What Future You Needs To Read – Jacob Kennedy – Jun 7, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Christian life, faith, heaven, Jeremiah, Jesus, keywords endurance, Paul, perseverance, purpose, trials by Aaron Cozort

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If you think back over the last 100, well, I guess you could, seeing that it’s the 250th

anniversary of the United States, 250 years ago, a lot’s changed in the world today.

A lot has changed since the era of horse and buggy travel.

A lot’s changed since the invention of the light bulb and electricity.

A lot’s changed over the years, and yet one thing stays the same.

man still has trouble.

Man still has things that we need to know.

Things that we maybe even look forward into the future as it were and say, future me needs

to know this.

when we think about our lives as individuals.

Maybe there are certain problems that uh you say that’s a future me problem.

That’s a problem for another day, right?

But when we think about our lives as Christians, some things don’t need to be put off.

Some things need to be taken care of right now.

But as taking the high road, most of us in here are faithful children of God, faithfully

trying to serve the Lord.

What do you want your future self to know?

What do you want your future self to read?

When we think about this idea, we are going at it from this idea of there will be

struggles in our lives years from now, maybe just weeks from now.

But when we face these struggles in our lives, when we think about what our future holds,

we need to think about it from the standpoint of what the Word of God tells us, of how we

can endure troubles, of how we can make it through trials.

of how we can be strong in the Lord no matter what happens on this earth.

The first thing that we need to know is that we are not alone.

If you would, open your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 20.

You see, Jeremiah, he was no stranger to difficulty.

He was one that faced much persecution in his life.

In fact, his time as a prophet was spent without anyone ever listening and truly heeding

his words.

He was ignored.

And so he had a strenuous tenure.

He had a difficult time as a prophet.

Picking up in verses one through six of Jeremiah 20,

Now, Pasher the son of Emre, the priest who was also chief governor in the house of the

Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.

He prophesied of coming destruction.

He prophesied of where their sin would lead them, of what the end result of falling in

their current wicked state would be.

Now, Pasher didn’t like to hear this.

And so in verse 2, then Pasher struck Jeremiah the prophet.

and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house

of the Lord.

And it happened on the next day that Pasher brought Jeremiah out of the stocks.

Then Jeremiah said to him, the Lord has not called your name Pasher, but Maggermizbub.

Try saying that three times fast.

thus says the Lord, behold, I will make you a terror to yourselves and to all your

friends.

and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall see it.

It will give all Judah into the hand, and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king

of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon and slay them with a sword.

Moreover, I will deliver all the wealth of the city and all its produce and all its

precious things, and all the things of the treasures of the king of…

of the kings of Judah, I will give into the hand of their enemies, who will plunder them,

seize them and carry them to Babylon.

And you, pasture, and all who dwell in your house shall go into captivity.

You shall go down, you shall go to Babylon, and there you shall die, and be buried there.

You and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lie.

When we think about this idea of Jeremiah as being facing trouble, of facing trial.

there were those who were claiming to be servants of God.

Pasher was one who was claiming to be a prophet of God, but he was prophesying lies.

He was lying about the very things that Jeremiah was speaking the truth of God concerning.

And when Jeremiah presents the truth, Pasher tries to silence him.

Now as we kept reading, we noted that he didn’t succeed in silencing Jeremiah.

Jeremiah kept on prophesying the word of the Lord, but…

The point we’re trying to make here that we need to understand is Jeremiah faced

struggles.

He faced trials.

He faced hardship.

and he even wanted to quit.

Look at verses seven and verse nine.

Verse seven, oh Lord you induced me.

and I was persuaded.

You are stronger than I and have prevailed.

I am in derision daily.

Everyone mocks me.

For when I spoke, I cried out, I shouted, violence and plunder, because the word of the

Lord was made a reproach and a derision daily.

Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name.

Jeremiah wanted to quit.

He wanted to stop.

He thought, I’ve had enough.

The persecution is too much.

Are there times when we feel the same?

Are there not times when we feel like this Christian life is just not worth it?

Or we become discouraged?

When we look at these things that surround us, the wickedness, I just think about what

month this is and what our country has sadly chosen to do with this month.

And it’s easy for us to look at all these things and to say, there’s no hope.

There’s no reason to keep going.

Lord, they’re not listening.

They don’t want to hear the gospel.

I’m done.

But if you notice, we didn’t finish reading first nine.

but his word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary of

holding back and I could not.

Jeremiah says, Lord, I’m done.

I quit.

I don’t want to speak anymore in your name because they’re not listening.

They’re mocking me.

They put me in stocks.

They have slapped me.

They have

persecuted me beyond what I thought I was going to face.

And Lord, you just lied to me because you said I wasn’t going to face any of these things.

The Lord didn’t promise him that.

He promised to deliver him through these trials.

But nevertheless, Jeremiah feels like quitting, but yet when he tries to actually quit, he

says, word was like a fire in my bones.

I couldn’t but speak the truth.

I couldn’t bud speak these things that God has told me about.

He got back to work.

Brethren, there are times when we feel like quitting.

When we say, it’s enough, I’m done, I can’t go on, I can’t keep going like this.

But we, like Jeremiah, need to get back to work.

And we’ll come back to this idea of the word being a fire in our bones later, but

We need to make sure.

We need to truly consider the words that we hold in our hands of how important these words

are, what they truly mean.

Because when we do, when we truly appreciate that these are the words by which man can be

saved, that teach us how to live, that teach us how to have a home and glory with our

Father, well then we like Jeremiah.

We’ll get back to work.

We’ll have those moments of struggle, yes, but we will remember Jeremiah and we too will

continue serving our God.

What else do we need to know?

We need to know, yes, that we’re not alone, that there are others who have faced similar

trials, there are others who have even faced worse trials than us, but we also need to

know that we can endure.

Carrying on with this idea of those who have faced worse trials than us, look with me at 2

Corinthians.

2 Corinthians chapter 11, there are few in the church

recorded for us in scripture that faced as much difficulty as Paul did.

He struggled much.

He faced much hardship, much persecution for the cause of Christ.

And yet, we read a record of his struggles, of his trials here in chapter 11.

Starting verse 16, I say again, let no one think me a fool.

have otherwise at least received me as a fool, that I also may boast a little.” In the

context of these individuals who were trying to say, well, I’m better than Paul, you

should be listening to me.

Paul doesn’t know what he’s talking.

Paul’s not even an apostle.

There’s no reason to listen to Paul.

Paul is saying, okay, if you want to play the game of I don’t have the right to speak when

God’s given me the inspiration, let me tell you what I’ve endured.

Now he mentions I speak as a fool.

This is not how Paul

normally would approach these things, but he needed to in this moment and the spirit gave

him inspiration to do so.

And in verse 17 he continues, what I speak I speak not according to the word or to the

Lord, but as it were foolishly in this confidence of boasting, seeing that many boast

according to the flesh, I will also boast.

For you put up with fools gladly since you yourselves are wise.

For you put up with it.

if one brings you into bondage, if one devours you, if one takes you from, takes one from

you.

going down to verse 22.

Paul says, are they Hebrews?

So am I.

Are they Israelites?

So am I.

Are they the seed of Abraham?

So am I.

Are they ministers of Christ?

I speak as a fool.

I am more.

And laborers more abundant.

And stripes more, and stripes above measure.

And prisons more frequently.

And deaths often.

From the Jews five times I received 40 stripes minus one.

Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a

night and a day I have been in the deep, and journeys often, and perils of water, and

perils of robbers, and perils of my own countrymen, and perils of the Gentiles, and perils

in cities, and perils in the wilderness, and perils in the sea, and perils among false

brethren, and weariness and toil, and sleeplessness often.

and hunger and thirst and fastings often and cold and nakedness, beside the other things,

what comes upon me daily, my deep concern for all the churches.

Who is weak and I am not weak?

Who is made to stumble and I do not burn with indignation?

He goes on and continues this thought, but suffice it to say, Paul suffered greatly.

He faced more than I would dare say any of us will ever face in our lives.

Than any of us have faced in our lives as Christians.

And yet, what do we see about Paul?

endured to the very end.

In 2 Timothy 4 and verses 6 through 8, Paul in concluding his time on earth and writing

his final epistle to his son in the faith, Timothy, he tells him, I have fought a good

fight.

Back in verse 6, he says, my time is at hand.

I’m ready to be offered as a drink offering.

I’m ready to go and be with the Lord.

Why?

because I have fought a good fight.

I have finished my course.

I have kept the faith.

Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous

judge shall give to me at that day and not to me only but into all them also that love is

appearing.

Paul shows us the weekend in dirt.

And the apostle Paul faced far worse than we will ever face or have ever faced, and he

endured to the end, then so too can we, brethren.

Brothers and sisters, there is not a trial, there is not a temptation, there is not a

struggle on this earth, a persecution that we can face that can force us to abandon our

God.

Only we can choose that.

but stay true to him.

You can endure.

We can endure just as did Paul.

But you know there’s another example in scripture of one who endured and quite frankly

he’s the ultimate example.

That being our Savior Jesus the Christ.

Now Jesus suffered.

He suffered far worse

than what we can even possibly imagine.

And the reason was not that no one had ever suffered on the cross before.

The reason was not that no one had ever been scourged and beaten like Jesus was.

That was not why he suffered so much worse than everyone else.

The reason he suffered so much worse than any other human being, than any other being on

this earth is because he could have said no at any moment.

with any of the lashes that ripped his back apart.

He could have said, I’m done.

in any of the six hours that he remained on the cross, he could have said, Lord, I’m done.

No.

They want to see me come down from the cross.

I’ll show them how I can come down from the cross.

He could have said that.

but he didn’t.

and we look at passages such as Isaiah 53, wherein his suffering is prophesied.

And we read in verse one, verse two picking up, he shall grow up before him as a tender

plant and as a root out of a dry ground.

He has no form nor comeliness.

And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He has noticed this despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrow.

and acquainted with grief.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from him.

He was despised, and we did not esteem him.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him, stricken,

smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are…

Jesus suffered greatly.

1st Peter 2 and verses 22 through 25 tell us this again that how he suffered and yet he

did not revile.

He did not respond in kind to those who had treated him like dirt.

to those who had slapped him across the mouth for saying, as they would say, for speaking

to the high priest like he did, to those who would blindfold him and beat him and say,

tell us, teacher, if you are the son of God, tell us who struck you.

to those who wagged their heads at him as he hung on the cross in agony and said, if he’s

the son of God, let him come down.

He said to others, surely he can save himself.

but Jesus not respond in kind.

suffered but in his suffering he shows us an example of how to endure.

He shows us the fact that we too can endure.

We’re not going to be facing the same thing Jesus faced.

We won’t be hung on a cross for our faith.

We won’t endure the same mocking and beating that Jesus received.

But he has, as 1 Peter tells us, left us an example that we should follow in his steps.

Brethren, we can endure.

And in Hebrews 5, starting in verse 7, we see this very fact that Jesus did endure.

Hebrews 5, 7, who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and

supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and

was heard because of his godly fear, though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the

things which he suffered.

And having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

Why did Jesus endure?

How did Jesus endure?

How did Paul endure?

Because their focus was not on this earth.

Paul looked for the place beyond the veil.

as Philippians 1 talks about, uh he was longing to be with his Lord, to be united with the

Father.

And when we think about Christ in his mind was the fact that he is the Savior of man.

with every stripe, with every hour he spent on the cross, there was the thought of…

Eric, you need this.

Jay, you need this.

Terry, you need this.

Jacob, you need this.

And further still was the thought of this is what the Father’s will is and I will do the

will of my Father.

in the life of Jesus and in the, what we have recorded for us in the Bible is this idea of

endurance through commitment, endurance through an understanding that this world is not

our home.

we can endure.

And when we face trials in our lives, when we face persecutions, when we face these

difficulties, we need to understand, we need to read the scriptures and realize we can

endure.

Number three, we need to understand, we need to realize that we have a purpose.

You have a purpose in this life.

I told you we were going back to Jeremiah.

We look at this idea of Jeremiah and how his purpose in life was to proclaim the word of

God as a prophet of the Lord.

And when he abandoned his purpose, when he abandoned the very reason he was walking on

this earth, the word of God was like a fire in his

It’s this idea of you just gotta tell somebody.

You can’t keep it quiet.

Have you ever had some news that you just could not help but sharing?

Now I know a lot of you in here are grandparents and I know that with my mom and dad just

about anytime you asked them about, you know, well how’s Brittany and Sam doing?

well let me show you the pictures.

We got two beautiful grandbabies.

You know, they would show pictures and everything.

They could not help but spread that news.

Is the Word of God like that to us?

is the Word of God such that we cannot help but spread it, but proclaim it.

Brethren, the gospel by its very definition is good news.

And yet many times we treat it as if it’s the worst thing that’s ever been brought to man.

try to hide it away.

when we look at this idea of the word being a fire in our bones.

Look with me at Acts chapter four.

Acts chapter 4.

In the context you have these individuals, Peter and John, who have faced or are facing

persecution because they faithfully proclaim the Word of God.

They were teaching about Jesus in the temple.

They had healed a man who had been lame since his birth.

He was lame 40 years.

and they were proclaiming the good news of Christ.

the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders, they didn’t want hear that.

They didn’t want Peter and John to be saying that they had crucified the Son of God.

And so when they tell these faithful apostles to stop speaking in the name of God, notice

what happens here.

Verse 15 starting, when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they

conferred among themselves saying, what shall we do to these men?

For indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell

in Jerusalem.

And we cannot deny it.

But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them, that

from now on they speak to no man in this name, the name of Jesus.

So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of

Jesus.

And notice their response.

But Peter and John answered and said to them, whether it is right in the sight of God to

listen to you more than to God, you judge.

For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.

In other words, Peter and John said, you’re not going to keep us quiet.

You’re not going to stop us from spreading the gospel.

We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.

Well, brethren, what have we seen and heard?

We have heard God’s word.

We hear it every time we come together.

We hear it and read it as we do our personal Bible studies.

But we also hear God’s word.

The things that we have seen and heard as it were is the fact that salvation

is available that you don’t have to die in sin.

that you can be saved.

You can be in a right relationship with the Father.

Is that not good news?

Tell me, have I misunderstood something?

Is this not good news?

It is.

So why don’t we share it?

Why don’t we lead others to the one who can save them?

Brethren, our goal is heaven.

The purpose of this earth, of being on this earth, yes, part of that is the idea of the

word being a fire in our bones that we are here to spread the word of God.

Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

but another purpose of ours.

Another reason, the reason why we fight, the reason why we struggle, the reason why we

endure is because heaven is the victory.

Yes, we fight Satan on this earth.

2 Corinthians 10 verses 3 through 6 tell us this plainly that we are in a spiritual

warfare.

We are in a battle against the devil.

We are fighting against his cause.

doing our best to serve the Lord.

And we are as soldiers of the cross.

As Christians, we are soldiers fighting for our Lord, fighting for our King.

It’s not yet time to lay down our weapons.

until the trumpet of God sounds or until we are lying on our deathbed.

It’s not time to drop your weapons.

Rather, it’s time to take up arms against the devil and to fight with a purpose in our

hearts.

The purpose of heaven as our reward, as our home.

We fight to attain heaven.

We fight to go home.

My great uncle served in World War II.

My dad one time asked him, what were you thinking when you were over there?

What were some of the things that were just going through your mind?

And he said, it was a job.

We did our job and we wanted to go home.

What was the goal for my great uncle?

His goal was to get back home.

Brethren, for us as soldiers of the cross, soldiers of Christ, soldiers of the King of

Kings, our goal is to go home and to take as many people with us as we can.

That’s our purpose.

That’s the reason why we fight.

That’s the reason why we struggle.

Look with me at 1 Corinthians 9.

Read with me there, 1 Corinthians 9, starting in verse 24.

Paul writes, you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the

prize?

Run in such a way that you may obtain it.

And everyone who completes or competes, rather, for the prize is temperate in all things.

Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.

Therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty.

Thus I fight, not as one who beats the air.

but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to

others, I myself should be disqualified.” Paul’s purpose on this earth, his goal in

preaching to the Corinthians, his goal and doing the work that he did in those missionary

journeys and just his life in general, his goal was that imperishable crown.

His goal was reaching heaven.

His goal was bringing all of us with Him, as many as He good, as many as He could reach.

But His purpose was also seen in glorifying the Master.

Back up a few chapters to chapter six.

1st Corinthians 6 and verse 20, for you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in

your body and in your spirit, which are God.

Brethren, don’t belong to ourselves as Christians.

We don’t belong to ourselves.

We belong to the Master.

We belong to the Lord.

We belong to the one who bought us, who saved us from our sin.

We belong to the Savior.

And as such, our purpose on earth is to glorify our master, it’s to glorify our Lord.

We have been bought with a price.

What was this price?

First Peter 1: 18 through 19 tells us we were not redeemed with corruptible things as

silver and gold.

We weren’t bought with currency, but we were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as

of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

We have been bought.

Therefore we glorify our Father.

We shine the light of God.

We do what we can to be an example to those around us, to point people to God.

Matthew 5:16 tells us that we are shining our light, not so that men can glorify us, but

that so they can see our good works and glorify the Father, which is in heaven.

Our purpose is to live for the Lord.

Our purpose is to serve Him.

Brethren, we have one purpose on this earth and it’s not to get the most riches.

It’s not to have the most comfortable lifestyle.

Our purpose on earth is revealed to us in Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 13.

Fear God and keep His commandments.

Solomon tried everything.

He lived in luxury.

He lived for the thrill as the saying goes.

He did everything that the world says, surely this will give you a good life.

Surely this is what life is all about.

And he says, it’s all vanity.

It’s all pointless and empty.

but to live for God, to keep His commandments, now that is a life worth living.

That is our purpose on earth.

What future you needs to read?

We looked at this idea of.

enduring.

The idea of suffering, that we’re not alone in our suffering, but that just as others

endured, just as others went through trials, we too can endure and come out the better.

and that we have a purpose on this earth.

It’s not all for nothing.

But what does present you need to read?

What do you need to know right now?

If you’re not a Christian, then you need to know that there’s a way to be saved.

That although you’re lost in your sins and you are on the road to hell, you can be saved.

It’s not too late.

having heard God’s Word, do you believe it?

Will you repent of your sins?

Will you confess that Jesus Christ is Lord?

Will you be baptized for the remission of your sins?

But maybe present you is a Christian, but wayward.

Having lived a life that was at one point dedicated to the cause, dedicated to the truth,

dedicated to the Lord, but Satan’s good at his job.

and you fell and you want to come home.

You want to be reunited with your family.

Be reunited with the Father on the path to heaven.

And we stand ready to help you.

Friends, if we can be of any assistance to help you make your life right with God so that

you’re ready to see Him, so that future you, the you that’s in eternity can say, this is

exactly what you need to do.

Don’t give up because heaven’s worth it.

If we can help make heaven your home, then come now as we stand.

A Study on Prayer (Lesson 1) – Jacob Kennedy – Jun 7, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Bible Study, Christian life, faith, forgiveness, God's throne, intercession, Jesus Christ, keywords prayer, sin, thanksgiving by Aaron Cozort

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As you can see, I am not Aaron.

uh He is traveling at this time and he’s out of town, asked me to fill in for him for the

Bible class portion of service this morning.

And so please accept the poor substitute of an Aaron.

But we’ll begin as per normal with a word of prayer.

If you would bow with me.

Almighty God, most holy, most righteous heavenly Father, we thank you for who you are.

We thank you for this day that you have blessed us with.

We thank you for all that you have done.

Lord, we are thankful that we have this time to gather together to praise your name, to

study from your word.

Lord, we pray that as we consider the topic of prayer, as we look at your word, at what it

describes as being prayer, that we will grow in our faith and grow in our appreciation for

the beautiful gift that we have.

be able to come before you and to talk to you, Lord.

Lord, we pray that in all things we will strive to be the Christians that you would have

us to be, strive to live for you, and we pray all these things in your Son’s name, amen.

We will be discussing in Bible class today the topic of prayer and we’ll also carry this

over into Wednesday night class for Lord willing.

We’ll continue this topic of describing prayer and doing a study on prayer.

First and foremost, when we consider this idea of prayer, the first thing we need to

understand is, well, what is prayer?

What is this thing that we call prayer?

And it’s interesting that the word itself of pray does not appear in the Old Testament

until Genesis 20 in verse 7.

Now, if you look at me, look with me in Genesis 20 in verse 7, we know something very

interesting about how prayer is used here.

The context being of course that Abraham and Sarah are in Abimelek’s country and Abraham

fears Abimelek that he’s going to kill him to take Sarah to be his wife.

And so he lies to Abimelek and Abimelek takes Sarah to be his wife or to do and in that in

so doing he sins against God.

Now Abimelek doesn’t know this at this point but God reveals it to him and we pick up in

verse seven.

where God says, now therefore restore the man’s wife, for he is a prophet and he will pray

for you and you shall live.

But if you do not restore her, you know that you shall surely die, you and all who are

yours.

So the first mention of prayer we have in scripture of the actual term pray, not to say

that there weren’t prayers before this, as we’ll note later, but the first use of the word

pray,

has to do with intercession.

It has to do with someone who is praying, who is going to God on another’s behalf.

Abimelech is told that Abraham will go to God on his behalf to get forgiveness for him.

And when we think about this idea.

It’s not just in the Old Testament.

The idea of intercession through prayer is not just in the Old Testament, but if you look

at Matthew chapter five and verse 44, which is the first mention of pray in the New

Testament, we read, but I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do

good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you.

So the first mention of pray in the Old Testament, the first mention of pray in the New

Testament, both have to do with praying for others.

So with going to God for others.

intercession.

And this hits at what prayer, a large part of prayer is, and that’s going to God for

someone else.

It’s this idea of looking at your fellow man and saying, you need God’s help.

Or maybe even as we say, as Christians, brother, I need, I need prayers.

Sister, I need prayers.

This is going on in my life and I need you to go for God for me.

We have this idea of prayer being something we do between us and God, but that reflects on

other people.

There’s a connection here between others and us and our God.

Now, the key element of prayer, course, is the fact that we are praying to God.

We’re not praying to ourselves.

We’re not praying to some pagan deity.

We’re not praying to science.

No, we’re praying to the Almighty.

We’re praying to the Lord God.

He is our Father.

And there’s an interesting point that’s brought up in Proverbs 15.

If you would turn with me there, Proverbs 15 and verse 8.

An interesting point about prayer that I actually had not seen until studying for the new

converts class and in the book that Bobby Bates wrote, Growing in Christ, he mentions this

verse in relation to the topic of prayer.

It’s very interesting to see how God views our prayers.

15 in verse 8, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.

But notice this.

But the prayer of the upright is what?

His the lie.

Now just think about that for a moment.

Have you ever thought about the fact that prayer is a delight to God?

He delights, he is happy to hear from his faithful children.

He is happy to hear from the righteous.

We of course think about prayer as being this idea of intercession for others or even

praying to God about things that are struggles in our lives, maybe asking for forgiveness

as we’ll note later.

But just stop and consider the fact that when we pray to God, He smiles.

He’s happy to hear from us.

When we think about this idea of God being our Father, I can’t help but think about how

with my dad, whenever he wants to hear from me, he and mom both, they want to hear from

me.

And I don’t, I see you, Miss Eddie.

I know I don’t always do a good job of talking to them, but they enjoy to hear from me.

The same is true with God.

He enjoys to hear from His children.

He enjoys those conversations that we have with Him.

Now, they might be painful at times.

The times when we go to God saying, I’ve failed you, Lord.

I need your help.

There are times when we are deeply concerned and troubled for others and there’s a pain in

our prayer, yes, but in the end, God loves to hear from you, from every one of you.

Everyone who is righteous, God loves to hear from you.

But we also consider prayer as it is a casting of our burdens upon God.

In 1 Peter 5 and verse 7 tells us to cast all your cares upon Him.

Why?

where he cares for you.

When we cast our burdens on God, it takes the form of a prayer often, where we look to God

and we say, Lord, I can’t handle this.

This is above my pay grade.

I need you to take care of this.

One of the instructors at school talks about how there are times when he’ll be restlessly

sleep, or trying to sleep, I should say, heavy burden on his mind, and he’ll just stop and

say a prayer to God and say, Lord, you take over.

I can’t do any more with this.

I’ve done what I can do.

It’s all up to you now.

I said, you know, those are the sweetest nights of rest for him.

And truthfully, that is the case when we cast our burdens on God in prayer, when we say to

the Lord, you’ve got this, I don’t.

There’s a peace there.

There’s a comfort.

Along these lines of comfort, along these lines of thanksgiving even, look at me at

Philippians chapter four.

Philippians chapter 4, where Paul writing to the church in Philippi gives them some

information about how to, as verse 4 says, rejoice in the Lord always.

In verse 6 he says, and notice this, peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

How is it that the peace of God guards our hearts and minds?

How is it that the peace of God that passes understanding keeps us and gives us comfort?

Well, it’s because we pray to God.

We cast our cares on Him.

When the struggles of our lives become over burdensome, too much for us to bear, we throw

them on God.

We cast them to God because guess what?

He’s got shoulders that can bear the load.

He can bear the weight of our struggles.

He can bear the weight of our burdens, but it’s up to us to cast them on him.

We often have a mindset in this nation and it’s not a bad mindset, but it’s one that says,

I can do it myself.

I don’t need anybody else.

I can handle this problem on my own.

There are some problems we can handle by ourselves.

Yes, absolutely.

And God does expect us to do what we can do.

Absolutely.

But what about the times when we can’t do anymore?

What about those burdens that we cannot, we just simply cannot bear alone?

Well, those are the ones that we cast on God.

Those are the ones that we lay at His feet for Him to pick up and carry, because we can’t

carry it alone.

And through this, through this casting our cares on Him, through this avenue of prayer, we

can have peace.

We don’t have to be over worried or as the new King James says, anxious about the things

in this life because we know who can bear our burdens.

We know in whom we trust.

And so prayer is how we cast our burdens on God, but it’s also part of how we thank our

Lord.

Now, we notice this a little bit in Philippians 4 and verse 6, but look at me at Psalm 91.

Psalm 92, if I could read my notes that would be great.

Psalm 92.

Here we’re going to notice how that David describes, the psalmist describes this idea of

thanksgiving through Psalm and prayer and worship.

Read with me.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High.

to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night on an

instrument of ten strings on the lute on the harp with harmonious sound.

For you, Lord, have made me glad through your work.

I will triumph in the work of your hands.

O Lord, how great are your works!

Your thoughts are very deep.

A senseless man does not know, nor does a fool understand this.

When the wicked spring up like grass,

and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they may be destroyed forever.

But you, Lord, are on high forevermore.

For behold your enemies, O Lord, for behold your enemies shall perish.

All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.

But my horn you have exalted, you have exalted like a wild ox.

I have been anointed with fresh oil.

My eyes have also have seen my desires on my enemies.

My ears hear my desire on the wicked who rise up against me.

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree.

He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.

They shall they shall still bear fruit in old age.

They shall be fresh.

and flourishing to declare that the Lord is upright.

He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him.” When we think about this idea of

prayer, part of our prayer should be exactly what’s expressed in this song.

The idea of giving thanks to God for who He is, for what He has done.

Have you ever thought about the fact that without God, we wouldn’t exist?

Without God, we would be nothing but a pile of dirt.

Without God, we are nothing but with God.

We have value.

We have purpose.

We have a family that goes beyond biological family.

We have a relationship with the Almighty Himself.

Does he not deserve our praise?

Does he not deserve our thanks?

