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And Luke chapter 9, this is a huge chapter, and there's so much here, it's hard to cover all this in one sermon, it's really not even possible to cover it all in a sermon. And that's the way it is with most chapters in the book of Luke, this is the longest book in the New Testament, the chapters are pretty long, and they're packed with so many great things, so I'm just going to try to cover as much as I can in the time that we have. But in Luke chapter 9 verse 1 it says, Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases, and He sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. Now this is a foreshadowing of the soul winning that we do today. He starts out by sending out His twelve disciples, and He gives them power over unclean spirits, He gives them the ability to heal the sick, and He sends them out preaching, and He sends them two by two, and we see various examples of this in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and He'll say things to them like, only go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, don't go into the cities of the Gentiles, or into any city of the Samaritans, just go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and He gives them instructions also, such as verse 3, take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor script, neither bread, nor money, neither have two coats of peace. Now this is different than the instruction that He gives at the end of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, when He's sending them out to preach the gospel to the whole world after His resurrection. There's a difference. First of all the difference is that it's expanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It's expanded to go teach all nations. But not only that, later in His ministry, right at the very end, right before He's crucified, He tells them, hey, do you remember how I sent you out, and you didn't bring anything, you didn't bring your money, you didn't bring your wallet, you didn't bring your coat, did you lack anything? And they say, no, we didn't lack anything, we had everything we needed. He says, but now I say unto you, bring those things. And if you don't have a sword, sell your garment and buy one. So what we want to make sure is that when we're reading scripture, we've got to take it in context. So here, this context, this is specifically sending out the disciples during Christ's earthly ministry, and the instructions are a little bit different than the instructions for us when we go soul winning today, simply because of the fact that later in the book, He's going to change those instructions a little bit. So there's a little bit of a difference between what they were told and what we're told. But with that being said, this is still a foreshadowing of soul winning, because they're going out and they're preaching the gospel in all the cities and towns and villages. Now when we go soul winning, we don't have the instruction, hey, don't bring any money with you. Don't bring a wallet with you. Don't bring two coats. Obviously, if we're going to go on some kind of a soul winning expedition, some kind of a missions trip, or even go soul winning, we're going to carry money in our pocket. We're going to have the things that we need to spend the night. We're going to bring a suitcase if it's an overnight trip. But they're still going out. They're preaching the gospel. And not only that, we do not have this authority over devils, nor the ability to cure diseases. Now these apostles were given the literal power to where anybody that they come across who is diseased, they were able to heal that person. And not only that, if they came across someone who is demon possessed, they were able to cast out those devils. And they were amazed by that. When they get back from being sent out, they say to Jesus, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us. I mean, they were blown away by that. They thought that was really cool. But a lot of people misunderstand and they think that every single saved person has these abilities. And that is simply not the case. Jesus is followed by a ton of disciples throughout his ministry. But he only gives this special power to the 12 whom he names apostles. And then later he ordained 70 other that he gives this power to. And those are the apostles. That's why Paul later, when he's defending himself against the Corinthians, he says the signs of an apostle were done among you. Because people were doubting whether Paul was really an apostle. And he's saying, well, I showed you the signs of an apostle. Because he had the ability to heal people and to cast out devils and to do these things that the apostles did. We need to beware of what the Bible talks about in Revelation 2 and 3. Those who say they are apostles and are not. Remember he says you've tried them or tested them who say they are apostles and are not and has found them liars. See according to the apostle Paul, and let's just keep your finger here, let's just flip over to 1 Corinthians 15. I've got to hurry because there's a lot to cover but I want to touch on some important points here about this passage. First Corinthians chapter 15 is where the apostle Paul talks about the resurrection and all the witnesses to the resurrection. And he says in verse 4 of 1 Corinthians 15 that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve, after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James and then of all the apostles. So notice the Bible says that the resurrected Christ was seen of all the apostles. Let me ask you this, is there a person who was an apostle who didn't see the resurrected Christ? No. So every apostle was one who had seen the resurrected Christ. Then it says after that he was seen of James and then of all the apostles, verse 8, and last of all he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time. So notice, Jesus did not appear to other people after he appeared to the apostle Paul. He appeared to all those apostles. He appeared to five hundred brethren. Last of all he appeared to me. And then he says in verse 8 at the end there as of one born out of due time. So basically he's kind of a late comer to being an apostle. He's the last one who was called as an apostle because all of the other apostles were called during Christ's earthly ministry. During his ministry he takes twelve men. He ordains them. He calls them apostles. He sends them out with special power and a special message. Then he takes seventy other also. He ordains them. He sends them out with that power. The difference with the apostle Paul is that