell me something.

I said, well, no, I’m just asking questions, Callie.

When do you want him to become a Christian?

When we finished the Bible study, Mr.

Rob.

You don’t want him to She said, no, Mr.

Rob.

I said, no, Callie, most people don’t travel down roads.

Other people don’t travel down first.

Someone has to be the first.

I said, would it be OK if you showed him the way?

She said, Mr.

Rob, I need to be baptized.

I said, I know, Callie.

I said, let’s do it right now.

and we took her to the baptistry and she was baptized.

Isn’t it interesting how just asking simple questions, people can reason through difficult

situations.

Here’s some things that took me a lifetime to learn.

I’m 50 years old, it feels like a lifetime.

Stop telling people what to do.

Brother, I am not here to tell you what to do.

I’m here to ask questions, read the Bible, and you can figure it out.

I really believe in this audience tonight, if people will be honest, read their Bibles,

and reason, you’ll come to the truth.

You don’t need me to tell you.

You’re smart.

Callie’s smart.

She doesn’t need me to tell her what to do.

She knows what the Bible says.

And you know, I’m not the first person who has said it like this.

Because in Luke chapter 16, verse number 19, there was a rich man.

And he fared sumptuously every day.

And the Bible said there was a beggar.

And he sat at the gate full of swords, and desiring to be fed from the crumbs that fell

from the rich man’s table below where the dog came and licked his swords.

And the Bible says the beggar died, and he was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom,

and the rich man died.

And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments.

And he Abraham fall off, and he says, Father Abraham, I’ve got five brethren.

Father Abraham, send me back, that I may testify to them, lest they come into this place

of torment.

Abraham said, son, they have Moses and the prophets.

Let them hear them.

He said, but Father Abraham, they won’t listen.

If one were wise from the dead, they would repent.

So neither a foot would rise from the dead, they repent.

I’m wondering right now if your mother could come back and talk to you.

Say, honey, what would she tell you to do?

Because I know what she would tell you to do.

I don’t need to know your mother, but I know what she’d tell you to do.

I know what your grandmother would tell you.

I know what your grandfather would tell you.

I know what your son would tell you.

Because I know that the message coming from the grave, I know exactly what they would tell

you to do.

They would say, you do what the Bible says.

Brethren, everybody on the other side of eternity wants you to do what the Bible says.

Everybody believes in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I don’t have to judge them.

It’s not my job to tell you where they’re at.

But I know what they tell you to do, don’t you, Michael?

They tell you the truth.

And that’s all I want is the truth.

Tell me the truth.

This is Chandler.

This is her brother.

And Callie went home and she did something that I should have anticipated.

And I didn’t.

And I anticipate it now, but I didn’t then.

Mama, I need to tell you what I did.

What did you do, honey?

Well, mama, I’ve been going.

church you know over at Willette with my boyfriend Clifton.

Yes honey I’ve been doing these Bible studies with Mr.

Rob.

Who’s Mr.

Rob?

Well it’s the preacher down there.

kind of Bible studies honey?

Well I just wanted to know more about what they believe.

Mama and I learned that I needed to be baptized.

I did what?

Mama, the Bible says, that believes and is baptized shall be saved.

And I didn’t know that, Mama.

And Mama, I want to show you what the Bible says.

What do you mean, buddy?

Well, let’s just read it together.

I don’t want to read that.

But Mama, says, he that believes and is baptized shall be saved.

I didn’t know that.

I’ve never done that.

And I was baptized.

were what?

I was baptized because the Bible says, honey, you know we don’t believe that.

But Mama, says it right here in the Bible, Mama.

But honey, you know that our family doesn’t believe like that.

just wanted to do what the Bible says.

Honey, how dare you go behind my back like that.

But mom, I just wanted to do what the Bible says.

Honey, how dare you dishonor this family like that.

It’s over.

Clifton says she just collapsed, rolled up into a ball, and she sobbed.

He calls me.

Rob, hey, Clifton.

It’s a great day, isn’t it?

He said, He says she went home and told mama.

I said, what do mean?

Her mom was upset, Rob.

I said, what do mean she’s upset?

She says they don’t believe like this.

I said, what do you mean?

And he explains the situation.

He said, Rob, I don’t know what to do.

Mom’s upset.

She’s upset now.

What are we going to do?

And I said,

I don’t know.

I said, I don’t know.

I said, I cannot believe that this has happened.

I said, Clifton, give me some time.

I need to think.

So I hung up the phone, and I decided that I needed to reach out to the wisest people I

knew.

How do you handle this?

And so I reached out.

I made phone calls.

And I finally found an elder that I thought would help me.

And his name’s Hugh Wayne Clark, one of the wisest men I’ve ever met.

And he said, Rob, says, here’s what needs to happen.

He says, you need me.

and Joe to have them in our home and we’ll help them.

And you stay at Bible, I was at Bible camp that day.

You stay at Bible camp and you teach the children, I’m an elder, I’ll do my job.

And so sure enough, he has them over to the house and she’s at the house and she’s eating

together and she finally start telling Hugh Wayne about what’s going on.

It’s a very difficult discussion.

She tells about how her mama was upset with her and finally after that discussion.

He went and says, Callie, if I was your mother and you came home and told me what you just

told me, I’d be upset too.

What do you mean Mr.

Hugh Wayne?

Do you think I did the wrong thing?

I didn’t say that.

Callie, has anybody ever taught your mother what, anybody ever taught your mother what you

were taught?

Did she know what you knew?

Well no Mr.

Hugh Wayne, one ever taught me that.

No, I’ve never taught my mother.

So your mother did not know what you know, no?

So you can understand when you started telling your mother about this, she’s gonna get

upset because no one’s ever had a Bible study with your mother.

No.

Callie?

If you’re faithful to God, one day you’re gonna lead your mother to Christ.

One day, not today.

Here’s what needs to happen.

Be faithful to God and understand that in about three weeks, your mother’s gonna be this

much less angry with you.

You won’t notice.

And in about three months from now, she’ll be this much less angry and you’re gonna go

shopping for shoes.

And he says, how do you know that Mr.

Hugh Wayne?

Because your mother loves you, Callie, and she won’t be angry forever.

But you have to be faithful because one day if you’re faithful, you’ll lead your mother to

Christ.

If you give up, if you give up and turn back any hope your mother has of being a Christian

is gone.

You where she was the next Sunday?

Sitting in the pew worshiping God.

She never missed, but he’s not there.

Clifton is gone.

And I said, Clifton, Kelly, where’s Chandler?

My mother forbid him to ever come back to this church.

Mr.

Rob, now what are we going to do?

I said, I said, I’ll tell you what.

Callie, back on the evangelism table, there’s these little booklets.

And luckily, I have a second set.

You took my first set.

And so, and I want you to go grab three sets.

And why do we need those, Mr.

Rob?

I said, because you’re going to teach Chandler the gospel.

Me, Mr.

Rob?

Mr.

Rob?

I don’t, I don’t know.

I’m just a new Christian, Mr.

Rob.

I can’t teach him the gospel.

I said, you can read, can’t you?

Go teach him the gospel.

Know what she did?

They taught him the gospel.

It’s amazing what happens when the members believe they don’t need me.

They don’t need me.

You can do it too.

The members are doing it.

I noticed sitting next to Chandler after a couple months was a young man and I noticed he

was a, he’s not a member.

I walked up to Chandler, said, Chandler, who do you got with you today?

Oh, that’s my best friend Marshall.

Really?

Marshall, we’re glad you’re here.

Been listening to your sermons, Mr.

Rob, I like them.

I said, what, really?

He yeah, you like, I like the Bible preaching you do.

I said, thanks, Marshall.

I said, Chandler, have you taught Marshall the gospel?

Me, Mr.

Rob?

Mr.

Rob, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I said, Chandler, back on the evangelism table, there’s these little booklets.

They’re called Back to the Bible.

I want you to grab two sets and teach Marshall the gospel.

Mr.

Rob, I just became a Christian.

I said, I know, but you can read.

What happens when our young people start evangelizing?

They convert their friends.

You want to keep the young people saved?

Teach them how to be soul winners.

Stop taking them to every Bible camp and every retreat and every youth rally and every

youth day and celebrating themselves.

Eventually, they’re going to not be able to celebrate themselves.

Eventually, we need to teach them how to do Bible studies.

And we need to teach them how to reach the lost.

And so when we teach them how to do that, I’m telling you what, I know where Chandler is

on Sundays.

He’ll never forget what he did.

By the way, I was in Jackson, Mississippi.

Gary Hempton is the preacher.

And I was about to get into the pulpit and start preaching.

My phone rang.

I looked down.

It was Willette.

That’s I used to preach.

I had to answer it.

was an emergency.

Sunday morning, I kneeled down.

said, hello?

Bob, this is Jack.

I said, Jack, what’s going on?

He said, Rob, you’ll never guess who just walked through the doors.

It’s their mother, Rob.

She’s here.

and her son baptized her into Christ for the remission of her sins.

Now that’s the power of the gospel.

You’re going to experience a lot of questions in Bible studies.

I wish I had time to run through all the questions that I could possibly think of, and I

will do that at the Memphis School of Preaching, but I can’t do it here tonight.

So if you want to come back in May to the school, I’m going to answer all of them.

But I am going to deal with some big ones, all right?

What if they’re living together?

What do do if they’re living together?

And so uh that was the case with Amy and Evan.

I told you Sunday that they walked out of the house.

uh I thought we’re going to the cross.

Then Satan fired an arrow right through them and a phone rang.

This is after the second study.

It was Sheila.

And Sheila said, Rob?

I said, yes, Sheila?

Rob, are Amy and Evan gone?

I said, yes, they just walked out the door.

Rob, we got to talk.

I said, what’s going on, Sheila?

Oh, I raised a boy better than this, Rob.

I said, well, Sheila, what’s going on?

Oh, God, promise me you won’t tell anybody.

I said, well, I don’t know what we’re talking about.

I said, what are we talking about?

Sheila, oh, Rob.

Oh, Bob, Evan bought a house in Lafayette.

I said, I know you’re proud of him.

Rob, listen to me.

Rob, Amy’s moved in, they’re living together.

That’s not good.

No, Rob, I knew since you were doing these Bible studies, you probably needed to know

that.

I said, yes, that’s important information.

Rob, what are you gonna do about it?

What do mean?

What am I doing?

He’s your son.

And so I did not say that.

I did not say that.

I thought it, but I didn’t say it.

And I said, tell you what.

said, said, Nicole and I are going to talk about it.

Well, don’t tell them that I told you.

I said, I won’t tell them.

And so I got off the phone, and Nicole and I looked at each other.

And I said, Nicole, what are we going to do?

She says, you’re going to do what you always do, have a Bible study.

But then I solved every problem.

By the way, Larry Aykuff, let me quote him, all church problems are solved in the Baptist

tree.

You want to solve a church problem?

You do a Bible study.

That’s where you solve it.

So I just, came over to the house for the third study.

We sat around the table.

They did the study.

And we got to Act 238.

And I said, Amy and Evan, the Bible says, what does it say to do?

They said, repent.

I said, put it in the blank.

Hannah, bring the cookies.

And she said, yes, Dad.

She brought the cookies.

I said, we’re done today.

And they said, Mr.

Robbins says to be baptized.

I said, I know, but we’re done.

But Mr.

Robbins says to be baptized.

I said, I know, but we’re finished with the study.

But Mr.

Robbins, I said, we’re finished.

by the way, before you leave, enjoy the cookies.

I said, I do have a story I need to tell you.

And one thing I learned about Jesus is he likes to tell parables to get them to see it.

I’m going to tell my parable.

It’s the parable of oh Terry and Marlena Starks.

And it’s an actual couple that I met in Madisonville, Kentucky.

They were living together.

I told them about how we met them, how we studied the Bible, how she moved into our house

for just a short period of time, how we married them, and now they’re faithful Christians

of the Madisonville Church of Christ.

It’s a long story, but I told the story.

And when I finished the story, I said, by the way, guys, when you’re ready to continue the

study, just let me know.

Call me.

They walked out of the house.

They got in their car.

Amy looks over at Evan.

She says, Evan, I think they know about us.

The entire county knew about them.

It’s a small town.

Nothing’s a secret.

And so any case, two weeks later, she calls me.

Well, I can’t

like this anymore.” I said, live like what?

Rob, just can’t do this anymore.

I said, do what Amy?

Oh Rob, you know I’m living with Evan.

I said, oh.

I said, okay.

I said, Evan, said, Amy, where you going?

She said, I’m gonna live with my grandmother.

I said, that’s a good choice.

Rob, can you meet me at the building?

Rob, I need to be baptized.

I’ll be right there, Amy.

Good, because Evan will be right behind me.

He was.

And he has been ever since.

Isn’t it beautiful?

Isn’t it beautiful, Michael?

That’s the gospel.

That’s what the gospel does.

You want to solve problems?

Do it in your Bible study.

You don’t need to be a pop psychologist.

You don’t need to be a psychoanalyst.

You don’t have to be a therapist.

What we need is apply the Bible.

This book will solve almost every problem.

If we just trust the power of this book and people are…

We just ask questions and then let them hear the simplicity of gospel preaching.

They’ll see it.

But if we don’t teach them, they won’t.

If we’re afraid, they won’t.

If we never teach them, they’ll never see it.

I’m gonna deal with one more question and then we’re gonna be done for this evening.

And I’ll need about five more minutes.

All right.

So I’m sitting in the living room uh and Sharon Fisher’s sitting there and she says, she

says, Robin, my first marriage.

The last thing I wanted to hear was a first marriage.

And I said, ah

And so she tells me about this first marriage.

I don’t know much about it, but she tells me a little bit about it.

so I’ve got some questions.

What do I do with that information?

She’s exposed that she has multiple marriages.

I don’t know much about it.

I could stop at that point and have an inquisition.

I could ask lots of questions.

I could try to pin it down and find out the details.

But I just met them.

This is the first time they’ve ever been in my house.

So what did I do?

oh

I practiced John 16-12.

John 16-12 is a very important passage because it helps me understand how to approach

people.

And this is Jesus speaking to his disciples and he says something.

says, I have many things to say to you, but you can’t bear them now.