There are times when we get caught up in this world, and we get caught up in the struggles

and the trials of this world, and every prayer, it seems like, is either a prayer for

forgiveness or a prayer asking for help.

But is it not beneficial to take a step back?

and to just thank God.

When was the last time you spent an entire prayer doing nothing but thanking God for what

He’s done, for who He is?

It’s a sobering thought.

We as Christians have a a beautiful blessing of being able to talk to God at any time and

yet so many times we squander that.

Isn’t it wonderful to be able to thank our Lord?

Isn’t it wonderful to stop and as the song says, count your blessings, name them one by

one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Prayer is not only this idea of thanksgiving, but it is also, as we’ve noted, supplication

on the behalf of others.

Well, let me backtrack on that.

We’ve noticed this idea of intercession on behalf of others, but now we’re looking at

supplication on behalf of others.

And there is a slight difference in these two.

But what we’re considering with this idea of supplication is found in 1 Timothy chapter

two.

1st Timothy chapter 2.

Well, Reed versus one and two.

Paul writes to the preacher Timothy, Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications,

prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for, notice this, all men, for kings

and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness

and reverence.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be

saved and to come to the knowledge.

of the truth.

part of this idea of prayer is going before God on behalf of others.

We’ve already noticed this to an extent, yes, but I want you to notice specifically this

idea of all men.

Now, Paul, are you saying that I need to pray for those who I don’t really like?

Now, Paul, surely you’re not saying I need to pray for those who voted against the guy I

wanted to run for president.

Now, surely, Paul, you’re not saying I need to pray for those who are in denominations and

those who are attacking the church.

Surely I don’t need to pray for those, right?

Now Paul, you’re not saying I need to pray for those politicians that are making a mess of

Washington.

He says, all men.

It doesn’t matter if you like who it is or not.

We as Christians ought to have a mindset that says, I’m going to pray.

There are times when we find people who grind our gears, so to speak.

They’re hard to get along with.

But have you ever tried praying for…

Have you ever taken the time to maybe in your morning prayers or before you go to bed at

night, you just stop and say, Lord, you know this guy gets on my nerves, but be with him.

Lord, help him with whatever he’s going through and help me to have a good mindset when I

encounter him.

Help me to show your light in the way that I live and the way I conduct myself.

Admittedly, I’ve had to pray that prayer a couple times myself, but it makes a difference.

It’s kind of hard to be rude and ugly towards an individual that you’re constantly praying

for.

And that’s what Paul is saying.

We are to lead a quiet and peaceable life.

And he’ll later say, or he also says, and I believe it’s in Romans, he mentions the fact

that as much as lies within us, we ought to live peaceably with all men.

And part of that is involved in praying for them and going to God on their behalf.

A lot of these people that get on our nerves that are hard to get along with, they have a

lot of struggles in them.

they’re irritable because they’re constantly facing things that they don’t know how to

deal with.

And if you know that that’s the case, maybe try to help.

Maybe try praying for that situation.

That’s what Paul tells us to do.

The goal is to not get one over on them, is not to win the argument.

The goal is to have peace.

And if the person is a lost individual, the goal is to bring them to Christ.

The goal is to show them what they’re missing.

But we also know that prayer is our access to the throne of grace.

In Hebrews 4 and verse 15.

We are shown something that’s very important for us to note when we look at this idea of

prayer.

In Hebrews, really the whole book of Hebrews addresses to us the fact that we have

something better.

The old law served its purpose.

The law of Moses was effective for what its need was to be a schoolmaster to bring us to

Christ.

But now that we are in Christ, now that we have the new covenant, now that we have the New

Testament, we have something better.

That’s the whole point of the book of Hebrews is don’t turn back because you have that for

which these people fought and died to even get a glimpse of.

So in chapter four, we specifically note the comparison between the old high priest and

that of Christ.

In verse 14, seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the

heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.

but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Now this sets the stage for

verse 16.

He says, us therefore, because of who our high priest is, because he has faced all these

trials, because he knows what it means to be human, and because he has delivered us from

sin, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy,

and find grace to help in time of need.

Brethren, there are times when we need mercy.

Well, maybe y’all don’t, but I know I do.

There are often times when the majority of my prayers in a week are just praying to God,

forgive me.

I’ve messed up.

I’ve done wrong.

But what we have as Christians is a direct line to the Father.

We don’t have to go before a priest and say, I need you to offer a sin offering for me.

We don’t have to go to the high priest and say, could you inquire at God’s hand?

Could you go before God for me?

Because I can’t go to him myself.

at any moment that we realize what we have done is wrong, we can stop and pray to God and

ask him for forgiveness, for mercy and no granted.

But not only that, we also can be given grace to help in times of need.

There are times when we face the great struggles in our lives.

There are times when Satan’s temptations are hard to resist.

But in those times of need, when we reach out to God, when we pray to Him, we can have

strength.

We can have what we need to resist the devil.

And truthfully, he’s given us what we need in his word.

When Jesus faced off against Satan in Matthew 4, what did he use?

The words of God.

He used the Bible, the Scriptures to defeat Satan.

to drive him away and that’s what we have today.

We have the completed Word of God in the palms of our hands.

but we also have the power of prayer on our side.

And truly it is a powerful, powerful tool.

But one final note on this idea of what is prayer.

Welcome me at John 16 and verse 23.

John 16 23, Jesus tells us that prayer is not through anyone else but him.

That our prayers are to be through him.

John 16 23, and in that day you will ask me nothing.

But assuredly I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.

Why is it that we end almost all of our prayers with, Jesus’ name, amen?

By his authority, he’s our mediator.

What we are doing when we’re saying those words, if we truly mean them, is we’re saying

that this prayer is by Christ’s authority.

It is through Jesus that we pray.

It is through His blood and His saving as we have become Christians and have been washed

in the blood of Christ, it is through that means that we can go before God in prayer.

Enter his throne and talk to him.

But it also means that the prayers that we pray need to be in accordance with Jesus’s

authority, with the Father’s will.

Meaning we’re not going to pray for a sin to take place.

That prayer’s not going to be heard.

But a prayer asking God for help in times of struggle, a prayer asking for forgiveness

when we’ve done wrong, a prayer asking for blessings on those who are

down on their luck, a prayer for help to those who are sick, those prayers are heard.

What we understand when it comes to prayer is that it is something that’s far more

powerful than we often give it credit for.

but only if it’s truly through Christ.

But next we ask the question, well then who can pray?

So we understand now a better picture of what is prayer, but now we need to ask the

question, well, who is it that can go before God in prayer?

Prayer is a conversation between God and His children.

Now, let me preface this term conversation by saying God is not directly talking to us

today.

When you sit down or get on your knees or stand in prayer, whatever posture you take when

praying,

God is not going to part the clouds and directly speak to you.

That’s not how this works nowadays.

But what we mean by conversation is that we are conversing with God.

are talking to the Father.

We are speaking to Him and by His Word and by His providence we hear Him.

But when we think about this idea of father-son relationship, father-daughter

relationship, Matthew 6 and verse 9 gives us a record of how Christ was teaching his

apostles, his disciples, how to pray.

And how did he begin?

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

but don’t run over the fact that he says, our father.

God is not some distant figure.

disembodied voice that we just blindly follow because we’re afraid of Him.

Yes, there are times to be afraid of God, absolutely.

But as Christians, we have a closeness to Him, where He’s near at hand.

He is our Father wanting to hear from us, desiring to hear our voices and wanting to aid

us when He can and when it fits His will.

But what’s important is the fact that we have to make sure our relationship with Him is

right.

If we are not a child of God, how can we go before the Lord and say, Father?

you can make the argument, well, he created the universe.

So in that sense, he’s our father.

You can say that.

But Paul had something a little bit more different to say.

Second Corinthians, chapter six.

2 Corinthians 6 in verse 18.

Paul in quoting the prophecies of old said, I will, he’s referring to God, I will be a

father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters says the Lord Almighty.

Now how does this happen?

How do we become the sons and daughters of God?

How do we become his children?

Well in verse 17 he says, therefore come out from among them and be separate says the

Lord.

Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you.

How is it that we can become sons and daughters of God?

How is it that we can be called children of God?

How is it that we can call God our Father?

He says it in the text.

We have to separate ourselves from the world.

We have to be different than the world.

And how do we do that?

By becoming a Christian.

By following in the plan that God has laid forth for us to be saved.

Romans 12, verses 1 2 tells us that we are giving ourselves as a living sacrifice to God.

As Christians, we’re offering ourselves up to God to say we’re not following the world.

We’re not remaining in the world as those who seek after the worldly pleasures whose only

drive is for the things of this world.

But no, we live for the Lord.

We live as living sacrifices saying not my will,

But yours be done.

And when we are Christians, when we are faithfully living for God, we can pray to Him and

He hears our prayers.

Truly prayer is a beautiful thing.

to think about the Almighty as powerful as He is, to think about the One who knows all

things.

stopping to listen to us.

to hear our prayer.

beautiful thought.

It truly is a wonderful thing that we have.

And when we think about this idea of prayer, of course, this idea of the prayer of

children, of his children, of those who belong to him.

Look with me at James, or rather at 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 12.

First Peter 3, 12.

Peter writes, for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous.

His ears are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

There’s an important contrast here.

An important contrast between those who are doing what’s right, those who are living for

the Lord, and those who are serving Satan.

Living in wickedness, living in unrighteousness.

those who are doing evil.

And what we see is a God who looks at those who are doing righteous, who are living for

Him, who are serving as Christians, and He says, my ears are open to your prayers.

My eyes are looking on you, keeping you safe, caring for you, watching over you as the

Father does His children.

But when we think about those who are against God, those who are living in wickedness,

those who are serving the devil, you almost see as it were his back is turned to them.

he’s listening.

He hears what they’re saying.

but what they’re saying is not being truly heard.

because there’s a separation.

And that brings us to something we must understand is that sin separates us from God.

When think about those who are lost in sin praying to God, it’s often been described that

their prayer doesn’t go above the ceiling.

And that’s true.

God does not forgive those in sin just simply because they pray.

We look at Acts chapter 9 and what was Paul doing?

After being confronted with the weight of the fact that he had been persecuting the very

Lord he thought he was serving.

When he’s confronted with the fact that he was kicking against and biting against and

fighting against the church that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, deity himself died for.

When he’s confronted with this truth, he’s in mourning.

He’s in agony.

He’s fasting.

And notice what the text says he was doing.

He was praying.

Now when God sends Ananias to Paul, does he say, so Ananias, I need you to go and give

some comfort to your brother Paul?

As a fellow Christian, he needs a little comfort because he’s still in mourning.

Is that what God tells Ananias to do?

No.

He says that there is one who needs to know how to be saved and you’re going to preach the

gospel to him.

and by the way, you’ll know him because he’s the one that’s praying.

If prayer alone saves an individual, then why did it not save the Apostle Paul?

If all one has to do is say a quote, sinner’s prayer to be saved and in a right

relationship with God, then why did God not save Paul?

But rather when Ananias comes to Paul he says, why are you waiting?

Arise and be baptized and what?

Wash away your sins.

because I hadn’t been forgiven yet.

So while prayer is powerful, sin separates us from God in prayer.

He’s not hearing the prayer of those who are lost, but he’s listening.

His ears are turned towards the one, the ones who are righteous, who are Christians, those

who are living for him.

Now does that mean that God will never hear the prayer of an individual who’s saying,

Lord, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know I’m doing something wrong.

I need your help to find the truth.

Well, Jesus says that the one who’s seeking, the one who’s knocking is going to be

answered.

He’s going to find what he’s looking for.

And we look at a man like Cornelius in Acts chapter 10.

He was one who

was righteous in the sense of living a worldly, considered good life.

He was trying to do what was right, but he still had some things wrong.

Specifically, the fact that he was not a Christian.

That didn’t know how to become one.

So what does God do?

Does he just ignore Cornelius?

No, he sends him Peter to preach to him the gospel, to teach him the truth.

And so there is a case to be made that God does hear the prayer of a soul who’s seeking

the truth in the sense of allowing them opportunity, opening doors before them to hear the

word of God proclaim.

but it is not to the extent that he hears the prayers of the righteous, that he hears the

prayers of help and strength that the child of God offers to him.

And so sin separates us from God.

But when we think about this idea of sin separating and we think about this idea of being

a Christian, what does 1 John 1 tell us about what happens when we sin as Christian?

1 John 1.

There’s great comfort given in the text of 1 John as he writes to Christians, helping them

to know how they can know that they are saved, that they don’t have to fear the judgment

day but can look on it with a hope and a comfort knowing that they’re right with God.

And picking up in verse 9,

John writes, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to

cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Now keep in mind, to whom is John writing?

He’s writing to Christians.

And as he’s writing to Christians, he tells them, if you stumble and fall, if you have sin

in your life, go to God and He’ll forgive you.

Repent of your sin and confess it to the Lord and He’ll forgive you.

What a beautiful picture that is for those of us who are Christians.

That when we fall short, when we stumble and fall, when sin is in our lives, we can look

at the Lord and pray to him and say, Father, I’ve sinned.

I’ve wronged you.

And just like that prodigal son, the Lord welcomes us with open arms.

Happy that a lost soul, a son of his who was lost is found again.

A son of his who was dead is alive again.

Sin separates the child of God from his father, but prayer is the means by which we can be

restored.

and what a beautiful thing that is.

What a beautiful blessing we have in this idea of prayer.

And we’ll study this again more on Wednesday night.

But as we face the week, take some time to pray.

I’m sure many of you already are, but maybe throw in an extra prayer here and there.

Watch if it doesn’t change your life.

How you think about things.

How you trust in the Father.

Brothers and sisters, we as Christians are to be people of prayer because God wants to

hear from His children.

Thank you for your kind attention.

You’re dismissed.

The True Messiah – Aaron Cozort – April 5, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, biblical fulfillment, death, faith, Jesus birth, keywords Jesus Christ, Messiah, New Testament, Old Testament, prophecy, resurrection by Aaron Cozort

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Good morning.

on a day.

where much of the world is thoughtful and conscious of Christ.

where many who sadly go through their lives week in and week out with no thought to Christ

focus on Him on days like today.

We often speak concerning Jesus, speak concerning what He did, speak concerning the

salvation that is offered through His death, His burial, His resurrection.

But as I was considering that and considering what to discuss with you this morning,

thought about the fact that, sometimes we make a lot of assumptions about what people

know.

Sometimes we make assumptions when someone’s driving down the road that they have a clue

what any of those signs mean.

Sometimes, like recently, you get into a car and you make an assumption you know where all

the switches and the buttons are.

Come find out it’s not your car and no you don’t.

Right, Shelly?

We make assumptions.

This morning we’re going to dispel what for some may be things they don’t really know

because they’ve never been taught.

and verify and demonstrate from Scripture why Jesus is the true Messiah.

that it is not a belief or an understanding that people have as a hope in the dark.

It’s not a leap of faith.

It is something that God in His infinite knowledge, in His infinite wisdom, played out in

His plan of redemption from the beginning of time until Jesus came, until Jesus went to

that

until Jesus died, was buried, was resurrected, and arose the third day.

That it was intentional, that it was foretold, that it was every bit according to the

plan.

and that it was for you and for me.

Jesus Christ is undeniably the Messiah, and we’re going to show that.

I will say this, we’re not going to show that exhaustively.

We’re going to take a few items in the time that we have and demonstrate it from those,

and there are mountains more evidence beyond what we can discuss.

this morning.

We know that Jesus is the Savior of the world.

That’s what Messiah means, by the way.

That he is the Savior of the world sent from God because he fulfilled all prophecy.

as you go through the Old Testament, which we’re going to do this morning, and you see

what God through His prophets in the Old Testament said concerning the Messiah.

Jesus not only came to this earth and fulfilled some, Jesus fulfilled all of the things

that they said concerning the Messiah.

I don’t know about you, but most days when I get up, someone might ask me, what are you

going to do today?

And I might give them an idea on what I think the day holds, and more often than not, I’m

proven wrong.

There were the things I planned to do that day, and then there were the things that I

actually got accomplished, and then there were the things that I had no idea I was going

to be involved in that day.

And if you and I can’t even wake up in the morning and get the day ahead of us right, how

could we reach out hundreds of years and be specific and be numerous and be detailed about

someone who had not even been born?

and not miss it on a single point.

answer is we couldn’t, but God can.

And it demonstrates that Jesus Christ is exactly who He claimed to be.

Consider as we examine a few of the prophecies and the fulfillment that demonstrate that

Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world sent by God.

We begin with the fact and the nature

of God’s prophecies that were given before Jesus was born and yet they spoke concerning

the place of His birth.

And before we get into the exact prophecies, I want you to look at a passage in 2 Peter

because God does not allow us to have our own assumptions about what prophecy is.

He does not give us permission to just make up our own

concepts and theories concerning his prophetic work.

Rather, God is very specific about what he did in prophecy.

In 2 Peter chapter 1, Peter will write, beginning in verse 16, he writes to these fellow

Christians, he says, we did not follow cunningly devised fables.

When we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,

but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty.” As Peter writes this second letter to his audience,

he makes it clear to them, I was there.

I didn’t tell you about rumors.

I didn’t tell you myths.

I didn’t tell you folklore.

I didn’t tell you what the latest gossip people said.

I told you what I was eyewitnessing.

while Jesus walked on this planet.

But then he says, for he received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice

came to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

Two occasions where God spoke from heaven and declared Jesus as his son, declared his

position, his glory and his honor,

One of them was when John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River and the other was

when Peter and the two other apostles were on the Mount of Transfiguration with him in

Matthew 17.

Peter says, I saw what he did.

I heard the voice from heaven that declared he was the son of God.

But then he says this.

And we heard this voice, which came from heaven when we were with him on the Holy

Mountain.

And so we have the prophetic word confirmed.

Peter points to those events.

Peter points to his eyewitness testimony and says, I know what I read in the Old Testament

prophets, and it’s been fulfilled.

But notice what he says.

We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in

a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this

first, that no prophecy of scriptures of any private interpretation.

for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved

by the Holy Spirit.

Peter will nail down the nature of prophecy.

If a person makes a prophecy and they thought it up in their head, Peter says, that’s not

what we’re talking about.

If the prophet even had any part in interpreting it, he says, nope.

not what we’re talking about.

What we’re talking about is that which originated with the Holy Spirit and was interpreted

by the Holy Spirit.

And the only part that mankind played is they spoke it.

That’s what he means when he says it’s of no private interpretation.

It’s quite often when we read that we think, he means that, you know, there’s only one

meaning and we don’t all get to have an opinion on what it means.

That’s not what you’re talking about.

The wrong subject there.

The interpretation in view in this passage is by the prophet himself.

In other words, God gave the prophecy and he didn’t allow the prophet to mess it up.

He didn’t allow the prophet to have his own opinion about it.

God gave it and the prophet spoke it exactly as God gave it.

So since God gave it, God controlled it as it was spoken, God made sure that it was

recorded, and then God fulfilled it, guess what we don’t have in the midst of any of that

chain?

Human error.

So Peter will point out that I was an eyewitness so I can assure you of the things which

Jesus did.

I was present when God spoke to him while I was on the mountain, so I know what God

testified, but even more so, I know what you can do of your own accord.

You can go back and look at all those prophecies that were made and see how Jesus

fulfilled every single one of them.

And you can have the same assurance that I had, even though I was on the Mount of

Transfiguration and you weren’t.

So that’s what we’re going to do this morning.

Before Jesus’ birth, turn to Luke chapter 24.

This event doesn’t occur before his birth, but I want to talk about this before we get

into that.

Luke chapter 24 verse 25.

Jesus will say to two individuals on the road to Emmaus, O foolish ones and slow of heart,

to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, ought not the Christ to have suffered

these things and enter into his glory.

Now, if you come back this afternoon, we’re going to be discussing this passage and the

road to Emmaus and the discussion that occurred there.

But let us begin by pointing out Jesus said to these two disciples after he was

resurrected, why are you so foolish to be so slow to listen to the prophets?

Knowing that what God prophesied before, he is going to fulfill.

Go to verse 44 of the same chapter.

Jesus will say, then he said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was

still with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses

and of the prophets and of the Psalms concerning me.

Jesus made it clear that if he did not fulfill every single one of the things that the Old

Testament prophets had to say about him, if he didn’t fulfill them all, he wasn’t the

Messiah.

but that he would fulfill them all and did in doing what he came to this earth to do.

In Luke chapter four.

Luke chapter four, beginning in verse 16.

Jesus will further point out as He is in Nazareth and as He is in the town of His

upbringing around people who knew His family, they knew His parents, they knew Him as a

child, and they do as individuals who did so, they did not understand who He was.

They did not appreciate what was said concerning Him, but He’s going to draw that to a

point.

We read in verse 16 of chapter 4 of Luke, so He came to Nazareth

where he had been brought up and as his custom was he went into the synagogue on the

Sabbath day and stood up to read.

And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah and when he had opened the book he found

the place where it was written.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the

poor.

He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and

recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim

the acceptable year of the Lord.

Then he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.

And all the and the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him.

And he began to say to them, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

So all bore witness to him and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of his

mouth.

And they said, Is this not Joseph’s son?

And he said to them, You will surely say this proverb to me, Physician, heal yourself.

Whatever you have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in your own country.” Then he

answered and said, “‘Surely I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.

But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heaven was

shut up three years and six months.

And there was a great famine throughout all the land, but none of them was Elijah sent

except to Zarephath in the region of Sidon to a woman who was a widow.'”

and many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet and none of them was

cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.

So all those in the synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath and rose

up and thrust him out of the city and they led him to the brow of the hill where their

city was built that they might throw him down over the cliff then he passed through the

midst of them and he went his way.

Why do we bring up this passage?

Number one.

because Jesus made it clear he was going to fulfill prophecy.

Furthermore, number two, he made it clear that those who knew the prophets and knew what

they said and claimed to be the people of God would reject him even in his own city.

You see, sometimes what we do is we look at the Bible

and we read what it says and we read how it should apply to us and then we look at the

world around us and go, but the world doesn’t believe that, so I better not either because

they must know better something I don’t know.

We just go along with popular opinion on whatever the current decision is.

And as a result of that, we become just as ignorant as they are because we don’t choose to

believe God.

The people of Nazareth who knew Jesus from the time he was a young man all the way up

until this point, who knew his father, knew the carpenter that he was, knew his mother,

knew his brethren, knew his sisters, still tried to kill him.

Why?

Because he told him what the prophets said and told them it had been fulfilled.

We cannot decide on the Word of God whether to believe it or not based upon what the world

around us decides to understand.

We must be accountable to God to open His book, to understand what He said, and believe it

and obey it because He said it.

Now then, consider prophecies concerning the birth of Christ.

Now, there are a lot of things you can control in this life.

Once you are of sound mind and age where you can start determining things, you can decide

where to live, generally speaking.

You can decide what job to have.

You can decide a lot of things, but I guarantee you what none of you had any say in is

where you were born.

There was a preacher who I know and love who got up one time many years ago and said, I

always wanted to be born in Texas, but I felt an obligation to be where my mother was at

the time.

You don’t get a say where you’re born.

And yet God, hundreds of years before Jesus came to this earth, told the Israelites where

the Messiah was going to be born.

Turn to Micah chapter 5.

In Micah chapter 5, God will speak to His people.

And he will write, but you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands

of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose going

forth are from of old, from everlasting.

God through His prophet Micah is going to tell Israel the one.

The ruler, the prophesied one, the one who God is going to send who is God because he’s

from old, he’s from everlasting.

He’s going to be born.

I don’t know what’s going on with this thing, but if it continues, we’ll switch to that

one.

God is going to tell hundreds of years before Jesus is born that the Messiah is going to

be born in Bethlehem.

Turn to Luke chapter 2.

In Luke chapter two.

Hey Jacob, bring me a new set of batteries.

Sometimes the batteries don’t charge right and that may be the problem.

In Luke chapter two and beginning in verse one, it came to pass in those days that a

decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

This census first took place while Quinterus was governing Syria.

So all went to be registered, every one to his own city.

Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea to the city of

David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and a lineage of David, to

be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child.

So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in the swaddling clothes and laid

him in a manger.

because there was no room for them in the inn.

hundreds of years before the Messiah was born, God said the one who is going to rule, who

is God in the flesh is going to come forth in Bethlehem.

And as he says that, so it is fulfilled.

Give me just a moment.

All right, we’ll try that.

It’s fulfilled.

But did you notice it’s not going to be fulfilled because the family to whom he was born

were native to being from Bethlehem?

that the family from which he is going to be born weren’t living in Bethlehem at the time?

That the family from which he was going to be born were not going to be long-term

residents in the city of Bethlehem?

God is going to see that the fulfillment of this occurs through a decree of Caesar

Augustus, a Roman emperor who decides to make the entire nation go participate in a census

and in order to be registered, they had to go back to where their family was from.

So Joseph, who had lived in Nazareth, took the woman who he was betrothed to, who was with

child, and brought her back to Bethlehem, where he was from, to be registered.

And while they were there, the Messiah was born.

and God fulfilled exactly what He said He would do.

Turn to Luke chapter 9.

In Luke chapter 9, beginning in verse 21, we read this.

And He, Christ, strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, The Son

of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the

scribes, and be killed and be raised the third day.

Then He said to them, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up

his cross daily and follow Me.

For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake

will save it.

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and himself

is destroyed or lost.

For whoever is ashamed of me in my words of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when he

comes in his own glory in his fathers and in his fathers and with of the holy angels.

But I tell you truly that there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they

see the kingdom of God.

As Micah prophesies concerning this one who’s to come, as he prophesies concerning the

location where he’s going to be born, he prophesies that he is going to rule.

And Jesus will make it clear to His apostles that they will not see death before they see

His rule enacted.

See, it’s not just about the place of His birth.

If He was born there and never ruled, prophecy not fulfilled.

If He ruled, but He was born somewhere else, prophecy not fulfilled.

But God, when He spoke concerning the birth of Jesus, spoke specifically.

He spoke in detail and it was fulfilled in detail.

Turn to Daniel chapter two.

In Daniel chapter two, you will find as Nebuchadnezzar has had a vision and he has had a

dream and he has seen this vision of this image that has a head of gold and belly, or

sorry, shoulders and arms of silver and belly and thighs of brass and…

legs of iron and feet of iron mixed with clay that he sees this vision and he doesn’t know

what it means and he needs it interpreted and guess what Daniel will tell him.

Daniel will tell him I don’t interpret dreams.

God does.

And I’ll tell you what the interpretation means but it’s not me who interprets dreams.

God does.

So Daniel will make the same point that Peter made.

Vision wasn’t given by man and vision wasn’t interpreted by man.

It was interpreted by God.

Therefore it was right.

In Daniel chapter 2 and in verse 40 we read this, Daniel will say to Nebuchadnezzar as he

interprets the dream, and the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, and as much as

iron breaks in pieces and scatters everything, and like iron that crushes that kingdom

will break in pieces and crush all the others.

Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom

shall be divided, yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron

mixed with ceramic clay.

And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall

be partly strong and partly fragile.

As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men, but they

will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.

And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never

be destroyed.

And the kingdom shall not be left to other people.

It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

Inasmuch as you saw, the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it

broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold.

The great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this.

The dream is certain.

and its interpretation sure.

As Daniel speaks to Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel will tell Nebuchadnezzar about a kingdom that

was the head of gold and he says that’s the Babylonian Empire.

And he will speak to the king about the shoulder and the arms of silver and he will tell

him that’s the Medo-Persian Empire.

And he will speak to him about the belly and the thighs of brass and he will reveal that

that is the Grecian Empire.

