Why Do You Believe What You Believe?

Well, hello for the last time this year. We've had an absolutely delightful Feast of Tabernacles. As previous speakers said, it went by too fast. I don't know whether that's age-related or not. I think having a weekly Sabbath in the middle of the feast makes it seem faster. I was talking to someone and it sailed by. Mr. Imes was introducing the first of two messages and then got chided about having a senior moment.

I'd like to thank the choir for the first message. There were two messages. I don't know about the makeup of each and every one of you, but on a beautiful piece of special music, I'm not sure what I'm listening to most. The words of the music, it's beautiful to listen to both at the same time. There is no more awesome message than the one that was given in the lyrics of that hymn. I was talking to someone before services and I said last year about this time, not calendar-wise, but in the flow of the Holy Days. My wife and I were sitting with the Ericksons in Banff, up on a rise in a glass-fronted restaurant.

All the ministers were there together and watching an absolutely glorious sunset. We were chatting at that time about the possibility of their coming down here for a feast, and we were encouraging. I was hoping they'd have the opportunity that we'd be able to exchange glories. It reminds me of an old saying or an old term that Mr. Armstrong used to use when he talked about things mutually excelling each other. The Canmore feast site is absolutely stunningly beautiful.

This area has been shrouded in clouds, and I hope before you leave you get to see faith, hope, and charity of the other side of the border in all of their glory. In Canmore, the rugged Canadian Rockies sitting above the feast site have their own faith, hope, and charity. Massive, I assume granite, but just massive mountains. Here, three volcanic peaks sharing the same name. Very different in character, but both extremely beautiful. Mr. Erickson, this morning, I was reminded as I was listening to him and looking at my notes.

I was going back in time in my mind to when I pastored Elkhart, Indiana, which is an Amish area, and going through the countryside and watching the Amish with their foursomes of Belgians, usually, horses plowing their fields, and just delighting in watching them work the land.

Mr. Erickson plowed this morning, I'll come back in disc, and hopefully it will sprout and bear fruit. The last great day is limited in what you can say about it, so we will say many of the same things in different ways.

Eleven years ago, I stood behind the same podium on the same stage, and I asked a question. Years ago, I wouldn't have done what I'm doing today, but as I've gotten older, I've realized when a decade to a decade and a half goes by, your audience is a different audience. The kids that were coloring in their coloring books are now moving toward the place of making serious commitments at the front end of their adult life.

The older members who were listening to you have passed and are no longer with us. Everything is in transition. And so I'd like to ask a question once more that I asked 11 years ago from this stage. Why do you believe what you believe about the meaning of this day? It is very easy to get into the rhythm of one's faith.

It is very easy because we're multi-generational to simply slip comfortably into an acceptance of the beliefs of your parents or your grandparents, or as time has gone by in this church, even your great-grandparents. But each of us, to use a biblical term, must be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within us. And we're not able to slipstream on anyone's current, no matter how well intended that may be.

So the ability to know why you believe what you believe about this day should be a part of all of our spiritual arsenals. In 1996, a delegation from the United Church of God was invited to the Seventh-day Adventist World Headquarters in Silver Springs, Maryland. They had also invited a delegation from the Worldwide Church of God. The reason for the two invitations was from their headquarters in Maryland they had watched something take place in the Sabbatarian world that was absolutely unprecedented, and they literally wanted to talk to the parties who were involved and to ask them face to face what had happened and why. Our delegation spent half a day with their information officer. On the following morning, we went to their boardroom and met with the leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

We exchanged niceties, and among those niceties were some memories that I will never forget. One of their leaders said, Herbert W. Armstrong, and this was part of the reason that they gave us for the conversation, that Herbert W. Armstrong had done more for the propagation of the Sabbath than any other human being in the 20th century. I thought, how fascinating! We are talking to the leadership of a denomination that at that time had over 10 million members worldwide, and we felt very proud that we could get 150,000 count worldwide from our feast attendance. And so, as the little guy talking to the big guy, it was impressive to hear them say very candidly and very openly that the leader of your church and your church has done more to make known the Sabbath day than anyone in the entirety of this last century.

