How God's Grace and God's Law Must Be Understood

This afternoon we want to go through installment number two on a very important topic we opened the door last week to, and that was the subject of God's grace. This is a subject that is very, very important in light of the Scripture, because without this understanding of God's grace and how it applies and how we are to seek the grace of God in order to be able to grow spiritually, in order to find salvation, everything hinges on this subject.

We talked about last time how there is God's grace that is spoken of in the Holy Scriptures, and there is counterfeit grace, false grace that is promised by many individuals, teaching that if you do certain things a certain way, everything is going to be okay. We found out that that's not the case. We found out that God has specific instructions in order to receive His grace. If we do not follow those instructions, God does not kid himself or play some kind of a foolish game where He just says, all right, well I just forgive you anyway.

God will not forgive sin unless it is repented of. This is important. We are all condemned as sinners. We're dead people. There are a lot of people out there that are dead people. They just don't know they're dead, spiritually speaking. And the Bible wants us to understand that God's grace is so precious that it was designed by our Creator before we were ever created, that the Son of God, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was to be slain, ordained to be slain on our behalf from the foundation of the world before human beings ever came on the scene.

This becomes a very important story that is revealed in the pages of the Old Testament as it was prophesied into the future and in the New Testament as we have the fulfillment thereof to give you, to give me, and anyone who will take the time to do this, to know that God is faithful and God is true. Hebrews 11 and verse 6 says that without faith, it is impossible to please God. And whatever that faith is, it's got to be a genuine faith. It can't be a phony faith. There's a lot of that running around today that people say they believe in God.

And God says, all right, do this. And they say, yeah, but they've always got an answer to come back. Well, why they can't do that. God merely gives instruction and He wants to see how we respond. Sometimes we worry too much about why this, why that, and God says, don't worry about the why. I've got that covered. What I'm concerned about is the how. How are you going to respond to what I have said?

Are you going to listen to me or are you going to turn your back on me? I've seen a lot of people down through time who have turned their back on me. I've seen people who professed me and turned their back on me. And I've seen others who had turned their back on me and came to repentance and found me and were blessed. All this is recorded in Scripture for our learning. So we've got case histories. You know, everyone needs to find facts and case histories. God has got this covered. He's got all of this for our learning so that we can't say, well, why didn't you tell me?

Why didn't you show me? It's right there. It's just something we've got to do, our part, our homework. Now, the second aspect of this topic of grace that is misunderstood so heavily today, and of course, let me read again Ephesians here, chapter 2 and verse 8, because these are powerful scriptures that are referred to many times in the evangelical movements. In verse 8, it says, it is for by grace, whatever this grace is, it says that by grace are you as an individual saved.

Now, saved from what? You see, people don't understand that they're under a death penalty. That the wages of sin is death, and we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. The Bible makes that very clear.

So we have to be saved from that death penalty, not the first. The first is appointed unto human beings because of transgression. We pay the first an unfortunate one. We have to go to sleep until it's time for the resurrection. But it's that second death we don't want, because that's the one that terminates life forever. And God has the ability to give life, and He has the ability to take it away. He is a God to be worshipped and a God to be feared in the right way. He is not deceived, and He is not mocked, because He is a consuming fire when He gets angry. So this is the true and loving God that we have. And we look and we see, as He says here through the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, that you are saved through grace. No, it is for grace you are saved through faith.

This is important. The faith is necessary, and it is not of yourself. Whatever this is, it doesn't come from you. You can't gen it up. You can't make it happen. No, it is the gift of God. So God reveals that this is something He has planned for in delivering His sons and daughters to be all human beings made in the image of God. And He says it's not of works or anything you can do, lest any individual, man or woman, should boast. Because you see, if you could do whatever had to be done perfectly, what would you see? What would you discover? You would discover human beings would be proud of themselves. Well, you've got to put me in the kingdom of God. I did it perfectly.