And he speaks to him about the iron legs and the

feed of iron mixed with clay, he will declare that that is the Roman Empire as you go

through the entire book.

And as history is fulfilled, in the days of the kings of the Roman Empire, God says, I

will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.

Wonder of all wonders when Jesus there Luke chapter 9 tells his disciples about the

kingdom that he is going to establish and about the fact that it is going to exist while

they are still alive.

Guess what kings are ruling the Roman Empire.

God speaks concerning His Son being born.

He speaks of where He will be born.

He speaks of the rule that He will have.

And He speaks concerning the nature of His Kingdom and the very nations that will be in

power when that Kingdom is brought forth.

Now you answer for yourself, what factor of all of those could a man have controlled on

the day he was born?

Alright, I give up.

Don’t tell my wife, even I can take a hint.

But then consider that God made prophecies concerning his lineage.

Now some of you were born to good reputable families.

Some of you, I don’t know.

but you just have to tell me one way or another.

But the reality is this, you didn’t get a say.

You can pick your friends.

You can’t pick your family.

You weren’t asked what family to be born into.

You were born, and you got what you got.

But consider that God

when he brought forth his son into this world, fulfilled prophecies concerning that son’s

lineage.

Go back to very beginning, to Genesis chapter 3.

In Genesis chapter 3, God will speak there in the garden after that first sin was

committed, after the things that had occurred there in the eating of the fruit of the tree

of the knowledge of good and evil.

And in Genesis chapter 3 and in verse 15, God will make a statement concerning the

judgment of these things.

He says in verse 14, to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than

all cattle.

And more than every beast of the field, on your belly you shall

go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life and I will put enmity between you and

the woman and between your seed and her seed he shall bruise your head and you shall

bruise his heel God will speak to the serpent and he will declare that Satan through his

actions through his choices would cause an injury to occur to the seed of not man but

woman

and that that seed of woman would cause a death blow to Satan.

Then consider what Isaiah writes 800 years before Jesus is born.

Isaiah will write in Isaiah chapter 7 concerning the coming Messiah.

In Isaiah chapter 7 and in verse 14 rather

He will say, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name, Emmanuel.

When you turn over to Luke chapter one, we find that…

God fulfilled exactly what he said in Luke chapter 1 and in verse 35.

As the angel is speaking to Mary, Mary said to the angel, verse 34, how can this be since

I do not know a man?

She’s not saying I walked around this city and there are no men here.

That’s not what she’s saying.

She’s saying she’s never had sexual relations with a man.

She is a virgin.

And she says, how in the world am I going to have a child being a virgin?

And the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power

of the highest will overshadow you.

Therefore also that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.

The angel will make it clear to Mary.

that the thing which is going to occur, the child which is to be born will not come forth

from man’s seed, but will come forth as an act of God’s creation.

But then turn to Galatians chapter four.

Paul as he writes to the church at Galatia.

as he writes to these Gentiles and Jews that are together in this congregation.

We’ll write to them in verse four of chapter four, when the fullness of time had come, God

sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under

the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Paul will point out that God not only sent

his son not only sent his son born not of a man but of a woman but he sent his son at the

exact right moment he intended to

If Jesus had been born in 200 BC, it wouldn’t have been the right time.

If Jesus had been born in 2026 AD, it wouldn’t have been the right time.

If Jesus had been born on the day after the first sin had been committed, it wouldn’t have

been the right time.

No, Paul makes it clear.

God brought forth his Son at the exact time that was right.

Because God doesn’t do things by way of happenstance.

Because God doesn’t make a statement and hope it turns out.

God speaks and it happens.

But then consider as well that not only did God make it clear that Jesus would be born of

a woman, not of a man, but that he would be born to the descendants of Abraham, to the

descendants of Judah, to the descendants of David.

generation after generation after generation hundreds of years separated from one another

God is going to make it clear that this is going to occur as he fulfills and brings forth

this prophecy over 1600 years.

Genesis 12 God is going to tell Abraham that his seed singular as Paul points out will be

a blessing to all nations.

and God will fulfill it.

As Jacob is preparing to die and Jacob makes a prophecy concerning his son Judah, Jacob

will declare that from Judah will come forth the scepter, that from Judah will come forth

a king, and Jesus will be a descendant of Judah.

In 2 Samuel chapter 7 in verse 12, God will tell David,

that from his son God will bring forth one who will rule forever.

And all of these things will be fulfilled if you look at Luke chapter 3.

Luke chapter 3 beginning in verse 31 Luke will speak concerning these things and Luke

chapter 3 verse 31 as he describes the lineage of Jesus.

He says that he is the son of Melia, the son of Menon, the son of Mathiah, the son of

Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of

Salman, the son of Naishon, the son of Amenadam, the son of Ram, the son of Hizran, the

son of Pires, the son of Judah.

Luke looks at that lineage and he says, check, check, check, check.

He goes on and he says, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham.

You go forward to, or go backwards rather, to Matthew chapter 1.

You see, because Luke gives the lineage of Joseph.

And someone might say, well, that doesn’t count.

You see, you just told me he was born of a woman.

Joseph didn’t have anything to do with it.

You can’t use Joseph’s lineage.

It’s not going to work.

Well, that’s okay.

Because God doesn’t do things by happenstance.

Notice in Matthew’s record as Matthew makes it clearer.

that both through the lineage of Mary and through the lineage of Joseph, it’s going to be

fulfilled.

Notice what we read in Matthew chapter 1.

We’re not going to read all of it.

We’re going to start in verses 1 through 3.

book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham begot Isaac.

Isaac begot Jacob.

Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.

Judah begot Peres and Zeran by Tanpar.

Peres begot Hezron and Hezron begot Ram.

He’s going to go all the way down.

And notice what you find in verse 15.

uh

Jacob, Jacob, got Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called

Christ.

I got them backwards.

Luke describes Mary’s lineage.

m Matthew describes Joseph’s.

Shouldn’t always believe my own notes.

They’re not prophetic.

What do you find?

Doesn’t matter which one you use.

You use Mary, you get back, and you find every prophecy fulfilled.

You use Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus in the form of his upraising in his household

and his Jewish lineage, and he fulfills every prophecy.

But then consider the details of his death.

We’d be here all day if we discussed everything in between those two, but we’re just

dealing with his birth and we’re just dealing with his death.

In Psalm 41, the psalmist writer will declare in prophecy in Psalm 41 and in verse 9, even

my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against

me.

The psalmist writer hundreds of years before Judas Iscariot was ever born.

will prophesy concerning the betrayal of one of Jesus’ closest friends.

The betrayal of the Messiah by the one who sat at bread with him the very night he

betrayed him.

You turn to Zechariah.

Zechariah will further prophesy concerning these matters.

In Zechariah chapter 11,

Zechariah chapter 11 and in verse 13, notice what we read.

And the Lord said to me, throw it to the potter, that princely price they set on me.” Now

notice, this is the Lord who says that there was a price set on him.

And notice what it was.

So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord for the

potter.

The price of a slave is what this was, thirty pieces of silver.

And for the price of a slave, Jesus Christ is going to be betrayed.

but not only is God going to be specific that a friend is going to betray him, not only is

he going to be specific and detailed that he is going to betray him for thirty pieces of

silver, but he is further going to point out that those thirty pieces of silver will be

cast back to the ones who gave it.

And as you open the text of the New Testament and you turn to Luke chapter 6

Luke chapter 6 and in verse 16, we read Judas, the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who

became a traitor.

Luke’s going to record that this is the one who betrayed Jesus.

His name was Judas Iscariot.

Turn to Mark chapter 14.

In Mark chapter 14 and in verse 10,

We find there the text says, then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief

priest to betray him to them.

Judas goes because he wants to be paid, but Judas is not going to get to decide how much

he’s paid.

They’re going to decide what to pay him.

Judas is the friend who is going to betray his very Lord.

Turn to Matthew chapter 26.

Matthew chapter 26 beginning in verse 14 and notice what Matthew records.

Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priest and said, what are

you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?

and they counted out to him 30 pieces of silver.

So from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

Turn to chapter 27.

Matthew chapter 27 verse 3, then Judas his betrayer, seeing that he had been condemned.

was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and

elders, saying, have sinned by betraying innocent blood.

They said, what is that to us?

You see to it.

Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged

himself.

But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, It is not lawful to put them into

the treasury, because they are the price of blood.

And they consulted together, and they bought with them the potter’s field to bury

strangers in.

Therefore that field has been called the field of blood to this day.

Then they fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took the

thirty pieces of silver, the value of him who was priced, whom they of the children of

Israel priced,

gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”

There’s a lot of things you can control as a person.

You can’t control where you’re born.

You can’t control what family you’re born into.

You probably can’t control the price your enemies put on your head or the willingness of

your friend to take it.

And as you’re hanging on the cross,

You can’t control the fact that he decides to take it back, throw it at their feet as he

goes out to hang himself, or what they’ll do with it afterwards.

But when God makes a prophecy, he’s specific, he’s detailed, and he’s right.

but then consider even the place of his burial is prophesied in Isaiah chapter 53.

The prophet Isaiah will write beginning in verse 9, and they made his grave with the

wicked, but with the rich at his death because he had done no violence.

nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.

He has put him to grief.

When you make his soul uh an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his

days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge.

My righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.”

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with

the strong because he poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the

transgressors and he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”

As they take Jesus to the cross, as they lift him up on that cross, he is lifted up in

between two

thieves.

And before the deed is done, one of those thieves coming to his senses will make it clear

we are here because we deserve to be here.

but he doesn’t.

Even that thief will make the point that this innocent person in whom there was no guile,

who was tried three different times and found innocent every single time, was lifted up

and numbered with the transgressors, even when he wasn’t one.

And yet, as he is buried in Matthew chapter 27, we find that Matthew will point out the

location of his burial.

No, Matthew’s not going to walk through the locations all throughout the gardens of Israel

and say, this is the tomb.

Make sure that when you go visit Israel in modern times, you can walk straight to the

right tomb.

No, that’s not what he’s going to do.

Matter of fact, what he is going to do…

He is going to write, now when evening had come there came a rich man from Arimathea named

Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him.

When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his

new tomb, which he had hewn out of the rock.

And he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb and departed.

And Mary Magdalene was there and the other Mary sitting opposite the tomb.

You see, Isaiah said, he’s going to be killed with the transgressors, but he’s going to be

buried among the rich.

Because he’s going to be buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a tomb that had never

been used.

but then he’s going to be resurrected.

In Psalm 16, the psalmist writer will write concerning Jesus, will write concerning the

Messiah, that he’s not going to go to the grave like everyone else.

God is not going to permit him to be put in the grave, to be there, to decay, and to

remain there until judgment.

Rather in Psalm 16 verse 9, we read, Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices.

My flesh also will rest in hope, for you will not leave my soul in sheol.

Nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.

You will show me the path of life, and your presence is fullness of joy at your right

hand, our pleasures forevermore.” Someone say, well, he’s talking about the resurrection.

He’s talking about the final day.

He’s talking about, this is David talking about himself.

In Psalm 110…

In Psalm 110 and in verse 1, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make

your enemies your footstool.

The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion, rule in the midst of your

enemies, David writes.

But when you turn to Acts chapter 2,

after the events of that Sunday morning, after Jesus has been resurrected from the grave

by the power of God, after he has walked through the earth and spoken to over 500

witnesses according to what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15.

after he has shown himself to be alive and ascended into heaven and given his apostles

instructions to remain in Jerusalem until they are endued with power from on high and

after that event has occurred and begun Peter is going to preach and he is going to say

this Acts chapter 2 verse 22 men of Israel hear these words

Jesus of Nazareth a man attested to by God to you by miracles wonders and signs which he

did through him in your midst as you yourselves also know Him being determined by the him

being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God You have taken by

lawless hands have crucified and put to death Whom God raised up having loose to the pains

of death because it was not possible that he should be held by it

For David says concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is at my

right hand that I may not be shaken.

Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was made glad.

Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope, for you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor

will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.

You have made known to me the ways of life.

You will make me full of joy in your presence.

And notice he says, men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David,

that he is both dead and buried, and that his tomb is with us to this day.

As Peter spoke those words in the midst of the assembly, Peter could have walked out of

that assembly and walked to the grave of David and said, see, he’s still here.

And they all knew it.

But he goes on to say,

Therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the

fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his

throne.

He foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul was not

left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.

Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the

promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out that which you now see and hear, for David did

not ascend into the heavens.

But he says himself, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your

enemies your footstool.

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you

crucified both Lord.

and Christ.

As we conclude, know this, we do not follow cunningly devised fables.

We do not follow myths.

We do not worship a savior who is dead and in the grave.

We do not follow

the stories of a man who lived in a far-off land of which there is little evidence about

what he said, what he did, or how he acted.

No, we follow Jesus, of whom there were prophecies hundreds and thousands of years before

he was born.

of the very nature of his birth, of the very place of his birth, of the family from which

he would come, of the lineage through which he would proceed generation after generation

after generation, that he would be born in the days of the Roman Empire, that in the days

of the Roman Empire he would set up a kingdom which would never be destroyed, which Jesus

said in Matthew chapter 16, I have come to build my church.

and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” And he told his disciples that while

you are yet alive, that kingdom will be set up, and you will see it come with power.

And it did.

And so Peter would preach on the day of Pentecost that those same people who had put that

same Jesus to death

now needed to confront the fact that God had made him both Lord and Christ.

That means Messiah.

He’s the Savior of the world.

He’s been established as being what He said He was by prophecy from the beginning of the

world until today.

So the question for you as you consider who Jesus is.

is what are you going to do with the knowledge?

As I mentioned before, this is not an exhaustive list of prophecies.

As a matter of fact, there are 300 prophecies about Jesus.

And every single one of them, he fulfilled.

So if He is Lord and Christ, the question for you is, are you obeying Him?

Jesus would say in John chapter 12, and in verse 48, by my words you will be judged.

If you’re here this morning and you’re outside the body of Christ, if you’re outside of

the kingdom that He built and established for your salvation, if you’re outside of the

redemption that was prophesied of old time that He might bring about the salvation of the

world,

If you have not been obedient and submissive to him, may I encourage you to begin today,

because you’re not assured of tomorrow.

But you can be assured of this, the one who spoke in Genesis chapter 3 of the seed of

woman and spoke concerning the one who was going to be born and the place he was going to

be born and the lineage from whom he was going to be born and the nature of his birth and

the nature of his death and the place of his burial and the place of his resurrection and

the power that he would have.

If that God could speak accurately about this, then know this.

He also spoke accurately about this.

He said, is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.

There’s coming a day where you will stand before the Lord and the Christ, and you will be

judged by His words.

Are you ready?

If you have need of the invitation to be obedient or submissive to Him, to return to Him

in righteousness and obedience, why not come forward now as we stand and as we sing?

Revelation 10 – Aaron Cozort – April 5, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, apocalyptic imagery, Christian hope, Daniel, Ezekiel, God's sovereignty, judgment, keywords Revelation, New Testament, Old Testament, prophecy by Aaron Cozort

image

Good morning.

Good to see everyone out this morning.

It’s good to have a bright sunny day.

that we can uh enjoy.

Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to Revelation chapter 10.

As we have done previously, we will briefly discuss a few of the things that we have

mentioned already, and then we’ll get into our study, but let’s begin with a word of

prayer.

Our gracious Lord, God and Father of all mankind, we bow before you, humbled in our hearts

by your magnificent existence and glory, considering the world and the universe that you

have created, the power of the very words that you speak to create all that exists.

And we…

We bow before you and offer you praise and honor and glory for you are worthy of such.

We also praise and honor your son who came and died on the cross for our sins to purchase

our redemption, who also is worthy of that honor, that glory, who was the creator in the

beginning by whom all things were made.

and we praise you and glorify your name.

We ask that you will forgive us of our sins when we fail and fall short of your glory as

you have been ah straightforward in your word to tell us that you’re faithful and willing

to do if we will confess those things and Lord we do recognize.

and understand that we sin, that we fall short of Your glory by the words that we speak,

the thoughts that we have, the deeds that we participate in and sometimes fail to

participate in.

And yet at the same time, we are thankful for Your grace, Your mercy, and Your bountiful

love and tender kindness that You have shown to each and every one of us who are servants

of Your Son.

Lord, we pray that you will be with us as we go through this day.

May the things that we say honor you and may the things that we do be right in your sight.

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

In Revelation chapter one, John is on the Isle of Patmos.

He is on the Lord.

He is there on the Lord’s Day in the spirit as the text says, that is, is by all

indications.

The idea is he is worshiping as he is worshiping.

He hears a voice behind him and he turns to see the one who was speaking and the

description of the representation of Christ in the text is one of a glorified.

Christ.

And he sees that glorified Christ and he hears the message and he hears that this is the

one who holds the seven stars in his hand, the one who’s surrounded by the seven golden

lampstands or candlesticks.

And the one who is speaking to him, Christ, tells him, you’re going to write to the

churches.

So John begins to write to the churches of Asia Minor.

And he begins to tell them the things that they are commended by God for, the things that

they are condemned by God for, the things that they are warned about, that if they do not

repent, then they will become the enemies of God.

And the ones who he says, I put nothing else on you because of the burden they were

already bearing.

But in all of this, he’s telling these Christians.

that they are in a moment of peace and persecution is coming.

So chapter three concludes with that last letter to the church at Laodicea and chapter

four opens and John sees an open door in heaven and the primary visionary part of the

language of the book begins, though there’s been visionary elements throughout the book

already.

And John, as the text indicates, though it doesn’t specify it, goes through the door.

As he enters…

Through the door, he sees the throne room of God.

And we mentioned last week, as we were discussing, hold on to that picture of the throne

room of God, because you’re gonna see the rainbow that was surrounding the throne show up

again.

Well, show it up today here in chapter 10.

But as he looks at the throne of God and he sees the glory of the one who sits on the

throne, there’s this emerald rainbow.

that surrounds the throne.

There’s a sea of glass that is before the throne.

There’s the seven lamps of the Spirit of God that are before the throne.

There’s the four living beasts that are before the throne.

There’s the 24 elders that are before the throne.

And all they do continually is offer God

glory and honor and praise.

And whenever the glory and the honor and the praise comes forth from the four beasts that

are before the throne, the 24 elders take their crowns of victory and they throw them

before the throne and they offer praise and honor and glory to the one who sits on the

throne.

And then chapter five opens.

In chapter five, as that…

uh

section is open, John looks back to the throne and the one who’s sitting on the throne has

in his right hand a scroll written inside and outside.

It’s got the revelation, the message of God, and John wants to know what it says.

The problem is there’s nobody found in heaven or on earth or under the earth that is in

the grave that can open the scroll because there’s no one worthy.

John begins to weep.

One of the elders comes to John and says, don’t weep, we found the one who’s worthy.

And John looks again to the throne and now before the throne is the lamb standing but

appearing to have been slain.

The lion of the tribe of Judah, Christ, is before the throne and he’s worthy to take the

scroll and he’s declared worthy and he takes the scroll.

And so then chapter six.

Chapter 6 opens up and the scroll begins to be opened.

Seal 1 is open and the picture is Christ going forth to conquer.

Seal 2 is open and persecution and judgment begins and hardship begins and another degree

of hardship begins and another degree of hardship begins.

And when you finally get to the fifth seal in chapter 6, you’ve got the souls of the

saints who have been killed for the cause of Christ.

and they’re beneath the altar of God and they’re crying out, how long, Lord?

Are you going to allow this to continue?

And God will give them through those servants of the Lord a message to rest, to wait.

They’re clothed in white robes, they’re told to wait because God’s going to deliver the

judgment that they’re crying out for.

So then the sixth seal is opened and you have the Old Testament picture of the fall of a

nation.

The sky is rolled up.

The sun turns dark.

The moon turns to blood.

There’s fire and hail and smoke and all of these things and the rich and the great and the

powerful all run to the mountains and they cried for the mountains to fall on them because

they want to be hidden from the wrath of the lamb.

of all the creatures in God’s creation.

Outside of an overly rambunctious lamb that might nip at you, who, what adult is afraid of

lambs?

You see the paradox there?

They cry out, and they don’t cry out to be hidden from the wrath of the lion.

They don’t cry out to be hidden from the wrath of the four beasts before the throne.

They cry out to be hidden from the wrath of the Lamb.

Because the lamb is not dead.

The lamb appears to be slain, but is alive forevermore, and he is sitting on a throne.

And He offers peace and comfort to His people and judgment such that the wicked of the

earth, the inhabitants of the earth are afraid of His very presence.

But the question’s asked at the end of chapter six, in the day of the wrath of the Lamb,

who’s able to stand?

So chapter seven, we find a pause and that great angel comes up as he tells the four

angels that are standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the wind, the

judgment of God in the Old Testament pictures.

And he tells them, don’t let the wind blow.

Don’t let anything be touched until we mark all the people of God.

We’re gonna put God’s name on their forehead.

You don’t have to guess what it means.

Just go back to Revelation chapter three and you’ll read about the church with the name of

God written on their foreheads.

And it wasn’t the fact that that church singularly in the New Testament went around and

tattooed God’s name on their forehead.

All the churches had God’s name on their forehead.

They all belong to Him, except the name was a spiritual name.

The angel comes up and he says, let any of the judgment start till we mark all of God’s

people.

So the marking begins and all of God’s people are marked.

God knows everybody that belongs to him.

And then…

The seventh seal.

As Revelation 8 begins, the seventh seal begins to be opened and everything you see in the

rest of the book happens in the seventh seal.

Remember, the revelation was written inside, now the scroll was completely covered.

Well, if it was completely covered, then it was a really short scroll if we’re just gonna

read this little bit about the seventh seal and then it’s done.

Now the picture is, all of this is wrapped up in what John wants to know and what the

throne has to say.

So the seventh seal is open and inside the seventh seal, you find seven angels given seven

trumpets and they’re going to prepare to blow.

And they’re going to blow.

And as those seven trumpets are blown, you’re going to find partial judgment, partial

judgment, partial judgment, partial judgment, partial judgment, and trumpet number seven

inside the seventh trumpet.

We’re gonna read this in chapter 10.

we find complete judgment pronounced, okay?

So the people of God are prepared, the multitude is innumerable in heaven and on earth,

and God’s people are all marked, they’re not gonna be touched with the judgment, they’re

going to suffer hardship through the judgment.

They’re gonna be surrounded by it, they’re gonna deal with it, they’re gonna live through

it, and some of them are gonna die in it.

but the judgment isn’t coming on them.

God doesn’t judge the righteous.

God doesn’t bring punishment in judgment on the righteous.

Now the Hebrew writer does tell us that God brings chastisement upon the righteous.

What’s the difference between judgment and chastisement?

Now, all right, so if we were to put it on a spectrum, judgment is the judge sends you to

prison or to death for your crimes, and chastisement is the parent who spanks you to

correct you.

That’s what the Hebrew writer, by the way, tells us.

It’s unpleasant for the time, but it helps us do what we ought to do.

And so while the Christians are gonna go through chastisement, they’re gonna go through

trials, they’re gonna go through tribulations, and they’re going to be made better by

them, the wicked, the inhabitants of the earth are going to be judged by the same events.

So the first trumpet sounds and it’s fire and hail and all of the pictures are Old

Testament pictures and a third of the things are burned up.

Then the second trumpet sounds and a burning mountain is cast into the sea and you have a

partial judgment upon all of the sea things.

Then the star named Wormwood is cast down.

All the water turns bitter.

It’s an Exodus 18 picture of the bitter waters of Maraba, those who test God.

And then you have trumpet number four that sounds and darkness comes upon the earth.

And again, it’s an Old Testament Egyptian picture.

And chapter nine, verse 13, chapter eight, verse 13, a woe is pronounced saying the first

four judgments are passed, three more are coming.

And these three are not only three trumpets.

There are three woes.

Okay.

So chapter nine opens and trumpet five and trumpet six will sound which are woes one and

woe two.

And you find in Revelation chapter nine verses one through 12, the fifth trumpet sounds

and this is moral decay that is eating up the nation from inside.

Moral decay is one of those things that it doesn’t come from outside.

It doesn’t break down walls.

It doesn’t cause people to die in the streets, generally speaking.

It’s not a disease.

It’s not a plague.

It’s not a foreign nation.

It doesn’t rampage an entire city and lay it flat where you see the visual destruction.

It eats a nation inside out.

and Rome was eat up with it.

And God is going to make it clear that their tolerance of the wickedness around them,

their embracing of the wickedness around them was going to be part of their judgment.

We often look for external reasons why the world around us is the way that it is.

By that I mean when the suicide rate goes up, people start looking for external reasons.

When the depression rate goes up, when the mental…

uh illness rate goes up.

When the school system starts going off the rails by way of the ability to control the

children that are inside it, we start wondering what’s wrong with the diet?

What’s wrong with this?

What’s wrong with that?

And all of those things may have something to play in it, but I’ll tell you, when you look

at the moral picture of the home, it doesn’t take long to figure out what’s wrong.

Because when you look at America and you look at the moral picture of the home,

It is this.

It is a nation given over to every form of wickedness, every form of idolatry, every form

of self, pleasure, and pride.

and even the good quote unquote people.

in the nation are those who embrace the immorality.

Even the generally just and upright people in the way they treat others as a whole are

given over to the sin and the wickedness.

and it is pervasive.

Rome didn’t fall from the outside.

Rome fell from the inside because they couldn’t sustain the opposition of the outside

forces because of the moral decay happening within.

and you say, Aaron, I’m just not sure that America’s quite on the same par as Rome.

Well, maybe not.

I’ll grant you a maybe not at best.

But when you look at our history just in the time that I’ve been alive.

when you look at the fact that we can’t even be honest with the thing that we interact

with every day called money?

We are $39 trillion in debt as a nation and you think we’re morally upright as a nation?

What does God say about people who don’t pay their debts?

Does he call them just and upright?

Do you think there’s any possibility, any chance in the world that our government intends

to ever pay the actual debt off?

No.

And if the thing that we all use every day to sustain our very lives and to buy the things

that we need in order to function in life isn’t a moral and upright and just system.

Now what do you think the rest of the system looks like?

Verse 13-21

the sixth trumpet sound.

and you have an invading army.

And it comes in and you’ve got the one who’s described as the destroyer in two different

languages.

He rises up out of the bottomless pit and goes to war.

and you have this continuing picture of destruction, but a third of mankind die.

Again, just more pictures of partial judgment.

A third of the things die, a third of this dies, a third of this dies, a third of this is

judged.

Chapter 10.

You’re going to have an interlude.

You’re going to have a pause.

This happens in the book of Revelation quite often.

Here comes this judgment and this judgment and this judgment and this judgment as pictured

in Revelation chapter six, you’ve got seal one, two, three, four, five, six.

And before seal seven is open, wait a minute, pause, hold on.

We gotta talk to the people of God.

We’ve gotta let them know they win.

We’ve gotta let them know they are being cared for.

and taken care of by God.

So chapter eight, you have a pause.

Sorry, chapter seven, you have a pause.

Then chapter eight, judgment continues.

So in chapter eight and nine, you get partial judgment, partial judgment, partial

judgment, six trumpet sound.

Then wait, pause.

Chapters 10, 11, and 12 are a reassurance to the Christians.

God’s got you.

You win, but it’s not going to be easy.

You get through it as the church, but not without going through the tribulation and the

hardship of the chastisement and the difficulties of this life.

So chapter 10 opens.

and I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven clothed with a cloud.” Now, how did

Jesus ascend to heaven?

in a cloud, right?

You’re gonna see these pictures and this angel, and we’re told it’s an angel, so what I’m

going to assume is it’s an angel.