What does that mean?

What does that mean, brother?

You’re a second year student at Memphis.

What does it mean?

You can’t handle it.

That’s right.

That’s right.

You’re not ready.

You’re not ready.

So there’s some things I need to teach you, but I can’t teach you right now because you’re

not ready.

So what do we need to do?

We need to bring them to a point where they are ready.

So I know that it’s going to take time.

I know that it’s going to take us to some time.

So Nicole and I spent a lot of time with Jimmy and Sharon.

And we’re also doing these Bible studies.

We’re going through them.

But not every time we met them did we do a Bible study.

Sometimes we just went to the classroom and cleaned the kindergarten class, because she’s

a kindergarten teacher.

Sometimes we went to Latia’s and ate a meal.

Sometimes we didn’t always have a Bible study.

Why?

Because I need time to build the relationship.

And I also know that faith comes by.

hearing and hearing by the word of God.

We need time.

And so I’m not going to rush into it.

I’m going to give them time to digest all of this.

All right?

So we’re going through this process, John 16, 12 process.

oh But I know eventually we’re going to have that third study.

And I’m going to have to deal with sin.

And I do.

And it’s on page, I think it’s page three, back to the Bible, the red booklet.

This is the question.

All right, this is the first.

And so we’re sitting in that Bible study.

I said, Jimmy and Sharon, let’s read that verse.

Know ye not?

The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God be

I said Jimmy, do you know what a fornicator is?

He said, yes.

He says, yeah, that’s wrong.

I know what that is.

said, you sure?

Yes, I know what that is.

I said, okay.

I trust him.

I said, Sharon, says uh idolaters.

Sharon, do you know what an idolater is?

She said, yes.

Well, those are the people in the African jungles watching the gold things.

I said, close enough.

I said, close enough.

I said, yes, no gold things.

I said, OK.

So now we’re going to the third qualification, right?

Adultery.

I said, hey, guys, do you know what adultery is?

They kind of looked at each other and looked at me, and they said, yeah, I think so.

I said, well, let’s make sure.

Take your Bibles, everybody.

I’m going to take about two minutes.

Take your Bibles.

I’ll show you.

I think things very simple.

I’m a very simple preacher.

I’m not complicated, because I don’t think God meant for it to be hard.

All right, so just go to Matthew 19.

I’m gonna write down four things.

I would strongly encourage you to do this or take a picture of the screen because this is,

I’ve been doing this for years and it always works.

I can’t think of one time this did not work.

They’re always gonna see it.

Now what they do with it, it’s up to them, but they’ll see it.

I said, let’s go to Matthew 19 verse three.

Then the Pharisees came to Jesus, attempting him, saying, Jesus is at lawful for a man to

put away his wife for every cause.

What do you think Jesus is going to do with that question?

He’s going uh to ask his own question.

Just like I taught you Sunday, he does not answer direct questions.

Have you not read?

He’s brilliant, isn’t he?

He’s so good.

Have you not heard that he that made them in the beginning made them male and female?

And where this call shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and

they twain shall be one flesh, where God has joined together.

All right, everybody can answer.

Who does the joining?

God.

Simple.

It can’t get any more simple than that.

God does the joining.

by the way.

When God does the joining, does God follow his law?

Yes or no?

Yes.

Yes, he always follows his law.

He’s never going violate the law.

So let’s just make sure we understand.

So God is going to take one eligible man, one eligible woman, and he’s going to unite

them.

You know what God’s not going to do?

He’s not going to unite two men.

He’s never going to do it.

Well, the judge said, I don’t care what the judge says.

God’s not, but the president said, I don’t care what the president says.

Because God is only going to unite one eligible man with one eligible woman.

Well, I got that.

I got the marriage ceremony certificate.

I don’t care what certificate you have because God is only going to do it when he follows

his law.

Does everybody agree with that?

Everybody agree?

I’ve never met anyone in the church who disagreed with that.

I’ve done 325 of these.

Watch out.

No more can a man not go out there and take another man as his husband.

Can a man go out there and take another man’s wife?

You can’t do it.

Now we’re as silent as a church mouse.

Because now the chickens come home to roost.

Because now we understand that it’s just as wrong.

We’re ready to stand on a phone foundation.

No, you can’t take another man.

You can’t take another man’s wife either.

Well, the judge says there, the judge said that there was a, well, I don’t really care

what the judge says because the Bible also says what God is doing together, let not man

put asunder.

Guess who has the power to break a marriage?

God.

And he will only make that marriage dissolve when you follow his law.

I did not write that.

God did.

You know, God told us when that happens, whosoever put it the way his wife accepted B for

fornication and marries another committed adultery.

He that marries her that is put away committed adultery.

That’s God’s law.

I read it and I said, Jimmy and Sharon, do you understand what the Bible says?

I said, of course.

I said, Jimmy, is your marriage right?

He said, Rob, I’ve never been married before.

I said, Sharon, is your marriage right?

She said, Rob, well, she says, my first husband left me for another woman.

I said, thank God.

It doesn’t always work like that.

I did with Geneva.

Hey Rob, I got a problem, Rob.

I said, what’s going on, Geneva?

My husband, Rob, had five wives, five wives.

I’m a very optimistic person.

So I said, well, Geneva, bet they’ve all committed adultery.

And she said, no, Rob, they have not.

I said, Geneva, I think we need to take some time and we need to study this.

I said, let’s get with the elders.

So I sat down with the elders, Geneva and Nicole.

We just sat down.

We just read the Bible.

I said, Geneva, do you understand what the Bible says?

She says, yeah.

I said, Geneva, what does that mean?

She says, Rob, that means he’s not my husband, Rob.

And I need help.

I said, Geneva, if that’s what you want, if that’s what you think, we’re going to help

you.

I said, Geneva, I want you to know something.

I said, you’ll never be alone again.

I said, your girls are our girls now.

I said, I’ll help you with them.

What do you need us to do?

You need a house?

What do you need?

She said, I just need some time.

And she put him away.

And in every holiday and birthday, you know where those girls are at?

Our home.

because those are our girls now.

And we’re going to be there for the girls.

We love them.

We love Geneva.

In fact, our son, when we’re not home, takes them to church.

Let me introduce you to our family.

You do see the resemblance, don’t you?

That is my family.

Let me show you on the left-hand side.

On the left-hand side of Hannah is Geneva.

She’s a courageous woman, isn’t she?

She loves the Lord more than she loves men.

On the left-hand side is her middle child.

That’s, well, that’s Nikea.

Sitting next on Nicole’s lap is the youngest.

She’s 10 now.

Her name is, and so on the left-hand side is the oldest, and that’s Nyla.

And sitting behind Jared is our son.

And uh that’s our family.

I want you to know something.

When a person’s willing to do what the Bible says, he’ll never be alone.

And so, Rob, you certainly are not suggesting that people are actually going to make those

hard decisions.

They just did.

I was in Hartsfield, Alabama last week, and we had a lady make that decision during the

seminar.

And her husband accepted it because he wasn’t her husband.

and they repented.

And I’ve seen it several times.

I’ve heard members of the church say, well, you just can’t expect people.

Yes, you can, because that’s what the Bible says.

I know that some sins are harder than others, but Jesus told that rich young ruler, you

need to give it back because it’s not yours.

He didn’t say to the rich young ruler, if you’re baptized, you can keep it.

He said, no, you have to give it back because it’s not yours.

I would like to suggest tonight that if you don’t have the courage in a Bible study to

tell the truth, you do the kingdom a favor and never do a Bible study.

Don’t do it.

Make sure you have the courage to tell the truth in a Bible study.

Thank you for listening tonight.

I do want to share a couple encouraging slides as we walk out of the auditorium.

Let me show you those encouraging slides.

We got a lot of new convert material.

I don’t have time to go over it in this seminar, but you will in the curriculum.

We have other Bible study methods.

This is the one study method.

It’s called Does It Matter?

This is the three study method for those who don’t believe in God.

It’s called Believe the Bible.

It’s very important.

Now this is what happened in 2020.

So there were 370 baptisms that took place as we were teaching.

churches, 32 churches of Christ.

So we increased that number to in 2021 and we had 649 baptisms.

Those are the actual pictures.

In 2022, it increased again to 980 baptism.

In 2023, it’s 1,403 baptisms.

And in 2024, it’s 1,939 baptisms.

There is no AI-generated photo there.

Those are actual people.

And we keep very close numbers.

We have a spreadsheet.

For every baptism, there’s a date and a name and a church.

I don’t make it up.

So for those of you who are doubting, please let those pictures sink into your heart.

If you’ll follow New Testament evangelism, you’ll grow.

To God be the glory, let’s pray.

Father, we’re thankful for this church.

We’re thankful for the good audience tonight.

for the souls that are interested in salvation.

Bless us Father that we might reach others.

Help us Father to trust the gospel.

Help us Father to have courage and to believe in the gospel for we know it’s the power to

save.

And bless Collierville Father with growth.

We pray for Aaron as he labors here, Justin and Father for every member.

We love thee and praise thy name.

Bless us as we travel home for in Jesus name we pray, amen.

1 Timothy 4 (Lesson 5) – Aaron Cozort – 07-20-2025

In Admonition Podcast, Church, doctrine, example, experience, keywords Timothy, leadership, Ministry, Paul, Spiritual Growth, teaching by Aaron Cozort

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boldness in every scenario and opportunity we find in our lives.

Lord, we pray that you be with us as we go throughout this week.

pray that you will be with those who are traveling, those who are away from us.

Pray that they have safety and return home safely as well.

We pray for those who are dealing with illnesses and pray especially for those who are

struggling spiritually.

We pray that they might

look to your word for guidance and for strength to hold fast to what you would have them

to do and always strive to walk diligently before you.

Lord, we pray that you forgive us when we sin and fall short of your glory as we know that

we all do.

All this we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Paul instructs Timothy to teach the things which he is teaching Timothy.

Now that doesn’t really seem like much of a surprise since Paul’s writing to a young

preacher teaching him what to teach.

But it is important to realize that as Paul is teaching Timothy what to teach, he’s also

teaching us what to teach.

And He is giving instructions that we also need to follow and the things that we need to

make sure that we are careful to declare as well.

Paul says in verse 9 of chapter 4, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance.

For to this end, we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God.

who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe, these things command and

teach.” Paul doesn’t leave it up to Timothy’s uh ability to surmise, to guess, or to

wonder, or to even educatedly study what it is that he should teach.

He tells him, you are to teach these things.

But then he says, verse 12, let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the

believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

As Paul gives this instruction to Timothy, the first thing we should realize is that

Timothy is not an 18-year-old when Paul gives this instruction.

Timothy is likely around 30 years old when Paul gives this instruction.

But is a 30-year-old someone who is youthful?

It depends on how old the other person is you’re comparing them to, right?

To an 18-year-old, they’re an old fogie.

But to a 70-year-old or a 60-year-old, they got a lot of living and experience left to do,

left to gain.

Maybe they’re young, maybe they’re married, maybe they’re not.

You know, thinking about today, preacher who’s 30.

Maybe they’re just…

getting started with their family.

Now, is it possible for a preacher to teach on something he’s never lived in experience

himself personally?

Absolutely.

Let’s throw out an example from the scriptures.

Alright, Paul taught on marriage.

All evidence from scripture, Paul wasn’t married.

So how could Paul teach on marriage if Paul’s not married?

All right, from the authority of the revelation of God.

Paul could teach what God said about marriage.

And guess what?

Not only would he teach what God said, not only would he be able to teach it accurately,

but he’d be right every time.

Now, does that mean that there’s nothing gained by experience?

Not at all.

What is the difference between a person who has learned about something and a person who

has learned about it and lived it?

What do we typically use, there’s kind of one word out there in the English language we

use to describe the difference between those two?

Experience or wisdom?

If you’ve learned about it, you have knowledge.

If you’ve learned about it, applied it with experience, you have wisdom that is gained and

insight that is gained only through the experience.

Okay?

It’s additional knowledge, but it’s application of knowledge.

So there are times where the knowledge is sufficient.

And then there are times where you need knowledge and experience and wisdom.

And sometimes you need counsel and advice and others to support you.

What does the book of Proverbs tell us about counsel?

to seek counsel, to seek wisdom.

It also says that in the multitude of counsel, there is safety.

The Proverbs writer in writing about wisdom says, you’re not doing things very

intelligently if you don’t talk to those who are more experienced than you.

Now the reason why I say more experienced is it’s not really a counselor if they have less

experience than you, right?

If they’ve got less experience than you have, then they’re not really a counselor, they’re

just giving you their opinion.

So, counsel is someone who has more experience than you do, and you go to them seeking

their advice and their wisdom.

There are times where Timothy is supposed to teach.

But you see from both Paul’s writings to Timothy and to Titus that there are times that

Timothy is supposed to teach others so that those others can teach others.

Over in 2 Timothy chapter 2, you find Paul instructing Timothy to teach faithful men that

they in turn will teach others because they’ll find people in their time that they are

able to teach that have no interaction with Timothy.

But Paul tells Titus in Titus chapter 2 that Titus is supposed to teach the older women

and the older women are supposed to teach who?

The younger women.

Why is it that the older women need to teach the younger women?

Is it because Titus can’t understand what the Holy Spirit says to younger women?

Alright.

The experience that the older women have of living better prepares them to teach the

younger women in the topics that were under discussion.

How to love their husbands.

Does Titus have a lot of experience on how to love his husband?

No.

He wasn’t married by all indications of scripture at the time and he doesn’t have one.

Alright.

So

There are some things that are important to be taught with experience.

There are some things that are important to be taught with knowledge.

There are some things that are important to be taught with knowledge, wisdom, counsel,

instruction, and support.

But Paul leaves it in the responsibility of Timothy, of Titus, to make sure that the right

things are being taught.

What if, use the scenario, a good-natured, kind-hearted, elderly woman in the church

decides to start teaching her opinions about how marriage should work, and they don’t

agree with the Scriptures?

Is Titus or Timothy supposed to say, you know what, the older women got to teach the

younger women.

I can’t even control over that.

I don’t have any authority to put an end to that.