he was not ordained, sent out, and given power until after Christ had already risen from the dead. So he was like one born out of due time. Does everybody understand that? So he's last of all seen of Paul as of one born out of due time for I'm the least of the apostles and I'm not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am. Let's go back to Luke chapter 9. So I just want to point that out that we don't have apostles walking the earth today. And when people tell you I had a vision where Jesus came and appeared to me, I don't believe in that. I believe that the last person who saw the resurrected Christ was the apostle Paul. He showed himself to the apostles. He showed himself to Paul. And the next time anybody sees him is when every eye shall see him, when he comes in the clouds. And the first thing I ask people when they say, oh, I saw a vision of Jesus, I always ask, hey, did he have long hair? Oh, yeah. He had long hair. I'd say, well, there you go. That proves that it wasn't Jesus you were looking at because it's a shame for a man to have long hair. You know what's so funny about this thing of Christ having long hair? It's so bizarre. It literally says in 1 Corinthians 11 that the reason why the man should not have long hair is because he's made in the image of God. So why would it say, don't have long hair, man, because you're made in the image of God. And then Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, the image of the invisible God is going to have long hair? That is the most ridiculous teaching that there is. Nonsense. What's the evidence? Some painting from 1,500 years or 1,400 years after Christ lived. Oh, the Shroud of Turin or whatever crazy reasons why people believe that Jesus had long hair. It certainly didn't come from the Bible. That teaching is super unbiblical. So these are the apostles. They're being sent out and they're given a special power. We don't have the power to just heal anyone or cast on any devil. Now we can, as believers, pray unto the Lord for people to be healed. I do believe that we should pray over people that they would be healed. We could pray for people that a devil could be cast out, but the difference with the apostles was that, I mean, just the shadow of Peter falling on them and they're being healed. I mean, they're just healing everybody that they come into contact with. That's different than just praying for someone to be healed. We do believe in God's miraculous healing power, but we don't have that apostolic power where we could just line them up and heal them. Not going to happen. We do believe in James Chapter 5 where the Bible says that if someone's sick, they can call for the elders of the church to pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. Not recently, in fact, just weeks ago, because that is something we believe in. Now, don't come to me when you have a cold. The implication, if you read that passage, is someone's literally on their deathbed. Someone's severely ill because it talks about the Lord raising them up and how they have to call the elders of the church because they're that sick. These are people with severe illnesses, life-threatening type illnesses. That's where that is called for, to anoint them with oil and pray over them, and for God heals them. Now, obviously, we should pray for every cold, but we don't necessarily need to bring the elders of the church with the anointing oil over the flu. We would pray for them, of course, that God could heal them. Don't get caught up in this charismatic movement of the healing lines, and the haka la gondola, and cast out the devils, and all this kind of stuff, and the devil of alcoholism, and the devil of pornography, and all these weird ideas. That's a lot of just showmanship and just televangelists trying to get money. It's fake. It's a fraud. Benny Hinn's a fraud. It's all theatrics. It's not real. They're charlatans. The Bible says in verse 4, and whatsoever how she enter into, verse 4, there abide and thence depart, and whosoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. They departed and went through the towns preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. When he sends them out to do this preaching, they don't bring anything with them. They're told, don't bring a wallet, don't bring any money, don't bring two coats. They were actually just relying upon God to provide them with their needs that they would just run into people who would help them. When they would go into a town, they would just spend the night at whoever's house would take them in. Whoever's serving lunch, whoever's serving dinner that would show them hospitality, they were just going by faith and just relying on people to help them all along the way. God miraculously just provided everything that they needed. That's why they said we had lack of nothing, Lord, when we went out and did that. That's not saying that we should go out on that program of, hey, we're not going to bring any money, we're going to go up to that Indian reservation, no food, no money, no change of clothes, we're just going to rely on everyone's, no, that's not what the Bible teaches. So we got to take things in context because later on, he gives them the opposite instruction. Look at verse number seven. Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him. You say, what's the word tetrarch mean? Well, have you ever played that game Tetris as a kid? It had to do with blocks of four that are connected. So the tetra part of that is four and arch is someone who's ruling like a monarch, right? Is when one person, mono, one guy is ruling arch, okay? So the tetrarch means that there are four rulers and he's one of them, okay? So he's one of some group of four guys, not a monarchy but a tetrarchy here. And it says Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him and he was perplexed because that it was said of some that John was risen from the dead and of some that Elias had appeared and of others that one of the old prophets was risen again. And Herod said, John, have I beheaded, but who is this of whom I hear such things? And he desired to see him. Now notice throughout scripture, Jesus is constantly being compared to John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the other prophets. Look down at verse 18 of this chapter. And it came to pass as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him and he asked them saying, whom say the people that I am? They answering said, John the Baptist, but some say Elias or Elijah and others say that one of the old prophets is risen again. He said unto them, but whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, the