But this angel is a mighty angel.

This, as brother Jim McGuigan pointed out, it’s a high representative of the throne.

You know, you could get a messenger from uh a person of power and it might be a lowly

person.

It might just be somebody who hands off a message, this comes from President Trump, he’d

like you to open it.

Or you might have the Secretary of State with all his people show up.

There’s a difference in the two.

They’re both the messengers from President Trump, but there’s a difference between the

two.

This isn’t just an angel, this is a mighty angel and he comes showing up like Jesus left.

And notice we read, was clothed with a cloud and a rainbow was on his head.

Where’s the last time we saw a rainbow?

It was behind the throne.

It was the picture of the glory of God.

Revelation chapter four, verse three.

This is a representative of the throne.

This is a representative of Christ.

We’re not done with the picture.

A rainbow was on his head and his face was like the sun.

Where’s the last time we saw somebody whose face was shining like the sun?

It was Christ.

and his feet were like pillars of fire.

He had a little book open in his hand and he set his right foot on the sea and his left

foot on the land.

As the picture opens up, as John sees the vision, he sees this mighty angel and he has all

the elements of being a representative of the throne.

And he’s got a message.

Now, this isn’t new pictures.

This isn’t new language.

This is Ezekiel’s language.

Turn to Ezekiel chapter 2.

Ezekiel chapter 2

We read in verse one, He said to me, now, you got to go read chapter one and read about

the war wagon of the Lord and the presence of God before Ezekiel, but we’re going to pick

up in chapter two.

You got to read chapter one on your own.

He said to me, son of man, stand on your feet and I will speak to you.

Then the spirit entered me when he spoke to me and set me on my feet and I heard him who

spoke to me.

and he said to me, of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious

nation that has rebelled against me.

They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day.

They are impudent and stubborn children.

I am sending you to them and you shall say to them, thus says the Lord God.” Notice this

is a commission that is being enacted here.

Ezekiel is being sent with a message.

He is being commissioned to declare a message on behalf of God.

As for them, whether they hear or whether they refuse, for they are a rebellious house,

yet they will know that a prophet has been among them.

And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though briars

and thorns are with you.

And you dwell among scorpions, do not be afraid of their words or dismayed by their looks,

though they are rebellious house.

You shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or whether they refuse, for they are

rebellious.

But you, son of man, hear what I say to you.

Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house.

Open your mouth and eat what I give you.

Now, when I looked, there was a hand stretched out to me and behold, a scroll of a book

was in it.

Then he spread it out before me and there was writing on the inside and on the outside and

written on it were lamentations and mornings and woe.

Moreover, he said to me, Son of man, eat what you find, eat this scroll and go speak to

the house of Israel.

So I opened my mouth and he calls me to eat that scroll.

And he said to me, Son of man, feed your belly and fill your stomach with this scroll that

I give you.

So I ate and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness.

Then he said to me, Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them.

For you are not sent to a people of unfamiliar speech or of hard language, but to the

house of Israel.

Not to many people of unfamiliar speech or of hard language whose words you cannot

understand.

Surely had I sent you to them, they would have listened to you.

But the house of Israel will not listen to you because they will not listen to me.

For all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted.

Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces and your forehead strong against

their foreheads.

Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead.

Do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are rebellious

house.

Moreover, he said to me, son of man, receive into your heart all my words that I speak to

you and hear with your ears.

And go get the captives to the children of your people and speak to them and tell them,

thus says the Lord God, whether they hear or whether they refuse.

Then the Spirit lifted me up and I heard behind me a great thunderous voice, blessed is

the glory of the Lord from his place.

I also heard the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another and

the noise of the wheels behind them and a great thunderous noise.

So the Spirit lifted me up and took me in a way and I went in bitterness in the heat of my

spirit, but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me.

Then I came to the captives of Tel Aviv and he continues on through that.

description of those events.

But notice, Ezekiel’s given a commission.

He’s sent to the children of Israel.

He’s sent to a rebellious house.

He’s given a message.

It’s written on a scroll of a book and it’s given and laid out before him and it’s written

on the front.

Sound like something we’ve seen before?

Written on the front and on the back and he’s told, eat the book.

consume the Word of God because you’re about to go preach it.

And when he consumes the book, what did it taste like?

Honey is as sweet as the stuff Joe gives us.

Sweet is honey.

Psalmist writer, Psalm 19, says the word of the Lord is sweeter than the honey and the

honeycomb.

He tastes the Word of God and it’s sweet.

But as it goes down and he begins to process the message he’s going to have to speak, it’s

bitter because the message is judgment.

Turn back over to Revelation chapter 10.

Notice the picture.

This is just Ezekiel’s language, Ezekiel’s scenario brought forward to John’s application.

So he saw this mighty angel and in his right hand was a little book open in his hand.

And he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land and cried with a loud

voice as when lions roar.

When he cried out, seven thunders uttered their voices.

Now in the seven thunders uttered their voices, I was about to write, but I heard a voice

from heaven saying to me,

Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered and do not write them.

There’s another passage that you need to mark down.

We’re gonna get back to the little book in just a minute.

But before we do, we gotta deal with the seven thunders.

Thunders in the Old Testament, you go back to the Old Testament prophets and the thunders

that were pronounced, the things that were visionary and prophetic when the thunder

occurred, it was God’s judgment coming.

And God was going to judge.

God was going to speak.

You remember when God spoke from the Mount in Mount Sinai in Exodus chapter 19, the voice

that the Israelites heard was so harsh and so great that they came to Moses and they said,

listen, we can’t listen to the voice of God anymore.

You’re going to have to go up.

and you’re gonna have to hear the voice of God and you’re going to have to receive the

message and then you come back down and tell us because if we continue to listen to this

we’re gonna die.

and God commends them for their awareness of their own frail state and says, that’s

probably a good idea.

Why don’t you send Moses up?

So Moses is going to go up on the mountain and be there for 40 days.

And in the midst of the 40 days while he’s up on the mountain, they conclude he’s not

coming back.

And what do they do?

They go build a golden calf.

Yeah, it’s probably a good idea they didn’t hear the voice of God anymore.

So the thundering that John hears is God declaring judgment.

Seven thunders occur.

John’s sitting there.

Now picture it.

John’s sitting there and you know how earlier John saw a vision and then the angel came to

him and said, what do these things mean?

And he said, you know what they mean.

He doesn’t answer, why don’t you tell me what they mean instead of me telling you what

they mean?

That’s not what happens here.

Here the seven thunders are uttered and John sits down, he’s about to write it all down,

he understands it perfectly.

except he’s told not to write it down.

This also is an Old Testament picture.

Turn to Daniel chapter 11.

Daniel chapter 11.

In chapter 11, you’re dealing with the king from the north, and there’s Old Testament

history combined with the gap between the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the events

that will occur to Israel during that 400 years of silence that’s all wrapped up in here.

We’re not going to focus on that.

We’re going to deal with the part that begins when he starts talking about Rome.

In Chapter 11, verse 36, then the king shall do according to his own will.

He shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, shall speak blasphemies against the

God of gods and shall prosper till the wrath has been accomplished for what has been

determined shall be done.

He shall regard neither the God of his fathers nor the desire of women nor regard any god,

for he shall exalt himself above them all.

But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses.

a God which his fathers did not know.

He shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and pleasant things.

Therefore he shall act against the strongest fortresses with a foreign God, which he shall

acknowledge and advance its glory.

And he shall cause them to rule over many and divide the land for gain.

At the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him and the king of the north

shall come against him like a whirlwind.

with chariots, horsemen and with many ships, and he shall enter the countries, overwhelm

them and pass through them.

He shall also enter the glorious land and many countries shall be overthrown.

But these shall escape from his hand, Edom, Moab and the prominent people of Ammon.

He shall stretch out his hand against the countries and the land of Egypt shall not

escape.

He shall have power over the treasuries of gold and silver, over all the precious things

of Egypt.

Also, the Libyans and Ethiopians shall follow at his heels.

But news from the east and from the north shall trouble him.

Therefore he shall go out with great fury to destroy and annihilate many.

He shall plant the tents of his palace between the seas and the glorious Holy Mountain.

Yet he shall come to his end and no one will help him.

As the picture here of the expansion of the Roman Empire occurs and their defeat over

Egypt and their control over the whole region, we find in Chapter 12, verse one, at that

time, Michael shall stand up.

the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people.

Now notice, here’s the picture.

Here’s an angel of God.

What’s his task?

He watches over God’s people.

All right, you see the connection?

Thou, there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even

to that time.

and at that time your people shall be delivered.

Everyone who is found written in the book.

Now wait a minute, who were the people who were marked with the name of God?

the ones who had their name in the book of life, the ones who belong to God, the

Christians.

So here’s Michael.

His responsibility is making sure the Christians, the people of God don’t receive the

judgment.

That’s what’s going to occur.

He says, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to

everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.

those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament and those who turn

many to righteousness like the stars of heaven.

Notice there’s going to be people who are resurrected to eternal life, there are going to

be people who are resurrected to judgment, and there are going to be people going forth

and converting people.

Interesting picture, isn’t it?

But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end.

Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase.

Then I, Daniel, looked and there stood two others, one on this riverbank and the other on

the other riverbank.

And one said to the man clothed in linen who was above the waters of the river, How long

shall the fulfillment of these wonders be?

Then I heard the man clothed in linen who was above the waters of the river when he held

up his right hand and his left hand to heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it

shall be for time, times and half a time.

And when the power of the Holy people has been completely shattered, all these things

shall be finished.

Here’s the picture.

God sends His messenger to Daniel and he says, you are about to get hammered.

You are about to be taken out and beaten and killed and persecuted, but don’t you worry.

I’ve got my people watching over you and you’re not gonna lose.

You’re gonna come through it with flying colors.

You’re gonna be resurrected to everlasting life.

You’re gonna be converting more than you’ve ever converted before.

But it’s not gonna be easy.

And God is going to tell Daniel, now, this revelation that I’m giving you, go ahead and

seal it up.

Time’s not yet.

It’s not for Daniel’s day.

It’s not for 600 BC.

It’s not for 525 BC.

It’s not for 400 BC.

It’s for a time way off at the end.

End of what?

The end of the Mosaic system?

The end of the Old Testament covenant?

the start of the covenant that God said he would establish because Daniel’s revelations

all begin with what?

A picture of four kingdoms in the vision that Nebuchadnezzar has.

And in the days of these kings, God shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.

You got to be careful with the term end.

Because it could be the end of one thing or it could be the end of something else.

And sometimes people see the word end and they think, oh, end of time.

He didn’t say the end of time, did he?

He said, these things shall come at the end.

Now, he says, when this occurs, here’s what you’re gonna be looking for.

You’re gonna be looking for time, times and half a time where God’s people are going

through it.

You say, what in the world does time, times and half a time mean?

Well, I could tell you, but we’re out of time.

Let me just say this.

If you were to ascribe to that phrase the word year instead of time, what would you get?

Year, years, and half a year.

So if you had one year and then years, plural, two years, and then half a year, what would

you have?

Three and a half years.

I don’t know how to make, how do you do half with a finger?

I don’t know, half, three and a half years.

Interestingly, before we get out of the next few chapters, you’re gonna be reading about

42 months, which is three and a half years.

You’re gonna be reading about a number of days, which is three and a half years.

You’re gonna be reading about time, times, and a half a time, which is three and a half

years.

What is three and a half, half of?

What is seven in God’s prophetic writing?

Perfection.

God’s going to tell His people, you’re about to suffer, but it’s temporary.

It’s limited.

Now we just saw two chapters of limited judgment on the earth.

Daniel and Daniel 12 is going to be told about limited punishment or limited hardship

coming against God’s people, but warned in advance, don’t worry, I know who belongs to me.

and Michael’s watching over you, but you’re still going to go through the hard time.

It’s temporary, but it’s hard.

But you’re going to come out the other side and you’re going to be glorified.

So chapter 10, 11, and 12, we’re opening this picture, is the seventh trumpet about to

sound.

God’s judgment is about to come on the nations and on Rome.

And God says, hold on.

Hold on, you’re gonna go through hardship and John, you’re gonna have to tell them about

it and it’s gonna be God’s word, it’s gonna be sweet in your mouth but the message is not

going to be pleasant but you’re gonna have to tell them anyway.

But don’t worry, I told Daniel 600 years ago that you were going to get through this.

John’s about to go reach back to Daniel chapter 12 and pull it forward to the book of

Revelation and go, here you go.

It was sealed up back then because the time wasn’t yet.

But here’s the message.

OK, thank you for your attention.

Two On The Road To Emmaus – Aaron Cozort – April 05, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Bible Study, Christian Lessons, disciples, Emmaus, faith, Gospel, Jesus Christ, keywords Luke 24, resurrection, Understanding Scripture by Aaron Cozort

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Good afternoon.

We’ll hope all of you had the opportunity to eat a meal as wonderful as the one that we

had here.

uh But I hope you don’t fall asleep because you did.

So take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to the Book of Luke.

As we mentioned this morning, we’re going to be discussing the events of the two disciples

on the road to Emmaus.

In Luke chapter 24, Luke records this event while not all of the other records of Jesus’s

life do record this event.

But Luke will, and there’s some surmising as to why Luke does when the others do not,

though Mark will mention it only in a single verse.

But Luke is going to record what

Jesus does as he appears to Mary after he has been resurrected, and then the disciples

will come and they will peer into the tomb.

You remember that the women will come to where the disciples are on that Sunday morning,

and they will inform them that the body is gone, that the tomb was opened, that there was

an angel that appeared to them and said that he is…

why do you seek the living with the dead?

and Peter and John will run to the tomb and they will race there and they will observe

that the linen cloth that Jesus was buried in and the bedding that was there or the

wrapping that was there around the body was folded neatly and laid there in the tomb, but

the body was gone.

They will have questions.

They will not…

understand everything that is taking place and they will depart.

Jesus will appear to Mary there in the garden, but then Jesus will depart.

And we find in Luke 24, the events that then proceed forth from that time.

In Luke chapter 24, verse 13, we read, now behold, two of them,

were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from

Jerusalem.

Now, as we begin this text, we’ll notice that it says two of them, is the way Luke puts

it.

But the understanding that we should have here is two of the disciples of Christ, not two

of the apostles.

The reason why we believe that to be the case and should understand that to be the case is

because one of the individuals is named in the account and his name was Cleopas, not one

of the apostles.

The other individual remains unnamed.

Many individuals could surmise, well, I think it’s this person.

I think it’s this person.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I have an idea who it is.

I think it’s either Matthias.

or justice who will be the two people who will be mentioned as potential apostles after

Acts chapter one.

But that’s just my own opinion.

Others might suggest maybe it was Luke, maybe it was someone else who was a disciple.

We do have some indicators that it’s probably not Luke because by all indications, Luke

was a Gentile and this appears to have been a Jew.

we’ll get into some of the statements that lead us to that assumption and that

understanding here in a moment.

But it appears to be a Jew, two Jews that is, one of them is named Cleopas.

We don’t read about him to my knowledge anywhere else in the New Testament, ah at least

not by that name.

And we don’t read of anyone else named that.

But Cleopas and this other Jewish man are on their way to Emmaus.

They are going down to this village and I say going down.

I don’t know uh if you would say going down in all points in time except Jerusalem was

built on a hill.

And so if you were pretty much going anywhere from Jerusalem, you were going down.

And so they’re going down the road to Emmaus.

And as they’re going, they’re talking.

Now, the new King James interprets for us the distance between Jerusalem and Emmaus to be

seven miles.

In the original Greek, it’s at 60 stadia.

It was a form or a measurement that runs out to about roughly seven miles in distance.

So not a short journey, especially since they’re walking.

Okay, so they’re going to be walking for a while.

They start off on the road headed out of Jerusalem.

They begin to go down to this village called Emmaus, and as they’re going, they’re

talking, verse 14, and they talk together of all the things which had happened.

Now, they’re disciples of Jesus.

We know that because they’re from among them, and as they’re going, they’re talking.

because not so many days ago they would have been most likely listening to Jesus teaching

the temple.

Not so many days ago they perhaps would have witnessed Jesus enter into Jerusalem riding

on a donkey.

Not so many days ago they would have heard the crowd shouting out, Hosanna, Hosanna to the

highest as Jesus entered the city.

Not so many days ago,

They would have seen Jesus cleanse the temple of those who bought and sold.

Many of those who were present, who were with Jesus, who were followers of Jesus, were

those who had heard what he had taught.

Perhaps these two individuals had been with Jesus when he fed the 5,000, and perhaps they

had been among those who didn’t turn back and walk with him no more.

But no matter who they were or what they had seen, they had seen enough to be disturbed by

the things they had seen, to be questioning the things they had seen.

So they were talking together of all these things which had happened.

So it was when they conversed and reasoned that Jesus himself drew near and went with

them.

I thought about this for a little while.

thought, how did Jesus draw near to them and then go with them?

Was he traveling faster than they were?

Did he start behind them and catch up?

You know, when you think about the way traffic goes, these people are headed from here to

there and someone else converges with their path.

Did he come from off the side?

I don’t know.

but now you know what it’s like to be in my head.

But he drew near to them and he went with them.

Sometimes in our lives, we will find ourselves going somewhere and somebody comes right

along beside us and they were uninvited and unwanted.

And they start talking to us and we’re like, can I move?

And if you’re on an airplane, the answer is no, you can’t, you’re stuck in that seat with

them.

while they talk to you for the entire trip.

But as these disciples are talking, Jesus joins with them, drew near to them, went with

them, but their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him.

As you follow through the events that lead forward from the resurrection, when Jesus first

appeared to Mary, she did not recognize him.

When Jesus appears to these two individuals, they are

withheld in their knowledge from recognizing Him.

We don’t understand all the things that that tells us.

We don’t understand how God did it other than to say that God did it.

God withheld the knowledge from them that they were in the presence of the one whom they

had known, whom they had recognized, whom they had followed but a week before.

So their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him.

And he said to them, what kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as

you walk and are sad?

We find here in the text that Jesus tells us something that the text hadn’t already told

us, and that was their disposition.

They’re talking about the events.

They’re talking about the things that have happened.

They’re talking about how Jesus, the one who they thought was the Messiah, has been put on

the cross and who has been killed, and now His tomb is empty and they don’t know where

He’s gone.

They don’t know what’s happened to His body, and they are sad at the news.

It is.

It is true that at times the things that should make us rejoice the most

cause us to be sad because we don’t understand.

Have you ever thought about the fact that at times we become separated from a person who

we know and who we love, they move away, they perhaps go off to another place, and as they

move, we’re sad because of their departure, and yet as a result of their moving, that

could perhaps be the best spiritual thing that ever happened to them.

And we’re sad, but it’s the best thing that could have happened.

Sometimes in life we have to realize that our understanding of a situation is far from the

reality of the situation.

These individuals, these two men, as they’re traveling along, they’re talking about the

events and they are sad because they believed something to be true and now they are

considering that what they believed was not true and they don’t understand.

And because they don’t understand, they’re

attitude towards the situation is directly opposite of what it should have been.

But Jesus questions them.

He says, what kind of conversation is this that you’re having?

Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered and said to him, Are you the only

stranger in Jerusalem?

And have you not known the things which happened there in these days?

In modern lingo, what planet did you fall off of that you don’t know what’s going on?

Are you the only person roaming around Jerusalem that missed all the crowds crying,

crucify him?

That missed all the signs and all the wonders and all the miracles that missed the things

that were happening at the…

How did you go to Passover and then leave Jerusalem and you don’t know, or sorry, to

Pentecostal…

No, I got to write the first one.

Passover, leave Jerusalem and you don’t know what’s going on.

How did you miss the crucifixion up on Golgotha?

How do you not know?

And he said to them, what things?

As we consider this passage, it is important and um the students in the school uh often

find this to be true, that many people ask questions that they already know the answer to,

but they want to know what you think about the answer.

and Jesus is going to ask them, what’s going on?

what things have occurred.

Jesus is fully aware of all of the things that have occurred, but He wants them to answer.

they said to Him, the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in

deed and word before God and all the people.

Notice first that they identified Jesus by His origin in His earthly upbringing.

He is the Jesus that came forth from Nazareth, but they describe him as a prophet of God.

Now, by describing him as prophet, they’re not denying the idea that he was the Messiah.

They’re not denying that he was one who claimed to be the son of God.

They’re not denying him the role of king or any of those things.

They’re simply recognizing that he spoke on behalf

of God and performed the miraculous deeds to authenticate his source of knowledge.

So he is one who speaks on behalf of God.

He is one who is doing mighty deeds in both word and deed before God and all the people.

They are saying here is one who spoke on behalf of God and proved the source of his

message.

originating from God.

And how the chief priests, verse 20, and our rulers, by the way, that our rulers is why I

would suggest both of them are Jews.

They say our rulers did this.

They’re claiming, unfortunately, much to probably their own chagrin, yeah, those chief

priests and those Pharisees and those scribes and those people who brought Jesus before

Pilate.

Yeah, those are ours.

He says, our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him.

Here was this man who came out of Nazareth, that place where Philip said, can any good

thing come out of Nazareth?

And yet here’s this man who came out of Nazareth and who did all these wonderful deeds and

he did them before the people and before God and before everyone and spoke the words of

God and verified that he was from God and our rulers took him and killed him.

How do you not know this happened?

But we were hoping.

Now notice that.

But we were hoping.

that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.

These two men.

Reveal the cracks in their faith, in their understanding of what was going on.

Now, they’re not alone.

The disciples, the 11, they’re in the same boat.

But these two disciples of Jesus as they’re walking down the road to Emmaus have cracks in

their foundation.

They have cracks in their faith.

They said, we were hoping

that it was going to be him who was the one who was going to redeem Israel.

We thought he was the Messiah.

Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.

Yes, and certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us.

When they did not find his body, they came saying that they had seen a vision of angels

who said he was alive.

Now here are these two men, they’re walking down the road, they’re headed toward Emmaus.

You might ask the question, why are they going to Emmaus?

I don’t know.

You don’t either.

Luke didn’t tell us what they’re going.

Perhaps they were from Emmaus.

Perhaps they’re going home.

Perhaps they had been in the city for Passover and now they’re returning.

Don’t know.

But we do know that they still were closely connected with the 11.

because very early on that Sunday morning when Mary and the other women came to tell the

apostles concerning the things that had happened, these men were around.

They heard what the women said.

They were aware of the things that were going on, which means when Jesus was placed on

that cross.

They didn’t turn back and follow him no more.

They didn’t depart and go off to a far country and say, well, I guess it’s over.

They’re there the next day, and the next day, and the next day.

And as that Sunday morning comes and as the message comes from Mary and from the other

women that they had seen the angels and that they had been told that Jesus was alive.

it didn’t make them happy.

You say, wait a minute, how could they be true disciples and that not make them happy?

Because they don’t understand what’s going on.

They don’t know if the women are crazy.

They don’t know if this is some ploy by the Roman government or by their leaders.

They’re confused.

That’s why they’re talking about.

And it is here that I want to mention one of the lessons that we should learn from this

passage is there is a difference between talking and understanding.

All you gotta do is listen to people talk about politics and religion and things happening

in the world to find out there’s a big separation between people who talk about something

and people who understand it.

These two men were talking, neither of them had understanding.

They’re trying to get there, but they’re lost.

They do not understand.

And every piece of the puzzle they’re trying to fit in doesn’t fit in the puzzle.

And they don’t know why.

They could have looked at the puzzle and they could have said, you know what, this piece

indicates that Jesus is the Messiah.

Jesus is going to redeem Israel.

And they like, yeah, it’s in the right spot.

Have you ever done a puzzle where you put a piece in the spot that you thought, I know

that’s where it goes.

And time after time after time, you try it.

Yeah, it’s exactly where it goes.

Only you get to the end of puzzle and realize that is not where that piece goes.

I have, it’s horrible.

I could have sworn that piece fit there.

That’s what they’re thinking about Jesus as the Messiah.

Everything validated that Jesus was who He said He was.

Jesus was a prophet.

Jesus spoke the words of God.

Jesus confirmed it by miracles.

Jesus said He was the Messiah.

How could Jesus be wrong?

Now Jesus has been put to the cross.

Now Jesus has been put in a tomb, and now Jesus’s body is gone.

when they’re confused.

and they’re sad.

This is when they did not find his body, verse 23, they came saying that they had seen,

also seen the vision of angels who said he was alive.

And certain of those who were with us, notice the phrase with us, they were present with

the apostles when the women came that Sunday morning.

Those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him

they did not see.

They’re referencing John and Peter who took off and ran to the tomb.

And John got there first and then waited and Peter went in and nobody.

No Christ, no Jesus of Nazareth was to be found.

Then he said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart, to believe all, believe in all

that the prophets have spoken.

Jesus a number of times after His resurrection will point out to His disciples that they

had a lack of faith, that they were foolish in their ignorance of the Scriptures, that if

they would trust God and know the Scriptures,

they would not have had such a difficulty understanding what was going on.

Now, that being said, you’ve got two men who are already sad, who are already confused,

and are already stumped about the things that are happening around them, and Jesus comes

and says, you’re pretty foolish.

Jesus didn’t pull many punches.

Jesus just said it like it was.

Jesus points out to them that their problem is a lack of scriptural perspective.

a bias that had caused them to think one way about Scripture, but had caused them to deny

the very truth of Scripture.

They were biased towards their idea of what it meant to redeem Israel.

You remember the apostles, even the eleven, are going to come to Jesus as He is about to

ascend back into heaven, and they’re going to ask Jesus in Acts chapter 1, will you now

restore the kingdom to Israel?

Even the apostles are under the mistaken understanding that Jesus was going to reign on

the earth, He was going to be a king on the earth, that He was going to have an earthly

kingdom, and it was going to be Israel.

because of their bias towards the things which they had been taught about the Scriptures,

they had ignored the Scriptures.

And Jesus points it out.

Be careful.

Be careful as you’re studying not to allow the things you’ve always been told about the

Bible to keep you from believing what the Bible actually says.

He says, “‘Ought not’—verse 26—’the Christ who have suffered these things and to enter

into His glory?’

Say you uh want Christ to be the Redeemer of Israel, do you?

But you don’t want Him to enter His glory?

You want Christ to reign and to rule and to benefit you, but you don’t want Him to receive

the glory He’s due from God?

and beginning at Moses, and all the prophets he expounded to them in all the scriptures,

the things concerning himself.”

as they’re walking.

they get a 4,000 year education.

of everything that God had been doing?

much like we started discussing this morning in the lesson.

Because the text is clear that Jesus begins with Moses’ writings.

And Jesus starts taking apart the Old Testament there in their eyes and in their ears and

declaring to them, this was about the Messiah, this was about the Messiah, this was about

the Messiah, this was about the Messiah, this is what I had to do.

Now, interestingly, have you noticed when he first asked what it was that had happened,

they wondered how he could be so ignorant.

Now he’s going to explain to them 4,000 years of God working and prove that it was them

who was ignorant.

We should be careful when we think we know something.

We might just find out we’re wrong.

And so Jesus begins to explain to them all these prophecies and how they had to be

fulfilled.

If you go forward a few verses to Luke chapter 24, verse 44 on another occasion not far

forward from this one, He said to them, verse 44, these are the words which I spoke to you

while I was still with you.

that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets

and the Psalms concerning me.

And He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.

Then He said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to

suffer and arise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin

should be preached in His name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

And you are witnesses of these things.

Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem,

until you are in dude with power from on high.

Jesus is going to have to explain the exact same things to the eleven as He appears to

them forward from this event.