Absolutely not.

He has all the authority he needs to put an end to that.

As a matter of fact, you might remember that if we go back to verse 7, Paul tells Timothy,

reject profane and old wives’ fables and exercise yourself toward godliness.

Paul gives into Timothy’s hands the role and responsibility of making sure that the right

thing is being taught.

But that doesn’t mean that Timothy has to do all of the teaching himself.

Timothy has a responsibility to teach others so that they can teach others as well.

But as Paul writes this, he says, let no one despise

look down upon, belittle you for your youth.

but rather be an example.

Now, as Paul makes this do let no one despise your youth statement, he offsets it with a

contrast because you will have individuals despise your youth if you aren’t an example of

these things.

If you rather are an example

as we go through the list, if you’re an example of ignorance of the Word.

If you just say things and you don’t know what you’re telling people, you don’t know what

you’re saying, you’re a novice and you’re youthful and you just say it as if it’s so, yet

you’ve never studied it.

If you are not an example in conduct, you know, one of the things that is probably the

hardest thing to overcome as a young preacher is if you’ve got a lot of bad habits.

Imagine how hard it is for an elderly Christian who’s been a Christian for 30 or 40 years

to continually listen to a preacher preaching who’s got a lot of bad habits.

They’re constantly doing the wrong thing.

They’re reacting the wrong…

Now, when I say bad habits, I don’t mean that they get their adverbs and their adjectives

confused.

I’m talking about the conduct of life.

They don’t make wise choices, yet they’re supposed to be teaching others.

They don’t pay attention to the things that are matters of holiness, yet they’re supposed

to be teaching others.

They’re not living a life in their conduct that could be patterned after, yet they’re

supposed to be teaching others.

If an individual comes forth who is saying, I’m going to be teaching others, but they

don’t first live what they teach.

It’s going to be very hard for people to not despise their youth.

But then consider, says, not only in word, in conduct, but in love.

It is the role and responsibility of a minister to love the sheep.

The contrast that we noticed back when we were in chapter 3 of the eldership, when we went

all the way back into Ezekiel, and Ezekiel was talking about the shepherds in Israel that

God condemned, and then the contrast of the shepherd that God approved of.

And the ones he condemned were those who used the sheep to their own benefit.

They consumed the sheep, they devoured the sheep, they took advantage of the sheep, they

did all of those things because they didn’t care about the sheep.

The sheep were there to serve them.

In contrast, God’s picture of a good shepherd is one who cares for the sheep, who tends

the sheep, who helps the sheep when they’re sick, feeds the sheep, develops their ability

to be strong, and protects them.

Why?

Because he loves them.

Now you have a challenge as a preacher.

Those who haven’t lived it may have had some similar experiences, but it’s a little

different.

Those who’ve grown up in preacher’s families or have lived it know that sometimes if

you’ve spent time in a lot of different congregations, you’re not too terribly quick to

build really strong relationships in the congregation you’re at.

because sometimes your perception is, well, I’m only going to be here couple years.

Then we’ll move again.

And it’s kind of heart wrenching when you build really great relationships in a

congregation and two years later or three years later, you’re gone.

But think about it for a moment.

How long did Jesus have to build a relationship with his disciples?

three, three and a half years.

Do you think Jesus held back on that relationship?

He’s like, huh, it’s only gonna be around for about three years.

No.

The other side of that, sometimes it’s not the moving that’s the hard part.

It’s that you build a relationship with someone who then turns against you while you’re

there.

One of the things that we found interesting in our life, my parents’ time in ministry, and

Dad’s been preaching since 1983, so quite a few years, is when you go and try out for a

congregation and go through that application process and come and speak.

It’s kind of been our experience that the family that tends to be the most vocal about

wanting you to come and work there ends up being one of your biggest struggles.

And a lot of times it’s not because of the fact that they’re intentionally that way, but

they tend to be the family that wants to be in charge.

And so you come in and you think, all right, this is a great opportunity.

I’ve gotten to know these folks.

They’re great.

And the moment that you’re at odds with what they want to do, they’re not on your team

anymore.

Paul’s writing to Timothy, it’s important to notice the contrast between this letter and 2

Timothy.

When Paul’s writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy, Timothy is in a crisis.

Timothy is going through difficulty and it’s a crisis by all indication of the text from

inside the church.

And the challenge that Timothy faces is one of his own internal struggles and the church.

And Paul’s working him through that.

But Paul, as he writes this letter, says, Timothy, you have to be an example to the

believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, and in purity.

You have to build yourself spiritually.

You can’t just build others.

There are times where teachers and preachers, ministers and missionaries and elders get

burnt out.

They get burnt out most of the time because they spend all their time trying to help

everyone else and don’t spend enough time making sure they’re where they need to be.

They’re not spending enough time growing themselves spiritually.

How well can a tree grow fruit if the tree’s receiving no nourishment?

It can’t.

How well can the vine grow grapes if the vine has been cut off at its base?

It can’t.

And so eventually not only does the vine die, but everything that it’s trying to grow

dies.

Paul writes to Timothy and says, you must first take care of you.

You must first be an example.

Otherwise your commands and your teaching become ineffective.

They become that which is of no profit.

But as he gives this instruction, those six categories, to be an example in word, in

conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity, he lays a challenge in front of Timothy.

This is what you must be in order to teach what you must teach.

But then he says, “‘Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation,

to doctrine.

As he counsels Timothy, he reminds Timothy, have to be in the Word.

You have to give attention to certain things.

You’ll notice in the list is not visiting, it’s not the sick, it’s not the

person who wants to sit and chat.

It’s not breakfast with the members.

What’s in the list?

Reading?

exhortation, and doctrine.

Now, reading is something that Timothy does.

Exhortation is something someone does to Timothy.

Paul gives the instruction that Timothy needs to be in the Scriptures himself, and then

Timothy also needs to be learning from others.

And then Timothy always needs to be measuring everything that he learns and reads against

sound doctrine.

What might Timothy have read which originated with Christians but wasn’t inspired by the

Holy Spirit?

Pause for a moment and think about it.

We know the early church existed.

We know that there were teachers and preachers.

Do you think any of them wrote anything down from their own study, from their own

knowledge?

As a matter of fact, Luke tells us as he writes his record of the life of Christ, actually

let’s turn over there and read it.

Luke chapter 1.

because I want us to appreciate something that maybe sometimes we lose sight of.

Luke chapter 1 verse 1, inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of

those things which have been fulfilled among us.

When Luke writes that down, he doesn’t mean Matthew, Mark, Luke, or Matthew, Mark, and

John equal many.

Does he?

Luke is telling us that in the early church there were many individuals who had taken the

time to sit down and to write out the things which they had learned and experienced even

in regard to their interactions with Jesus.

So could those things have been among the things which Timothy read?

Could those things have circulated and been passed around the early church?

Absolutely.

But we also have mention of letters that we don’t have in Scripture that haven’t been

retained for us by the providence of God.

Paul writes to Corinth a third time that we’re aware of, and yet we don’t have a record of

that letter.

So there are letters and there are things that are going around the churches that Timothy

will have opportunity to read.

But as he reads, he needs to measure that against the doctrine that originates with God.

oh

the origination of that source material as it were from the Holy Spirit.

So he needs to give attention to reading to exhortation of the doctrine.

Now those things, says you can’t leave these behind.

You can’t grow far enough, study long enough where you no longer need to give attention to

these things.

But does he say, Timothy, you need to spend all your time doing these things?

No, he doesn’t say that either.

Paul says you must give attention, you must give priority to these things because

otherwise you won’t be equipped to teach.

But you must not, he does not say, but you must spend all of your time in the study.

You’ve got to get a good 70 hours a week in that study, otherwise you’re not going to be

equipped to be a preacher.

Some have said that as you study and prepare,

Some have suggested you have about 10 hours of preparation for every one hour of

presentation.

Well, if you deliver a Bible class, two sermons, and a Wednesday night lesson, how many

hours do you have in preparation for those four hours of presentation?

Forty hours.

Now one of the things that you learn when you’re not starting out in preaching, but you’ve

been doing it for a while, is you get compounding value out of your study, if you’ve

studied diligently through the years.

Because believe it or not, the first year Greek student doesn’t understand Greek nearly as

well as the 40 year Greek student does.

The 40 year Greek student has some advantages, he’s been doing it for 40 years.

If someone gets hired in a job and they’re in the first year that they’ve ever worked that

job and there’s somebody next to them that’s been doing it for 20 or 30 years, who’s going

to be more efficient at their work?

It better be the 20 or 30 year experienced guy.

Now, not always.

Sometimes they’ve not given attention to their work and now they’re just lazier than the

first year guy.

But Paul’s telling Timothy you need to give attention to these things.

You need to be able to develop your skills, your ability, your knowledge, and you need to

focus on these things.

Now,

Sometimes you have scenarios where you need to do the presentation part and you don’t get

any of the preparation time.

Because someone says, you walk into a congregation on a Sunday morning, Rebecca’s smiling

because she knows this has happened to Lewis many times.

You walk into a congregation on Sunday morning expecting to be a visitor sitting in the

pew.

And a good kind elder walks up to you and says, brother, it’s so good to have you.

We’ve got about five minutes for class.

You want to go ahead and teach this morning.

My father used to always have a sermon in his Bible.

just in case.

There was one occasion we were in Jonesboro, Arkansas visiting my grandparents and uh my

grandfather was one of the elders, but uh we arrived there Sunday morning.

It was literally five minutes before Bible class and Brother Kenneth Gossett walked up who

was also one of the elders, walked up to Dad and Keith, it’s good to have you today.

Why don’t you teach class for us?

five minutes beforehand.

Dad didn’t have his normal sermon in the Bible, not expecting it, not planning it, just

going to visit his parents.

So he preached his moving sermon, his tryout sermon.

When he tried out at the congregation two years later, he had to preach a different sermon

because he had already preached his tryout sermon.

But when Paul,

arrives in Acts chapter 20 and is there meeting with the Christians, we read that he began

preaching and he preached till midnight.

Well, that’s great.

I don’t know what time they started.

It wasn’t noon.

They usually met at night because people worked during the day.

People had to work.

Many of them in the early church were slaves.

They had been servants.

They had no choice but to work.

So they would meet at night.

So Paul preaches, begins at midnight, but a lot of people joke about the midnight thing,

they don’t pay attention to the rest of the text.

After Eutychus falls out of the window and is raised from the dead, Paul continues

teaching till daybreak.

Now do you think Paul got a chance to have 10 hours of study for every question that they

asked him all night long?

No.

You say, well that’s okay, Paul was inspired.

Doesn’t mean every word that Paul ever spoke was inspired.

An individual who is striving to prepare themselves to teach must not just be prepared to

follow an outline.

They must be prepared to open the Word of God and understand it and explain it and expound

upon it.

and you can’t do all of that in a year.

You have to give yourself time.

You have to continue and build on things.

You have to study it once, and you’ve got to come back and study it again.

But you also have to teach yourself how to learn.

You have to teach yourself how you learn, because you don’t learn the same way someone

else does.

I would wager there’s about maybe nobody in this room who learns the way I do.

I’m weird.

I’ve always known it.

But I tried for a long time to learn the way I had been taught to learn.

It didn’t work for me.

I was constantly struggling to learn anything.

And then I stopped trying to learn the way I had been taught to learn, started trying to

learn the way I knew my brain worked.

and I learned a lot faster.

Sometimes we have to be diligent, but we also have to be intelligent and not try and do

what others have done just because it worked for them, rather do what works for us.

Now, Paul says to Timothy, give attention to these things.

But he also says be an example of these things.

Can you be an example in love if you spend all your time with a nose in a book but never

actually show any love to the members?

Not at all.

You have to balance the things which you do.

You have to balance expectations.

You have to balance preparation.

And sometimes,

due to the circumstances in life, you’ve got to do some of that preparation at 11 p.m.,

midnight, 1 o’clock in the morning and 2 o’clock in the morning because the rest of the

time was spent dealing with the funeral, dealing with a family member that was having,

dealing with scenarios that that was not in your plan during your preparation time but it

became the priority.

Paul says in verse 14 though, do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to

you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership.

Paul tells Timothy, have a responsibility to not neglect this gift.

Now, what was this gift?

Does the text tell us?

The is no.

The text doesn’t tell us.

Is this gift a miraculous gift?

Question, who had to give the miraculous gifts by the laying on of hands?

The apostles.

Is that who’s mentioned in the text?

No, the text mentions an eldership, not the apostles.

Now, it could be

that the scenario in the discussion here is a miraculous gift because that’s not what Paul

means by giving to you by prophecy with the laying on of hands.

He may not be talking about the method of transmission or the giving of the gift.

He may be talking about an event that occurred in coordination with the giving of the

gift.

Okay?

So let’s examine how that may look.

Let’s say that Paul, through his apostleship, through the laying on of hands, gave Timothy

a miraculous gift, and that Paul bestowed that gift during an assembly.

All of those things would be completely normal in the first century church.

But perhaps on that occasion,

most likely in Lystra where Paul met Timothy and where Timothy was converted, that during

that assembly there was also an occasion where the eldership of that congregation was

inspired by the Holy Spirit to prophetically proclaim how Timothy would use that gift.

consider this, that Paul and Barnabas at the beginning of their first missionary journey

were called by the Holy Spirit to be separated from those in Antioch to go on these

missionary journeys.

That would have been by prophecy.

The Holy Spirit said, you send these two here.

that came as a direction from God.

Now would there have been elders, likely, who had the gift of prophecy in the early church

through the laying on of the Apostles hands?

Certainly.

high likelihood that there would have been elders within an eldership who had the gift of

prophecy or the gift of inspiration or the gift of speaking in tongues.

All of the gifts would have potentially been those if you had enough elders where there

would have been an assortment of gifts among the eldership.

So it would be possible, saying possible, it would be possible that the scenario that’s

under discussion here is not the how did Timothy get the gift, but rather what occurred

when he received the gift that the elders prophesied that he would go forth and

participate in this ministry.

And Paul is saying, do not neglect the gift that is in you.

Paul gave him the gift the elders prophesied concerning his use of the gift.

That’s one interpretation.