But God reveals, no, no one has ever done it perfectly. But then He goes on to say, keep this in mind, verse 10, for we are His workmanship, male and female, as the potter to the clay. He has molded us, He has shaped us for a very specific purpose, and created in Christ Jesus unto good works. God has many wonderful things He wants us to do and share with Him and the holy angels and Christ Jesus for all eternity. And that's on the drawing board into eternity. We don't even begin to comprehend it. We've got to get there first by the grace of God before we can even begin to see some of these marvelous things God is going to create. And like He says in the Revelation, Behold, I create all things new. We're going to make it absolutely new and beautiful and sinless, no sin whatsoever, no heartaches, no crying, no tears, no war, no suffering, no laying someone you love to rest and having to put a cross in remembrance of them.

Those days will all pass away. But He goes on to say, we are His workmanship, and which God has before ordained. Notice He's already had this in mind. It's ordained that we should walk in them. We should be practicing and living in these attitudes of good works now in this life as a forerunner of the good works yet to come. So here we have a very important aspect of Scripture, the grace of God, as revealed in Scripture. This is the true grace of God, not counterfeit grace that says you're going to escape all the troubles of life, you're going to be raptured into heaven, and everything's going to be fine, and there's nothing you have to do because you see it's all been done for you. Yes, God took care of all the things we can't do, but there is something we have to do. And that's where the second installment, and I've entitled this sermon the following.

How God's grace and God's law must be understood. How God's grace and God's law must be understood.

Because there are individuals today who will tell us that the law of God is done away in Christ, and that we have the law of Christ that we follow now. Well, we're going to have to look at that in light of some of these Scriptures, because again when we take Romans chapter 6 and verse 14 and 15, and we are reading at the tail end of that Scripture, number 15, it says, for we are not under law, but under grace. And people lift that out of context and say, see, there you have it right there. We're all under grace. There's nothing more to do. God did it all.

That's not what the Bible says, folks. That's not what the Bible says at all. God did His part.

He expects you and I to do our part. And today people don't want to do their part. They would like to have the false grace that God did it all, and it's all signed, sealed, and delivered.

Now, what caused us to fall into the trap of being in a death penalty? What did we do that caused that to happen? We broke the divine law of God. We call it the Ten Commandments.

We are all under divine law. And because all of us have sinned, the wages we earn for that sin, Romans 623, and what happened? Or 623, I guess. Romans 3 23 and Romans 6 23, I think it is, Scriptures. And what that basically is telling us is this, that because we could not keep the law of God perfectly, we failed.

Because the law of God must be observed. And what do we find? The Apostle Paul said that the law of God is holy, it is just, it is good. But what's the problem? The problem is we just can't keep it the way it was meant to be kept in the Spirit, let alone the letter.

And because of that, today people have drawn the wrong conclusion that because they are under grace, that God has provided through Jesus Christ's sacrifice, that we are not subject to law. Now, that brings up a whole, whole raft of questions. For example, do most people realize that the Bible talks about many facets of law. There is the divine law, then there was the law of the law of Moses, how it was given in the Constitution to the nation of Israel, and there were all kinds of statutes and things given to them to govern the people at that time. Now, well, here's the problem we run into. And we have to read that carefully when we read the Bible. You and I read the Bible from our culture and our time and our day and age today. The Bible was written to a people from a different culture, a different time, and they understood it many in certain ways different than the way you and I see it. Today, people not knowing who Israel is, not knowing what the plan of God is, not understanding really what the Bible is as the book of Israel, and God first talked to Israel, then he talks to the church, then he talks to the world as the world comes in contact with all of this. It's a plan, it's a purpose being worked out, but most people have never heard this.