But as they’re walking down the road to Emmaus, as they’re journeying from Jerusalem to

this village, Jesus is going to begin to expound to them

the Old Testament scriptures and the prophecies concerning the Messiah.

Then they drew near, verse 28, to the village where they were going.

And he indicated that he would have gone further.

They’re getting off on the exit and he’s headed straight on and they go, no, no, no, come

with us.

No offense.

But too many Christians, if they had had to listen to a sermon for the whole trip from

Jerusalem to Emmaus for seven miles, would have been ready for the preacher to shut up.

so they could have some peace and quiet.

They would have been like the guy sitting on the airplane next to the person who wouldn’t

be quiet.

Not these two men.

They don’t want Jesus to leave.

They don’t want this person who knows so much more about the scriptures in the Old

Testament and what was going on than they did when they thought they were the

knowledgeable people.

They don’t want him to leave.

They constrained him, verse 29, saying, with us for it is toward evening and the day is

far spent.

And he went in to stay with them.

Now, are they brothers?

I don’t know.

Were they from Emmaus?

Well, it seems like they at least have a dwelling place in Emmaus.

It could have been in Ian, but likelihood is they were from there.

So they say, no, no, it’s getting towards evening.

You can’t get much further anyway.

Just come stay with us.

So he went in to stay with them.

Now it came to pass as he sat at the table with them that he took bread, blessed and broke

it and gave it to them.

One of the things that you’ll notice about Jesus in his meal time interactions is

sometimes he makes like he’s the guest and sometimes he makes like he’s the host.

You remember when he went to the place where Zacchaeus was?

And Zacchaeus is up in a tree and he comes to Zacchaeus and he says, Zacchaeus come down

for I’m going to your house.

These individuals, these two men invite him in, but when he sits down, he takes control of

the meal.

He begins to bless the bread.

He takes the bread and He gives it to them.

Verse 31, then their eyes were opened and they knew Him and He vanished from their sight.

Now already told you we don’t have the ability to explain all the things about all the

things that occur after Jesus’ resurrection.

But some of the things which occur after Jesus’ resurrection make it incredibly clear to

us that Jesus’ power to do what Jesus came here to do was not inhibited at all by having

gone to the grave.

Not far forward from this event, the 11 are going to be shut up in a room with all the

doors closed.

locked in as it were.

And Jesus is going to appear right there in their midst.

And yet at the point where Thomas doubts whether or not Jesus is actually resurrected,

Jesus will say, put your hand in my side, put your fingers in the nail prints of my hands,

and even Thomas will admit.

You’re real.

He will say, my Lord and my God.

Jesus will sit down and eat with the apostles as he eats with these individuals.

But as Jesus blesses the bread, breaks it, and gives it to them, they finally recognize

who He is.

One thing that we should learn.

is it is a far different thing to know about Jesus than to know Jesus.

I can know about someone by reputation.

I can know a laundry list of all the things they’ve done.

I can know of their successes.

I can know of their failures.

I can know of all the things and details about them.

But if I’ve never met them, I don’t know them.

These two men had met Jesus.

They thought they knew Him, but oh, they were woefully ignorant of who He was.

You remember they said, we had hope.

They were not thorough in their understanding of who he was.

but as their eyes are open, as they knew Him.

they realize that it’s Jesus.

and the moment they realize it’s Jesus, He’s gone.

Verse 32.

They said to one another, did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the

road and while He opened the Scriptures to us?

They’re now examining the events that have occurred, the things that have happened, and

they say, we should have known.

My understanding of what that means is it’s like it was just like when we were with him

before.

We should have recognized him just by the way he taught the scriptures.

You remember what was said about Jesus when the chief priest sent the soldiers to go

arrest Jesus and they came back and they said, never a man speck like this, man.

I think that’s what they mean here.

I think they mean.

We should have recognized him, if we didn’t recognize him visually, should have least

recognized him from the way that he taught.

Nobody teaches like that.

but they examine themselves and they said, did our hearts not burn within us?

while he talked with us on the road and while he opened the scriptures to us.

So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and those

who were with them gathered together saying the Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to

Simon and they told about the things that had happened on the road and how he had known

how he had known how he was known to them.

in the breaking of bread.

as Jesus disappears, as they look at themselves, imagine somewhat dumbfounded.

having the knowledge that Jesus truly is resurrected, they can’t keep it to themselves.

They can’t stay seated where they are.

They can’t go to bed in their own beds.

They determined, no, we got to get up, we got to go back.

We’ve got to go tell everybody.

So having walked seven miles, they turn around after dinner and walk seven miles back.

Now you remember they had just told Jesus as he was about to carry on.

You can’t get much further.

It’s coming evening time.

Which means it was so important for them to take the word that Jesus was resurrected back

to the apostles that they walked through the night to do it

to share the Good News.

So we too should be learning.

There will be times in our lives where we will be tired, where we will have other plans,

where we will have things that were important that needed to happen, that we were headed a

certain direction doing a certain thing when all of a sudden it is more important that we

go spread the good news.

And we lay aside all the incredibly important things we were doing for the thing that is

of greatest importance, the message of the Gospel.

So these two men will rise up and turn around and go back to tell the apostles.

We’ve seen it.

And yet, as they arrive, as they tell the apostles, the apostles do not believe them.

Mark will tell us that he appeared to them in another form.

That’s how Mark describes it in the one verse he uses to describe this event.

But that as they reported these things to the apostles, the apostles did not, the

disciples, the eleven, did not believe them.

So one last lesson.

Sometimes even the quote-unquote best Christians

Don’t believe the truth.

and won’t believe the truth when they’re told it.

That’s simply to point out that we should not put our faith in Christians, but in Christ.

We should not build our faith on top of the understanding of other people, but on the Word

of God.

We should build on the foundation which is Christ.

So Paul will tell the church at Corinth, you follow me as I follow Christ.

which in all points and in every location means this, you ever see me step away from

Christ, you quit following me.

These two men meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

They talk with him.

They listen to him.

Their heart burns within them.

And then they are aware of who it is that they’re talking to and they rush back to tell

the apostles,

and the apostles don’t believe.

kind of strange that we only give Thomas the phrase the the nomenclature doubting Thomas.

because they didn’t believe the women and they didn’t believe their own eyes and they

didn’t believe the witness of the two men and they didn’t believe Mary.

And we call Thomas the one who doubts.

Hopefully from this passage we’ll learn some lessons for our own lives and examine how we

ought to take the Scriptures and understand them so that we can better understand Christ

and what He came here to do so that we in turn can declare the Good News.

If you have need of the invitation of Christ

to accept Him as Lord and Savior by entering into His body through baptism?

You can do that today.

If you’ve departed from Him and you need to come home, you can do that today.

If you’re questioning things in your life and you need the Scriptures to help you

understand them, we’d be happy to help.

Why not ask?

Why not come?

As we stand.

Let Your Light Shine – Justin Evergarden – April 08, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Beatitudes, Christian living, forgiveness, inner morality, Jesus teachings, keywords Bible study, peace, righteousness, Sermon on the Mount, Spiritual Growth by Aaron Cozort

image

We’re not used to having none of the students here and none of Aaron here and none of the

boys here.

So we had to scramble to get everything done.

It is wonderful to see everybody again this evening.

Let’s go ahead before we begin the class and we’ll start with a word of prayer.

If you’ll bow with me.

Dear Lord, our Almighty God, our King, our Savior, our Father in heaven, all glory and

honor to you forever.

We come before your throne at this time praying that you’d be with us during this class

period of Bible study.

May we take what we learn this evening and apply it to our daily lives.

May it nourish our minds and our souls alike so that we can spread your light to all those

around us throughout the world.

We pray for the safety and health of all those that are ailing from ailments, hurting in

the hospitals.

uh We pray for our

political leaders as well, Lord, that they can lead the country in a manner that’s well

pleasing and eyesight.

We pray for all those that live throughout this world that they may have an opportunity in

the future to obey your word, that they may come in contact with your guidance and

eventually have a home in heaven with you.

And so we pray to thee in Jesus’ name, amen.

Alright, so for this evening, uh last class we had, we were going through the book of

Matthew and I was giving you a lot of the notes that I had been going through.

So we’re going to pick up where we left off.

If you would turn your Bibles over to Matthew chapter 5.

It’s been, I guess about two months now since we’ve been in Matthew, been a little bit.

We jump over here.

Matthew chapter 5.

Now, previously we had seen the miracles that Jesus had been doing, He had begun His

Galilean ministry, and now we come to chapter 5.

For those of you that are taking notes for the class this evening, we do have key verses,

you know I like to add context at the beginning, I typically like to put these notes on

top of my title chapters.

or my chapter subtitles.

So the key verse is going to be Matthew 5 and verse 20.

So feel free to circle that verse if you will and we’ll come to that here in a little bit.

We’re probably not going to make it through all of Matthew chapter 5 this evening.

There’s a lot to go through.

uh Another key verse, I was kind of torn between the two on this one, was also verse 48

and you’ll see kind of why.

uh Our key word for this chapter

is going to be the word righteousness.

It is not necessarily like most chapters where the word is repeated many times over

throughout the chapter, but the key idea of righteousness kind of strings everything

together.

uh And the key lesson is let your light shine.

So, Matthew chapter five opens with what we call the Sermon on the Mount.

uh From the material that has been preserved for us in scripture,

We can assume that the Sermon on the Mount would have taken roughly 15 to 20 minutes to

deliver if reading straight.

Yet, even though it would have only been 20 minutes, this one sermon changed the course of

the world forever.

It reached many, many souls and it covers a wide range of topics.

uh The one thread running through all of it, again, is that idea of righteousness.

This chapter is all about um outward morality.

following from inward character.

Okay, so Jesus isn’t just merely giving rules.

He describes the kind of heart and life that belongs to someone that’s going to live and

belong inside of the kingdom of heaven.

He’s teaching his disciples what true righteousness looks like, not the shallow

righteousness that we get from the Judaizers and the others that are going throughout in

that time period.

specifically the Pharisees.

ah But he’s talking about a deeper righteousness that begins in the heart and because of

it beginning in the heart, the outward actions reflect the light that is within that.

So before we get into the details, I want to give you an outline for the chapter.

ah Verses one, we’re going to split this actually into three different sections.

So first we have the Beatitudes, as most people have heard about the Beatitudes, that is

Matthew chapter five.

1 through 12 is the Beatitudes.

Then, for your notes, I like to put brackets around verses 13 through 16, and that’s going

to be what we call the section of influence there.

We’ll probably make it through these two, and hopefully next time we can get to the third.

At least that’s the plan.

We’ll see how far we get.

But the last section is going to be called Righteousness, and that will be going from

verse 17 through the end of the chapter, verse 48.

This is where Jesus explains that true righteousness goes deeper than external rule

keeping, i.e.

the Pharisees, and it touches topics like anger, lust, marriage, honesty, revenge, and

ultimately love.

So, let’s go ahead and back up uh with section one, the Beatitudes.

Does anyone know where we get the phrase Beatitudes?

We’ve all heard the phrase, but it actually comes from the Latin word Beatus.

meaning blessedness or blessedness.

So verse one, actually let’s go ahead and have, we’ll go ahead and read verses one through

12.

Let’s have someone read that if they would.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they should be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of

heaven.

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things

against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for they persecuted

the prophets who were before you.

Okay, so we see the word blessed, blessed, blessed over and over and over again.

So starting with verse one, he talks about the multitudes and he went up into the

mountain.

Jesus sees the multitudes.

Why would they have been there?

Would they have known through word of mouth who Jesus was?

specifically some of the miracles that he would have performed.

They would have had to have if we have entire multitudes gathering there.

It’s fairly reasonable to assume they would have heard about him.

Many of those souls were looking for things like hope, truth.

Many went to him calling him rabbi so they would have been looking for teaching and

ultimately happiness.

In that sense, it reminds us of Isaiah chapter two and verse three, and I’ll go ahead and

I’ve got it right here.

Isaiah two and three said, and many people shall go and say, come ye, let us go up to the

mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways and

we will walk in his paths.

This is exactly what we’re seeing transpire right here.

The multitudes are going up to the mountain that Christ had went to and they’re looking

for His teaching.

They’re looking for His guidance.

People are coming to hear the Lord Christ teach.

And so, verse two, He opens His mouth and taught them saying, So Jesus begins to teach,

but there’s something very specific we can actually note from this.

He does not stand up and simply open His mouth and talk, does He?

You’re like, yeah, that makes sense.

Absolutely.

He teaches with purpose.

He teaches with substance.

He teaches with authority.

Most of all, everything Christ says has authority backing behind it.

And I think that this verse is a needed reminder today.

How many denominational preachers, if you ever watch the viewings of them, stand up, open

their mouth and do a whole lot of talking, but don’t say a whole lot.

lot of them, unfortunately.

There’s a lot of talking going on in the world today, but not a whole lot of teaching,

especially from people that have authority.

If you’re going to get up before people and teach the law of Christ, we need to get

ourselves out of the way as preachers and allow Christ to talk, allow the gospel to talk.

You need to have more Bible in your sermon, as it were, than your own self.

And I think that’s a problem that many preachers are dealing with today.

Many speakers can talk for a long time and say very, very little.

However, Jesus can teach truth in very little words that’s so effective that it changes

souls lives for all eternity.

Doesn’t he?

Yeah.

So we continue to verse three.

are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.

What does he mean by poor of spirit here?

Any ideas?

core here, in my assumption, would carry the idea of spiritual bankruptcy.

Not necessarily physical bankruptcy.

The Greek idea is that one has been reduced to needing something.

If you’re financially bankrupt, you’re in need of money, right?

It ceases to be a want, and now it’s something you actively are seeking out because you

need this.

It’s the situation where a soul comes to the knowledge that he finally cannot save

himself.

Eventually you get into so much physical debt sometimes you need someone else to bail you

out or to help you.

You cannot do it by yourself without help.

This is the opposite.

Spiritually speaking, going back to the poor of a spiritual nature, it’s the opposite of a

hard conscience, one that’s

doubles down on the fact of, I’ll get myself out.

I’ll just work harder.

I can go uphill.

I know I can do it.

Some people have become spiritually hardened, especially during this time and even today.

Who else do we know that was spiritually hardened in the Bible?

Does anyone come to mind?

Pharaoh?

Absolutely.

Did you get my notes beforehand?

No, she’s just that good.

So turn our Bibles over to Exodus chapter 7 and I’d like someone to read Exodus chapter 7

verses 13 and 14.

And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

Now does this mean that God reached out and turned his heart to stone, physically

hardening it?

No.

Does it mean that he spiritually hardened it?

Did he do it on purpose?

Yes and no.

It’s not necessarily that God reached out and forced him to feel this way, but God’s

actions led to him feeling that way.

Because of God’s teachings, because of what was going through uh Moses and the people

there about let my people go, it hardened Pharaoh’s heart naturally.

Pharaoh never lost uh free will, as it were.

God has never taken free will from any man and has always given them the choice.

So when it says he hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he harken not into them, it’s not that

Christ made him do that.

When you discipline a child and the child gets angry at you, did you make the child get

angry at you?

In a sense, but you didn’t reach out and say, you’re going to be angry at me right now as

a command and they just follow suit.

That’s not how children work.

Less so adults.

There are other people like in John chapter 12 and verse 40 that we read as well.

has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, it says.

Now did he physically strike them blind in John?

Not in this instance.

When you look at something that you really don’t want to learn about, do you tend to avert

your eyes?

Do you kind of blind yourself to it?

Sometimes people don’t like to face the facts.

This is what’s happening here.

Turn over to Ephesians chapter four and let’s get someone get 17 through 19 as another

illustration.

themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness.

Who being past feeling they’re tired of this grandpa.

They want to get over this.

They are so beyond it they are choosing less avianess.

They are choosing sin for themselves.

They still have free will.

The poor in spirit in this verse in Matthew going back to Matthew chapter 5 are not

hardened of heart.

These are people who have softened up to the fact of, need Christ, I need God’s help.

They know they need God because there’s no other way they’re going to get out of their

present situation.

And rightly so, none of us can overcome sin without Christ’s help.

Not a single one of us.

So we move forward.

Verse four, blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are they that mourn.

so if I’m sad I’m happy well that’s a contradiction right we can close the Bible we can

all go home finally found it years of searching yea or nay

Nay, it’s not a contradiction.

In a sense, Jesus is saying, happy are the unhappy.

Now, what do I mean by that?

It sounds like a contradiction until we understand what he’s meaning.

Can someone define the word comfort?

Okay, give it a shot.

How would you define comfort in layman’s terms?

Feeling good.

Feeling good.

I would call that more happiness.

ah Comfort.

Let me ask this.

Can you have comfort where there is no pain?

What are you comforted from then?

No, no, no, not comfortable comfort, receiving comfort.

uh You cannot have comfort without pain.

You cannot be comforted without some form of grief.

It’s the basic definition of the word to have one, you must have the other.

Comfort by definition is the easing of pain or distress by Oxford dictionary.

If nothing hurts, what are we going to be comforted by?

Yes, we can be comfortable, yes, but the idea of receiving comfort is no longer there

because now everything is just so-so.

Everything is just grand all the time.

There’s no need for comfortable or comfort, but you may be comfortable.

So, spiritual mourning ah includes things like sorrow over sin.

Let’s have someone get 2 Corinthians 7 and verse 10.

Why is it good that we’re grieving or sad?

What does he mean by happy or the unhappy?

2 Corinthians 7.10.

For godly sorrow worketh repentance.

Now if we have earthly sorrow, it’s fairly safe to assume that you are sorry you got

caught.

Right?

Yes.

Godly sorrow is a totally different idea.

It’s on the total opposite end of the spectrum.

And it’s the idea of I’m sorry I ever committed it.

You see the difference, the difference between I’m sorry I got caught earthly and I’m

sorry I did it being spiritual or godly.

That is a salvation not to be repented of because you’ve repented of having ever done said

thing.

But for sorrow of the world, work at death, it says.

All right, so let’s move forward to 2nd Timothy 2 and verse 12.

It says, we suffer, we shall also reign with him.

Now, let me be fair.

The blessing is not in the pain itself.

That’s not what it’s saying.

The blessing is what God does with the pain.

God’s strength, His forgiveness is seen most powerful at our lowest moments.

Take a look at Saul.

Saul was blinded at the road to Damascus.

He was, and this was after he was killing Christians, hunting them down.

He was the lowest of the low.

He thought he was beyond.

saving when he learned the truth and yet he obeyed and he became Paul and he wrote many of

the books of the New Testament.

That’s a very powerful thing and it seems more powerful than someone who slipped up maybe

once or twice in their entire life.

You can see God’s strength for forgiveness in the weakness of man.

So those who grieve rightly can be comforted rightly.

That’s why he means happy are the unhappy.

The pain and grief that causes us to be unhappy is the same pain and grief that we can

take solace in because our God has the ability to forgive, to help us through those hard

times.

So we move forward to verse five, the meek.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

What is the word meek?

Strength under control.

Absolutely.

It’s not weakness.

Humility, being gentle, a submission to God’s will and restraint from self-assertion,

right?

The vengeful anger uh that is inherent in humanity.

It’s a trusting heart that leaves justice to the hands of God.

God says, vengeance is whose?

Mine.

That’s what he says.

Jesus says here that the meek shall inherit the earth.

The thought is not that Christians are going to own a vast property right now.

So let’s get that out of the way.

We’re not talking pre-millennialism or anything like that.

but that those content with God will inherit more than they ever imagined, more than we

could ever possess here on earth.

Why?

Not because it’s going to be given to us.

We may not own a single acre here, but will we be able to enjoy God’s world in the one

that’s to come?

We get to spend eternity in heaven with Him.

I’m always reminded of Christ saying as He leaves, and lo, I am with you always.

even until the end of the world.

think it’s a beautiful symbolism that we have here because Christ says, you’re here on

earth.

I will always be with you.

Now, let’s say that we live until the end of time.

Judgment day comes.

He says, I will be with you until the end of the earth.

OK, the end of the earth comes.

What now?

He’s not there.

Why?

This is the beautiful part.

I’m going to give you is the opposite.

You’ve heard me say this before, probably.

It’s the opposite.

And what a beautiful picture he paints because now if we are a Christian, if we have

heard, believed, repented, confessed, be baptized and we have lived faithfully, he is just

a forgiveness of our sins and we get to be with him forever, not just until the end of the

world.

It’s a beautiful picture that he paints here.

Second Corinthians six and verse ten, let’s have someone get that.

as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet

possibly all things, but possessing all things.

So we’re not possessing all things earthly, but as Christians, as those that have been

saved by Christ, those that are in a saved state, as long as we don’t fall away.

Let me preface this right.

Do we have inheritance laid up in heaven forever?

Yeah.

It’s way more than this entire universe could offer us.

And it’s going to last forever.

The elements here, as it says, are going to be burned up with a fervent heat.

They are going to melt and pass away.

We often sing the song, ah this world I’m just passing through.

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.

It’s true.

It’s another beautiful song.

I also like I’ve got a side note here that says Revelation 21 6 through 7.

So I pulled it up.

And he said unto me, it is done.

I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of water of life freely.

He that overcomeeth shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son.

We get to be part of God’s family when we enter into Christ through baptism.

We get an inheritance beyond anything that of kings on earth would ever gain.

Let’s move on to verse six.

Because he promises here and we have a nice transition, he says he’s going to give them

that are a thirst of the fountain of water of life freely in Revelation 21 six.

So let’s use that.

Who is him that’s a thirst?

Verse six tells us blaster they which do hunger and thirst after what?

Righteousness, not a steak from outback steakhouse.

for they shall be filled.

There are many kinds of hunger in life.

There are many kinds of thirsts in life.

You can wake up in the middle of the night and if you’re anything like my wife, you want

McDonald’s french fries, you’re hungry for it.

Sometimes you go to the restaurant and you really are thirsty for that Coca-Cola, but you

know what, all they have is Pepsi.

But there’s other hunger.

Mankind, I believe, have three…

central hungers.

And I have this in my notes.

We have a hunger for food.

We have a hunger for love, be that from above or from our fellow man.

And whether they admit it or not, all of mankind has a hunger for God.

We see this all throughout history because where there is an absence of the teachings of

God, people make up their own.

And even those that claim to be atheists who say there is no God, they instead worship

themselves, promoting themselves to Godhood.

Do they not?

So you see a hungering for God, for a ruler, a creator throughout all of mankind’s

history.

Most people understand physical hunger very well.

Me especially, because I’m on a diet right

What needs to be stronger?

Our hunger for food or our hunger for God?

Our hunger for God.

Let me ask, if a person, if everyone in this room took a challenge from me tonight and

went the next week without food, would it change the way you feel about some things?

Would you feel bad?

Would you feel really hungry?

Yeah, really hungry, right?

In the same way,

A soul that is not fed on the Word of God is going to starve far more than what your body

will starve going a week without food.

And yet, how many times throughout our lives do we sometimes go entire months without

cracking our Bible?

Now, I’m not accusing anyone in here, but I’m saying in general, there’s lots of people in

the world who haven’t cracked the Bible open in years.

These people are spiritually starving.

If someone says I don’t really hunger for God…

It’s not necessarily that they’re lying.

I’ve met, I’ve met people like that.

They haven’t said that exact phrase to me, but I think that they’ve already been filled

their stomachs to follow the illustration have been filled probably with self instead of

God.

It’s the equivalent between getting something wholesome and nutritious and eating a ton of

crappy junk food, right?

The thirst here in this verse is intense.

This is not just saying you’re a little thirsty for a drop here or there.

And it’s not saying a thirst for money, for power, for comfort, for success.

You’re not hungry for popularity.

The list goes on and on, but it’s he’s saying a hunger and thirst for righteousness, the

word of God.

And Jesus says those who hunger and thirst for right, the right thing are going to be

what?

Now, why is that?

How are we going to be filled?

Tell me, if you open up your Bible,

There are scholars who have spent the better parts of their lives, some 80 plus years if

they’ve lived up to their hundreds, studying the Bible almost every day.

Have they ever gotten to a full understanding of everything in that book?

Do you think if we took all the preachers at the Memphis School of Preaching and Aaron and

myself and Kennedy and we all put our heads together, we could finally figure out

everything that’s in that book?

No.

But just as deep as those waters are,

It’s very easy to understand.

You can wade through the top.

You can find salvation.

You can see the plan of salvation laid out very easily.

God does not make it hard to understand.

However, if you delve deeper, if you look deeper, if you take the time to really look into

it, there is a infinite wealth of knowledge.

We haven’t even scratched the surface of one book and his knowledge goes far beyond that

if the book

was equal to one grain of sand in all the world’s beaches.

His infinite knowledge is infinite.

It says that whenever he and I don’t remember the verse right off hand, I’m kind of

shooting from the hip, but he says that when he came up with the plan of redemption, even

the angels marveled.

These are people.

These are creatures or people that were here long before we were created.

And yet even they marveled.

at the plan of redemption.

The Word of God is an endless wealth of knowledge and we have only scratched the surface.

So can we be filled by it?

Absolutely.

It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet.

but we’ll move on to verse seven.

What is mercy by definition?

It is forgiveness, forgiveness specifically, though, to those that do not deserve it.

Do we deserve to be forgiven by our Savior?

No, no, no, we can never deserve God’s forgiveness.

That would say that we would have to earn it to some degree and we know we can never earn

it.

The merciful are forgiving.

They are people who are patient.

They are people who are compassionate.

Those that understand that you need something.

Someone get Colossians 3 and verse 13.

Yes, 313.

Bearing with one another and forgiving one another.

even as Christ forgave you.

I got $100 for anybody that can list a single sin that you can commit that God or Christ

will not forgive you of.

$100 right now.

There’s not.

What does this verse say?

Just as Christ forgave us, so also do ye.

So if one comes before us asking for our forgiveness, should we be willing to give it?

Yes, we should, because how dare we not forgive someone when we have done something far

worse by hanging Christ on the cross.

How can we expect His forgiveness if we ourselves are not willing to forgive?

And God says when He forgives, He tosses it over His shoulder into the deep.

It’s like it never happened.

We have to be willing to forgive those.

But be careful.

Does Christ forgive anyone who does not?

seek His forgiveness?

No, He does not.

Christ demands repentance and He demands confession as well.

Can we forgive those who sin against us or do something horrible?

We’ll just say for the sake of argument and illustration here, murder, right?

And I know I’m going to an extreme, but the, you know, it applies all across the board.

If they do not ask for forgiveness,

Can we take it upon ourselves to do something that Christ Himself will not?

No, we shouldn’t.

We have to follow His guidance.

Someone get Luke chapter 6 verse 37.

Judge not and you shall not be judged.

Condemn not and you shall not be condemned.

Forgive and you will be forgiven.

Forgive and you will be forgiven.

That’s a promise to each and every Christian out there.

If you are willing to forgive, you will be forgiven.

But the world likes to stop at judge not and you shall not be judged, right?

They love to stop there, but they never read the rest of the verse.

Move over one page to John chapter 7 verse 24.

When he says judge not, does he mean judge not at all?

Absolutely not.

He does not mean judge not at all.

As a Christian, it is our job to judge a very specific judgment, however.

So John chapter 7 verse 24 says, judge not according to the appearance, but judge what

kind of judgment?

Righteous judgment.

do we get righteous judgment?

Well, not just revelation.

You’re close.

We get it from God.

Where do we get God’s Word?

from the scripture, right?

So if we are going to judge righteous judgment, what do we have to measure someone up

against?

The Bible.

Absolutely.

It’s the same way as the builders that built this thing right here, this wall.

Typically in times of old, you would have had something called a plumb line.

It’s a weight on a string that would have held it straight up and down.