That’s one possibility.

The other possibility is that the eldership under discussion here had benefited Timothy in

some way that Timothy had an obligation to fulfill his ministry.

Could it be that the gift is monetary?

Read the text.

Do not neglect the gift that is in you.

Now, I’m not enough of a Greek expert to know if the N here could be something that

conveys with or the support given that you’ve received this and it’s with you.

I don’t know.

It could be that rather this has to do with something that they have instilled in him.

All right?

Now, I want to notice this one last thing.

As Paul has just said, give attention to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine.

He follows three discussions of learning with a do not neglect the gift statement.

So could it be that the eldership had benefited Timothy by spending time teaching Timothy

and preparing him to be able to do the work?

When Paul first comes through Lystra, we don’t read anything about Timothy, when Paul

comes back through Lystra on the second missionary journey, Timothy is there and the

church presents Timothy as someone prepared to go with Paul to do the work.

Could it be that the eldership, by the prophecy and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, had

been told to prepare Timothy to do the work and they had instilled their time, their

energy, their knowledge in helping prepare Timothy to be ready to work with Paul?

That’s a possibility on what this text is meaning.

So I’ll say, of the three ideas, I prefer the last one.

I think that Paul’s home congregation had instilled in Timothy time, effort, and energy to

prepare him to do this work with Paul, and Paul’s saying, don’t neglect the gift they put

in you.

Don’t neglect what they’ve done to prepare you for this.

in addition to, of course, what Paul’s done, what he also mentions that uh Timothy’s

mother and grandmother have done.

All right, we’re out of time right there, so we’re going to pick up uh in that spot verse

15 next week.

Thank you for your attention.

Good to see everyone here this morning.

good class Aaron did an excellent job as usual and we appreciate him for that.

He didn’t have his better half with him today.

He said today is their anniversary and he didn’t want to see her.

No, she took the items up to Eric Richardson’s for that camp they had up there.

And she’s going to be up there a little while.

But today is their anniversary date, and we want to wish them a happy anniversary.

And then I believe uh it’s good to have Rebecca back.

We’ve been missing her.

She’s been gone too long, too long.

So it’s good to see her back today.

And let me see if I’ve missed anybody else I wanted to call out.

Good to see Murray and Joan here.

Always glad to see them.

I think that’s all I remember.

I probably forgot something that was going to do.

We want to remind you, especially those of you that are guests that have not been here,

they’re visiting with us.

We’re glad that you’re here and it’s our pleasure to have you here.

If you have not filled out one of the cards off the table in the foyer, we’d ask that you

maybe get one of those going out and fill that out for us.

We appreciate that so much.

uh Diana Schaffer, most of you know that she fell and hurt her knee pretty badly.

uh So we want to remember her in our prayers and pray that she’ll…

make some improvement.

wasn’t feeling well today.

It’s quite painful for her.

the way she, when she fell on it, it kind of hyper-extended it, I believe is what, if I

understood it right.

So keep hearing your prayers.

uh There are many…

uh

list on the bulletin board who need our prayers.

So you might want to go by that.

It’s next door to the office.

So go by there and take a look at that list and maybe give them a call or send them a

card.

Let them know we’re thinking about them.

July the 30th, or the 27th through the 30th is a Somerville Gospel meeting.

If you would like to participate in that and be there for that, begins the 27th through

the 30th.

Joe Mallory is the speaker.

And then on July the 30th, we have our birthday and anniversary celebration.

So keep that in mind.

And the final one is part of Children’s Home will be here a week of August the 10th.

and if you have a coin can please make sure you bring that in ah before on the sixth and

that way we’ll make sure that they they receive that I believe that’s all the

announcements that I had ah we have

We need five people that are willing to sign compassion cards today.

They’re back on the table in the corner of the auditorium.

So if you would like to do that, we’d appreciate you just going back there and taking care

of that.

Thank you.

First song this morning will be number three.

Hallelujah, praise Jehovah.

We’ll sing the first and third stanzas.

Hallelujah, praise Jehovah.

Praise name, Rachel.

together praise him sun and moon and stars on high praise him oh ye have not

Let let them bright

No.

Thanks for watching!

the earth and sky.

All ye fruitful trees and seeders, all ye hills and mountains high, breeding things and

beasts and cattle, birds that in the air

King of earth and all ye people, Praise and praise our judge is all, Praise and praise the

name

Let children’s ball, let them praise the King.

Peace out.

And His glory is exalted, and His glory is exalted, far above the earth and sky.

We need to have slides for this one.

Eight, five, five.

Again, we’ll sing the first and third stanzas.

We read of a place that’s called heaven, it’s made from the pure and the free.

These truths account for what He has given.

How beautiful heaven must be, how beautiful.

Sweet home, and happy and free.

Fair hand, and our breast, one of the weary.

How beautiful heaven must be.

How beautiful the heaven must be!

How beautiful the

Sweet Alma, the happy and free, Fair Alma, the wretch for the weary, How beautiful heaven

must be!

Please bow with me.

God our Father in heaven, we come to you this morning thanking you for your son Jesus and

the fact that he was willing to come to earth and teach us how we should live as

Christians and then pay that ultimate price when he gave his life so that we have the

opportunity to have our sins washed away and also that opportunity to live with you in

eternity in heaven.

Lord, we are thankful for those amongst our number that have had improving health.

But Lord, we also are aware that there are still several that are struggling with various

ah issues and we ask that you be with them and if it be your will, restore them to a

measure of health that they desire.

Lord, we ask that you be with those that are struggling spiritually and help us to pray

for them diligently each and every day so that they turn to you and read your word and

study your word and seek your guidance.

And if there’s anything any of us can do here in the Collegial Church of Christ to help

those that are struggling spiritually that we are aware of, give us that.

knowledge and enlightenment and the right words to say to them so that they will return to

you and fully and faithfully follow you each and every day.

Lord, we are so thankful for the opportunity to build a live in a country where we can

freely worship you and praise you and sing songs to your great name.

And we cannot thank you enough for that because there are many in this world that don’t

have that opportunity that we do.

And we are so thankful for you to you for that.

Lord, also ask that you be with our leaders, not only in this nation, but in the nations

throughout the world, and get these leaders to want to get to know you by picking up your

word and reading it and studying it, and help them to understand what they’ve studied and

learn from what they’ve studied to make decisions that will make this country and this

world a God-fearing world and a better place for all to live.

Lord, we ask that as we continue to go through this service today that ah everything we do

be accepted.

in your sight and help every one of us assembled here today to take what we’ve learned

from the message that’s coming from your word and use it in our lives to be faithful

followers of yours, but most importantly Lord, to do the mission that you’ve directed each

and every one of us Christians and that is to seek and save the lost.

We ask all this through your son Jesus’ amen.

As we prepare our minds to take the Lord’s Supper, we will sing number 349, 349.

We’ll sing all four stanzas and then the chorus.

They bowed the heads of Jesus in the garden where he prayed.

They spat upon the Savior so pure and free from sin.

They said, crucify him, be to blame.

Thank you.

They laughed and said, Behold the King!

They struck him and they cursed him, And mocked his holy name.

All alone he suffered, and

When they nailed him to the cross, his mother stood near by.

He said, “‘Woe, love, behold thy son!’ He cried, “‘I thirst for water.'”

gave him the two-tree.

Then the sinful work of man was done.

To the howling maw he yielded, he did not for verse he cried.

The cross of shame He took alone, And when He cried, It’s finished, He gave Himself to

die, Salvation’s wondrous plan.

In the end, will end.

To try the world, and to set him free.

He could have called ten thousand angels, but he died of

you need the implements of the Lord’s Supper, are left there on the back table if you want

to grab those.

We are going to turn to Isaiah chapter 53.

um

Isaiah chapter 53.

This is one of the most concentrated collections of prophecy about Jesus.

uh This and Psalm 22 seem to be the most in one short area.

ah Starting in verse one, who has believed our message?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a tender shoot.

Like a root out of parched ground.

He had no stately former majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we

should be attracted to him.

He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.

And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him.

Surely our Greece he bore himself.

m

and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and

afflicted.

But he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the

chastening for our well-being fell upon him.

And by his scourging we are healed.

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.

but the Lord has caused the iniquity of all of us to follow in him.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted.

Yet he did not open his mouth like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is

silent before it sheers.

He did not open his mouth by oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And as for his generation who considered that he was cut out from the land of the living

for the transgression of my people, whom the stroke was due.

His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death.

Because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth.

The Lord, but the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief, that he would

render himself as a guilt offering.

He will see his offspring.

He will prolong his days.

And the good pleasure of the Lord.

will prosper in His hand.

Let’s pray for the bread.

Heavenly Father, we ask you to be with us this morning as we prepare our minds to partake

of your Son’s body and blood.

We ask you to please bless this bread, represents his flesh, flesh that was willing to

come to the earth.

flesh that was willing to teach, to spend all of his effort.

serving others and that was willing to be given as an offering to his own creation hung on

a tree so that he could be mocked and scorned and abused.

but the very thing he created.

so that he could be our perfect example.

We ask you to please bless this and bless us as we partake of it.

In his name we pray.

pray for the cup.

Father, also ask you to bless this cup that we may all partake of it in a fitting manner,

that we may remember the blood that was shed.

so that we could be washed clean.

We could remember him hanging on that cross.

We could remember him.

oh

being willing.

because of His great love for us.

We thank You, Father, so much for Your providence and Your love for us.

And it’s in His name we pray, amen.

Also as part of our worship, we have the opportunity to give back as the Lord’s provided

for us.

The opportunity is also on that back table.

But let’s pray and thank God for all of his many blessings.

Heavenly Father.

You give to us so abundantly.

Your grace, your teachings.

Our very livelihood, our very lives.

We thank you, Father, so much for how much you care for us.

We thank you for knowing without doubt that you’re going to provide for us, that you’re

going to take care of yours.

We see it in nature, that you take care of those

that are without souls, Father.

So we know you are going to take care of us and you provide for us so abundantly.

We ask you to be with us.

Let us remember to be cheerful givers and help us to remember that there’s nothing that’s

ours, Father.

We have borrowed everything from you.

So we ask you to be with us as we choose how to spend your money, Father, that we make

wise decisions that will help expand your kingdom.

And it’s in His name we pray, amen.

you’d like to go ahead and mark the song of invitation, will be number 927.

And that one actually will be on the slides.

This one, however, before the lesson will not be.

That is number 643.

Six, four, three.

We’ll sing the first and third stanzas.

Are you sowing the seed of the kingdom, brother, in the morning?

Slowly the seed of the kingdom, brother, in the heat of the new day’s glare.

For the heart is a

She’s the main, will you go now?

is knowing the seed of the kingdom, brother of the Lord.

Are you sowing the seed of the kingdom from that you must reap at the last great day?

For the harvest time is coming on, and the reaper’s work will soon be done.

Will your sheep be many?

Will you guard them?

you

As we begin this morning, ah raise your hand if you do not have or at least do not have

with you a copy of the booklet.

We’re going over the Back to the Bible booklet, so if you’ll raise your hand, ah Jacob or

Walker will bring one of those to you.

they’re making their way around.

We uh have proceeded through the first two of the booklets in the Back to the Bible

series.

We will begin this Sunday with the third one, and we’ll conclude that next Sunday morning.

uh

We’re not going to cover the entire thing in this particular lesson, and we will, as we’ve

done before, discuss some of the things that are in it for the sake of helping you to

understand what you will be doing if you sit down and study with someone these booklets,

as you sit down and help them to understand the Word and the will of God.

But as we pause just for a moment, we’re gonna take a moment right now and hopefully you

all still have your, oops, the other bookmarks, you have your bookmarks with you.

And we’re gonna take a moment uh for us to pray for the people who are on those lists.

As we’re progressing in our training concerning how to study with people.

You’re reaching the point where you can sit down and study with these people.

You can look for an open opportunities and open doors to be able to study with the

individuals who you have on the names that you have on that sheet.

And so I encourage you to be thinking about the people who are on those sheet.

Be looking for life events occurring in their lives that you might find the opportunity to

be able to

uh instill in them and sit down and study with them the Word of God that they might know

both how to live and how to be obedient to God.

So we’re going take a moment and pray silently on behalf of those who are on each of our

own lists.

One last thing as we begin.

Those who’ve been here through all of the studies, remember that at the beginning, one of

the first things you will have done, if you didn’t have the opportunity to do it at the

beginning of your study with someone, then this would be the opportunity that you would

take to do it.

uh Preferably, I prefer to do it at the very beginning before any of the study has begun.

But if you don’t do it then, you need to do it.

at this point right here, before you open the third book, before you start into the third

book, sit down with the questions that are on the back of this.

ah This is the Back to the Bible Survey.

These questions are in the booklet.

These questions can also just be on a piece of paper.

Stick it your Bible.

You’re going to regularly think through these questions.

The key to the questions is getting the person to write

them down.

You know, if you had them write them down at the beginning of the first study, have them

give you that piece of paper.

Bring it back out at this point.

Not at this moment in time at the beginning of the study, but during the third study.

Which means you have to keep track of it.

So put it somewhere where you’ll lose it.

ah But if you do have them write it down at this point in time, that’s fine too.

But what I encourage you to do is go through these questions.

Now, the questions just by way of reminder that are on this survey.

Or, do you know God exists?

You don’t have to rehash that before the third one.

If you’ve gone through two booklets, you’ve probably got a good idea whether or not they

believe that God exists.

But just going through the questions that are here.

Do you know who the Holy Spirit is?

Do you believe the Holy Spirit is God?

The answers that are on this are yes, no, or unsure.

Do you know who Jesus is?

Do you believe Jesus is God?

Do you believe the entire Bible is God’s Word?

Do you believe the Bible contains contradictions, mistakes, and or false statements?

Now, if you filled this out before the first study, they may have said, well, not sure

about that, or they may have said no.

And you may be at this point now, and they may have changed their mind entirely because of

reading what’s in booklet number one concerning inspiration and revelation.

So, they may be in a different place on some of these answers than they were when they

started this study with you.

uh

Do you believe God will do everything he has stated in his Word?