We continued to talk, and after the niceties were over and we transitioned into substantive talk, I found it absolutely fascinating to hear the very first question of substance that was asked by the leadership of the Adventist church. The very first question they asked was, would you explain the typology of your holy days?

Now, typology is a two-bit word for simply asking us, would you tell us why you believe the holy day or your holy days mean what you believe they mean? And I thought of all the topics they could ask. What a fascinating introductory question. Would you explain to us why you believe your holy days mean what you believe they mean?

There was a little bit of silence as we looked around to see who would take the lead in the explanation, but as one of us began to speak, I simply listened and I thought to myself, this is going to be a very interesting event to watch.

Because the explanation of the Passover, the days of unleavened bread and Pentecost, these will not stir any controversy. But once we pass Pentecost, we are entering a realm where we go in very, very different directions. And I, as an observer, will enjoy watching the faces of the men who are listening as that typology is explained. It was an interesting exercise. It ranged from fascination to resistance and everything in between.

We're not the only people who have strong feelings about the end of the age.

Now, there are not many that have strong feelings about the end of the age because of the very nature of Christian theology. Everything gets taken care of upfront when you believe in an immortal soul and an immediate departure up or down. In fact, as you study comparative theology, it almost is amusing when you see beliefs based on what I just described plugging in the things that are most important to us because they're afterthoughts. One theology said, well, you have to have the resurrection so that you can unite the body and the soul—this is the immortal soul—so that they can either enjoy together or endure together heaven or hell.

And I thought that sounds rather lame. If one hurts, let it hurt. Why do you have to have two parts?

But these things that are the core and the focus of our faith are for the majority of Christianity afterthoughts. For the few who, like us, see it as significant, their typology is very, very, very different. One major body—and I'll leave names off because names really aren't important—one major body sees the penultimate event of the end of the age being a select group of 144,000 going to heaven and enjoying heaven forever, while everyone else is—I hope it's not a pejorative statement—but everyone else appears to be a second-class citizen, and if there is a future, that future is forever on this earth.

Another one—I will simply read the core of their belief from what was probably the most interesting comparative religion volume of the last century. Leo Rostin, a very well-known editor in the commercial world, put together—and it was marketed for decades—a volume entitled A Guide to Religions of America. And Mr. Rostin did what was unusual for comparative theologies. Rather than putting together his view, he interviewed leading theologians of each faith and simply posed questions. So rather than him trying to restructure someone's belief in his words, he simply said, answer this question for me. And the credits are given at the start of each article. So he asked this one particular faith what they believed about the millennium, and if they believed in a millennium, and they said, well, yes, we do. We believe that the followers of Christ are to be raised or translated into Second Coming. We'll live and reign with Christ a thousand years. However, we believe this reign will take place in heaven, not on earth. The earth will remain a desolate, depopulated wilderness throughout this entire period. At the close of the millennium, the earth will again become a scene of great activity with the resurrection of the wicked, the return of the righteous from heaven, the setting up of the new Jerusalem on earth, and the execution of final judgment upon the unrepentant.

Very different views. A very different look at a period that I believe in our faith is the most significant time in all of human history.

Today, I would like to go through the scriptures that I will give you in a fashion that will help you visualize the key issues that you need to know and need to understand in order to answer why you believe what you believe.

Beginning at age 14, not so much as a part of my own zeal, but because I was a sophomore in Imperial High School in Pasadena and theology or religion classes were a major part of our curriculum, I began to go through the booklets of the Radio Church of God, and reading them had the sense of frustration as you do when you're looking to prove something, and an article is written to explain something. And I said, you know what I need to do is I need to take each of these booklets and ask the question, what are the most powerful and the most succinct and the least debatable scriptures presented in the booklet? And in the back cover, put them in order of importance and power in a descending fashion. I've done that over the years with a number of our booklets as a way simply of identifying where is the evidence that's succinct, that's clear, that's simple, that's straightforward. If you were to begin to explain what we often refer to as the great white throne judgment, this last resurrection of people to have an opportunity, where would you begin? Now, as I said, we'll simply go back over plowed ground and give it a little bit of a disking, but I'd like you to go back to Revelation chapter 5. Sometimes—did I say Revelation 5? I thought it sounded strange in my ears. I want you to go back to Revelation 20. It didn't sound right when it was coming out. Mr. Erickson read this same verse and emphasized one part of it.