Our plumb line, as it were, is the word of God, is the gospel, is the good news.

It’s all the letters that we have from all the apostles, from John, from Peter, from all

of them.

But we have to use that as our measuring stick.

That’s our law book.

That’s our New Testament, right?

We’re not under the old law.

We’re not judging people by that per se, but the principles there, even Christ called them

the Old Testament, what?

Scripture.

He calls it scripture.

James 5, 9, however, takes it a little deeper.

He says not only forgive, but take a look at James chapter 5 and verse 9.

grudge not one against another brethren lest ye be condemned how many times do we hear

people say well i forgive you but man i’m just you’re not ever coming over here again do

we hold grudges we shouldn’t is god going to hold a grudge against us on the day of

judgment he said well i’ll forgive you i’ll let you into heaven but you’re gonna have to

sit in the back

No, of course not.

He says, do not hold grudges.

If someone comes to you meaningfully, heartfully, lovingly, sometimes in tears, asking for

your forgiveness, what should we do?

Do we do it completely?

Do we hold grudges?

No, we don’t hold grudges.

You’re on a roll, but in the wrong way tonight.

It’s necessary.

not just because.

Now, we are taught in the Bible that if you have fought against your brother, you what?

You go to them.

If someone has hurt you, that doesn’t mean you have to sit here and wait for them to

approach you.

Sometimes that’s the right thing to do.

Other times it is necessary for us to go to the brother and make our grievances heard.

If they’re repented at that time, absolutely.

Unfortunately, sometimes we get the door shut in our face, don’t we?

It’s not a good feeling because we want to reconcile with that brother.

we’re going to continue.

Can we hold that thought for a second because it applies to verse 9 and we’re getting to

verse 9.

So we’re gonna move on to verse eight and I will come back to that is the pure in heart.

It says, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

Now the pure of heart here would be undivided devotion to God.

Those that want God, those that have learned to love God to the sense of yes, we are to

fear God, absolutely.

But eventually as we learn more about God,

Our love should outgrow the fear.

Our want to follow God is out of love instead of out of fear of going to hell.

That’s how Christians grow.

I’m running out of time.

It’s sincerity without hypocrisy, guile or hidden motives.

That would be pure of heart.

It goes beyond outward morality and goes back to what we said at the beginning.

It’s inward integrity.

God has always cared about the heart.

and Jesus is teaching that what is hidden inside matters more than what’s displayed.

That being said, if your heart is right, what’s going to be displayed?

The right thing.

So we move on to verse nine, cause I’m running out of time.

Peacemakers.

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.

Notice Jesus says peacemakers, not peacekeepers and not troublemakers.

A peacemaker works to bring reconciliation.

You actively pursue that.

You want whatever problem to go on to cease going on and reconcile with your brother or

sister.

It’s pursuing them at the door, like you said.

However, Christ Himself was the ultimate peacemaker, was He not?

Yes.

Ephesians 2, 14, and I’ll get it because of time, says, for He is our peace, who hath made

both one and have broken down the middle of wall of partition between us.

Does peace take work?

Yes.

And sometimes, unfortunately, peace has to come in the form of silence.

If you go to the person at the door and they slam it in your face and they don’t want

anything to do with you or they’re simply yelling out of anger,

Are you creating peace by removing yourself from the situation sometimes?

Now that’s not ideal.

We want to reconcile that, but sometimes that’s unfortunately not possible in this world

because everyone has free will.

It’s not passive cowardice to have silence, but it’s the wisdom not to fight every single

battle.

And that’s something that I’ve had to teach myself recently too.

There are some times where peace has to come by simply stepping back.

You cannot force someone to like you.

cannot force someone to love you, unfortunately.

Well, we wouldn’t want to force them anyway, but some things are simply outside our

control.

And if they are outside of our control, they need to be outside of our minds from time to

time.

We cannot fix everything.

We are not the great physician, but who is?

God.

And that’ll wrap up the class.

I’ve noted that we got to verse 10.

I thought we’d get through section two, but we’ll save that for next time.

Thank you all very much.

1 Timothy – Introduction – Walker Cain – April 12, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, Christian living, church leadership, doctrine, faith, keywords Timothy, New Testament, Paul, sacrifice, Spiritual Growth by Aaron Cozort

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If you will, open your Bibles and we will mark your Bibles at 1 Timothy.

We will be looking around at some other passages, but we will come back to 1 Timothy and

spend the rest of our time there.

But today we’re going to look, we’re going to study the background and then look at the

first chapter of 1 Timothy, looking at some of the lessons that are there for us and the

way that what Paul told Timothy as a young preacher, how it applies to us today.

Looking at this, we’re first going to study Timothy himself.

First, we’re going to look at his background.

If someone could, please turn to at read and turn to you at 16 versus 133.

At 16 versus 133.

Here we will see the background of Timothy and also Paul choosing him in his mission.

Then he came to Derbe and Lystra and behold a certain disciple was there named Timothy,

the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed but his father was Greek.

He was well spoken of by brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium.

Paul wanted to have him go on with…

and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region where they

all knew that his father was Greek.

So we learned several important things about Timothy here.

First, Paul is meeting him on the second missionary journey.

Paul has already gone on his first.

He is now on this one and he wants extra help.

He wants more servants to be with him.

And then there’s this Timothy.

Now it says there was a certain disciple there.

Timothy was already a follower of Christ by the time we are introduced to him.

Later in our study we will see the fact that Timothy is called the son of Paul in the

faith.

It seems as though Paul had already been with Timothy beforehand, but now Timothy is going

to be a part of this mission.

Behold, there was a certain disciple there named Timotheus, a son of a certain woman,

which was a Jewess and believed, but his father was a Greek.

Timothy grew up in what seems to be a divided house.

His mother was a Jew.

She was an Israelite, one who worshiped God.

She was one who would not have gone had to have gone to the feast since she was a woman,

but she was one who was faithful to God from all that we can see.

While her father, his father was a Greek.

one who followed the heathen religion, one who did not necessarily follow the morals.

He was in a divided house.

However, he had his grandmother as well, Lois and Eunice, his two female ancestors, taught

him and showed him the correct way and he was willing to choose that over the liberties of

the heathen religion that he would also have been influenced by if his father was still

around.

Verse 2, which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra in Iconium.

Again, Timothy is already a Christian.

He couldn’t be well reported of by the brethren if he was not already among the brethren.

Him Paul would have to go with him and took him and circumcised him because of the Jews

which were in those quarters, for they knew all that his father was a Greek.

It’s not only a lesson in what he had to choose when he was a child, there’s also a lesson

in what he had to sacrifice as he was going on this mission, as he was going to go with

Paul.

He was already a Christian, but he is also going to show he is willing to face this

circumcision, something that was not necessary for him as a Christian to be able to reach

more souls.

This comes to us today when we think about, no, this is not something that we need to do

to have people be more receptive to what we teach.

But there are things that we must give up, things that we must be willing to learn to be

able to reach others.

My wife and I are going to be going to do mission work Lord willing afterward.

We’re going to have to learn different cultures.

We’re going to have to go out and say, okay, this is what they do on this day, this is

what they do on that day.

They don’t wear this, they do wear that.

Of course, all of that within God’s law.

And be willing to do what it takes for them to be more receptive to the message we have to

teach.

And that applies to us in our world today.

We want to get to know

people so that we can let them know God’s Word.

We want to know what their comforts are, their discomforts.

We want to become a Jew to the Jew, a Greek to the Greek, as Paul was willing to do.

We see Timothy’s background and we see his decision to follow what was right, even though

he would have had other influences in his life and the fact he was willing to sacrifice to

do what was right.

Now also turn to Acts 17.

which is just a little way away.

Acts 17 verses 14 and 15.

We see something else here.

Then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were to the sea, but Silas and

Timotheus abode there still.

And they that conducted brought Paul.

Paul brought him unto Athens, and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus, for to

go to him with all speed, they departed.

Here Timothy and Silas are left, and it would be in Thessalonica.

We can turn to 1 Thessalonians 3, 1 and 2, and to see more insight into what happened

here.

1 Thessalonians 3, 1 and 2.

If someone could read that, please.

During it, thought it good to be left in Athens alone and sent Timothy our brother and

minister of God and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ to establish you and

encourage you concerning your faith.

Okay, so with this, we have Jews who have come to Thessalonica and they’ve come to stir up

the pot.

Paul sees it better to go to Athens and to leave Silas and Timothy here to strengthen the

brethren.

This is a situation that is not going to be easy.

There are Jews that are trying to stir the pot of religion because they do not want the

Christian way being taught.

but Timothy is going to stay under pressure there.

He is going to stay under this and be willing to strengthen the brethren in this

situation.

He is one who is willing to sacrifice for the ministry as we saw earlier, and one who is

shown to be able to withstand pressure during this kind of situation.

Now, with this, with his sacrifice, and with the things that he was facing, he would show

ultimately a proven character.

1 Corinthians 417 shows this proven character.

For this cause have I sent unto you to Mothius, who is my beloved Son and faithful in the

Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach

everywhere in every church.

Timothy is going to be sent to the Corinthians.

Now this becomes even more emphatic when we think about the Corinthians.

He is going to have to bring the Corinthians a bunch of rowdy Christians into remembrance

of the things that they were to do, of the things that they were to know.

These were the ones who were so twisted and contorted, they were taking the idea of gifts

from God, miracles that were given to confirm the message, and they were using that to try

to puff themselves up

lift themselves over each other, even claiming that they speak in some unknown tongue,

with all of that being a discussion for a different day.

Timothy would go to them and put them into remembrance.

This is someone who Paul trusts with the word of God, even when it is brought before those

who are twisting it and contorting it.

We can also go to Philippians 2, 19 through 22 and see the same thing.

But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that I also may be of

good comfort when I know your state.

For I have no man like-minded who will naturally care for your state.

For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” Timothy is one who has

this natural care, one who sees other souls and says, you’re worth something.

You are one who is worth my time and effort because you are of God, because you are His

creation.

I want what’s best for you.

He has this natural care, this natural compassion.

Paul is often said to be the second greatest man to have ever lived.

We can all debate whether or not that is the case.

Whatever it is, Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ.

One who was willing to leave so many things so that he could serve his Lord and then he

suffered in that service.

And when you have the reference, when you have validation from someone like Paul, you’re a

good man.

You are a servant of the Lord.

Timothy is being shown to be someone who is an example for us to follow today.

He trusts him, he trusts to sendly, to sendly short, to shortly send to Mothius unto them.

that they may be of good comfort when I know your state.

He trusts Timothy not only to relay information that is necessary to the brethren, but to

also report it back accurately to Paul.

All of this is reflecting well on Timothy so far.

Then we can turn to 1 Timothy 412.

Let no man despise thy youth.

Timothy, with all that was good about him, he was also a young man, one who

was in the early stages of life.

Now, Paul at this time would have been in his older days.

He already had some years on him as a younger man when he came to Christ, when he turned

to Christ, Acts chapter 8.

But then he continued four years in service to the Lord, dealing not only with age, but

dealing with stressful situations, dealing with long days and long nights with the

brethren.

This is an older man who has faced struggles teaching a young

that is in his youth.

Now moving forward, turn to 1 Timothy 523, and we see another thing about Timothy.

Along with all of his strengths come things that he had to face as well.

1 Timothy 523, drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake, and

thine oft infirmities.

We’re not here to talk about what a little wine is.

We have seen this before.

It is the fact that if this was alcoholic wine, it was something that could have been

medicinal for him, and it doesn’t even have to be that.

can be he simply didn’t want the luxury of grape juice.

The point for us to take right now is the fact that he was dealing with oft-infermities.

He was dealing with struggles, not just being a perfect, healthy young man.

We often think about, he’s just young.

He’s not dealing with physical ailments right now.

He’s able to get up.

He’s able to go jump off a 20-foot cliff and be perfectly fine, get up, and then get back

to work.

Timothy was not one dealing with that kind of blessing at that moment.

He was human just like the rest of us, dealing with often infirmities.

But he had to continue serving his Lord through them.

Our struggles, they can hinder us, they can limit us, but we continue serving God through

them.

We do not just stop because we are facing something, we press forward.

There will be things that we cannot do.

Not all of us can go and do everything, but there is something that every one of us can

do.

He had to face this physical weakness and overcome it.

Also, he had to face some spiritual things in his life as well.

We’ll look at a couple of passages at this point.

Second Timothy, chapter one, verse three.

Second Timothy, one, three.

I thank my God.

Well, turn to 1 Timothy 1-3 rather.

I believe that is a faulty note.

1 Timothy 1-3.

Paul is going to introduce himself.

He is going to show that he is writing to Timothy and then immediately start with his

charge.

As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou

mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.

Note that the first charge that Timothy receives isn’t,

you need to follow the proper doctrine.

Timothy is one who has proven his character.

He doesn’t seem to be struggling with following the doctrine himself.

What he is seeming to struggle, the thing with which he seems to struggle, is keeping that

charge among the brethren, keeping them on the straight and narrow as well.

Verse 7, this is the kind of people He’s dealing with, desiring to be teachers of the law,

understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.

He was dealing with those who are trying to twist and contort God’s Word.

Now turn to 2 Timothy, verses 6 and 7.

2 Timothy 1, verses 6 and 7.

Timothy is dealing with this opposition.

Now how does he handle it?

Verse 6 and 7, Wherefore I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God

which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound

mind.

Through Paul’s writings to Timothy, there seems to be this implication that Timothy was

one who faced fear.

Don’t we all today?

Isn’t there always something that we’re always a little nervous about?

Something that we need to face even though it is not within our comfort zone.

Timothy was facing these false teachers.

He was facing those who wanted to come in and tear apart the beautiful church God had

created.

But he would have to stay faithful to what God was saying, stirring up the gift that was

in him, which was then miraculous gifts from the Holy Spirit, instead of letting those

things subside, letting those things gather dust because of fear, because of those who

would not follow what is proper.

Timothy was going to continue pushing past any fear that was in him.

1 Corinthians 16 verses 10 and 11.

at this point further.

1 Corinthians 16, 10 and 11.

Now if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear, for he worketh the work

of the Lord, as I also do.

Let no man therefore despise him, but conduct him forth in peace, that he may come unto

me, for I look for him with the brethren.” This does not mean that Timothy faced more fear

than anyone else, but he does tell the Corinthians, don’t put him in fear.

treat him well.

He is coming to you and he is coming to you to do good service.

Do not go and terrorize him.

Whatever the case, Timothy would have to face his own fears and overcome them.

Again, the Corinthians, as we saw earlier, were those who…

A preacher that, let’s say a preacher just came out of preaching school and came to a

congregation like the Corinthians.

That would be a frightening task at the very outset because the Corinthians were a church

who had so many things going wrong, so many issues, and yet they needed fixed.

Otherwise, this church was not going to be following God the proper way.

Timothy was one who, as we have seen, he had a background that was divided, but he was

willing to stay on the proper path.

He was one who went with Paul on his second missionary journey.

He was willing to sacrifice to follow God’s way.

He was useful in difficult situations.

He had proven character.

He was a young man.

He had this physical weakness, and he had this fear, but he was able to overcome both of

them.

And with all of that, we come to His sincere faith.

2 Timothy 1, 3-3-7.

You cannot face these kind of things without proper motivation behind you, without

something that you truly believe in.

And Timothy certainly did.

If someone could read 2 Timothy 1, 3-3-7, please.

Therefore, I remind you to stir up this gift of God, which is in you through the laying on

of my hands.

For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but the power of love and of a sound mind.

Thank you, brother.

We read six and seven earlier, it starts that context of that starts previous as we just

read.

He has this genuine faith in this genuine faith.

was given by the words that he was taught.

Romans 10, 17, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

You cannot believe the proper thing and be taught the wrong thing.

He looked at the fact that he had this divided childhood, but he was willing to follow

what was proper.

is, there’s often given the idea that there’s three votes in our lives for what we are

going to do.

There’s God’s vote, there’s the devil’s vote, and there’s what we choose.

We have the deciding vote.

Timothy had both influences in his life, as every single one of us does, in one form or

fashion.

But he was willing to look at the evidence for what was true, look at God’s word that was

before him, and he said, this is what I’m going to follow, because it

has all that I need to believe it to be true because it is reality in and of itself rather

than following what was false.

This genuine faith would have been tested but it was reinforced and he followed what was

proper.

It’s interesting as well, Paul was persuaded

that Timothy had good faith.

What is faith in and of itself?

Hebrews 11, one, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things

not seen.

We have a circle here.

We have the idea that faith comes from evidence.

We look at evidence and we see the proof and we say, okay, I am going to act on it based

on this.

Now here’s what’s interesting.

Paul is then persuaded of the faith in Timothy.

Faith is going to say, is this evidence that I believe, and then faith is going to act on

that evidence.

Otherwise, how could Paul be persuaded this faith was in him?

Faith is both going to believe what is proper, and it is going to do what is proper.

Paul had faith in Timothy’s faith.

In this world that we, in which we live, will this world be able to see the faith that is

in us

and be able to realize, okay, there is something in them.

There is a faith that is in them.

We’re persuaded that there’s something different about them so that they want it as well.

Timothy’s faith was strong enough to act and then Paul to believe in it because he saw the

evidence of his faith.

With all of this, Timothy was one for us to emulate today.

and he is one who faced struggles, he is one that we can relate to him.

Now with all of that, let’s now look at 1st Timothy.

1 Timothy starting in verse one, chapter one, verse one.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus

Christ, which is our hope.

Earlier we discussed the fact that Timothy is often called Paul’s son in the faith.

They have a special relationship, and Paul is going to emphasize that in this.

First he says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Timothy, as we discussed earlier, was facing all of this opposition.

He was facing these struggles.

How does Paul start?

If you are facing a workforce, if you are facing a job that is brand new to you, and you

are receiving encouragement, you’re getting a call, and it’s from someone that you love

and is experienced in the task, isn’t it comforting to know that they are experienced?

What if you have a father and he knows that his son is going into the same work he is?

Perhaps his son is going into preaching.

And that father tells his son, son, I’ve been a preacher for years.

I know what you’re going through.

I know what this is like.

Now we need to be careful saying I understand exactly what you’re going through because

none of us know exactly what someone else is going through at that time.

But there is the fact that we receive encouragement from those that can relate to our

situations.

Paul was one who was experienced, he had credibility, he had authority, he was one who

knew what it was like to face struggles and oppositions.

And that would be encouragement to Timothy.

He has this encouragement in that he is an apostle once sent from Christ, but also he can

trust in Paul’s authority.

He is an apostle once sent of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by the commandment of God our

Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope.

Hope is an amazing thing.

It is one where there is excitement in what is to come.

There is an anticipation and an expectation.

We think of hope in our modern language, and often we think, well, I hope that my team’s

gonna win.

I hope that the Saints are going to make it to the Super Bowl again.

It’s probably not gonna happen anytime soon.

They lost Drew Brees and Alvin Kamara and all those great guys, and it just fell from

there.

Hope is not thinking, I hope this is going to be the case.

Not in the Bible.

In scripture, hope is similar to faith.

It sees evidence before it and is believing the things that it cannot see yet.

We hope for heaven.

That does not mean, man, I hope I’m going to make it.

I hope that I’m going to have followed God enough.

No, you can trust that you will make it.

Jesus is your hope if you follow His word.

This hope is an anticipation, an expectation even though we cannot see it and we can be

excited because of what is on the other side.

by the commandment of God our Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope, unto

Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and Jesus

Christ our Lord.

Timothy is called Paul’s son in the faith.

Now there’s a question we want to ask here.

If Timothy is Paul’s son in the faith,

What is Paul to Timothy?

Is it his father in the faith?

boy, do we have a whole issue here because he is using familial terms to describe those in

the kingdom?

We have a religion today who wants to talk about fathers, who wants to call teachers

fathers.

What does Christ have to say about that?

Well, in Matthew 23, 9, Christ says to call no man your father.

He goes into this discussion of the Pharisees.

And the Pharisees wanted to be known by titles.

They wanted to be known in ways that would lift them up.

They took this term of father and they wanted to use it to elevate themselves.

Now keep that in mind.

This is entirely different from what Timothy is doing here.

Timothy, or what Paul is doing.

Paul is taking this idea of my own son in the faith, this idea of relationship, and using

it to show camaraderie, to show connection.

The world takes relationships and uses it to elevate self.

While when we use relationships the right way, even Jesus Christ was willing to call the

apostles his friends.

He was looking for connection.

Now God is above all.

God…

is sovereign, but he still says he adopts us as children.

He wants that relationship.

This is entirely different from what the Pharisees were doing.

The Pharisees wanted these titles while Paul was showing a relationship.

In our lives today, do we seek elevation?

Do we seek to climb the corporate ladder of religion?

Or do we seek to help others climb and make it their way to heaven?

We must choose how we are going to interact with others, whether the way we interact is

based on what I want for me, how I want my pride to be elevated, or if it’s going to be

based on relationships that God has given us so we can serve Him to the best of our

ability.

Moving forward unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God our

Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

We have grace, we have mercy,

and we have peace.

These are three beautiful words that we see throughout Scripture.

Now, what is the idea of grace?

First, let’s start with mercy.

Exodus 34, 5-7, Moses is on top of Mount Sinai.

The children of Israel have been wicked and they have been going against God’s way.

They have built a golden calf.

Moses has interceded for them.

And now he is on top of the mountain and the Lord has pardoned or at least decided not to

destroy the Israelites.

They are still going to face punishment, dire punishment, but they will not be destroyed

because God is merciful.

God describes who he is in Exodus 34, 5 through 7.

says, is merciful, gracious, and long-suffering.

That mercy there was willing to say, you deserve something that I am not going to give to

you.

You deserve this punishment.

You deserve this consequence because of the actions you chose, but you will not receive it

because I have chosen for you not to.

God gives mercy to those who are penitent.

Really, He gives mercy to

all of us every day with every single breath.

Mercy comes not only to the penitent, but it is only fully manifested, only fully enjoyed

by those who choose to follow God’s way.

Because then they receive the next thing.

We have mercy when you don’t receive what you deserve, but then we have grace, where you

receive something you don’t deserve.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

He found favor in the Lord’s eyes.

Now Noah, just like any other man, would have sinned.

But because of his relationship, the way he wanted to be faithful to the Lord, God was

willing to show him a way to be saved.

He was willing to show him how to build the ark, to teach him how to build the ark, and

then…

receive rescue from the destruction that was going to come to the world.

This grace comes throughout scripture.

We often hear it described as unmerited favor.

Is grace always unmerited favor?

If we think about Christ,

He has said as a child to have grown in wisdom and in stature and in favor with both God

and man.

That word translated favor there is charis, the same word translated grace here.

Grace is not always unmerited favor.

But in the context of how it applies to us and how it applies to how it is when we receive

things that we don’t deserve blessings we don’t deserve, it is certainly unmerited favor

for us.

There is this grace, this pardon of punishment.

There is mercy, this pardon of punishment.

There is grace, receiving blessings that you don’t deserve.

And then there is peace.

there is no way we can have peace without God’s mercy.

Because without mercy, we receive the punishment that we deserve.

We receive the second death.

We receive hell as our eternity.

But then, not only is there mercy, there’s the grace, which means that we are able to be

with God in eternity once again.

We are able to receive the love of God.

and we are able to receive everlasting life.

John 3, 16, for God so.

love the world, that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should

not perish, mercy, but have everlasting life, grace.

And peace is ultimately going to be when we are at one with God.

If we look at that word peace more closely, it carries the idea in the Greek of harmony,

of tranquility, but also the idea of as being as one, unity.

If we look at our world, we see turmoil in every turn.

We see nation that fights against nation.

These are things that happen throughout time.

It’s not a special sign for what’s happening today.

No matter who wants to say that what’s happening with American and Iran is something from

Revelation.

These are things that have happened throughout time because man has always been divisive.

He has always had a lack of peace because of selfishness.

But God wants reconciliation with his people.

That’s why he gives us mercy.

That’s why he gives us grace.

unto Timothy my own son in the faith.

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

We have these three blessings, but they come only from God.

If you will turn to the book of James and look at chapter one, verse 17.

James one, verse 17.

every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from above and cometh down from the father

of lights in whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning.

Every good gift is from God.

Grace, mercy, and peace, those are from the Lord.

There are things that are enjoyed in this world that are not from God.

Just because someone enjoys alcohol, they think it’s a blessing, does not mean that that

blessing came from God.

In fact, those are things that are intentional circumstances made by man to make impure

substances.

Unless they’re used properly, by and large, how do we see it used?

That is not a gift that is from God because every good gift and every perfect gift is from

above.

Grace, mercy, peace, those things are from God.

they come down from the Father of lights.

Now with that God is the source of good gifts, but He’s also the only source of good

gifts.

If we want grace, mercy, and peace, if we want unity, if we want not to have to face those

things, it can only come when we follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

If we decide to push Him off from our lives, if we decide that our relationship with Him

is not important, how would we ever receive grace?

mercy, and peace.

We see homes that are torn apart because they do not follow God’s way.

Do they have peace?

When you have…

arguments that are based on the fact that people are not following God’s word.

And when you have children who are not willing to do what is right, you have a home torn

apart out of a lack of peace because they don’t follow God’s way.

And it happens with nations, it happens with the entire world.

But when we follow God’s way, we can have that which is from our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Turning back to 1 Timothy.

As I sought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest

teach some, that they teach no other doctrine.

Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions, rather than

godly edifying which is in faith, so do.” Verses 1 and 2 are powerful, but quickly Paul

gets into the meat of his discussion.

Often with other passages, Paul shows his thankfulness for the brethren, or thankfulness

for things God had done for them.

It’s interesting with the Corinthians, we’ve talked about them already.

When he talks about them, he says, thank God not for you.

He says, I thank God on your behalf.

He shows, even in his very words there, the kind of turmoil they were in.

But he does all of that before he gets into the real meat of his discussion, the practical

application of what he is saying.

With Timothy, he gets right into it.

As I have sought thee to abide still at Ephesus, that thou mightest teach some that they

have no other doctrine.

God’s doctrine is one and no other can be followed if we want to do the Lord’s way.

Now before we go into the idea of no other doctrine, let’s investigate this charge.

He was to charge some that they teach no other doctrine.

Timothy was a minister, a preacher, a teacher.

Now the idea of charge shows that what he was left to do was something that had authority

behind it.

This is the reason why when we have the gathered body of Christ coming together to

worship, coming together as the church, we have the men lead because men are to lift up

holy hands without wrath and doubting and they are to lead the congregation in worship

because teaching in and of itself

has authority behind it, this kind of charge because it says there is something you are

doing that is not right, and there is something that you need to do.

It is being a vessel of what God would have to say, not that there is any authority within

Timothy, not that there is any special power in him, but there is something that he has to

show the brethren.

Now, moving forward, he has to charge some that they teach no other doctrine.

If you will, someone please read Galatians 1, 6, and 7.

Galatians 1, 6, and 7.

This idea comes up in scripture before we get to 1 Timothy.

that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a

different gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to

pervert the gospel of Christ.

Okay, so we have two different words here.

We have one that shows the idea of another of the same kind and another of a different

kind.

Any gospel that is outside of God’s is not one of the same kind, but of a different kind.

The Greek word, allos, is the idea of another of the same kind.

You have two things that are of the same category, while heteros is two things of a

different category.

Any gospel that is not the one taught by God, other than the one administered by Christ,

is one of a different kind, one that is of a different category and therefore will not

have the same consequences, will not have the same benefits.

One that while it might seem more pleasurable on this earth, it is one that ultimately is

going to lead to damnation.