Now, the last section from this point forward is the point that I typically make sure

we’ve gone over and we’ve answered and we’ve written down the answers before we start the

third study.

First question, are you saved?

You know, every single person I’ve ever studied with who comes from a denominational

background has said yes to that answer.

They’re certain they’re saved.

Part of the reason it’s important to have this written down is because the person they’re

going to argue with during the course of the third book is themselves.

And I don’t know about you, but if you’ve ever observed someone who’s tried to convince

themselves to go to the gym, work out on a regular basis, and get in shape, most of the

time we beat ourselves in our own arguments.

And so if they’re going to be arguing with themselves, the only way you’re going to be

able to hold them accountable for their answers is if it’s written down.

That’s why it’s so important.

Because as they argue with themselves, they’ll be looking at the sheet and going, you know

that’s not what I said two hours ago, or an hour and a half ago, 45 minutes ago.

I said this.

Now I’m looking at the Scriptures and it says this.

Okay?

So the next thing, if yes, at what point were you saved?

What did you do to become saved and have them give you the details?

What day it was?

Where were they?

How old were they?

What did they do?

And it may go something like this, well, I was 14 years old.

ah It was in Samarna, Tennessee.

I was at the Northwest Baptist Church.

I went down to the front with two other friends of mine.

We kneeled down and we prayed.

It may go something like that.

It may be something entirely different.

But they’re going to say, this is what I did.

They’ll know what they’ve thought about it before.

They’ve considered it before.

They’ll give you the answer and they’ll write it down.

How old were you when you were saved?

Have you been baptized?

Yes, no, or unsure?

How old were you when you were baptized?

Now they may say, well, I was saved when I was 14.

I was baptized when I was 18.

That’s a completely normal answer for most people in the denominational world.

well, I prayed and I was saved on July 7th, but oh the baptismal ceremony was until July

24th.

circle the word that describes your baptism, sprinkling, pouring, immersion.

Someone may say, well, I’ve never been baptized as an adult, but I know I was baptized

when I was a baby because my mother told me I was.

Okay?

If you’ve been baptized, were you saved before or after baptism?

And if you were to die tonight, do you know where you would go for eternity?

Yes, no, or unsure?

As you open the third book, you’ve gone through revelation, inspiration, and authority.

You’ve talked about the church, who started it, who it belongs to, what are the aspects of

it that they need to know and they need to understand.

They now know what the body of Christ looks like.

They now know that the Word of God is inspired and is something that they are accountable

to.

And as you open up this book, you’re now not talking about those things, you’re talking

about them.

But you’re not going to approach it in talking about them, per se.

You’re going to do the same thing you’ve done in the last two studies.

You’re going to open up the Word of God and just see what it says.

You’re going let them read it for themselves.

This does not and should never turn in to an accusatory study unless it’s them accusing

themselves.

You go back and look at the gospel record of Christ’s life.

The times where you see an extreme uptick in the animosity of the Pharisees and the chief

priests is when Jesus causes them through the conversation or the teaching or the parable.

to see themselves as guilty.

So there’s a caution there.

Not everyone will accept this the same way.

Not everyone will react the same way.

Some will get angry.

Some will get angry at others because they’ve always been lied to.

Some will become sad.

Some will grieve.

Some will be very, very stoic all the way up until the point they make a decision.

And some will get part way through, close it, and walk away.

as you realize that what they’re facing is the challenge of what they’ve always believed

with what they’re now confronted with is actually in the Word of God.

You must remember Paul’s instruction to Timothy.

He says, preach the Word, be instant in season,

out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering.

Do not give up on an individual because you study the third study with them and they’re

not immediately converted.

one of the individuals that was incredibly kind and beneficial to us in our work, our

first work in North Carolina.

was an older lady who uh she attended the congregation where her husband was a member with

him for seven years.

before she could talk herself out of what she had always believed.

She knew what the Bible taught before she’d been there year.

And it took her six more years to get out of what she had always been taught.

Do you know that person was the single most evangelistic person in the entire

congregation?

My emphasis here is you give people time.

Don’t give up on them because they didn’t change their mind in one study.

Remind yourself that the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, many on the council

denied Jesus, denied Jesus, would not accept Jesus, knew that He was who He claimed to be,

and still

wouldn’t obey Jesus, and yet we’re told in the book of Acts that after his resurrection

many of them believed.

Sometimes you have to give people time.

Now let’s begin with Isaiah chapter 59.

The section of this study starts with your spiritual condition, that’s the header.

Then what is sin?

How many have sinned?

Those are the areas we’re going to, sorry, and the consequences of sin, those are the

areas we’re going to discuss this morning.

Isaiah chapter 59 verses 1 and 2,

The visual is helpful.

Man’s here, God’s here, sin’s in the middle.

Sin is what divides man from God.

You know what?

That is not something that most people are astounded by.

Most denominations will teach that.

Most religious groups will say there’s something that separates humanity from God, and

it’s our morality.

It’s not a big surprise when that is discussed.

So as you go through, again, read the text, let them fill it in.

1 John chapter 3 and verse 4, the question is, what is sin?

If sin is what separates man from God, then what is it?

Paul, sorry, John will write in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 4, whoever commiteth sin

transgresseth also the law for sin.

is the transgression of the law.

John says sin is when we violate the law of God.

When we violate the law of God, we’ve sinned.

Easy enough to understand.

Now, some might say, well, what’s a transgression?

One, the original Greek word carries with it the idea of missing the mark.

as if there was an archer who was shooting at a target and he overshot the target or he

fell short of the target.

That’s a good illustration.

People get that.

Hey, this is what you were supposed to do, but you went over it, you went under it, you

missed it.

James chapter 1.

James chapter 1 in verse 14 and 15, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his

own lust

and enticed.

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished,

bringeth forth death.” As they look at that text, the man is tempted when he is

drawn away by his own lusts.

You know, many in the religious world who have a Calvinism background are far less

concerned about the sins they commit themselves and spend much of their time worrying

about the doctrine of original sin, the sin they believe they inherited from Adam.

If you were to go back and look at the doctrine of Calvinism, would find that Calvinists

teach that you are born in sin, and you’ve probably heard people say that.

I know that I was born in sin.

That’s going to be a challenge when they look at this and go, sin occurs when I am

allowing myself to do that which God has told me not to do.

Because babies can’t do that.

And babies don’t do that.

When lust has conceived, it brings forth sin.

Now, there’s already a conclusion there that, as you’ve observed throughout this study, we

don’t draw out everything that’s in every text.

Sometimes we loop back to these texts.

Build one thing upon another.

James chapter 4.

James chapter 4 verse 17, therefore to him,

that knows to do good and doeth it not to him and his sin.

You can emphasize that one is a sin, James 1, commission.

You don’t have to use that word, but you can say one is a sin because you violated the

law.

Here is a sin because you failed to do what the law commanded you to do.

One is God told you not to do something and you did it.

The other is God told you to do something and you didn’t do it.

Both of them are sin.

If one knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

So the question, have you ever failed to do what you knew was right?

There’s not a competent, well-meaning, well-thinking individual who’s an adult who could

say no to that question.

Yes, of course, there have been times where I failed to do what was right.

Romans chapter 3.

under the header of how many have sinned.

Romans chapter 3 verse 10, as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one.

Now the context in this discussion is righteous in and of themselves because there may be

some confusion.

They may go, wait a minute, well aren’t Christians righteous?

What ah does it mean?

Paul’s discussion in this text is righteous separated from God, apart from God, righteous

in and of themselves.

uh Romans chapter 3 verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

And you ask the question, how many have sinned?

All have.

Does this include you?

you’ll find in this text, in this booklet, more than the others the directed questions.

And if you’re like me, maybe you’re not, but if you’re like me, you’ll be less comfortable

asking those.

It’s really easy to ask a question about the text, but you’re going to feel a little weird

internally going, does this include you?

But just ask the question.

Don’t overthink it.

Just ask the question.

Does this include you?

They’ll answer it.

You answer it.

Romans chapter 6 verse 23.

The consequences of sin.

For the wages of sin is death.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The wages of sin.

is death.

They understand what wages are.

This microphone is driving me nuts today.

Sorry.

They understand what wages are, and if they don’t immediately connect, when you go to

work, you earn wages.

You get paid and you are owed that because you worked for it.

That’s what wage is.

God is saying when you sin, you earned.

death.

A lot of people really want to believe that they’re owed heaven unless they just somehow

did enough bad in their life to have missed heaven and end up in hell.

That’s not what the text says.

The text says the wages of sin is death.

How many sins must one commit to be separated from God eternally?

You know, I’ve never had anyone miss the answer.

I never had anyone say, probably have to commit a few thousand.

No, they look at the text and go.

One, because now that you’ve committed the sin, you’ve earned the wage.

And if they struggle with that, ask how many hours they have to work at their employer

before they expect to be paid for the hours they work.

You want to just one hour.

Do you expect to be paid for that?

You expect to be paid for the first hour and every hour thereafter?

Yeah.

it’s your wage.

1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 and 10.

Paul writes to the Corinthians as it says,

Nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor

revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

You may be tempted to take a moment here and explain what all the depth, the detail of all

these things are and what all they mean.

Don’t.

not because it’s not important for them to know it, but if they don’t know what it means,

that’s probably not the sin that they need to repent of.

But there’s a few of them on there I can just about guarantee you they’re going to

identify with from some point in their life.

Will the unrighteous inherit the kingdom of God?

Nobody misses it.

The answer is no.

Matthew chapter 13 verses 40 through 42.

As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of

the world.

The Son of man shall send forth his angels, they shall gather out of his kingdom all

things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of

fire, there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” At the end of world sinners will be.

Burn.

Punished.

Now, something that I haven’t always stated, sometimes they’re going to use a word that’s

not the direct word right out of the text.

They’re going say, they’re going to be judged, punished, burned.

You put the right word in yours.

If they’ve got the gist of it, move on.

Don’t argue over technicalities as long as they’re understanding the text.

Now as you think about where this study has left them,

It’s left them seeing sin.

It’s left them seeing God’s judgment.

Now, if you left them right here,

That’d be a pretty sad place to be, wouldn’t it?

But the thing is…

At this point in the study, they’re answering all of these questions for the most part,

most people you’ll study with, they’re answering all these questions thinking it’s

somebody else.

because they’re saved.

This is about lost people.

This is about people who will be judged by God, not welcomed home.

This is about people who are going to hell, not heaven.

At this moment in the study, they’re fine with it.

And I want to emphasize that for this reason.

When you sit down with the Word of God, with a tool like this or any other tool, when you

sit down with the text of Scripture, it is important that you do not sit down to see why

others need to be accountable to God.

while simultaneously not holding yourself accountable to God.

It is not enough to open the Word of God and see what others must do.

uh

You’ve got to open it up and see what you must do.

You’re here this morning and you’re outside the body of Christ.

You need to realize and we need to remember.

that God will hold each and every one of us accountable for what we do in this life.

that when we reach eternity, we will give an account for the words that we say, Jesus

says, that you’ll be judged by every idle word that you speak.

By the things that you think, Jesus emphasized in Matthew chapter 5, verse 5, around verse

20, that if a man lusted in his heart over a woman,

He’s just as guilty of committing sin as if he had committed an act of adultery.

If he hated his brother, he’s just as guilty of sin as if he had murdered his brother.

We’re gonna be judged for the words that we speak, for the thoughts that we think, but

we’re also gonna be judged for the actions we take.

And if we add in James chapter 4, we’re to be reminded that we’re going to be judged for

the things that we violate and the things we fail to keep.

If you evaluate your life and you think, you know what, I’m not passing that test.

I violated something that I was told not to do.

I failed to do something I was told to do.

I’ve thought things that I shouldn’t have thought.

I’ve said things I shouldn’t have said.

then the text of Scripture very plainly teaches us that the wages of sin is death.

but the gift of God is eternal life.

If that is where you find yourself this morning, no, that’s not where God wants you to be,

nor is it where you have to stay.

If you’re outside the body of Christ this morning, why not consider changing your position

in life and being obedient to the Word of God?

by hearing the Word and believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, by repenting of

your sins and confessing His name, by being immersed in water for the remission of your

sins, to rise to walk in newness of life, no longer being guilty of those old sins, no

longer living that old life, but being obedient to the Word of God.

If you have need of the invitation,

of Jesus Christ.

Why not come forward this morning as we stand and as we sing.

Jesus waiting, waiting in the…

He will bear you gently, gently to His fold.

See Him so and know.

O world, I am

Why keep Jesus waiting, waiting at the…

It’s all and all.

Soon he’ll cease his pleading, yet for ever.

For our closing prayer this morning, we’ll sing number 755.

First dance on the 755.

God be with you till we meet again.

Till we meet at Jesus feet.

Till we meet.

God be with you till we meet again.

Most Gracious in Heavenly Father, Lord, we bow before your throne.

We’re grateful for today.

We’re grateful for the present day that you’ve given us.

We’re thankful, Father, for the sunshine.

We’re thankful, Father, for everything that you do to keep this world out of chaos,

Father.

We’re thankful, Lord, for your love and your mercy and your long-suffering, which without

any of it…

would be nowhere father.

We’re thankful for the bread of life that’s been given today.

Pray Lord that we take it, apply it to our lives Lord where we can help each other along

the way and help those who are lost.

We’re thankful father for our visitors today.

Pray Lord that things that have been said and done here be according to your will that

they may be pricked in the heart father.

Pray Lord that as we leave here

pray that you’ll keep your providential hand upon us, keep us safe, give us courage,

Father, to go out and seek and save the lost, Lord.

We know that is your will.

We pray, Lord, that you’ll forgive us when we sin.

Bless the food, Father, that’s been prepared today.

We pray that you’ll bless it to the nourishment of our bodies, bless the hands that

prepared it.

It’s in Christ’s name we pray, amen.

The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness – Aaron Cozort – 09-21-2025

In Admonition Podcast, biblical teachings, comfort, evangelism, faith, Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, Keywords Gospel, prophecy, reconciliation, repentance by Aaron Cozort

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Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to Mark chapter 1.

Mark chapter 1, Mark opens his record of the life of Christ with these words, the

beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Mark opens saying this is where it started.