They think they have the gospel, and they haven't heard the full gospel of the kingdom of God, and what was involved to provide salvation for all of us as human beings. If God didn't provide salvation for us, we'd be dead forever. That's why he tells us constantly it is his salvation, because you and I can't, we can't escape. But God has provided a way whereby we can't escape, and that's what we want to look at here today, because God has given us his wonderful truth, and that truth helps us to understand as the scripture validates, notice Hosea chapter 8 and verse 12. In the minor prophets, nothing minor about them, they're loaded with powerful prophecies for today, but in Hosea chapter 8 and verse 12, well actually we'll go back up to verse 8 just to hit a few highlights here. This is Hosea chapter 8, and notice verse 8. He says, Israel, you got to know who Israel is. He's not just talking about the nation of Judah today, as we would tend to think of it. He's talking about the house of Israel, as revealed in the Old Testament, and he says Israel is swallowed up. How come suddenly they're caught among the Gentiles? It's like a vessel that has no pleasure. They've gone up to the Assyrians. Well, you read about what happened in the Old Testament about the Assyrians and how God used them to punish Judah when Judah would not listen and learn the lesson of Israel when they went into captivity.

So all these things are written for our learning, and Ephraim has hired lovers. These things have not only historical references, they have prophetic overtones for our day and age today.

Now notice in verse 12, this is critical. He says here, now this is God talking to his people, He says, I have written to him, Ephraim, the lead tribe of the house of Israel, He says, I have written to him the great things of my law. Notice that. The great things, the law of God is great.

It has far-reaching ramifications because it is the divine law that governs the universe and all God has created. It tells us and reveals to us how all parties must worship God, and it teaches us how to love one another. Those are the two hinge pins of this very great divine law. It says, but they were counted as a strange thing. The people didn't see the impact of it back then. They thought other things were more important, and so they went chasing after false gods and false religions. All of that is documented in the scriptures for our learning. Do you remember what happened? The people knew about God, what He did under Moses. Moses departs from the scene. His next helper, Joshua, comes on the scene. Joshua leads the people. They go in. All the marvelous works of God were done and recorded in the book of Joshua. Now Joshua has to say farewell, and he and many of the leaders at that time depart from the scene, and it says, another generation rises up. How fast this can turn. We're seeing how fast this is happening in just two short decades in our country, how our nation has changed. We'll figure a whole generation. It says, that rose up, that knew not the Lord, nor the marvelous works that He had done, because it got lost in the shuffle somewhere.

It wasn't transmitted on to the next generation. They lost sight of the fact who God was, where they came from, how they got the blessings they did, and now why were they in such trouble with the Philistines and all the others where God, they started crying out to God, and God does what? He sends judges to them to help them, because He loves Israel, and He loves helping them. They cry.

He comes to their aid. He delivers them through the judges. Then the people go right back to paganism again. Here comes another cry to God. Here comes another judge. You read of that account in the book of Judges. Many of the things you will read in the book of Judges are what is happening today in our world. It is the final demise of the Israelites in the end time that will lead to Jeremiah's time of trouble, or Jacob's trouble actually, found in the book of Jeremiah. And what we see happening today is going to escalate and continue to escalate, and only those who are close to God, staying close to God, seeing it as God has outlined, are going to get the benefit of it. Now let's take a look and see some very interesting things about this subject of divine law.

Now the teaching of Jesus in the Scripture is called law. This is important to keep in mind.

The teaching of Jesus is called law. For example, I'll give you a quick reference to some of these scriptures. You jut them down for your benefit. 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 21. 1 Corinthians 9, 21. It says about being under law toward Christ. So law and Christ are closely associated. Galatians 6 and verse 2. This one, a lot of times you and I are told that the law of God is done away in the Old Testament, and so we keep the new covenant because and so fulfilled the law of Christ. We keep the law of Christ. We don't keep that Ten Commandments and all. That's all done away.

That's how people are being led today and told. Yet the Scriptures tell you just the opposite.