Paul will also tell the Galatians that if anyone teach any other doctrine, whether it be

men or angels, let them be accursed and he will say it twice because it is so important.

Knowing the proper doctrine is of utmost importance.

That is Timothy’s job.

It’s not just you need to teach what is right.

It’s that you need to teach that they teach nothing else.

We live in a world.

where liberalism abounds.

Now turn not to the right hand nor to the left.

People can go too far trying to bind rules that God has not made.

People can also go too far trying to loose things God has not loosed.

And both of those things are teaching a doctrine that is not from Christ.

Both of those things are going to lead to damnation and that is why Timothy must charge

some that they teach no other doctrine.

We must ensure that in our lives we aren’t just listening to the preacher.

We are not just listening to the person teaching Bible class.

We are not just listening to the podcast off of the famous Brotherhood Network.

We are looking at God’s Word and we are ensuring that what we follow is from Him first.

Tampering with God’s Word has dire consequences.

Revelation 22, 18 and 19, whether it be binding or loosing.

Moving to verse four, Paul gets into some of what these false doctrines were, some of

these things that they were teaching.

He says, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions.

Rather than godly edifying which is in faith, so do.

We’ll close on this idea.

As Timothy moves forward, he is going to discuss edification.

The church has three main goals.

We have edification in and of itself.

We have benevolence and we have evangelism.

And benevolence really ties in to that evangelism.

And if it’s not evangelism, it’s helping the brethren.

It’s edifying them.

With those things, edification is the building up.

It is constructing something, strengthening.

The brethren are to be strengthened, this godly edifying which is in faith.

It is in belief of what God has said, it is in the system of faith that he has delivered

to us.

If there is anything that is not edifying of the brethren, it is not what Timothy is

supposed to teach.

We have these fables and endless genealogies.

Now, let’s make this connection.

We look at God’s word, and it’s often described as sustenance.

Man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of

God.

Also there is John chapter six where Jesus says, I am the bread of life.

And shows that whoever believes his words, they would receive everlasting life.

The bread, that was what he had to teach.

It was what he had to say.

Now what is it that they want to teach that Timothy has to warn against?

It’s these endless fables and genealogies.

The bread of life, that is sustenance that is going to help you get to heaven.

That is godly edifying.

It is going to help you follow your Lord.

While these fables and endless genealogies,

their fables, these were just stories, these were just legends, especially Jewish ones,

ones that would make us look like we were looking at someone with three heads.

They were weird.

They were not helpful.

They were not edifying.

And then there were these endless genealogies which were not even important for them of

that day because the Jewish religion…

was now no more.

Now there were still people following it, but these genealogies had no more weight in

religious matters, in God’s eyes.

These were spiritual junk food.

God’s word, God’s way.

Things that truly matter for salvation.

They are the bread of life.

They are what we must hear.

While anything else that we follow is spiritually junk food.

It is easy for us to get caught up in debates.

Did Adam have a belly button?

Those things are not going to help anyone.

We do not need endless fables or genealogies or things that minister questions that do not

edify the brethren.

We must make sure that our focus, while we can look at things and investigate different

ideas,

we must ensure that our focus is not on arguing with each other, not on trying to prove

some odd point that has no bearing on salvation, but rather that every single part of what

we are doing is to help the brethren get to heaven, to help strengthen the Church of God.

These endless fables and genealogies, they’re described as ministering questions rather

than godly edifying in faith.

This idea of minister, the word minister is usually used to describe service.

But here it’s the idea of they reach forth, they offer questions.

These endless genealogies, these fables, they offer all kinds of things to explore.

They offer all kinds of ways where we can investigate whatever we want to without actually

looking at God’s word.

Just like pleasurable things in this world that are inherently sin, there are things that

we can investigate that while they are not sinful, they are going to distract us from what

God has to say.

They offer something interesting.

They offer something we can follow, but they do not offer anything that will help us on

our way in serving God.

After that, Paul brings it back to the end of the commandment.

These things, they are not going to be godly edifying, but the things that are godly

edifying do those.

And now what is that?

Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a good heart and of a good conscience and

of faith unfeigned.

Charity, agape, selfless love that is willing to serve and it’s based on three things.

A pure heart, one that is not selfish, not looking for its own pleasures, one that is not

defiled with the immorality of this world, one that is of a good conscience, one that is

striving.

to do what is right, but also to know what is right.

A conscience isn’t good if it thinks it is in the right, but it’s been seared, as will be

seen later in 1 Timothy.

And a faith unfeigned.

A fake faith, imagine that.

Faith is about believing the evidence, of believing the truth.

But in and of itself, an unfeigned faith is a fake belief.

It is an entire corruption of everything God designed in faith in and of itself.

But charity out of a pure heart is true faith.

It is a good conscience.

It is a pure heart.

And that is what we must have if we are going to serve God to the end of the commandment,

to the ultimate goal of what He has.

Thank you for your time.

We will continue our study of 1st Timothy and

Restoring The Erring – Aaron Cozort – April 12, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, biblical restoration, Christian responsibility, church discipline, forgiveness, keywords restoring the erring, repentance by Aaron Cozort

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Good afternoon.

That song has always held a special place since I was a child.

It was my great grandmother’s favorite song.

And so we grew up when I was very young.

singing that song whenever we would go to Ma and Paws, that’s Salem, uh Arkansas, and

visit them.

And if my uncle was there invariably, uh she would get her grandson, my uncle, to lead

that song and he led it at her funeral.

Just always a spectacular song and one with a great message.

This afternoon, I wanted to spend some time with us examining

restoring the airing.

We’re going to examine this from four different perspectives as we go through the lesson

this afternoon, but…

The scripture, both Old Testament all the way through to the book of Revelation, speaks

concerning the need for restoring the airing.

It gives us examples of the airing being restored.

It gives us examples of those who are airing refusing to be restored to a right

relationship with God all throughout the text.

But what we’re going to do is evaluate this beginning first with their scenario.

What is the scenario of the person who is erring from Christ?

If we turn to Revelation chapter two, Paul, or sorry, Christ, as he is writing through

John, will write to the church at Ephesus, a congregation that is doing many, many good

things.

They’re doing many right things.

And yet he addresses a problem with what their heart.

is doing.

In Revelation chapter 2 and verse 1 we read, the angel of the church at Ephesus write,

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 those who are evil, and

you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars.

And you have preserved

or sorry, persevered and have patience and have labored for my namesake and have not

become weary.

Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works or else I

will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.

Consider first as we examine the scenario of the airing is that you can have an individual

who, or in this case a congregation, that is on the brink of being past Christ’s long

suffering.

We all recognize, or at least we should, that for a Christian there is an individual who

has access to the grace of God.

But God is clear that there is a point in which His grace runs out.

That is not to say there’s something too great for His grace to cover, that there’s some

sin too great for the blood of Christ to redeem us from, but as someone continues to walk

further and further and further away from God, God reaches a point where He says, my long

suffering and my allowance of my grace to cover your sin ends here.

Paul will write over in book of Romans, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

God forbid.

May it never be so, he says.

Now, one chapter over from Romans chapter six where Paul says that, Paul will make it

clear that there will be times in our lives where while desire to be obedient to God and

yet with our bodies we will do that which is wrong.

where we’ll desire to do what was right and we’ll end up doing what was wrong and that we

will be held accountable for it and yet now, he says, under Christ there is no

condemnation.

So we have the benefit of grace but John makes it clear, Paul makes it clear, there is a

point at which God’s long-suffering with our failure to obey runs out and you’ll notice

that Paul points out that the heart has something to do with it, the motivation has

something to do with it, and guess what?

John points out the same thing.

And John says, as he writes this message from Christ, I know your works.

I know the labor that you’re involved in.

I know you’re active.

I know you’re defending the truth.

I know you’re doing all these things, but I also know your heart is no longer in love with

God.

So consider the scenario is that for some who are erring, they’re still in the pews.

They’re still there every Sunday, they’re still there every Wednesday, they’re still

attending all the worship services and all the Bible classes.

They may be teaching, they may be preaching, they may be serving as an elder.

We know the church at Ephesus had elders because those elders came and met Paul as he was

journeying back to Jerusalem and they wept as Paul was leaving them knowing they would

never see him again.

But to that same group of elders, Paul said that there would be some from among their own

number who would rise up causing sheep to come after themselves and turning into wolves.

Now, as you look at this, you’ll notice that the airing can be inside the assembly or

outside the assembly.

They can be regular members.

They could be teachers, they can be preachers, they can be elders, they can be the person

who helped start the congregation.

Or in the case of Ephesus, they can be the whole congregation as a unit that have become

those who are erring from Christ.

Consider Psalm 119.

Psalmist writer in this Psalm that is this extended exposition about the glory of the Word

of God and God himself will write in Psalm 119, 176 and he’ll write, I have gone astray

like a lost sheep.

Seek your servant for I do not forget your commandments.

Second thing that we need to understand about the person who is erring is they may not be

erring because they’re ignorant.

Sometimes you will find someone who is erring from the truth, they’re erring from the Word

of God, they’re erring from faithfulness to God because they’re ignorant about God’s

commandments.

But Psalmist writer as he writes concerning himself says, that’s not my problem.

And yet he’s pleading with God to seek him, to find him, to bring him back because he

knows God’s commandments.

And so you see here the struggle that sometimes the person might be erring because of

ignorance.

Sometimes they’re erring not because of ignorance, but because something else.

has gotten a hold of their lives.

Jesus, as He spoke concerning the sower, would describe the fact that the sower would go

forth to sow and He would send that seed out and some of it would land on the wayside soil

and would never penetrate.

It was the paths that were walked in between the fields and it would sit on that path and

it would never go into the ground, it would never penetrate into the ground, it would

never produce anything, and the birds would come by and they’d pluck it up and Jesus says

that’s Satan.

Taking the word of God out of the hearts and the minds of individuals and they never will

become receptive to it.

But then Jesus also describes the thorny soil.

He describes the one who the seed goes down in and it’s, you know, at the right time of

year, the time of planting, the time when you put something in the soil and guess what?

It’s gonna come up no matter where it lands.

And the seed goes down into that soil and it begins to spring up, but as it springs up,

also come up the thorns and the brambles and the things that are there on the edges of.

of the land that’s been prepared for the seed.

And as that thorny soil produces both the seed and the plant and the thorny soil produces

the thorns and the things that are going to choke it out, you see there the Word of God

going into the heart and the mind of a person who’s still overcome with the cares of the

world.

And the cares of the world choke out the Word of God.

Sometimes it’s ignorance.

But then again, Jesus describes the stony soil where the seed goes into the soil, it

begins to grow, begins to germinate, it begins to sprout, and the plant begins to rise up,

and it’s growing and it’s looking great, except there’s no depth.

And because there’s no death when the heat of the summer sun comes out, it withers and

dies.

because the soil is not right.

Sometimes it’s because somebody’s ignorant, sometimes it’s because they have no depth in

themselves.

We need to be aware about the scenario of the lost.

If you turn over to, sorry, Luke chapter 15.

Luke chapter 15, Jesus in a prolonged parable, not three parables, one parable, will speak

concerning

four different groups of…

uh to four different groups that are lost.

He will speak concerning the coin that is lost.

He will speak concerning the sheep that is lost.

He will speak concerning the son that is lost.

And he will speak concerning the elder brother who is lost.

But as you consider the parable of uh the lost son, notice verse 11.

A certain man had two sons.

The younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to

me.

So he divided them to them his livelihood.

And not many days after the younger son gathered altogether, I’m gonna get my words out

tonight.

And not many days after the younger son gathered altogether, journeyed to a far country

and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land and he began to be in

want.

Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his

fields to feed swine.

and he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate and no one

gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father’s hired servants have bread

enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger?

I will arise, go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven

and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me like one of your hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father.

And when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and

fell on his neck and kissed him.

And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and am no

longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his servants, bring out the best robe and put it on him and put a

ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.

and bring the fattened calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry.

For this my son was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found, and they began to be merry.” As you notice this example that

Jesus places before those who he is teaching, you’ll notice that here is an individual

who, of his own choosing, became one who was erring.

out of his own desire to participate in the evil and the sinfulness of the world, took not

only his own life, his own existence, his own energy, but he took half of everything his

father had ever produced and squandered it.

And as he reaches, as we might term it, rock bottom.

He realizes as he is doing that which a Jewish young man would be aghast at doing, feeding

the swine, and not just feeding the swine, but desiring to eat what they’re eating.

He is so hungry in his current situation.

He is outcast, he is ignored, he is being actively starved to death in his scenario.

and he realizes where he’s come from.

He’s realizing exactly how far he has fallen and he determines to repent.

But consider that sometimes some of the barriers to repentance is that someone who is

erring imagines what their new scenario will be like.

Imagine if this young man had thought concerning his scenario and said, you know what, I

can’t go back.

I will never again hold the position that I had.

ah I can’t go back.

I was once well respected and no one knows where I am now.

Everyone thinks maybe I’m dead or I’m gone, but no one knows my current state.

They’ll never accept me for who I am.

Sometimes people spend time not repenting because they’re too afraid of the new scenario

if they do.

because they’re considering in their own mind what it’s going to be like, how people are

going to treat them.

This young man is determined, I’m going to go to my father and I’m going say, you can’t

put me back as your son, you can’t raise me up above the servants, no, no, make me your

lowest servant because the lowest servant in your house is still better than what I’ve

got.

And yet you’ll note that his perspective and his opinion on how things should be moving

forward was completely ignored.

He was welcomed back.

He had been sought after in a way, for the Father had been watching for him to return.

He was brought back with open arms.

He was accepted and everything was forgiven by most, not all.

But as far as his relationship with his father was concerned, he was restored back to

life.

He was accepted back home.

In Galatians chapter six, Paul, as he is writing to the churches of Galatia, who he opens

his book by writing to them his letter and writing to them, letting them know that they

are turned aside from the truth.

And so quickly after they received it.

But in chapter 6 verse 1 he says, brethren, if man is overtaken in any trespass, you who

are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you

also be tempted.

Paul, as he writes to these Christians, says, those of you who are spiritual, now be

careful with that phrase because

Quite often we all consider ourselves to be spiritual, right?

The person who looks at themselves and ignores what the Word of God says is, I’m pretty

spiritual.

Paul is using this phrase to describe someone who is right with God.

And one of the biggest struggles we have in restoring those who have gone off into false

doctrine is that the people who are actively ignoring God’s Word in pridefulness in their

lives and in their actions and in their teaching try to be the ones to restore the person

who’s gone off into false doctrine.

And guess what?

It doesn’t really work to have someone who’s separated from God because of pride to tell

someone who’s separated from God because of doctrine that they need to repent.

Because the person who teaches false doctrine will see right through the pride.

And say, wait a minute, you’re telling me to repent?

Look at your life.

See, Paul says, no, no, no, no, no.

First, you consider yourself, lest you also be tempted.

Jesus had taught in Matthew chapter seven, judge not that you be not judged, for with what

judgment you judge, you shall be judged.

And.

Paul is bringing that forward here to restoring the air and he says, you, before you go

out, before you start visiting the person who’s wayward, before you start trying to insist

that they need to repent, you shine the light on you first.

You get your life right before you start going to get them to get their life right.

But then he also says, bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Paul emphasizes that it’s going to be very hard to restore the airing if all you plan to

do is increase their burden.

I mean, that’s what everybody wants to be restored back to, right?

They were carrying a burden of sin, now they’re bearing a burden of guilt and sin.

And they’re no better off than they were when they were first told to repent.

Jesus will point out concerning the Pharisees, you remember Matthew chapter 23 as he gives

those woes, that they would search heaven and earth to go find one person who was a

Gentile.

to be a proselyte, to become a Jew, to repent of their pagan ways and make them twice the

child of hell than they already were.

We need to be careful that as we strive to restore the airing, we don’t become the airing.

But then consider not only their scenario, but our responsibility.

Galatians chapter six, verses one and two right here in this text, before we leave this

text, let us consider that we have a responsibility to those who are overtaken in a

trespass.

Brethren, we don’t belong to a social club.

We don’t belong to a polite society organization.

We don’t belong to a group of people who are perfect, walking in immaculate, flawless

perfection.

We are Christians who are righteous by the blood that atoned for our sins for which we

could never atone for our own sins.

And as we consider one who is overtaken in a trespass,

We need to remember exactly where we came from.

For in Romans chapter 5 it is made clear that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for

the ungodly.

But then consider as well that we need to be, as we look here in this passage, we need to

be those who are willing to restore the airing.

Sometimes you have individuals who are living their lives and participating in the body of

Christ and someone goes off and someone becomes wayward and we’re just like, well, I guess

they’re gone.

Maybe they’ll come back.

We don’t give it a second thought.

We don’t give it a second effort.

I guess if they’ll come back, they’ll come back.

No, it is part of our responsibility to restore those who are erring.

That doesn’t mean we’ll always be successful.

It means it’s our responsibility to try.

But it is also our responsibility to bear with one another’s burdens and fulfill the law

of Christ.

Consider James chapter five.

James, as he writes this passage, this section of Scripture that is fundamental to

practical applications within the lives of individuals, he will write as he closes out

that letter, brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him

back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul

from death and cover a multitude of sins.

James makes it clear that not only do we have a responsibility to do so, but there is a

blessing to those who do so.

And even better, if they consider and they see their brother wandering off into sin and

they restore them, and no one ever knows the brother wandered off.

No one ever knows that the person had become erring.

Rather, they were restored to the truth and they’re set back in a right relationship with

God.

But another point is to be made here and that is that just because someone has gone off

into error and is restored back to the truth doesn’t mean that there is a requirement by

God that all of their sins be broadcast.

All of the things that they messed up, all the things that they did wrong needed to be

declared to everybody around them.

That’s not what the Bible teaches.

Rather that the one who does this, the one who turns a sinner from the error of his way,

covers a multitude of sins.

We are not in the business of spreading dirty laundry.

We are in the business of washing people clean in the blood of the Lamb.

I don’t know about you, but if you gave me the choice between spending time with a bunch

of people’s clean, well-laundered garments and a bunch of people’s soiled, dirty, nasty

post-work-in-the-muck-and-mud garments, I know which one I’d prefer to be around.

But reminder, you know, even those of us, if we use the example of the garments, even

those of us who go about our daily lives might not have participated in it a whole lot by

way of hard labor and yet still find out those clothes still need to be washed.

just because we didn’t spend the whole day in the sewer doesn’t mean we don’t need to be

about washing our own clothes.

And it’s certainly not the case that we need to be going around criticizing other people’s

clothes if we’re not even washing our own.

Jude will write, this half-brother of Christ by all indications of both history and

tradition will write as he concludes his letter, verses 22 and 23 of Jude chapter one, he

says, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment

defiled by the flesh.

Jude will point out,

that there are some individuals who will depart from Christ.

There are some individuals who will go off into error that we need to grasp, as it were,

by the nape of the neck the way you would a child who’s about to step into a fire and rip

them back.

And he says, you need to hate the sin.

You need to show compassion to the one who’s overtaken in it.

1 Timothy chapter 5, Paul as he writes to Timothy,

will write to this young man who is in Ephesus, who is working with his congregation that

Paul loved so much.

He will write to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 5 and beginning in verse 19 and say, not

receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses.

Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all that the rest also may fear.

Now, part of the responsibility of the church is to restore the person as quietly as

possible.

We use Matthew chapter 18 as the example.

Jesus says, the one who’s been sinned against, go to the person who sinned against you

privately.

And if he repents, you’ve regained your brother.

If he will not hear you, take two or three witnesses.

and perhaps He will hear them.

If He won’t hear you and He won’t hear you and two or three witnesses, then you’re going

to have to take it to the assembly.

And the whole assembly is to try and to get that individual to turn from the error of

their way.

You see, as we mentioned before, we’re not in the business of broadcasting people’s sins.

We’re in the business of restoring the airing.

But Paul will point out even when it comes to an elder, he says, number one, you don’t

accept an accusation against an elder unless they come with witnesses.

There is not one person who’s allowed to make an accusation against an elder unless they

have witnesses.

And the reason is because the elder should have demonstrated already by their life and

their actions and their qualifications to hold that office that their character is above

reproach.

So if their character has already been examined to be above reproach, you’re not going to

accept any testimony unless it comes with witnesses.

But Paul says if that witness and that testimony comes and is proved to be true, you don’t

get to rebuke that elder privately.

You don’t go to that elder in quiet.

You have to do it openly.

You have to rebuke them publicly so that the rest of the congregation knows and recognizes

God holds even the leaders accountable.

You step back and think of all of the disruption and all of the nonsense that goes on in

our lives and our daily lives in this country as a result of leadership in the country

that is never held accountable for the wrong that they do.

God says that’s not how my church operates.

He says you address this publicly.

Turn to Luke chapter 23.

Luke chapter 23 and in verse 33.

We find Jesus on the cross and we read, when they had come to the place called Calvary,

there they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the

left.

Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

Consider part of our responsibility is to be number one in a right relationship with God,

number two.

with a heart willing and ready to forgive.

Now there’s something interesting about this passage and this statement.

As Jesus makes this declaration to God, makes this request to God, it is not

unconditional.

It is rather a request on behalf of those who have not yet repented.

You turn over to Acts chapter 2 and Peter as he is preaching is going to confront many of

the exact same group of people who have just with their own hands crucified the very Son

of God and Peter doesn’t say but don’t worry you’re already forgiven for it because Jesus

prayed for you.

That’s not what he preached.

He preached rather that they were accountable for it and they were guilty.

And he commanded them to repent.

and be immersed in water for the remission of their sins.

It is possible to pray that God will forgive someone and still it be necessary for them to

repent.

Because God’s forgiveness always requires repentance.

So then consider as we move on from our responsibility, what do we do when they do repent?

How are we to behave?

How are we to act when they do repent?

Again, James chapter five.

James chapter five will point out this very idea.

James will tell us that the individual who wanders from the truth and someone turns him

back, let the one who does this know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his ways

will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

We are to realize that when the person repents, we have converted them back to salvation.

Before we move on from this, let us consider that there are some physical actions that

have long-term physical consequences.

that are not immediately resolved or wiped away by a person’s repentance.

An individual who has murdered someone can be forgiven of the murder.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for their actions.

David might have remained on the throne.

David was forgiven by God, but you might consider in the life of David and in his family,

there were an abundance of long-term consequences for the actions that David participated

in.

in regards to Uriah.

David brought catastrophe on his own house by his sin, even though he was forgiven just a

short time after he committed it.

There’s a difference between consequences for actions and forgiveness.

But James will point out that the person who has been restored is no longer to be held as

though they are still sinning.

They are to be considered a convert the same way as if they had just put on Christ.

It is important for us to realize that we do not put people on a pardon system after they

repent.

All right, well, we’re going to watch it for about six months and see whether you step out

of line again.

No, they’re forgiven.

We don’t take a new convert who’s just come out of a life of sin, just put on Christ, been

immersed in water for the remission of their sins and say, hold on, we’re going to watch

it for about six months, see if this actually takes.

No.

And yet too often, congregations do that very same thing.

Turn to Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew chapter 18 in this passage we already mentioned earlier, Jesus will point out,

beginning in verse 15, moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell his fault

between you and him alone.

And if he hears you, you have gained your brother.

Jesus says if He’s willing to repent right then and there, you’re back.

God’s restored the relationship between you and one another and between Him and you and

the situation is done.

need not go any further.

Psalm 51, this passage attributed to David in the scenario of Uriah and Bathsheba and the

sin that was committed.

We read in Psalm 51,

Beginning in verse 10, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit

within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me by your generous Spirit.

As David writes these words, he wants his relationship with God to be restored, and he

wants his joy to be brought back.

It is no surprise that Jesus, as He gives those passages in that parable in Luke chapter

15, after every single occasion where someone is restored, Jesus will point out that there

is a rejoicing that occurs in heaven over the restoration of a sinner.

And David prays for joy.

Over in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, those who were familiar with 1 and 2 Corinthians will

know that in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul will write to the church at Corinth telling

them that they are needing to withdraw from a brother who is there who has his father’s

wife.

And as 2 Corinthians opens, the indication of the text is that

that they had done exactly what Paul told them to do and that the man had been restored.

But now they need to be counseled about how to treat him now that he has been restored.

So in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 and in verse 6, he says, this punishment was inflicted by

the majority is sufficient for such a man.

That is, their withdrawing fellowship from him.

He says, so that on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and to comfort him.

lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow.

Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him, for to this end I also wrote that I

might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things.” Paul says, here’s this

brother, he was often sinned, he was committing adultery, he was withstood to the face by

those of this congregation, now that he’s repented, you come

HIT HIM!

You restore him to a relationship, a fellowship with the whole body of Christ.

You don’t continue to stand off from him.

You don’t cause him more and more and more sorrow even after he’s repented.

But then consider, there’s an obligation when we consider restoring the airing for before

they go astray.

It is unfortunately true that there are those within the body of Christ who will depart

from the truth, but certainly we should learn that there are those who are wandering from

the truth who could be put back on the right path before they depart.

Hebrews chapter 12.

in this chapter where the Hebrew writer has just given them an example of those in the Old

Testament who were the hall of faith as we’ve often described it, will now write to them

and say in chapter 12 and in verse 12, therefore strengthen the hands which hang down and

the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be

dislocated but rather be healed.

Paul uses the analogy of a limb and he says you have an injury.

You have someone who’s struggling within the body.

You don’t look at the injured limb and go, tough luck, get over it, we’re gonna go on

without you.

And as it tries to keep up, it goes from being slightly injured to basically being broken.

He says you’ve made the matter worse.

You don’t do that.

Rather, you bind it up.

You make up for it.

You exert extra effort so that it has time to repair.

And then you move forward with a body that is fully functional.

He says, pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness

springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.

lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold

his birthright.

For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for

he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.”

Paul pushes forward from the Old Testament uh a perspective for us of Jacob and Esau and

the damage that was done to Esau by the action of his brother who did not take compassion

on his scenario, who did not allow for his weakness to be an opportunity to serve him, but

rather used it as an opportunity to gain from him.

And Paul tells us what the Old Testament didn’t.

that Esau wept as he sought every way possible to regain his birthright, and there was

not.

We need to be careful when it comes to those who are weak, that we don’t cause them to

stumble, but rather we cause them to become strong.

Galatians chapter 6, we won’t look at it again for the sake of time, we already have, but

we need to bear one another’s burdens.

I’m gonna pick on my children for just a moment.

Occasionally I hear in my house,

But that’s not mine when they’re told to pick up the things that are around the house.

You know, we sometimes have that attitude as adults.

Well, I’m not the one causing the problem.

Well, I’m not the one who’s got the bad attitude.

Well, I’m not the one who’s causing disruption among this group or that group.

I’m not the one who’s in the stick of the mud who won’t change.

I’m not gonna help that person.

Their attitude is wrong.

When they change, I’ll have something to do with them again.

God says, no, you don’t.

Because when your attitude was wrong and when your action was wrong and when everything

you did only led you to be more and more separated from me, I gave my Son to die on the

cross for your sins.

So bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

By the way, that’s what that is talking about.

That we live out in exemplification in our lives the actions of Christ exhibited by His

sacrifice for us.

But then consider Luke chapter 22.

You find an example in the life of Christ as Jesus is going to tell Peter that he’s going

to deny him three times.

Luke chapter 22 verse 31, the Lord said to Simon, Simon indeed, Satan has asked for you

that he may sift you as wheat.

But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail.

And when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren.

Notice that as Jesus knew that Peter was going to be tempted, Jesus prayed for Peter.