The good news, the heralded message of Christ begins here.

Mark does not begin with a genealogy the way Matthew does.

He doesn’t begin with the events of the birth of Christ the way that Luke does.

He begins with John the Baptist.

Our lesson this morning is entitled, The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness.

So we seek to gain some lessons that are found here in Mark chapter 1 from the life of

John.

Verse 2, we read as it is written in the Scriptures, Behold, I send my messenger before

your face, who will prepare your way before you, the voice of one crying in the

wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

This quotation comes from Isaiah chapter 40.

We’ll spend some time in that passage before we’re done.

But we notice some things about John as we consider this text.

We notice first that John had a prophesied purpose.

John arrives on the scene as Mark describes it in the beginning of the gospel of Jesus

Christ.

beginning the declaration of the good news of salvation to all mankind, but John comes on

the scene with a purpose, and that purpose had been spoken of centuries before.

In Isaiah chapter 40, Isaiah is going to describe the fact that God would address

Jerusalem and His people and comfort them, console them in letting them know that they had

paid the things that they needed to pay because of their sin, that they had received

double for all their sins.

Go back to Isaiah chapter 40 and notice what we read in this text.

Isaiah chapter 40 verse 1, comfort, yes comfort my people says your God, speak comfort to

Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, for

she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins the voice of one crying in

the wilderness.

Now notice the message is to Jerusalem.

The message is to God’s people, but the messenger isn’t in Jerusalem.

The declaration of comfort comes to Jerusalem, comes to God’s people, but the messenger

isn’t coming to God’s people.

They’re going to have to come to Him.

the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

when you think about

evangelism.

We often think about people going to others.

yet in the beginning of the story of the Angalea, which is the gospel good news message

from which we get our word in English, evangelism.

in the beginning of that story, it’s not one going to people, it’s one standing in the

wilderness and them coming to him.

God says, have a message of comfort for you, but you have to do something to hear it.

God tells His people, I have hope for you, but if you stay in your comfortable places, in

your comfortable couches in Jerusalem, you’ll never hear it.

God says, have hope for this nation.

I have salvation to offer this nation.

I have good news to offer this nation.

But if you continue in what you’ve always done, you’ll never receive it.

John did not go town to town preaching his message.

John went as was prophesied, as was his purpose, into the wilderness.

But we read as we consider the text of the New Testament that all Israel came out to hear

John.

Over in Matthew chapter 11, Jesus asked those crowds, what did you go out to see?

Did you go out to see a person in fine garments and and luxurious clothing?

No.

Did you go out to hear soft, sweet, comforting words?

No.

Consider what the passage says in Isaiah chapter 40, the voice of one crying in the

wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our

God.

Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low.

The crooked places shall be made straight, the rough places smooth, the glory of the Lord

shall be revealed and all

flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

in this prophesied purpose of the one who’s the herald, the messenger coming before the

king.

The picture is given that here comes the messenger.

He’s coming throughout the country.

He’s telling the people, get ready, the king is coming.

The long anticipated, waited for, for centuries, king is going to arrive.

The Messiah is coming.

The one that God told

David, I will raise up a son who will sit on the throne and his throne will be

everlasting.

The one of whom God told Israel in the days of Moses through the words of Moses, there’s

one coming who will be a prophet like unto Moses, a lawgiver, him you shall hear.

One who was prophesied all the way back in the days of Jacob when Jacob said of Judah that

from Judah would come a lawgiver and that peace would be a fundamental part of his rule.

one who had been prophesied about all the way back in the Garden of Eden.

when God promised that Satan would never be victorious, but would receive a death blow

from the son of woman.

This one, who God had spoken about for 4,000 years,

John has the task of going ahead of him and saying, he’s coming.

and yet John was sent with a message that was not…

Just make sure that you’re ready.

Nope, that wasn’t John’s message.

Now John’s message was quite different.

John’s message was repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

When the text tells us that every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill brought

low, you do not bring hills to become flat land without effort.

without a great deal of energy and expenditure and generally some trauma.

I grew up in Eastern Kentucky.

in the hills of the Appalachians.

And growing up in the hills of the Appalachians, we knew how to get a road from here to

there.

Now here to there was a mile.

The road was going to be six miles because you’re to go back and forth and back and forth

and back and forth around over up down mountains.

But if there was no good way to put a road around the mountain, we would blast the

mountain apart until we could put a road through the mountain.

or over the mountain or around the mountain.

something that some people who’ve lived in a lot of other places have never seen.

They’re used to things like in the winter the snow falls and then it melts and it goes

away.

And the Appalachians where you blast the side of the hill off so you can put a road there,

the snow falls, it starts to melt, but it’s still cold and the water starts running down

the sides of these mountains that are fully exposed on the side and you just get this

sheer sheet of ice.

hanging off the side of the mountain.

First time, Eddie and I were still dating.

We traveled up into Kentucky and she saw it she’s like, that’s so cool.

She had never seen that before.

It doesn’t come from natural landscape.

It comes from the fact that someone took the mountain off.

John didn’t come to leave the natural landscape in Israel.

John didn’t come with the purpose of leaving Israel looking like it was when he arrived.

John came to change the very face of the nation, the very nature of their existence, by

calling them to repentance.

And for a message so fundamental for Israel’s future and hope in the Messiah, he didn’t

even come to their city to tell it to them.

He made them come to him.

turn back to Mark chapter 1.

And you see that when John arrived, he did not just come with a prophesied purpose, but he

came with a plan for reconciliation.

The message that had been decreed by God in the days of Isaiah 800 years before was,

Comfort my people!

But you cannot comfort a people who are not reconciled to God.

You can give them a message of, as Jeremiah’s day people gave, peace, peace, but Jeremiah

said there is no peace.

Because they weren’t reconciled to God.

Because they weren’t in a right relationship with God, but that wasn’t John’s message.

John’s message was not comfort at all cost.

John’s message was not peace at all cost.

John’s message was reconcile yourself to God and you will have comfort.

Notice verse 4, John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of

repentance for the remission of sins.

John came with a plan for reconciliation.

It wasn’t John’s plan, it was God’s plan.

And John came preaching a message telling the people they needed to be immersed in water

for the remission of their sins.

if that was his message.

then the implication of his message was that Israel was lost in their sins.

The implication of the message was that Israel was not in a right relationship with God.

That Israel was not in fellowship with God.

That the individuals and the people in the nation who were going to come to John were

those who needed to change.

John offered them a solution.

Many of them heard him.

Many of them received the message and obeyed it.

Not all.

for he also came with a proclamation of peace and division.” You wait a minute, how can

you have peace and division?

How is it that a preacher can come and say, I’m coming to declare comfort, I’m coming to

declare peace, I’m coming to declare division?

Those two things seem diametrically opposed to one another.

Go back to Isaiah chapter 40.

God’s message of comfort.

was not just a message of comfort.

Verse 6, the voice said, cry out.

And he said, the prophet says to God, what shall I cry?

God replies, all flesh is grass.

and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the breath of the Lord blows upon it.

Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever.”

The figure of God and His breath blowing upon the grass is an Old Testament figure of

God’s judgment.

God’s declaring, I can give life to you because my word abides forever.

Or I can judge you and destroy you from the face of the planet because my word abides

forever.

God declares through His prophet that they would receive comfort if they would be

reconciled and they would receive judgment if they would not.

Verse 9, read, O Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain, O

Jerusalem.

You who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength.

Lift it up, be not afraid.

Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God.

the messenger is going to come and he’s going to point and he’s going to say, Behold your

God!

The question would be, what would they do then?

In Mark chapter 1.

We read in verse 5, then all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him

and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River confessing their sins.

Seems like it was a

very successful time.

Seems like John accomplished his mission.

If you just read Mark’s record of it, everything seems to be smooth sailing from here.

except it wasn’t.

We turn to Matthew chapter 3.

Matthew chapter 3.

We read in verse 5, and Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan went

out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan confessing their sins.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to

them, Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance and do not think to say to yourselves, we have

Abraham as our father.

For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.

Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

John came with a message of peace, of consolation, of reconciliation, of good news, of

salvation to those who were willing to repent.

and of judgment, destruction, division, and separation from God from those who would not.

and the people.

who during John’s day were anxious to hear John, would travel to hear John, would go out

into the wilderness to the very banks of the Jordan River to hear John and be baptized of

John, would eventually succumb to the influence of these evil teachers.

and the very same people who anxiously anticipated the arrival of the Messiah would cry

out in the streets of Jerusalem, crucify Him.

Crucify Him.

but then consider as well.

that you have in the picture of John and the life of John a prioritized life.

Verse six of Mark chapter one says, now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a

leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey.

John didn’t come into this world interested in all the world’s possessions.

He didn’t come into the world interested in all the world’s glory.

He wasn’t interested in a fine mansion on a hill in Jerusalem.

He was satisfied with a robe,

and the food that the wilderness provided naturally.

As the people came to John, as the crowds surrounded John, as the people were baptized of

John, John didn’t say

now that I’ve brought you salvation, you need to do something for me.

oh

No, John’s life was prioritized on what he was about.

It was focused on what his mission was

and he didn’t need anything that didn’t involve his mission.

But then consider verses seven and eight.

that we find there was for John a place of service.

John was surrounded by those who would travel just to hear his voice.

just to say I heard John.

just to be able to be those who said, was baptized of John in the Jordan.

And yet, John never let it go to his head.

for he knew that he had a place of service and not prominence.

In verse seven we read, he preached, saying, there comes one after me who is mightier than

I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.

I indeed baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

as John spoke of the Messiah, as he spoke of the things that were to come, as he spoke

concerning the one who had been prophesied about, he said, I’m not him.

If turn over to John chapter 1.

You read in chapter 1 verse 1, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and

the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through Him and without Him.

Nothing was made that was made in Him was life and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Now this five verses right here describes Jesus, the Christ.

the Messiah and the fact that He was not just man.

That His existence did not begin when He was conceived or when He was born or when He was

brought into fleshly existence.

His existence was before the world began.

and it was with God, for He was God.

And yet, we read in verse 6, there was a man sent from God whose name was John.

This man came for a witness to bear witness of the life that all through him might believe

he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light that was the true light

which gives light to every man coming into the world.

John knew that his message was not about

Him, that He was there to point to someone else.

And he did.

John realized that his place was a place of service.

His message reiterated to the people over and over and over again, I’m not here to be the

person you follow, I’m here to point you to the person you are to follow.

and I don’t even compare to him.

I’m not even worthy to stoop down and be as the work of a servant or a slave and loosen

the straps of his sandals.

That’s how much difference there is between me, John, and him, the Messiah.

But he also promised that this one who was coming was coming with a different message.

He says, I indeed baptize you with water.

John says, I have authority that is this far and no further.

I have a message of salvation.

I have a message of redemption.

I have a message of repentance and remission of sins, and I have the authority over that.

There’s someone coming.

who can command the very Spirit of God.

and it will obey.

Turn back to Isaiah chapter 40.

Isaiah chapter 40.

Isaiah will write.

Verse 10, behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and his arm shall rule for

him.

Behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.

Notice the picture here, that the one who’s coming, the one who’s being pointed to, will

rule, and he will rule with the hand and the strength of God.

His reward will be the reward of God.

His work will be the work of God.

He will be the shepherd of God.

He will feed His flock like a shepherd.

He will gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His bosom and gently lead those

who are with young, who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven

with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure, weighed the mountains in

scales and the hills in a balance, who has directed the Spirit of the Lord.

in the description of the Messiah that is coming.

Isaiah says, one who’s crying in the wilderness is going to prepare the way for the one

who can direct the Spirit of the Lord.

and the Spirit will do it.

He asks who has directed the Spirit of the Lord or as his counselor has taught him.

Which individual, which man, which messenger, which prophet ever said to God, let me teach

you something?

John says, I’m not even worthy to stoop down and loosen his sandals.

I’m not the one you’re looking for.

but I am here to prepare you for the one you’re looking for.

but also consider.

verses 9 through 13, he was a prophet who witnessed the Messiah.

Verse 9, came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was

baptized by John in the Jordan.

The indication of much of the text is that John, now bear in mind the Jordan River runs

from north of Israel, north portion of Israel all the way down to the Dead Sea.

from the Sea of Galilee down to the Dead Sea.

There’s a lot of Israel that’s covered by an area that is right on the edge of the Jordan.

But the likely place where John was baptizing was in the region of Judea near the Jordan.

Jesus comes out of Nazareth, the north point of Galilee, travels to where John is in the

Jordan, and immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens parting and the

Spirit descending upon him like a dove.

Jesus came and was baptized by John.

Other texts tell us that John said to Jesus, knowing who he was, I need to be baptized of

you, not be the one who’s baptizing you.

Yet Jesus told him to do it to fulfill all righteousness.

So Jesus comes and is baptized by John and immediately upon coming up out of the water he

saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove, then the voice

from heaven, You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness and he was there in the wilderness

forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with wild beasts and the angels ministered to him.

as Mark quickly proceeds beyond the life of John and into the beginning of the ministry of

Jesus.

He’s not quite done talking about John.

but he tells us that John witnessed the Messiah.

If you turn over to John chapter 1.

You remember that the message was, he would be the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

He would be the one who would declare to Israel, your God.

In John chapter one and in verse 19, we read, now this is the testimony of John, when the

Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you?

He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ.

And they asked, what then, are you Elijah?

He said, I am not.

Are you the prophet?

And he answered, no.

Then they said to him, who are you?

That we may give an answer to those who sent us.

What do you say about yourself?

John said, I am the voice of the one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of

the Lord.

As the prophet Isaiah said,

Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees.

And they asked him, saying, Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah,

nor the prophet?

John answered, saying, I baptize with water, but there stands one among you whom you do

not know.

It is he who coming after me is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to

loose.

These things were done in Beth Arba, beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing.

The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said,

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was

before me.

I did not know him, but that he should be revealed to Israel.

Therefore I came baptizing with water, and John bore witness, saying, I saw the Spirit

descending from heaven like a dove, and he remained upon him.

I did not know him.

But he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, upon whom you see the Spirit

descending and remaining on him, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” John.

was a prophet who witnessed the Messiah.