Doctrine, teaching, and law all tie together. The doctrine of the Scripture, the teaching of Jesus Christ, and the law of God are all tied together and very important in God's plan. In James 1 verse 25, you and I are told something about the law, and what is it? It's called the perfect law of liberty. God's law liberates you when you understand. Now you and I know in actual terms that law cannot be done away in the truest sense. Now you can violate the law on the highway and you'll get a ticket, but those laws still stay in effect. And once you pay, you've been forgiven. Okay, that's taken care of. But you still got to drive according to the law. Why? Otherwise you've got chaos. God is not the author of confusion. He has created law, and law is what we call the law-abiding universe, the law of thermodynamics, the law of this, the law of that. I mean, scientists work with law every day, so you can't do away with the law of God. And yet today, people think they can. They think Jesus did it all. Now in 1 John 3 verse 4 really defines it for us, that sin is, you define this violation, this problem that puts us under the penalty of God's law, and that is called the wages of sin, because to sin, as 1 John 3 verse 5 is, it defines it, as sin is the transgression of the law. What law? God's law. It's what Paul talks about. That's the curse of the law. If you can't keep it perfectly and do it because it is a perfect law, what was God showing Adam and Eve? They couldn't keep the teaching, the instruction, the law, the commandments of God. They couldn't keep it perfectly. They sinned. What is everyone else proving in the course of time? We do. All we do is sin. We can't keep it perfectly. Did Jesus Christ keep it perfectly?

Oh yes. Tempted like us in all ways, and yet without sin, because he did what? He kept his Father's commandments. He let the law of God reign in his very life. And if Jesus Christ lives his life in us, guess what? He's going to be teaching us how to keep the commandments of God, the divine law of God, because he can't teach us anything else. He only can teach us the truth, and that is the truth. So his teaching in the Gospels, the doctrine that is found in the Scripture, and the law of God, the Ten Commandments, they all tie together and show us something very important, that without that instruction, then you and I would have a problem with the subject of grace, because grace requires that all these other elements have got to be there with Jesus Christ living his life in us in order to keep the commandments of God. And since people know they can't keep the commandments of God, that's the argument they throw at you. They say, well, nobody can keep it perfectly. Can Jesus Christ do that? Yes. Can he do it in and through you through the power of the Holy Spirit? Yes. Then what it shows you is that we have many people living a form and ceremony of religion and godliness, but they deny the power thereof, and they would rather believe just the opposite. Know the teaching. In Isaiah chapter 2 verses 1 through 3, Isaiah chapter 2 verses 1 through 3, you and I are reminded of this every year at the Feast of Tabernacles. It says there's coming a time when, guess what, the teaching, the teaching, the instruction that we all need as human beings, it says the teaching is going to go forth from Zion, and it's going to be in the last days. Now what teaching is going to be? Well, according to the scripture, it says it is called the law. The law is going to go out of Zion, and people are going to be taught the teaching of God's law, and they're going to realize, hey, who told me that it was done away? In fact, I had one time a situation years ago. I had, I was visiting with my associate and is visiting this lady. She was being harassed by a Baptist minister at the time who was trying to convince her that the law of God was done away. And she knew that wasn't true based on her research, and she says, I don't know what I'm going to do. He's coming over again. I says, well, have some fun. I says, don't take the offensive. Take the offensive. I says, you've got the Bible to back you. I says, when he comes and he tells you this and tells you that and tells you all about how the law of God has done away in Christ, and you know, we serve the law of Christ, and that all sounds so good, but it's not put together correctly. That's why you have to rightly discern the word of God and put it together in the way that it was meant to be according to Scripture. I says, have fun with him. And when he says that the law has been done away, break into the conversation and say, oh, pastor, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

And of course it had its effect. He's like, well, ma'am, what is it you, what are you thanking me for? She says, you wouldn't believe all these years I have been laboring under the guilt that I was a sinner. And now I find out I'm not a sinner. And he looked kind of shocked and chagrined. He says, well, ma'am, that's not true. The Bible makes it clear that you are a sinner. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And she looked at him and she says, now pastor, you know better than this. Paul also talked about the law of God. He says it was holy, just and good. You said it was done away. And if it's done away, I'm here to tell you that Paul, who was a servant of God, says that where there is no law, there is no transgression. And if it's done away, I haven't done anything. I'm home free. Oh, he was speechless. He didn't know what to say to her. I said, didn't you have some fun? And she says, I sure did. And see, that's the point, brethren. You don't have to be ugly with people. You just have to tell the truth from a positive point of view. Always take the offensive with God's truth. God, you don't have to be defensive. Just tell them the truth. They can't stand against the truth. Out of his own mouth, he's saying it's done away. And yet here he's quoting the scriptures that make it very clear that the law is not done away. And so here again, we are required to obey the law, even in man's world.