I would simply like to emphasize the other part of it.

We lead in from verse 4 that describes the millennium as a time when John was allowed to see thrones, to see people sitting on them, to see judgment committed to them. He saw them as those who had been beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast or his image or had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And then, as Mr. Erickson read, they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.

But notice simply the last sentence. This is the first resurrection.

In numbering, there is no such thing as a first unless there is a second.

You either have an event, and that event does not need to be described as a one or a first. It is an event. But when an event is described as a first, you automatically must at least have a second. Mr. Erickson said to you, the rest of the dead. This is simply like looking at the head and the tail of the same coin. If a part of the dead are raised at that time, then there are other dead to raise. If this is the first resurrection, then there must be a second.

Again, in the spirit of comparative theology, much of Christendom simply goes back to pictures such as the one at the latter part of the Olivet Prophecy, where Christ is not talking about order. He's simply talking about difference.

And he draws this picture of the sheep and the goats and those who are on the right hand and those on the left hand. Those who are told, blessed, enter into my kingdom, and those who are not allowed. Christ here is not going through an academic discussion of, well, how many resurrections are there? What are the orders? He's simply saying, a day will come. And when that day is over, and we look back on it, what will have happened is I will have given every single solitary human being a sentence, either one of approval and entry into my kingdom or of disapproval and elimination from life. But for many, that becomes the be-all end-all. And as a result, when the seventh trumpet blows, there's a resurrection. And that is all there is. There is nothing after it. There will be no second. There will be no third. There will be nothing else. Your belief, your nodding of your head this morning about the comments of the rest of the dead living again when the thousand years are finished. Your sense of agreement with me this afternoon in my comment that if there's a first, there must be a second, provides for you a label. You know, you walk through life with labels, and many of us really don't even know the labels that are on us.

You're a second-chancellor.

It's like the old saying, yesterday I couldn't spell engineer, and today I are one.

Yesterday I didn't know I was a second-chancellor, and today I are one.

You're a second-chancellor.

I'd like to read to you just the introductory and the closing comment of an internet posting from a minister who was not happy about the, quote, doctrine of a second chance.

And he was taking to task a particular denomination, and this is how I'll leave out the part about the denomination, because I want you only to hear how it looks from those who, as I said, read the end of the Olivet prophecy and say, there will be one grand resurrection when Christ returns, everyone will be separated, sheep, goats, and it's finished. This pastor said, the doctrine of a second chance is one of the most alluring and attractive heresies offered to a gullible public.

You've not just been patted on the back.

Stating the majority opinion, the vast majority opinion of Christendom, he says, as we celebrate the last great day with tremendous joy, we sit here in a position that for much of Christendom is heretical. As he said, from the other side of the fence, it is looked at as a very attractive and alluring heresy which gullible people swallow. So gullible people, listen on as we go forward from here.

Why do we take that position? Why do we simply look at that and we chuckle? I don't think many of us are offended at what this pastor said. We simply look, we smile, we chuckle, and say, he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand it. The irony of it all is the place that we go to make our point is a place that Christendom has gone for centuries to distort a point. Matthew 13.

How many, many, many times have you heard or read from radio or television preachers or from articles or from commentaries that Jesus Christ spoke in parables to make clearer his message to a simple populace? By giving stories, by giving an analogy, he could then make clearer his point to simple people who would not understand without these stories. And yet Jesus Christ's disciples, who were looked down upon by the Pharisees as simple men, immediately understood what was going on and asked Jesus Christ after the uttering of his very first parable, why are you hiding things from people? Amazing! 12, as society saw it at that day and time, 12 ignorant men. When the Pharisees looked at the disciples, they looked at them condescendingly. I don't believe they were ignorant men, but you look at the way they were treated by the society of their time, and they were not treated as men who were well educated. And yet, they were sharp enough to realize on number one parable, you're hiding things. And so in verse 10, the disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered and said to them, Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has to him more will be given, and he will have abundance, and whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away from him.

And therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see in hearing, they do not hear nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their heart, and turn so that I should heal them.

The New King James has dumbed down that last verse. As you read translations, it's always good to read more than one translation. The New King James is a good translation, but every once in a while it takes something that is pointed and straight and direct in the Old King James, and just sort of Laodiceanizes it.

The word turn is talking about conversion.

Christ here is talking about the whole conversion process. Seeing, hearing, grasping, internalizing, changing.

I'm going to read the parallel account in Mark 2, you out of the Old King James, because it is even stronger than the one in Matthew. Mark 4, 11, and 12, out of the Old King James. And he said to them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to them that are without, all these things are done in parables, that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

What a phenomenal conundrum.

It's no wonder that Christendom in general makes this verse into something that it isn't, and this section into something that it isn't. What are you going to do with it if you take it at face value? You're having a God who you say is a God of love, a God of mercy, a God—when I grew up in Sunday school as a little child, and we would do memory verse Bs so that we could win a New Testament. The most common quoted verse of all was John 3 16, and I think probably in Sunday schools around the world, the most memorized verse in the entire Bible still to this day is probably John 3 16. How do you reconcile what I just read to you with God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe on Him should not perish but have eternal life?

And this is a Christ that says, I don't want them to see, I don't want them to hear, I don't want them to understand because if they do, then I will have to accept their conversion, and I'll have to forgive them. The faith that I grew up in as a child and its theology cannot reconcile what I just read to you.

You are here celebrating what this means because you don't see it as the death knell of the majority of humanity. You see it in its context. You see it simply as a day for one, another day for another. The rest of the dead live not again.

Or the other half of the verse, this resurrection of the saints is just the first resurrection.

Mr. Erickson went back to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

The apostle Paul did a beautiful job of doing the mathematical. For he said, As an Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order.

That's 1 Corinthians 15, 20 through 23. Every man in his own order.

You and I are here to celebrate this day and believe in all that it pictures because we understand that first requires second, and rest means more to come. And every man in his own order means there has to be more than one in the chain.

Therefore, we can't leave it at the blowing of the seventh trump and a great judgment scene with endless lines of sheep going one way and goats going the other way.

One thing that we need to understand at this particular point as we put down a foundation for why we believe what we believe, the citation of Jesus Christ in Matthew 13, where he cited from Isaiah. There are citations in the Bible, and then there are citations in the Bible.

Some citations are a one-off. It'll be the only time that a particular verse is cited. The only time that a particular verse is cited by someone later. This is core.

This is a core statement. I'll give you just a sampling of the chapters where this statement is laid down as a fundamental for the discussion of what is going on. It's cited, if you look in your margin, from Isaiah. But Isaiah is inspired by God to make this statement three different times, spread across the entire span of that large book. Isaiah 9, Isaiah 29, Isaiah 44. So as his context changes, as his timing changes, as God continues to give more, he brings Isaiah back to the place where he reminds them of this simple situation. They cannot see. They cannot hear. They cannot understand. Jeremiah 5, he says the same thing to Jeremiah. Ezekiel 12, he says the same thing to Ezekiel. Totally apart from what he's saying here in the parables, Christ Himself says this again in John 12 to a different audience in a different setting in different circumstances. He decided again by Paul in Acts 28 at the end of the book of Acts, and again in Romans chapter 11. And if you want to take bits and pieces and segments of this fuller description, they appear several more times in segments rather than as a whole.