But then consider lastly from this passage verses 14 and 15 that John was a persecuted

prophet.

John was sent with a message.

Speak comfort to my people.

Declare hope to my people.

Declare salvation to my people.

Declare hope for all people.

And yet John’s message of repentance and preparing the way for reconciliation with God

cost him his life.

Verse 14 of Mark chapter 1, now after John was put in prison,

Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying, time is

fulfilled and the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Repent and believe in the good news.

The gospel.

John would never come out of that prison alive.

John was put in that prison because he not only taught the people to repent, those who

stole, that they should cease from it, that they should repay what they had taken.

He taught the centurions and the soldiers to do good to others.

He taught them that they needed to prepare for the Messiah.

and he didn’t just teach the common people, he didn’t just rebuke the religious leaders,

he went into the very courts of Herod and told the king that your marriage is not right

and it is not lawful and you need to repent.

and for that Herodias had him imprisoned and then killed.

But remember, his message was of peace and division.

He was a persecuted prophet.

He was a prophet with a purpose.

He was a prophet with a plan.

He was a prophet with a proclamation.

He was a prophet with a prioritized life.

He was a prophet with a place of service.

and he was blessed to be a prophet who witnessed the Messiah.

Jesus would say of John that he was the greatest prophet.

But Jesus would further say that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John.

John did all these things, proclaimed all this message so that the nation would be ready

for the Messiah.

and they denied him and killed him anyway.

but that was part of God’s plan all along.

That was part of what God was doing to bring about your salvation and mine.

It was part of what God was doing to bring forth the kingdom that John prophesied about

that Jesus promised.

Jesus when asked or when he asked his disciples, who do men say that I am?

And when Peter responded, you are the Christ, the Son of God, the same testimony that John

gave.

Jesus said, blessed are you, Simon Marjona, for flesh and blood is not revealed as to you,

but your Father who is in heaven.

but he also said that he came to build his church.

His assembly of called out ones, called out from the world, divided from the world,

divided for the purpose of God.

and that the gates of hell, the gates of death, would never prevail against His Church.

So Jesus would say, the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John.

You’re here this morning and your life doesn’t look like John’s.

not that you need to wear camel skins and eat locusts.

But if your life doesn’t look like it’s patterned and planned and provided for after the

cause of the kingdom.

then perhaps it’s time to reevaluate your life.

Because John said, you need to get reconciled to God.

and John gave his life for that message.

If you’re separated from God, why stay there?

Why not repent?

If you’re outside of the kingdom for which Jesus died and John died, why stay there?

We can baptize you this morning the same way John baptized you, would have baptized you in

the Jordan River for the remission of your sins.

If you have need of the invitation of Jesus Christ and of John, why not come now as we

stand and as we say,

Mark 9 (Lesson 3) – Aaron Cozort – 09-24-2025

In Admonition Podcast, authority of Christ, demon possession, faith, fasting, healing, Humility, Keywords Mark 9, prayer, servanthood, spiritual discipline by Aaron Cozort

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Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to Mark chapter 9.

Tommy, I did a little messing with the sound system trying to get the nursery going back

on the speakers again and so I may be a little volume wise a little off where I need to

be.

just do whatever you need to do back there.

Mark chapter 9.

Alright, let’s begin with a word of prayer and then we’ll get into our study.

Our gracious Lord, Father of all mankind, giver of all good and perfect gifts, Father of

lights, we are grateful for your Son who came and offered Himself as a sacrifice on the

cross for our sins, that we might have the hope of eternal life, that we might have

redemption and justification, sanctification through the Spirit, that we might be able to

walk before you in holiness and righteousness, not our own.

but His.

Lord, we pray for those in this congregation.

May they set their path to follow the word that you have given to us, to follow the

scriptures, to be obedient to your truth.

May they live daily bearing their own cross as Christ has instructed us here in the book

of Mark.

May we be diligent as we strive to reach the lost.

to find those who are willing to open their hearts and their minds to hear the word of God

and be receptive to the truth that you have placed in front of us.

truly we know that we are sanctified by your word and your word is truth.

We pray that you will be with us as we speak the truth, uphold the truth, and always

strive to live in accordance with that truth.

All this we pray and ask in Jesus’ name, amen.

In Mark chapter 9, uh Jesus has interacted with the uh father of the boy who has the

spirit, and we’re around verse 25 uh when Jesus saw that the people came running together.

He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it,

deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more.” I was

thinking about something and I thought it’d be a good question to ask.

Why is it that just in your thoughts and opinion studying scripture, why is it that these

spirits that, you know, we’re dealing in a time of demon possession, why is it these

spirits

are creating these sort of maladies.

Someone’s deaf, someone’s dumb, can’t speak, someone is, uh you know, having uh seizures

or seizure-like events going on.

Why is it that the demons are creating those type of scenarios and yet we believe, based

upon scripture, that

when we see someone having those type of scenarios today, it’s not a result of demon

possession.

So why is it that they saw that and said it was demon possession then, but we see a

similar symptom and we say not demon possession?

I thought so.

That’s why I asked it.

So Philip is on the side of there’s a few people walking around who are demon possessed

today and he knows them.

ah

Okay, let me take you down a thought process because that’s a worthwhile answer.

We don’t have, as it were, visibility into the spiritual world to be able to say

definitively what’s going on inside of a person, right?

There’s no uh magical little set of glasses that we suddenly put on and we can see demons

or angels uh in the physical world.

But I think there’s another train of thought that we need to entertain in answering the

question.

Because what we sometimes fail to do when someone asks us questions is step back and ask,

are we asking the right question?

If you were to look at it this way and answer this set of questions, number one, were

there people who had the maladies of being blind or being deaf or being lame or having

seizures or having this type of scenario, this type of physical symptom, were there those

who existed with those maladies prior to the first century?

and the New Testament.

Yes.

Is there any, so part of the problem we have is once revelation ceased, once we no longer

have word from God, this is what this is, we have an absence of information, right?

We have only what we can determine and tell from our own eyes, from our own minds.

So bringing up Eric’s point, if we can’t tell,

how would we know?

But if instead of coming forward from the first century, we reverse direction and go

backwards from the first century, the question should be asked then, where in the Old

Testament do we see any examples of physical maladies being connected to demon possession?

And the answer is nowhere.

There are individuals with physical maladies, there are individuals who suffer as a result

of those maladies, yet nowhere in all of the Old Testament are any of those maladies

ascribed to demon possession.

It isn’t until the first century, while Jesus is walking the earth, while the Holy Spirit

is given through the gifts of the miraculous so that these miraculous deeds could actually

glorify God.

It is only in that sliver of time in all human history where God specifically draws out

demon possession as being something that is going on.

Not anywhere in the Old Testament, not anywhere in the New Testament.

Now, and I’ll get to the comment in a moment.

Do we find in the Old Testament God specifically drawing out that angels

were active in circumstances in the Old Testament.

Absolutely.

There are a number of times that heavenly beings, spiritual beings, appear to different

prophets.

There’s the individual who appears as a soldier of the Lord’s host that appeared to Joshua

outside the city.

There’s numerous occasions when Abraham is entertaining the three strangers and he doesn’t

know who they are and ultimately we’re

told through scripture that it was actually God himself and two angels, those angels being

sent on to Sodom and Gomorrah, we have an abundance of scenarios in the Old Testament

where God says, are angels interacting with humanity and humanity becomes aware of it

through revelation or through the action of the angel, okay?

So, it’s not as though God

has no discussion of demons or angels all the way up until the first century and now

suddenly there is, like somehow the doctrine changed or something, right?

That’s not what’s happening.

And yet, all through the Old Testament, you have Satan on occasion interacting with

humanity, right?

Genesis chapter 3, Satan talks to Eve.

But Eve is aware of who’s talking to her.

Eve knows that this uh serpent is more than just uh a creature that walks around.

So I point all of that out to say you have 4,000 years of history in which God could have

attributed all physical maladies to demon possession and he doesn’t.

It is only during the first century, during the time of the miraculous gifts, that demon

possession is connected to these physical maladies.

But let me add this.

Are all physical maladies that Jesus and the apostles interact with attributed to demon

possession?

No.

We have numerous people who are just simply blind.

And as a result of their blindness,

They need to be healed, but their malady is simply physical.

There are individuals who are deaf, and their issue is simply physical.

So even in the New Testament, in the time of the miraculous, you have a divergence and a

separation between physical maladies caused by demon possession and physical maladies that

were just normal.

physical maladies.

Here’s the individual who was born blind.

Well, what demon possession occurred for him to be born blind?

None.

He was simply born blind.

Okay, now, comment.

Okay.

Correct.

as you piece through this, the first thing you, when you’re trying to answer a question,

especially a random question somebody throws at you from the Bible, don’t begin with their

question.

Begin with what you know.

Begin with what Scripture says.

Like, all right, if we were going to try and answer the question, we first begin with,

here’s what we know, here’s what we may know, here’s what we

don’t know.

Now, how do those things bear on the question?

And to the point that, by the way, you see in the occasion when Jesus sends the legion of

demons into the swine, the demons knew that their ability to possess those on earth was a

limited time scenario.

because they ask Jesus, you come here to persecute us before our time?

uh As far as we know, we still have access to these humans.

So why are you interfering with our allowance, as it were, uh to do this?

So there’s inklings from the text that even the demons were aware.

This was not a permanent scenario.

And it had not been a permanent scenario prior to that point.

Therefore, now we can look at the question of what about physical maladies today and why

did demons use the physical maladies?

May I suggest one least idea?

Yeah, go ahead, Michael.

think it was because.

So, of that and the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit given at the hand of Christ

through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and then the laying on of the

Apostles hands to the church.

Those actions made it possible to demonstrate that Christ had authority not just over

physical or fleshly matters.

but that Christ had authority over spiritual matters and spiritual beings and physical

earthly beings.

So by nature of Christ being on the earth at this occasion as these things are going on,

it is a demonstration of his authority and of his power that could be demonstrated very

few other ways.

uh

in the occasion and the time period of the first century, you have a demonstration of the

authority and a confirmation of the word that was preached, which miracles always are.

They’re a confirmation of the word.

But the second aspect concerning physical maladies is if the demon is going to somehow

control the person, there’s only so many things you could do to a human body.

There’s only, I mean, we come up with a whole lot of diseases that people can have, but

there’s only so many different symptoms that you can cause to exist in a person if you’re

trying to torment them and control them.

And so the demons, by the way, it seems to also be clear that while the demons had some

level of control, they didn’t have complete control, right?

There was the child in this occasion who sometimes was

fine, and then sometimes the demon would exert control over and he’d spazz them and he’d

throw himself in the fire.

All of these things would occur.

They didn’t happen every moment of the day.

They occurred at different points in time as a result of the action of the demon.

So the point that we’re drawing out as we just think about that question, well, wait a

minute, why should we not assume physical maladies are the result of demon possession

today is because there’s no

evidence for it.

Just the same way there’s no evidence for the continuation of the miraculous gifts of the

Holy Spirit in any way, shape, or form after the first century.

There’s not one example nor one statement, and it’s exactly to the contrary of what

Scripture says, to believe that God continued handing out the ability to perform miracles.

If

that is the case, then as we look at the opposite side, not the miraculous side, but the

demon possession side or the activity of the spiritual beings under Satan’s control, you

have there the same thing.

Everything of scripture indicates that that did not continue, that it was for a limited

period of time, it didn’t exist beforehand, it didn’t exist afterward, and there’s again,

no evidence.

Now, people will say, well, wait a minute, what about this person that was healed over

here or this, you know, everybody’s seen this movie or that movie about demon possession.

Amazingly, all of these things seem to happen far off places somewhere in unconfirmed uh

scenarios with an entirely biased set of witnesses.

Just the same way, if you pay close attention to it, all of the televangelist healers

scenarios occur.

will it happen right there on stage in front of her?

Yeah, where did the person come from?

What’s the documentation of their illness and where’s the proof?

There’s been a long standing tradition, or least there was for years, some within the body

of Christ where they would offer a reward if…

If you can visit the local cemetery and call up someone out of the grave from the local

cemetery who’s been confirmed to be dead for an extended period of time, we’ll pay you

this sum of money.

Well, if you had the power to raise the dead, which some of them claim they do, seemed

like an easy way to make some money.

Nobody ever takes him up on it.

Wonder why?

Now, two things to just glean from this is number one, when someone asks you a Bible

question, don’t assume they’re asking the right question.

Don’t assume that the way they’re asking it is the right way to ask the question.

That doesn’t mean you have to be rude about it, but always redirect them to what do we

know?

If we’re going to have a Bible discussion, let’s not have it about what we think, let’s

have it about what we know to be the case.

Once we can discuss what we know, then we can talk about what we think we know, then we

can talk about what we don’t know, and that ought to be a pretty short conversation

because there’s no sense talking about a whole lot of things that we don’t know.

now.

As Jesus sees the people come running, He rebuked the unclean spirit saying, Death and

dumb spirit, I command you come out of him and enter him no more.

Notice Jesus is very explicit to this spirit.

Not only are you going to come out, you’re not going to do what?

Come back.

Off limits!

Then the Spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him.

And he became as one dead, so that many said, He is dead.

But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

And when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not

cast it out?

So the event occurs different than some other occasions where uh

evil spirit or an unclean spirit is cast out.

This one causes the individual to be convulsed, they fall to the ground, they’re basically

laying there as dead.

So, apparently, laying there long enough that some surmise that they are dead.

But Jesus goes over, lifts the individual up, and they continue on.

ah Jesus is going to go into the house, as you often see recorded, you know, these events

would occur quite often.

People would be bringing individuals to Jesus who had maladies, who had difficulties, who

had ailments, who had…

uh

uh evil spirits and they would bring them to Jesus.

Jesus would meet with them on a shoreline or on a mountain or outside of a house because

there wasn’t room for all of these people indoor anywhere uh in most of the places that

Jesus would go.

But then Jesus would go into the house and there would be some level of privacy.

So his disciples came and asked him privately, why could we not cast it out?

They’re trying to understand because they’ve cast out demons before.