If we don't obey the laws of our country in which we live, the cities and state, what do they call us? Lawbreakers. They put us in jail if we do wrong.

What does the law of God do if you break its law, the spiritually violated? You come under its death penalty, folks. And because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, he says, I don't want my kids to die forever. They've got lessons to learn. They're going to carry a lot of heartaches with them, and they're going to witness a lot of things that are going to make them cry.

And they're going to wish it was a lot different, and I wish it could be different for them.

But until they learn their lessons, it's got to go this way. But I will provide the way of escape, and if they listen to me, I will forgive their sins and remember them no more.

But it's predicated on repentance. Join me in Luke chapter 13.

Luke chapter 13.

There was an incident that happened in the days of Jesus, and it was written here to teach us a very important principle, and that is this. Things can happen in life, but what is the ultimate? What is the overview? Most people don't see this, and so it leaves them shocked and chagrined, and they say, where was God in all of this? You know, people will say sometimes an incident will happen, and people will say, I'm so grateful God spared my life. The atheists will turn around and slap you in the face and say, well, where was God about the other people who He didn't save their life, and they died. So much for your God. You see how they attack you? They don't understand the plan.

You are thankful if God spared your life. Why do people die? Because there is sin in the world, and it impacts on people's lives. And so this, again, Jesus dealt with in Luke 13.

He said He heard about this situation where Pilate killed a bunch of these Galileans who were worshiping, mingled their blood with their sacrifices. Then Jesus asked the question, He says, do you think these people were the most rotten and dangerous individuals, the worst sinners, because they suffered these things? Notice the admonition from Jesus, the prophet of God, the Son of God, the prophet who was to come. We were to listen to Him according to Hebrews chapter 1.

In verse 3, He says, no, let me tell you, no, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

Now see, that's an appeal to the higher level of God, because most people don't even repent of what? What have I done? Most people think I'm home clean. Now how do we know that? Because the proverb says there's a way in a man and a woman's life is clean. Everything you do is clean. You don't do bad things, do you? God says we do, but we don't think we do. It's called sins of omission and sometimes sins of commission. We know we shouldn't do it, and yet we've done it.

And God saw it. His eyes are everywhere. You can't hide from Him.

And so what is God showing us? Then He goes on to another example. He says, well, what about this tower of Siloam? How it caved in? There inside this one building, the whole building collapses. Well, we hear about it collapses all the time. And how many people die in these buildings that are collapsing? Earthquake, whatever it might be that brings it to bow. And He says, I tell you, nay, now, double emphasis. He says that except you repent, why do I have to repent? See, these are questions we've got to ask ourselves. You shall all likewise perish. God is saying that down the road, unless repentance comes into one's life, there is no hope for life after death.

Because it is by grace you are saved through faith. And that faith is that you believe in trusting God to save you and resurrect you from the grave, should you be reposed in the grave when Christ returns. No, we are to worship God in truth. He is in John 4, 24. He is a spirit.

And we are told it has to be, as John 17, 17 says, the Word of God is true. Now, Matthew 28, you're familiar with that in verse 18 through 20. Now, when a person is baptized, like we had three individuals baptized here recently, very happy for them, very much so, that after baptism we are to observe all of the commandments. Jesus said, teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you, not just some of them, but all of them. So the teachings of Jesus are very important. The context of 2 John. Turn with me to 2 John, if you will. 2 John, that's before the book of Jude and the book of Revelation.