This is not just simply Christ making a one-off comment. This is a thread that runs through the prophets, it runs through Acts, and it runs through the epistles. As a result, it is central to our belief. It was central to Christ's teachings. It leaves as it were a second shoe to drop, doesn't it? Well, at least it does for us. Because there are three views out there, and one of them is so foreign that we rarely ever even discuss it. I have been comparing Christendom in general with our belief. There's also a predestinarian approach which simply says, God has already written out the list before you were born as to which direction you go, and it doesn't matter what you do or how you do it or what events occur in your life or what circumstances, you were already predetermined before your birth to either be saved or lost. If that one is far enough out in left field, we don't even bring it into the discussion. But you need to understand when you believe what you believe that there are Christians out there that will read what I read to you and say what that's saying is, before you were ever born, you were already on one track or the other, and there's nothing you can do to change it.

The Apostle Paul spent three entire chapters of the book of Romans lamenting about the state of his people. For me, as a pastor, Romans 11, in fact Romans 9, 10, and 11, are probably the greatest great white throne judgment section in the entirety of the Bible. Because Paul was passionate. You know, Paul was a man who wasn't halfway about anything. The zeal that he exercised to kill Christians was the zeal that he used to convert people to Christianity when God struck him down on the road to Damascus and turned him 180 degrees. He was every bit as zealous and every bit as passionate the new way as he was the old way. But you know what? There wasn't a man who could understand the old way better than he because of that passion. Because he was willing to kill Christians because he felt they tainted the beauty and the purity of his religion. He could also have compassion on people like him once God converted him. And he made statements such as this. I tell you, Romans 9, verse 1, I tell you the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from the Lord, and that I would be the one who cursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

You know what he was saying? He was saying something tantamount to, if I could give up my salvation for my fellow Jews, I'd give up my life for them.

What does it mean? I wish that I myself were accursed for Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen.

I would take damnation if it would save all of them. That's passion. That's tremendous love.

He started out the next chapter. He said, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.

For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. So as he started one chapter, he said, I love my people so much, I'd give my life for them.

He then, in introspection, said, you know, my people have a tremendous zeal for God, but it's without a knowledge of where to go with it.

You know, I hope as we celebrate this day that we share with Paul the same heart that there are few, if any, nations on the face of the earth that have tried as hard to propagate the message of the Bible to the world and the United States and its sister nation, the British people and their commonwealth. They've sent missionaries to every corner of the world. They have written Bibles in every language that you can conceive of.

They have sacrificed lives to try to find ways to bring people, as they understand it, to a knowledge and an acceptance of God before they die and pay a consequence.

Mr. Erickson was alluding to that this morning when he was talking about the individual who died in that, according to theology, you die before you've... He left the point out that I will make. You die before there has been some function of acceptance of God.

And you're done. You're finished.

You and I are part of a land just like Paul's.

We have a history of a nation that has a phenomenal passion for God without knowledge.

I hope that every one of us feels the same way toward them that Paul did toward his people.

I look forward to the day when these individuals who see our beliefs as heretical and unacceptable will one day stand side by side with us with the same joy and the same delight that we have.

We know it's possible because the room is filled with people that are illustrative of the point I just made.

For every first generation person here, you used to be an antagonist to this way of thinking.

As Paul continued, he finally reached the place where he made his great comment in chapter 11, verse 25, and he says, For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that hardening in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. This statement of Christ that I don't intend them to see, I don't intend them to hear, and I don't intend them to perceive, Paul then to the Romans said, you need to understand that that blindness and that deafness and that hard-heartedness is temporary.

Do not be wise in your own opinion that hardening in part has happened to Israel.

Until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

And so all Israel will be saved as it is written.

His statement about all Israel, it's not a statement about universal salvation.

I hope all of you know your religion well enough to know that every man and woman must stand for their own deeds, their own actions, their own commitments, and there will be a right hand and a left hand.

But what he's saying is there is not a generation of Israel, not a time in Israel's history, that will not step up to the plate and have their fair opportunity.

The grumbling, griping, muttering people that walked across Sinai saying, would to God we died in Egypt, will be given their chance.

Those who every man did what was right in his own eyes during the time of the judges will be given their own chance.

Those who filled God's disgust of the place where he sent the ten tribes of Israel into captivity will get their chance.