And Jesus being all-knowing, something that by the way we are not, knew that Peter would

still sin, but he also knew that Peter would return.

So Jesus prayed not only for him to be strong before he sinned, that he might avoid sin,

he also prayed for him to be strengthened after he sinned.

But he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.

Then he said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall uh not crow this day before you will

deny me three times that you know me.

Verse 54 of that same chapter, we read, having arrested him, they led him and sought and

brought him into the high priest’s house.

But Peter followed at a distance.

Now, when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together,

Peter sat among them.

and a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat by the fire, looked intently at him and

said, This man was also with him.

But he denied him, saying, Woman, I do not know him.

And after a little while another saw him and said, You are of them.

But Peter said, Man, I am not.

Then after about an hour had passed another confidently affirmed, saying, Surely this

fellow also was with him, for he is a Galilean.

But Peter said, Man, I do not know what you are saying immediately, while he was still

speaking.

The rooster crowed.

And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.

Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he said to him, before the rooster crows,

you will deny me three times.

So Peter went out and wept bitterly.

Jesus did not give up on Peter because Peter denied him.

Rather, Jesus spoke to Peter while there was still a chance for Peter to change and do

what was right and tried to strengthen him.

And then Jesus confidently reminded Peter that after he returned, after he was restored,

he would be accepted back.

2nd Thessalonians chapter 3.

Paul, as he writes to this church at Thessalonica, will tell these brethren, because

they’re dealing with those who are departing from the faith, they’re dealing with those

who are not walking uprightly.

He says in verse 13, but as for you brethren, do not grow weary in well-doing.

If anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company

with him that he may be ashamed.

First, Paul says, you do good.

before someone ever departs.

Make it your action, make it your habit, make it your life to do good.

We will never restore someone who’s lost by participating in the actions of the person who

is lost with them.

We will rather have the opportunity to restore them by not wavering from the truth.

But he also says, yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

Paul, as he wrote to the church at Thessalonica, those brethren that you’ve got in your

congregation that are turning away from the truth, that aren’t doing what they ought to be

doing, you don’t treat them like they’re enemies.

You admonish them, you encourage them, you exhort them, you teach them, and you do so as a

brother.

But you don’t fellowship their actions.

You don’t participate in their sin.

You seek to restore them in a humble heart.

You’re here this afternoon.

If you’re outside the body of Christ, know this.

The church is not made up of perfect people.

It’s made up of redeemed, washed in the blood of the Lamb, individuals who are imperfect

people, who the only time they look perfect

is when no one sees them, they just see Christ.

But if you’ve wandered from the truth, if you’ve departed from the right path, from

righteousness and of faithfulness and fellowship with God, you can be restored.

There was a man who became a Christian.

He had become a Christian and as he became a Christian, he had been hearing someone

teaching the truth, preaching the truth, and every day he spent time with that individual.

He wanted to hear more and more and more and more.

but his past caught up with him.

So one day down the road, two individuals came from another city and they were giving the

ability to perform miracles to all these Christians.

And this man saw that they had the ability to pass on the miraculous and he allowed his

old lifestyle to come back.

He allowed his old heart to go once again.

become a part of his life and he sought to purchase the ability to pass on miracles.

For that individual, Peter responded that he needed to repent and pray that the very

thought of his heart might be forgiven him.

That’s exactly what we’re told to do for those who are Christians who depart from the

truth.

They’re told to repent.

And in 1 John chapter 1, God makes it clear that if they will confess their sin to him, he

is faithful and just forgive them of that sin.

and to restore them to a right relationship with a God.

If you have need of that repentance, if you have need of that restoration, if you have

need of the prayers of the church, you can have that today.

But may I make it clear, you can have it any day of the week.

You don’t have to wait till Sunday.

If you have need of the invitation of our Lord, it stands always open and available.

Why not come now as we stand and as we sing?

The Mystery of Jesus’ Life In Song – Ben Shanks – April 12, 2026

In Admonition Podcast, biblical lessons, Christian faith, God's Plan, Gospel, keywords Jesus Christ, sacrifice, temptation, Victory in Jesus by Aaron Cozort

image

Number 176, Lamb of God.

Your holy son no sins to hide, but you have sent him from your side to walk upon this

guilty side and to become the lamb.

uh

Your gift of love they crucified, They laughed and scorned him as he died.

The humble king they named the fraud, And sacrificed the Lamb of God, O Lamb of God!

sweet lamb of God, I love the holy lamb of God.

Oh, watch me in His precious blood, my Jesus Christ, the Lamb of

I should have died, but you have brought me to your side, to be led by your staff and

brawn, and to be called a lamb.

Sweet Lamb of God, I love

O watch me in His precious blood, My Jesus Christ the Lamb of

Please join with me in prayer to our Lord.

Dear God, our Father, we come to you this morning acknowledging that you are the one true

and living God.

And God, we cannot begin to thank you enough for everything that you do for each and every

one of us each and every day.

We are especially mindful of the sacrifice that your son Jesus made when he gave his life

so that we, if we truly believe and faithfully follow your word and are baptized.

and repent of our sins that we have that opportunity to join you one day in heaven and

live with you for eternity.

Lord, we come to you and we want to thank you for those amongst our congregation here that

have had improving health.

We know that is because your hand was involved in that.

And Lord, we’re also mindful of those that are still uh struggling with physical

difficulties and ask that you be with them, especially mindful of Michael Stacks and ask

that you help him to continue to recovery from the surgery that he had.

And we’re also mindful of Wade and we understand, know, Wade is

going through a lot of painful skin grafts and stuff and just ask that you be with him and

comfort him as only you can and have that pain that he endures at each and every one of

those skin grafts be as minimal as possible.

Lord, we ask that you help us to understand the message that’s being brought to us this

morning and the messages that will be brought to us throughout this day as we assemble

here to worship your great name and use that message to further our faith in

you and to always be faithfully following you and putting you first in our lives.

And we ask that you help us to make the songs that we’re singing to you and this entire

worship service ah pleasing in your sight.

Lord as we uh go about our day to day ask that you give us the strength and the courage

that we need especially if we encounter those that are not believers of yours or have not

even heard of you to open their eyes and their hearts and their minds and get them to

understand that you are the one true living God and that they need to dedicate their lives

to you so that everyone has that same opportunity and that is the opportunity to live with

you in heaven for eternity.

Pray all this through your son Jesus name, amen.

Good morning, everyone.

I know we have a few visitors with you.

I want you to be assured I’m not the normal preacher today, but we’re going to have a

little different style of service.

Wanted to take a look at Jesus through a slightly different lens than we normally look at

the gospel message.

What…

I kind of like to do is frame up this as in the style of a caper movie.

Anybody who’s familiar with the caper movie, it’s a movie that is sort of like Ocean’s

Eleven or Tinker Tailor Soldier’s Side.

It’s not always criminals who are the protagonists.

Sometimes it’s spies, sometimes it’s army movies, but there’s something that’s going on

that’s a mystery to the people who the, whether it’s a con or whether it’s a job that’s

being done.

And it’s almost like a mini mystery movie.

And I wanted to take just a few minutes to ah kind of look at the mystery that is revealed

with Jesus’ life and Jesus’ death, the mystery that’s commonly talked about by Paul.

And having the growing up in the background of musical theater, I figured we’d do it as a

musical.

So we’ll be singing songs as we go ah through this frame of what, a little bit of what

this looked like from the world’s perspective.

um So if you look at John,

Chapter One.

In John chapter 1, we have those who finally understood what was going on, because it was

a mystery to the apostles most of the time that they were with Jesus also.

And in John chapter 1, starting in 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 came into being by Him, apart from Him,

nothing came into being that has come into being.

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness did not comprehend it.

So here we see the setup for this story.

We see that Jesus was there at the beginning.

We see that he was actively involved in the process, so much so that he is the actual word

of God.

And we see this word remained a mystery to the world.

It remained a mystery to Satan in the fact that the darkness

could not comprehend it.

We see a setup here that John is delivering that lets us know that the world and the

darkness have no idea what’s coming for them.

They don’t understand God’s plan because they can’t begin to fathom it.

And it’s a plan that has been obvious since the initial promise was delivered to Eve, but

they couldn’t comprehend it at all.

We see back in Genesis chapter one, where John’s referring to here, we see the world.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and

void, and the darkness was all over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was

moving over the surface of the waters.

This is the state that the world was in before the first day of creation.

where God granted light.

Before that it was formless and void.

Interesting words, in Hebrew they rhyme.

It’s tuhu-bahu.

And it literally means, if we were to translate it more directly than formless and void,

it means chaos.

and without any discernible pattern to it.

This is what the world was like.

And what God does over the next six days is he builds a pattern into the world.

Later on when we see these words used, these two who, but who, it is often used in

reference to the wilderness.

Jews to describe what God left to the adversary.

If you look over in Leviticus, chapter 16, chapter 16, you get into the law of atonement.

And the sacrifice for the law of atonement was two animals.

There’s the animal that we call the animal of sacrifice that’s offered to God.

And what we refer to as the scapegoat.

That translation is a little difficult because it literally means when they go through

this, it says, the goat for Yahweh and the goat for Azazel.

Azazel being the demon of the wilderness.

And it is an offering that takes the sin of Satan back to Satan.

That’s what the Israelites were doing with this atonement.

And that goat is ran out of the city into the wild, into the wilderness, into that tohoo,

bahoo.

So as we see over the course of time, God loves the world so much that he keeps making

promises that he’s going to keep.

but that promise is ruined by the people he’s keeping it for.

We see him make a promise to Abraham following Eve.

We see that promise to Abraham delivered in that in him all nations would be blessed.

The Children of Abraham ruined the other two promises.

They didn’t accept that they were his people.

And because of that, they lost the land.

They became a multitude, but they became a multitude living in sin.

Very few of the Israelites remained faithful.

We see that promise further delivered to Isaac, further delivered to Jacob, and in Jacob,

it’s distributed amongst 12 clans.

And those 12 clans have a promise delivered down through Judah.

And through Judah, it’s delivered down to David.

So this promise that the world will be saved is narrowed in its focus over time.

Till finally, the promise is delivered one night at a little town called Bethlehem.

to a virgin named Mary.

who didn’t know what kind of world she was in for after this.

But at the same time that that promise gets more and more focus over time, God is helping

his people learn what service to him means.

And we have between Abraham and Moses, we have an entire tribe of people

who disappear twice into history.

We have the tribe that came from Ishmael.

We have the tribe that came from Esau, who we see records of, but are eventually

destroyed.

We see it being filtered again as they go into the kingdom and they separate into two

kingdoms.

One kingdom that worships idols in the hills.

and one kingdom that still worships in Jerusalem.

We see those kingdoms both taken into exile because they can’t follow the truth.

They can’t follow the law.

And we see the people who return from exile, a much more kind, a much more just people.

A people still filled with failure.

A people who create

the Pharisees who want to create additional laws, who create the Sadducees who don’t

believe in the spirit world, who create the zealots that think God wants them to fight

militarily, and the Essenes who want to live in isolation.

We see a people still flawed, but a people who understand the importance of sending their

children to school.

to learn Hebrew, to memorize the Psalms, to study the law of God.

We see a people much more focused on what it means.

And in this world, we see that God has also been working in the world in the background.

He hasn’t just been refining the promise to a specific woman one day.

He hasn’t just been filtering his people

so that they could have something close to a pure worship of him.

He’s also been manipulating the entire world around.

whether it is the roads of Rome engineered so that easy passage could happen all over

Europe and into Asia, whether it’s Alexander the Great who went through an unbelievable

conquest all the way from Greece into India, where he not just

conquered a people and unified them under trade, he unified the language so that the

language the Bible is written in is that language of Alexander the Great.

It is Greek.

He reframed the entire world to make the way for Jesus one day.

And we see Jesus coming to Mary.

We see the start of the greatest blessing.

So if you’ll turn to 1003, we’ll sing Silent Night.

Silent night

you

Bright, bright.

The infant so tender and mild Sleep in heavenly peace Sleep in heavenly peace Silent night

Holy night, wondrous star, let

With the angels let us sing, Alleluia!

Christ the Savior is born.

Christ the Savior is born.

in this world that Jesus comes into, a world ruled by the Romans, living under constant

threat of being forced to take up whatever luggage the Romans had and walk a mile with

them.

Living in a world where the alternate to trial was punishment and release.

living in a world that they had been subservient to everyone around them for hundreds of

years.

From the time Cyrus sent them back till now, they had always been a people who were

oppressed.

Jesus is born into this world and the reaction to the rumors of his birth is the slaughter

of children by an insecure king.

so that his family had to flee to Egypt.

In this world, Jesus stands out as a 12-year-old boy.

He’s teaching rabbis.

As a young adult, he disappears from history only to reappear when he was about 30 years

old.

and as he reappears.

He takes a small side trick.

And he goes into the wilderness for the weirdest camping trip ever.

He spends 40 days starving.

He spends this time contemplating who he is, what he is, and what he’s here for.

Now I want to start in 1 John chapter 2.

1 John chapter 2, starting in verse 15.

Do not love the world nor the things in the world.

If anyone 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

boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.

And the world is passing away and also its lust, but the one who does the will of God

abides forever.

After day 40, we see

somebody show up.

We see Satan show up at Jesus’ side.

Matthew chapter 4.

This is documented.

And the tempter came to him and said to him, if you are the son of God, command these

stones to become bread.

I want you to think about this from Satan’s perspective.

Is there any sin in Jesus using the power granted by God to turn stones into bread?

saving Logan for?

He’s looking to figure out what the caper is.

He wants to know why Jesus is here and why it’s happening now.

It’s still a mystery to Satan.

He’s trying to figure out what the purpose of this son of man is.

And so he tips something, Jesus was something, that all on its surface appears innocuous.

that on its surface appears to be something innocent.

But Jesus response, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word

that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

So Jesus replies to this temptation with scripture.

And the only thing he reveals to Satan is that he serves the father first.

He doesn’t reveal his power to Satan.

He doesn’t reveal his purpose to Satan.

All he reveals to him is that he’s here to serve the father.

So Satan tries again.

and he took him to the holy city and he had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and he

said to him, if you were the son of God, throw yourself down for as written, he will give

his angels charge concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike

your foot against the stone.

Satan also knows the scripture.

He also knows what prophecies are there, but he doesn’t understand them.

He was trying to figure out who Jesus is.

What are the results if Jesus throws himself off the pinnacle?

It’s only two.

God’s gonna save him or smash.

Satan’s in a win-win situation here, right?

There’s nothing bad that if Jesus does this can come from this.

But once again, Jesus looks at the devil and says to him, on the other hand, it is

written, you shall not put your Lord, the Lord your God to the test.

He continues to reveal nothing to the adversary.

He continues to hide in plain sight something that should be obvious.

Now we live from the perspective of having the mystery revealed, but Satan was trying to

figure out what was happening with Jesus.

And this is very early in his ministry.

Remember, he hasn’t really started.

the tour of Galilee.

This is very early days, right after his baptism.

So we see Jesus.

keeping things close to the sleeve or in the sleeve, whatever that statement is, but

keeping it close to his best.

He’s not revealing to Satan what his purpose is here.

It would be so easy to have that pride of life overtake him here for him to be.

Proudful and say I am who I say I am.

But Jesus doesn’t do that.

So he passes the second test, the pride of life and the lust of the eye.

So now we get to the third test.

And the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the

world in their glory.

And he said him, all these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.

What is the devil looking for here?

He’s concerned about what’s coming.

He’s looking to corrupt the thing that God is doing to bring justice to the world.

If Jesus fell down and worshiped Satan at this point, Satan just won.

He’s already stated that the word out of the mouth of God is the most important thing to

him, that he will not tempt the Lord.

So the only thing, the only device left to Satan is

If I can corrupt him just for this one minute, I’ll give him everything I have.

If I can just corrupt him a little bit.

Satan is in a win-win situation.

And once again, Jesus decides, I don’t want to play.

Be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

The only thing Jesus has revealed in all this is who he serves.

He serves Yahweh.

He hasn’t revealed his purpose.

Satan’s gonna have to figure that out.

He hasn’t revealed anything about God’s plan that hasn’t already been revealed.

But we see in this in first Corinthians chapter two.

We see Paul’s take on this a little later.

In chapter two.

versus six through nine.

Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor

of the rulers, nor of this age who are passing away, but we speak God’s wisdom in a

mystery.

The hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory.

The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood.

For if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Jesus is not only hiding in this temptation to the wilderness what the true method of God

is, but he’s creating the opportunity for it.

He’s got Satan worried.

And I want you to think about where this is happening.

Where does the scapegoat get sent to?

The realm of Satan, the wilderness.

Jesus brought the fight to Satan directly.

He’s in the realm that Satan occupies with this story.

It’s not just that Jesus is out here to meditate.

He’s bringing the fight to Satan.

So God’s wisdom is a mystery.

We’ll see number 470 because in this we saw one of the greatest victories recorded for us.

We see the point where the world changes and Jesus is victorious over Satan.

and all of history pivots on these few years that Jesus has won the earth.

Victory in Jesus.

I heard an old, story, how a changer came from glory.

How he gave his life on Calvary to save a wretch like me.

I heard about his grime.

of His precious blood’s atoning.

Then I repented of my sins and won the victory.

Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever.

He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood.

He plunged me to victory, beneath a cleansing flood.

I heard about a mansion, he has built for me in glory.

And I heard about the steel of gold, beyond the crystal sea.

About the angels singing, and the old redemption story.

And some sweet day I’ll sing up there the song of victory.

Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever.

He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood.

He loved me and I knew Him.

uh

He plunged me to victory, Beneath a cleansing flood.

So from here, we see Jesus deliver the message in parables.

In Mark chapter four,

verse 33 through 34.

And with many such parables, he was speaking the word to them, and they were able to hear

it.

And he did not speak to them without a parable, but he was explaining everything privately

to his own disciples.

Jesus continues to deliver the message in the form of a mystery.

He delivers it in parables.

He delivers it in ways that, if you wanted to understand, you could.

Luckily, Satan didn’t want to understand.

The world didn’t want to understand.

So he was able to create a message of redemption prior to the coming of the kingdom.

Paul frequently speaks of how the mystery was revealed.

And all Satan had to do was watch what was going on to figure it out.

If you watch what Jesus does,

He’s the janitor of Israel.

He spends his time cleaning up their mess.

The Baptism of John.

was a baptism of repentance.

It wasn’t a baptism of redemption, which is what we get with the baptism of Jesus, but as

a baptism of turning away from a life of sin.

He cleansed the temple.

He ran the world out of the temple, which is what had happened there.

Money changers selling things inside the walls of the temple.

Jesus was angry enough at this insult to God.

That is the only physical violence you see in the Bible from him.

He cleansed people of illness.

The torments of the world.

He cast out demons.

taking away the direct interference of Satan in the world.

He delivered the word that would eventually reveal the new covenant that was being

established.

And the thing he was called out for was forgiving sin.

He’s revealing that he has power over everything and can cleanse everything.

So what does Satan do?

He starts figuring out how to get rid of him.

So he tempts those who are in power with their own pride.

And he starts.

to develop.

the dumbest plan possible because it’s exactly what God wants.

But he can’t take it.

He can’t leave Jesus here.

And he can’t leave long enough long.

So.

Here we see Satan start the process of setting up Jesus for a downfall.

And the whole time Satan is working his.

plot.

Jesus is taking care of people.

He’s training the apostles that will one day become his soldiers.

He’s training the disciples that will one day follow him and become his kingdom.

He’s delivering messages and words of love, of understanding, and he’s setting up for a

new kingdom.

And through these words, he’s developing a new life for people.

Number 543, Wonderful Worlds of Light.

Sing them over again to me Wonderful words of love

See wonderful words of life.

Words of life and beauty.

Teach me faith and duty.

Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful.

Beautiful world

Sweetly echo the Gospel call Wonderful words of life Offer pardon and peace to all

Wonderful

Jesus, Holy Savior, sanctified forever.

Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.

Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.

Throughout all of Jesus’ teaching.

all the signs and wonders, all the direct evidence that he was losing, he remained

clueless.

Jesus makes his final entry into Jerusalem as a king.

as a king of peace riding a donkey.

and Satan finally gets his set up.

We see the Last Supper.

Following the Last Supper, Jesus knows the betrayal’s coming.

He’s already talked about it.

eh

But you see a pattern start to happen at this point.

You see a pattern of threes.

How many times did Jesus separate himself for prayer?

Three times.

He woke the apostles up twice and then gave up on the third.

Came and woke them up when he had finished praying.

We see after he’s captured.

We see Peter deny him three times before the clock grows.

We see three trials happening.

You have the trial before the Jews.

Where through a series of three trials there also inside that one trial, you have Jesus

being abjectly rejected by the people who should be the first to serve him.

The leadership, the rabbis, the Sanhedrin.

too high priest reject Jesus outright.

We see him brought before pilot to start the final trial only for pilot to interview him

and be confounded as to what they actually want.

So he sends him to Herod Herod starts the second trial where the only thing here at once

is to see

and be entertained.

That’s what here is looking for.

He wants to see Jesus perform.

And when he doesn’t get what he wants, he mocks him and sends him back to pilot.

This pilot’s the only one that can fulfill what needs to happen.

And pilot washing his hands of the whole situation, doing everything he can to remove

himself from being part of this problem.

turn Jesus over to be destroyed.

devil thinks he won.

Hanging above Jesus’s head was three languages.

There three nails used three hours of darkness.

It started on the third hour.

There were three crosses there with him.

There was the cross of the criminal who repented.

There was the cross of rejection from the other criminal and there was the cross that

brought us redemption.

are also three Marys there.

His friend Mary Magdalene, mother of James and his own mother, which he spends some of the

last words he has available to him to make sure she’s taken care of.

Jesus is winning.

It’s a horrible victory he’s going through.

But he’s winning.

and the devil doesn’t understand yet.

But he will soon.

in about two days time.

Understand what a mistake he made when Jesus comes back and finishes the promise that was

delivered thousands of years ago.

to Adam and to Eve.

to Abraham, to Moses, to Isaac and Jacob and Judah, to David, and even to his own mother

Mary.

This promise that God is going to take care of the world is finally coming to pass.

Number 496.

After this song, we’ll have the Lord’s Supper.

Oh, listen to our wondrous story, counted once among the lost.

Yet one came down from heaven’s glory, saving us at awful cost.

Who saved us from eternal life?

What did He do?

Where is He now?

Is heaven interceding?

Will you surrender to this Savior To accept her humbly bow?

You too shall come to know his favor He will save you, save you now Who saved us from

eternal harm?

did he do?

Where is he now?

He’ll in heaven interceding

Shall we pray for the bread?

Our Lord and our Father, who is above all, who is through all, who is in all, our God who

formed this world, who had a plan from the very beginning, who has strength over the enemy

who has always been here, who has been here since the beginning of creation.

But you, Lord, have been here since before that.

And Lord, we thank you that you had a plan and you sent your son who lived this life on

earth, willing to come down and came and was willing to die for our sins, suffering brutal

agony.

We thank you for the sacrifice of his body, giving of his flesh so that we could be united

with you again one day.

Lord, we…

Bless this bread and thank you for your son once again and give this prayer in his holy

and righteous name.

Amen.

Shall we pray for the cup?

our Lord and our God, we come before thee again, thanking you not only for the flesh that

your Son gave for us, but for the blood.

You created the concept of blood at the beginning, and you taught us as mankind that the

life is in the blood.

And then with that, with the death that your Son faced, you made eternal life available

for us in His blood.

We thank you for your wisdom and the lessons you teach.

And we thank you for the redemption that we have in your son’s blood.

And give this prayer in his holy name, amen.

separate and apart from the Lord’s Supper, we have the opportunity to give to our Lord

again.

Shall we bless that uh opportunity to give?

Lord, we come before you and we thank thee that you have blessed us so richly.

We thank you that you’ve given us every good and every perfect gift and we thank you for

the physical finances with which you bless us.

We thank you for the work we are able to do with it.

We thank you for the blessings that you give for us to enjoy.

And Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to give back to you, our God who has given all.

Lord, we pray for hearts that are wise and are open to the fact that you give us all that

we have and that the purpose of all that we have is to serve you.

But Lord, we love thee and…

Give this prayer in your son’s holy name.

Amen.

Following his return, spent several weeks meeting with the other disciples, appearing as a

mystery on one road, showing up to Thomas to offer him his wounds so that Thomas could

examine them, being with his disciples for a few more days before he departs and ascends

into heaven.

At this point,

The Jewish leaders had rejected God’s plan.

The world and its representative, a pilot, had rejected all responsibility for what had

just happened.

And yet Jesus was willing to offer himself up so that both groups could be redeemed.

whether you were a people who refused God, whether you were a people who refused

responsibility.

Jesus was there to grant redemption to both.

In Acts 2,

We see it begin.

We see the start of this new kingdom.

We see the work of this new army.

to starting in verse 29.

Brethren, I may confidently say to you that regarding the patriarch David, that he both

died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day.

And so, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat

one of his descendants upon the throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of

Christ that he was neither abandoned to herades nor did he suffer decay.

This Jesus, God raised up again, to which we were all witnesses, therefore having been

exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the

Holy Spirit, he has poured forth which you both see and hear.

For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, the Lord said to my

Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thy enemies a footstool for thy feet.

Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and

Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

Here we see the start.

of something wonderful.

We see the gospel being delivered.

We see this message that now has been completed.

This promise that has finally been fulfilled be delivered to the world.

We see Jesus being taught.

not doing the teaching directly anymore, but establishing his army.

It starts this day.

3,000 were baptized this day, and it multiplied in the following days.

We see the beginning of a new type of army.

We see a new type of soldier for this army.

In 2 Timothy chapter 2,

We see a new description of what it means to be a soldier for God.

Therefore you, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus of the things which

you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men

who will also teach others.

Suffer hardship for me as a good soldier for Christ Jesus.

No soldier active in service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so that he

may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.

And also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes

according to the rules.

For the hardworking farmer are to be the first to receive the share of his crop.

Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David according to my gospel,

for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal, but the word of God is not

imprisoned.

Just like the book Tinker Tailor Soldier Steps By, here we have

God’s soldier being identified.

Soldier, athlete, farmer, criminal.

We are a different type of soldier.

We’re a soldier that is supposed to, according to Paul in Ephesians, strapple in the belt

of truth, the breastplate of righteousness.

Cover our feet in the gospel of peace, take the shield of faith, wear the helmet of

salvation, and fight with the sword of the Spirit.

We’re a soldier, not as the Zealots thought, a soldier of assassination, not as the

Pharisees thought, a soldiers of rigorous legal law, not as the Sadducees thought, a

soldier who fought through wealth.

and not as the Essings thought, a monk soldier who went and hid in a tower in the

wilderness.

But we are a soldier who is meant to be out there and be active in spreading the word,

spreading the gospel.

So with that in mind, I feel like this song has been co-opted ah and I want to sing it.

So don’t frame your mind the way we normally sing this song.

Read the words as we go through it.

This is a song about serving in God’s army.

My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

He is straddling out the vintage where the greats are at the store.

He has loosed the fateful lightning and has his terror of all so sore.

His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory,

God is marching on!

Please turn to 943.

We don’t have slides for this one.

oh With that, if there’s anyone here who would like to become part of God’s army, anyone

who needs prayer, anyone who is ready to sign up,

to become part of God’s kingdom.

We have the opportunity this morning.

The opportunity we have is to remember what God was willing to do for us, what Jesus was

willing to sacrifice for us, how much he loves us, and how much he wants us to be with

him.

So with that,

you would like to become part of God’s army or if you need prayers for help, please come

forward as we.