And in 2 John, it expresses something very important. In verse 9 it says, now whoever transgresses, transgresses what? Well, we're back to the divine law of God, the commandments of God. And abides not in the doctrine of Christ. Okay, now we've got law teaching doctrine, law teaching doctrine. We have to keep those three elements in mind, because they tell us something. It says, if you transgress, transgress what? That's the law of God. And you abide not in the doctrine of Christ, which is what? Keep my commandments. That individual has not God. He that abides in the doctrine, the teaching of Christ, and has both the Father and the Son. And if any come unto you, and had not this doctrine, this teaching, receive them not into your house, and neither say, God be with you. God speak. Because you can't endorse that which God does not endorse. You have to keep a clear picture in your mind of what God is saying. So the context of 2 John indicates that John was using the expression, the doctrine of Christ, to mean the doctrine that Jesus Christ taught in the Gospel account, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That emphasis is very, very important, that you and I are walking in the truth, we live in the truth, and faith is accounted for righteousness. You see, when you're striving to walk in the ways of God, Romans chapter 4 and verse 5 emphasizes that your faith and trust in God, in keeping the Sabbath, the holy days, or anything else that God has revealed to you in the scriptures, it is accounted for you as righteousness. Remember when Abraham believed God and it was what?

Accountant for him as righteousness? Because he put his faith and confidence in God?

This term, accounted, is a bookkeeping term. It means it's being marked down on a ledger, and records are being kept. It's accounted to you through Christ for righteousness, because of ourselves none of us are righteous, no, not one. And anything we try to do that might be righteous is called filthy rags in the eyes of God. So how are we righteous? We're righteous by believing God, putting our faith and trust in what God says to do, and when we do that it is accounted unto us through Christ as righteousness. His righteousness is applied to us, because we're doing what?

Why call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? If we do what he says, it's accounted unto us as righteousness. And that's how God looks at us then. He sees us through Christ as being righteous, because we're striving to keep the law of God according to the commandments given.

As a result, an individual is righteous in God's sight, and this only occurs when one's faith is made perfect by works. How are you? Remember James, the book of James? He says, show me your faith without works, and I'll show you my faith with works. Now what he's saying there is one is a valid faith and the other is a counterfeit faith. It's a false faith. It doesn't go anywhere. If you truly do believe in what God says, you will back it up by what you do. That's how God sees and knows our actions are in harmony with him. We then become very, very, that's the James chapter 2 and verse 26. Faith is made perfect through the works and the things we do.

Now, it's very interesting that we have a situation sometime back that grace, as we understand it, and how we began to observe the things of God, that individuals were trying to say we were trying to save ourselves by the things we were doing.

You keep the Sabbath, and you keep the holy days, and you keep these things. You're trying to save yourselves. Those are works, and that's not going to save you. Works never were meant to save us. We are saved by grace through faith, but works are necessary to validate if you have a genuine, truly godly faith. The person who has no works at all actually does have works, but in the negative ledger, the godly person has faith and backs it up by his actions. So when God says, remember the Sabbath day, what did you and I do? We took him up on that. We came. We remember the Sabbath day. What else is involved in it? Keep it holy. You've got to work to keep it holy, and don't let it degenerate and become just kind of a social club. This is a day of reverence and worship to our God and to Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us. Now we have to understand that to try to keep the law of God perfectly on your own, that's what a legalist is. The Pharisees were the legalists. They were the ones trying to create salvation because we got the law of God.

Well, the law of God is not done away, and I'll just mention this point so you'll always remember.

What is the essence of the new covenant? Is not God writing his laws in our mind and in our heart, not on tables of stone as it was in the Old Testament. He's working from the inside out.

He's creating a clean heart in us and renewing a right spirit like David had to go through.

And then when David experienced that, he cried out and said, show me the joy of your...restore the joy of your salvation. I can't tell you what a joy that is, brethren, to know that we're nothing but a bunch of walking dead people, and by the grace of God, who loved us so much and gave his own son John 3 16, you were familiar with that scripture, that what would God do? He would provide a way of escape in which none of us could ever deliver ourselves from our wayward ways.

When the Bible talks about a person living a wanton lifestyle, that means that they want to live a life with no restrictions, nobody telling them what to do. And God says that's not how life is.