And the Jews who finally lost their homeland to the Romans when they had finally pushed them too far will get their chance, and every generation after will get their chance.

So as Paul walked through all of this, brethren, he said, I would give anything that I could have them see and believe like I do. But I understand that that hardness is there, and that hardness will stay there until the appointed time that God has set. But the joy of it all is they will have their opportunity.

Mr. Erickson talked about the area of Matthew 10, 11, and 12.

I'd like to take you back there. Matthew 11.

Our understanding of the last period in history, the Great White Throne judgment, the period that is described by this final Holy Day of the Holy Day season, as we've already seen, is defined sometimes by simple key words that leave no wiggle room either direction. The rest of the dead require more people to rise. A first resurrection requires a second. Every man in his own order means somebody comes next and may be next.

The comment that Mr. Erickson read from Matthew 11.

Verse 20 through 24.

The place where he began to upbraid Corazin and Capernaum.

And to both of these cities he made the comment, as he compared them to such places as Tyre and Sidon and Sodom, was it will be more tolerable in the day of judgment.

Those two words, more tolerable, carry with them a common sense understanding that anyone can understand unless, well, unless the prejudices of their religion simply do not allow it.

I found it fascinating as I was reading one of my commentaries on these verses. And you have to understand, I do remember as a young man, Mr. Armstrong, occasionally mentioning a confrontation that he had with a stubborn individual who basically said, you know, you may be right, but that doesn't make any difference.

You can't force me to believe what you have proven. I've chosen what to believe. You've proven me wrong. When you leave, I'll continue believing what I've always believed.

There's the old rhyme, a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

Christendom has its way, and it is not going to change the way no matter how illogical the way. And so, as you and I read about more tolerable, and I remember the early years of my ministry in the Deep South in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, where country people would use the term tolerable in the way that it's actually meant. I was looking at Robertson's word pictures, and they were discussing this term tolerable.

And the following was stated, quote, the papyri used this adjective of a convalescent. People in their vernacular today speak of feeling tolerable. The Galileans were having more privileges than Sodom and Gomorrah had.

I've talked to old people when I was a young man. I asked them how they were doing, and they'd say, well, I'm doing tolerable.

Some people are having some people are going to find the journey to salvation easier than others.

I can understand immediately why Tyre and Sidon would have it easier than Corazin, and why Sodom would have it easier than Capernaum on one count, because Tyre and Sidon and Sodom don't have to eat any crow.

And people don't like the taste of crow. The man who they crucified, they will have to bow down to sincerely, not begrudgingly, but with all their heart and passion as their Lord and Master.

That's not going to be an automatic or easy turnaround.

Pride is a hard thing to swallow.

The commentary that I'll leave nameless in this particular case made the following comment about what I've just read.

Their punishment, the citation is about it, shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the Day of Judgment than for you. Their punishment is in another world will be more mild and moderate. They will not have such severe stings of conscience, nor have reason to make such bitter reflections on themselves as those who have had the advantages of a gospel revelation.

All sins are not alike, nor will the punishment of them be the same.

There will be degrees of torment in hell.

You get 450 degrees, you get 600 degrees.

You know, you and I, with an understanding of what the Holy Days mean, read that verse and do whether we do it audibly or internally, we just sit and laugh at it. We said, what absurdity!

One person gets a worse compartment in hell for eternity than another person. Hell is hell.

These words suppose that the men of Tyre and Sidon will be punished for their many abominable sins committed against the law and light of nature, but that the inhabitants of Corazin and Basseta, having rejected the Messiah and the doctrines of the gospel, against all the evidence of miracles and conviction of their own minds, and probably sinned the sin against the Holy Ghost, as their sins are aggravated, their condemnation will be greater and their punishment the more intolerable. So they're all going to go to hell, and some just burn a little hotter, and some burn a little less hot, and we now have a definition of what is being said, which is utter, complete nonsense.

There is a hopelessness. Ours is full of hope. Because the beauty of it is, when you say it will be more tolerable for one than the other, do you know what you just said? You have just said that it will be tolerable for both of them.