You read that back when Jesus sent out the 12 and sent out the 70 that they had power over

evil spirits, that they commanded them and they came out, they healed people, so they’re

trying to figure out why could we not accomplish that this time?

So he said to them, this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.

Why do you think Jesus says that?

Let’s ask it this way.

Who’s praying and who’s fasting?

Okay?

Is it, we’ll do it in category.

Is it the person who has the demon possession?

Yes or no?

Not likely, because if they’re possessed by a demon, they’re going to have very little

control over their praying and their fasting.

Okay, so it’s probably not them.

Now, when Jesus interacted with the Father, notice, let’s go back, when Jesus is

confronted by him, he answered him and said, oh, faithless generation, how long shall I be

with you?

How long shall I bear with you?

Bring him to me.

and they brought him to him, they brought the child to Jesus, and when he saw him,

immediately the Spirit convulsed him and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at

the mouth.

So he asked his father, how long has it been happening to him?

He said, from childhood.

And often he has thrown himself both into the fire and into the water to destroy him, but

if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.

Jesus said to him, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

When Jesus confronts the situation, whose faith does He establish as the determining

factor?

The Father’s.

But spend some time with your thoughts on that.

Is it entirely based upon the Father’s faith because the other side of the equation,

Jesus, has no limit on His power or authority?

And if the apostles are on the other side of the equation instead of Jesus, do they have

limits on their power and their authority?

Yes, they do.

Okay?

When it’s one person and God, the only person who potentially has a potential or who has

the potential of falling short is the person, not God.

Because the only two in the scenario are person and God.

There’s no other dependencies there.

So, in a scenario where it’s the man and Jesus, the only one with the potential of falling

short is the man.

Not gonna be Jesus.

Is there any indication in the text that Jesus needed to pray and fast in order to command

the demon to come out?

No.

Okay, so let’s go through the scenario again.

You’ve got the one who’s demon possessed, the one who brings him who is desiring for him

to be healed, and the person doing the healing.

Jesus tells the one who brought him his faith is a part of the equation.

But this man says, had complete confidence.

I believe you could do it.

That’s why I brought him.

There’s no doubt in the man, the Father’s mind that Jesus can do this.

His only quandary is, why couldn’t the apostles do it?

So if it’s not the person being healed and the father already had full belief and

confidence, then who is the party that failed?

the apostles.

Because they’re not God.

They’re not God in the flesh.

They have the potential for failure.

They have a limitation of authority.

And even the text makes it clear because notice the question, verse 28, why could we not

cast it out?

They didn’t come to Jesus and say,

Why did the father have so much more faith when you were doing it than when we were doing

it?

That wasn’t the question.

The question was, why couldn’t we do it?

Why is there a difference in the authority that you have and the authority that we have,

or how do we understand the difference?

So when Jesus says this kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting, but Jesus did

not pray and did not fast in order to cast them out, then whose prayer and whose fasting

is under consideration?

Because he doesn’t tell the Father to pray and fast, he tells the Father to believe.

This would be the apostles, okay?

Now we’re getting into why couldn’t they do it?

So, let’s examine the situation again.

Did anything change about the person who needed to be, have the demon cast out, whether it

was Jesus or the apostles?

No.

Was there any difference in the state of the belief of the Father, whether it was the

apostles or whether it was Jesus?

No.

So now we’re down to Jesus and the apostles.

Jesus succeeded, he has authority over all flesh.

all over heaven and earth, okay?

So that one’s pretty easy.

He didn’t need to pray, he didn’t need to fast, he commanded the spirit to come out.

So if we identify that it is the prayer and the fasting of the apostles that was the

problem, now we’re beginning to ask a different question.

Let’s ask it this way, whose authority was going to cast the demon out no matter whether

Jesus did it or whether the apostles did it?

God’s authority.

It was the authority of God that would cause the demon to come out.

Jesus spoke and the authority was there.

When Jesus attributes prayer and fasting to being part of the reason they failed, Jesus is

establishing that their will and their request and their authority were not in alignment

with God’s.

and therefore the prayer and the fasting would have been for the benefit of aligning

themselves with God.

Not aligning, A-L-L-E-Y, aligning, L-I-G-N, aligning themselves with God.

Jesus is saying there’s a separation between you and God.

and you need to fix it.

You need to focus on why is it that you are not aligned with God and he tells them that

two spiritual disciplines that were the solution for that were praying to God, that is

speaking to God, and fasting.

What is fasting all about?

What is the purpose behind it?

There’s a number of different ones mentioned in Scripture.

What are they?

First, maybe we should ask, what is fasting?

All right, fasting is withholding food and or drink depending, know, Jesus fasted both

food and uh liquids for a period of time on occasion and just simply food on another

occasion.

So you have the withholding of eating and consuming things, okay?

Why would someone fast from a, we’ll just ask it, from a.

physical medical perspective.

Anybody ever had to go on a fast for 12 hours or 24 hours before a procedure or something?

There’s a lot of different reasons medically why someone may fast or say, you’ve got this

procedure at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, so eight o’clock morning four, cut it off.

Or eight o’clock the night before, no more.

There’s medical, physical reasons why someone might fast, but the Bible’s not really

discussing it in a medical,

hey, this is the great latest diet fad, so you should consider this.

No, no, no, that’s not what is under discussion.

Are there occasions where individuals fasted because of sadness and mourning?

Yes.

So fasting in the Old Testament on numerous occasions was tied to the grieving process.

If you’ve been around those who’ve lost loved ones,

You find that invariably in America, what we do is we bring a ton of food and they’re

interested in eating none of it because they’re grieving.

But we would hate for them to starve while they’re grieving.

So we bring them food and we don’t know what else to do.

So we bring them more food.

And they might have friends and family over who aren’t grieving nearly as bad, and those

people need to eat.

So we’re keeping them from having to make food while they’re grieving.

But the point is, there are times that people don’t eat because of sorrow or grief.

But then scripture also discusses fasting from a spiritual discipline perspective.

This is the type of fasting that Jesus was doing

in the wilderness.

This is the type of fasting that we read about elsewhere in scripture.

This is the type of fasting that Jesus condemns the Pharisees for participating in, but

then showing themselves physically to be fasting so they could be considered praiseworthy

by the crowd.

Jesus said, if you’re fasting and it is for spiritual purposes, it is between you and God.

It’s not you

cause yourself to look like you’re really almost nearing the point of death.

You don’t walk around with your hair disheveled and your self unwashen or anything like

that just because you haven’t eaten.

Just so people go, he must be, he might be a number of days into that fast.

Yeah, he’s really, there you go.

Man, that guy’s spiritual right there.

Jesus said, no, if you’re going to fast, do it privately.

Jesus didn’t condemn the practice, he condemned using the practice to be seen as

righteous.

So the practice is this.

The practice is withholding food for the purpose of clarity and focus on a spiritual

matter.

if you’re hungry.

It’s hard to focus.

But if every time you’re hungry and your body reminds you you’re hungry and you’re

intentionally hungry, it reminds you why you’re hungry.

So, if you say, know what, I really need to focus on this spiritual issue, but you just go

about your day, are you more likely to forget to focus on the spiritual issue?

Because you’re just going about your normal process?

Well, if you’re not eating, there’s a continual reminder day after day for however long

that fast is that you’re not eating for a reason.

And there’s actually good evidence that once you get past the initial hunger cravings,

there’s benefits towards additional focus of mind when your body finally stops getting in

the way and interrupting every thought that you have with, hey, let’s eat again.

um I’m not a doctor and I’m not giving any medical advice here as to how diabetics would

get around that, but I will say this, um when you look at it, it’s important to realize

fasting is never commanded anywhere in Scripture.

There’s not a single instance of a fast being a command in Scripture unless it is in a

scenario where

like this one, Jesus is saying, you’re going to accomplish this, it’s going to require

this of you.

ah So there’s not like a blanket command, everyone needs to fast three days a year or

anything like that.

But Jesus is pointing out that their spiritual discipline and as a result of that

understanding, their alignment with God,

is the reason why God didn’t do what they asked for.

So he’s telling them, it’s not God that needs to change, it’s you.

You need to get into a scenario with God that God will actually do what you ask for when

you ask for him to do it.

So as you examine the text, Jesus isn’t saying, you know what, there’s a special

procedure.

If you’re going to get this type of demon to come out,

You’re gonna pray for an hour.

You’re gonna fast for six hours.

You’re gonna pray for another hour.

You’re gonna faster He’s not giving them a procedure He’s telling them the problem and the

problem was their alignment with God If you go back into Old Testament texts like Nehemiah

Daniel many other Old Testament texts with both prophets and others David’s a great

example of this

over and over and over again in the lives of those individuals, they went in prayer to God

seeking to know what God’s will was.

What they should do in order to meet and achieve God’s will in a situation.

My understanding of this text is Jesus is saying, kind of like James chapter four,

you didn’t receive because you asked to miss.

You thought you could cast out the demon and you can’t.

God can, but God didn’t honor your request because of you and not the demon.

Okay?

So that’s at least my understanding of the text.

Hopefully that helps or draws out some things that you may not have thought about.

Here in verse 30,

We read, then they departed from there and passed through Galilee, and he did not want

anyone to know it.

For he taught his disciples and said to them, this occasion, much like the occasion where

they went off into the region of Tyre, Jesus is trying to find time to dedicate to

teaching his disciples.

But every time the crowd comes, every time the multitudes arrive, he can’t teach the

disciples because

of all of the people that are present.

So Jesus is going through Galilee and he’s trying to avoid being discovered and someone

saying, hey, Jesus is here, because he’s trying to teach the disciples.

He taught his disciples and said to them, verse 31, the son of man is being betrayed into

the hands of men and they will kill him.

And after he is killed, he will rise the third day.” But they did not understand this,

saying, and were afraid to ask him.

Jesus will use the reference the Son of Man.

Anybody know which Old Testament prophet that phrase comes from?

comes from Ezekiel.

Ezekiel uses the phrase son of man numerous times in Ezekiel’s prophecies.

And Jesus utilizes that description to make it very clear that he was human.

What if he had said, think about it practically speaking, what if he had said, the Son of

God is being betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill him?

What would be wrong with that statement?

You, go ahead Philip, say it You can’t kill God.

You can’t kill the Son of God.

Not in His Godhood.

Not as deity.

So Jesus emphasizes His being as a human to emphasize that this was going to happen to

Him.

But to use a phrase different than that would be to ascribe something that would simply

not be possible.

You can’t kill God.

They didn’t kill God.

They killed Christ in the flesh.

They could not touch the Spirit.

By the way, that’s not something we should be surprised about because Jesus tells us, do

not fear Him who can destroy the body.

Rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

It’s not

strange for us to question whether or not man can touch the spirit or destroy the spirit

or kill the spirit.

Jesus said flat out, no they can’t touch it.

Not mine and not anybody else’s, but God can.

So the discussion here is of the flesh and a fleshly death, but they did not understand

this saying, and were afraid to ask him.

One of the things that

leaders struggle with is those who they are leading who won’t actually speak up.

They won’t actually say what’s going on.

They won’t actually say what they’re thinking and instead of learning and instead of

providing an opportunity to learn, they clam up and nobody learns.

That’s what happens with the disciples.

All of them are thinking

this and none of them are saying a word about it.

Yeah, so uh there are a number of texts that make it quite clear it was not easy to be

Jesus’ uh Quote unquote measuring up was impossible.

Go ahead.

One, when Matthew gives the genealogy of Christ, man, there’s some real scandals in that

genealogy.

mean, you look at prostitutes, thieves, I mean, it was all.

But I think he was doing that to make us realize more that Jesus was flesh and blood.

You know, bringing…

more down the earth.

I mean, you know what I’m saying?

Yeah.

He had a family tree and the ancestors just like everybody else did.

So we’ll get just a couple more verses in here and then we’ll close.

Verse 33, then he came to Capernaum and when he was in the house he asked them, what was

it you disputed among yourselves on the road?

So we don’t have the discussion, we don’t have the dispute recorded, we have Jesus asking

about the dispute.

So they were traveling and there’s a discussion going on, but they kept silent.

For on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest.

And he sat down, called the 12 and said to them, if anyone desires to be first, he shall

be last of all and servant of all.

Then he took a little child and set him in the midst of them.

And when he had taken him in his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one of these

little children in my name receives me.

And whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me.” Jesus is trying to teach

and prepare the disciples.

And the first principle that he establishes with them is that if you desire to be the

greatest, if you desire to be first in his kingdom, you’re going to have to not do it

man’s way.

man’s way of being first, man’s way of being greatest is I’m gonna be better than

everybody, I’m gonna exceed everybody, I’m gonna do better than everybody, I’m gonna be

the first in line, I’m going to be the one who achieves more, I’m going to…

Jesus says, nope, nope, that’s not how it works.

What did Jesus say was the attribute of the one who would be first in the kingdom of

heaven?

All right, he would be last and he would be servant of all.

Usually the status of greatest means I’m going to be sitting in a big chair, y’all are

going to be serving.

You think about going all the way back to the days of Joseph.

And what was the dream?

Joseph saw his sheaf standing up and all the others bowing down.

Joseph saw himself standing up and all the stars and the moon and the sun and the moon

bowing down.

All right, there’s the one who’s great and then there’s the servants.

Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no, you flip that over.

The one who’s the greatest is the servant of not a few, not a select one group.

but all, how is that demonstrated in the life of Jesus?

All right, one example in the private scenario, him washing the apostles feet there in the

uh Dine of the Betrayal.

What about at a grander scope of all humanity?

How did Jesus become servant of all?

He died.

He sacrificed himself.

He became the one who paid the price for everybody.

Turn to Romans chapter 5.

Romans chapter five verses six through nine, we’ll close with this.

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

Not because of his lack of strength, but ours.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would

even dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us.

Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath

through Him.” Paul makes it clear in his discussion concerning the sacrifice of Christ

that he sacrificed himself not for a select group, not for those, as Calvinists believe,

who were already determined to be saved.

He sacrificed himself for

everyone.

Jesus establishes not just His teaching on the first shall be last and servant of all, but

also demonstrated it in going to the cross and showing the apostles what it really meant

to be servant of all.

Okay, thank you for your attention.