Life is a adhering to law, to instructions in righteousness, and only God is qualified to bring that to our attention. In the Old Testament, under Moses, it was called the administration of death. In the New Testament, in the book of Romans, it's called the administration of the Spirit, where God is working to save the spirit of man in every human being. The flesh is going to be changed one day, all going to be a new model, but the Spirit has to be reworked, reshaped. All of our spirits have been damaged, poisoned, and we haven't realized that until we come to repentance. What Paul is basically saying is that our justification is on the basis of faith rather than deeds of the law. And see, we were being told by some people back years ago that we were trying to save ourselves by the deeds of the law, that keeping the Sabbath was part of the Old Testament law of God, because we all know now the law is done away, don't we? We're all now enlightened.

But I think you can see, based on these scriptures, there's much more here than meets the eye.

And God gives that to us for that reason. Faith comes by hearing, we're told, in Romans 10 and verse 17, and hearing by the Word of God, that book that you have in your possession, called the Holy Word of God. It strengthens your faith. It tells you the plan of God. It tells you why the world is falling apart all around you, so that even though the hurricane is raging, you will be in the center of the hurricane with peace, and you will be calm, knowing, as Jesus said, in your patience possess you your soul. Don't lose it. Don't panic. God is with you. God will sustain you. And however he does that is his business. You don't have to worry beyond that. If we had all the answers to everything, dear brethren, we would be God, and we just don't qualify.

But because of his obedience, Jesus Christ gave his life so that we can be graciously forgiven if we accept the terms that God has outlined by repentance, and then maintain an obedient faith. An obedient faith? Oh, is that what means you have to endure to the end? Yes, wherever that end is, we have to just hang tight, stay with God, and never abandon him, because he's the only one who has our salvation. If you run to somebody else apart from God, that's right. And all those things just keep jumping at you in the Scripture. Why Peter? When Jesus looked at him and he says, Peter, you've seen these people. They walked with me. Now they're running away. Are you going to go too?

He says, Lord, where can we go? You only have the words of eternal life.

I'm a dead man, Lord. If I don't follow what you say, there is no future for me.

And God talks in the Prophet Jeremiah, he says, I have a wonderful future plan for all of you who stay the course with me. That's just exciting to think about, folks. We are under divine law, and we will always be required to submit to the will of God. When Lucifer decided he would no longer submit to the will of God, he stepped outside of that law, and he became the first violator of the universe. And he led other angels into the same terrible course of events.

And God says, every one of those are going to be dealt with. Nothing escapes God. They're just, as we say, in a holding pattern now until God says, now it's time. And God is putting everything into its proper perspective. And with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we realize that we cannot receive the gracious forgiveness if we persist in practicing and violating the law of God.

Now you see how Satan has done a real number on people, because people are well-meaning. They want to obey God. They don't want to go contrary to God, but they haven't been told the plan and purpose of God, because in many cases it's not their time yet. They will have their chance.

But many individuals would like to know, and apparently, according to the scriptures, there's coming a time when God will suddenly blast those two witnesses on the scene, and they will come with such force and such impact that it is finally going to make sense to a lot of people, and there's going to be an innumerable multitude that will cry out to God in repentance, but will have to go through a terrible tribulation to prove that they finally mean business with God.

I pray to God none of us ever have to go through that terrifying time of tribulation yet ahead, but it's not something to fear, just something to ask God every day, may we be accounted worthy by your grace and your tender love and mercy to be spared however you deem fit, Father, from that terrible time. And if it be possible in a place of safety, may we be part of that twinkling of an eye generation to watch the greatest events of human history come to their conclusion in man's world and the birth of the kingdom of God, and you and your part to be installed into office and service of the living God.

Now that's exciting to think about. No wonder Satan wants to blind our eyes. He don't want us thinking about that. He wants us fearful and worrying and everything, and what about God has nothing but good in store for those that love him. But like he says, under the third and fourth generation, I have not forgot those that hate me, under the third and fourth generation. May God grant that the love of God be shed abroad in our hearts, and that we thank God for his Holy Spirit that gives us the power to overcome and the gift of a God-fearing sound mind.