You granted both of them tolerance. You simply gave a higher degree to one than the other.

You have marched back to Paul's statement that I don't want you to be ignorant that Israel will be saved. Corazin? Well, that's a part of Israel. Bessada? That's a part of Israel.

They're hardened. They were hardened then. They're still hardened today, but their time will come.

Every single solitary—well, I better back my bicycle up a little bit here.

In general, all of Christendom understands the need for a process to move someone who does not love God to the place where they love God with all their heart and all their might and all their soul. That process is embedded in Christendom, no matter what their theology, no matter what their beliefs, no matter where they're going, no matter whether they share our vision or they don't share our vision. One thing we could sit at the table and talk about—and there would be a general acceptance across the board—is that there is a process that marks the movement from, I am antagonistic to God to I am a lover of God.

At one point, the Apostle Paul walked through it. He says, and he walked through the progression, how can you do this if this doesn't happen? How can you do this if this doesn't happen? How can you do this if this doesn't happen? And he talked about the whole thing. You have to hear. If you have to hear, somebody has to speak. If somebody speaks, somebody has to be called to do that. And so he walked through a progression from one angle.

Everyone in this room is here in the same fashion. At some time, at some point, at some place, something clicked in your head and made you aware that you were wrong, that you simply were not right with God. And it clicked in such a way that you were willing to act upon it. It wasn't academic.

Again, for first-generation Christians, it may have been a 180-degree turnaround. It may have cost a job. It may have cost a career. It may have cost a marriage. It may have alienated family. It may have done all sorts of things. And yet it was an understanding that this is the way that God has taught, and I am willing to give all to follow it. Mr. Vieira went through a Luke about the statement that you must be willing to love me more than mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife, yea, even your own life.

That kind of passion. But all that passion is a part of a progression. And all that progression is leading somewhere and needs a component that you and I can't provide.

Just as I said to you earlier that the statement of Christ that people are blind, deaf, and hard-hearted was not a one-off comment, but is a thread that goes all the way through the Bible, so another thread at the very polar opposite end also runs all the way through the Bible. Jeremiah 31 verse 31 Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, and the day that I took them out of the land to bring them out of the land of Egypt. He goes on to say in verse 33, And this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days I will put my law in their minds and write it in their hearts.

Absolutely critical.

Ezekiel chapter 18 1 God told Ezekiel, put to rest this statement that the father eats sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. He says, I want you to let them know that everybody will carry his own consequences. He said, a good man that stays good will reap the reward. A bad man that remains bad will reap the consequences. A good man that stops being good will reap consequences, and a bad man who becomes good will reap reward. He said, I want you to understand every permutation.

And when he was finished, he brought them down to the end of chapter 18, and he said in verse 31, cast away from you all transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel?

Mr. Erickson also took you through Ezekiel 37.

I want to take you back to one verse.

The defining verse. The verse that puts all of the vision of the valley of dry bones in the proper context for the meaning of this day. It is verse 14. For he makes a simple statement, I will put my spirit in you, and you shall live. Our passion for this day, brethren, is a passion that is based in these simple things. We know that no one can gain salvation without following the process of repentance, conversion, and reception of the Holy Spirit. We know that the vast majority of all humanity on every continent has never had that opportunity. If somebody were to say to me, knowledgeably, you are a second chance, I would say, no, I'm a first chance. I simply reject no chance theology. I reject that the majority of humanity who have never had the opportunity to profess the name of Jesus Christ are damned for eternity because of something they could not control. That's not one chance. That's no chance. If you understand the fundamentals of theology, and that is that you must, of Christian theology, which is to be saved, you must profess Christ.

Do you realize there has not been a decade in all of American history where the world around us had a population where the majority had even had that chance?

That isn't the God you and I worship.

This day gives them that chance, a chance that no religion, a chance that Christianity itself will not give them. Be proud of your faith. Be proud of your God.

We understand pride in its negative sense. There is a proper pride. Be proud of your God.

Be proud of what He has given you. Be proud of the meaning of this day, because this is the greatest and grandest day in all of human existence.