Christ of God. And he straightly charged them and command them to tell no man that thing. Now this is another huge difference between our soul winning and what they're doing here because they're being specifically told not to tell people that Jesus is the Christ of God. Now that's different. Obviously we're supposed to just preach the whole Bible and tell it on the housetops and make the Gospel super clear that Jesus is the Son of God and about his death, burial and resurrection and how to be saved. But you have to understand that during Christ's ministry, he did not reveal everything openly. He didn't reveal to all people that he was the Christ. He didn't reveal to all people that he was the Son of God. In fact, throughout Christ's earthly ministry, sometimes people who are demon possessed would be falling at his feet and saying, you're the Son of God. You're the Messiah. And he had to shut them up because he didn't want people to know that right away because he had a certain plan and a certain timeline that he was trying to fulfill and his time was not yet come. But then he gets to a point where he begins to openly reveal that. And after his death, burial and resurrection, then of course the apostles are preaching that like crazy. But at this point, he's telling them, don't tell anybody that Jesus is the Christ of God. So that's a big difference. And here's where a lot of people get mixed up when they're reading the Bible. When Jesus Christ is preaching in the four gospels, a lot of times he's preaching to crowds and he speaks to them in parables and dark sayings. And then when he talks to his disciples, especially the 12, he speaks to them a lot more clearly. He gives them just a very clear explanation. And they even asked him, they said, well, why do you speak so clearly to us, but you speak to them in parables? And he says, I'm doing that, that seeing they might see not and hearing they might hear not and not understand. So he said, blessed are your eyes for they see, blessed are your ears for they hear. So he's saying, you guys are privileged to know these things. He said unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. So that's something that we need to grasp when we're studying the Bible, is that some of the things that Jesus Christ taught publicly to great crowds are hard to understand. They're cryptic, they're dark sayings, they're parables, and the other things that he tells the disciples are pretty clear and pretty easy to understand. You say, why is that important? Because what people will often do is they'll take the parables of Jesus or the dark sayings of Jesus and they'll twist them. Why? Because they're easier to twist than a clear statement. See, when the Bible says something that's really clear, it's going to be hard for people to twist it. But when Jesus speaks in parables and dark sayings, that's going to be pretty easy to twist. Why? You can make a parable say whatever you want it to say. You can just change the interpretation. And that's why the Bible says, as a thorn goeth into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools. Because parables can be abused and twisted. And so false prophets will focus in on unclear scriptures where Jesus is teaching to the crowds and he's not being explicit. And then they'll just ignore all the really clear teachings that are just super simple to understand, especially in regard to salvation. When it comes to salvation, there's a lot of clear scripture on salvation in the New Testament. God doesn't leave us to wonder what it's going to take to be saved. So we've got all kinds of clear scripture like, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house. I mean, what could be clearer? You also have Jesus giving a really clear teaching to Nicodemus when he says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That's pretty hard to twist. You're going to have a hard time twisting John 3.16. You're going to have a hard time twisting, for by grace are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. How do you get any clearer than not of works? How do you get any clearer than, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness, even as David also described the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. I mean, how many clear verses? For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. It says that he will never leave us or forsake us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. We've been passed from death unto life. We shall not come into condemnation. We've been sealed with the Holy Ghost unto the day of redemption. He that hath begun a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. I mean, it's just super clear, scripture after scripture after scripture, that just says verily verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. Just super clear, scripture after scripture after scripture after scripture. But then people will take more obscure, dark sayings, parables, and things, and try to use those to just ignore all that clear scripture to teach a workspace salvation. Now there's an example of that in this chapter, a scripture that a lot of people use to try to teach that workspace salvation. And it's found, let me find my place here, in verse number, there we go, 23, thank you. I got a little bit mixed up there. And he said to them all, look at verse 23, and remember, he just finished saying in 21, hey, don't tell anybody that I'm the Christ. So he's not in a super clear mode right now, teaching the crowds, is he? He's not even revealing that gem. Okay, so it says right here, and he said to them all, he said to them all, if any man will come after me. So is this just something the 12 that are already following him, they've already, no, these are people, hey, if anybody wants to come after me, so he's saying to a crowd, he's saying to them all, this is to the masses, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake the same shall save it, for what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away? And whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory and in his father's and of the holy angels. So people will take this scripture and they'll try to teach a salvation that you have to work on every day. You got to do this every single day. You got to take up the cross daily and follow him in order to be saved because I mean, hey, what's a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? So they'll try to use this to teach a daily salvation. Is that what the rest of the Bible clearly teaches? No. The Bible is clear that we're born again, not born again and again and again and again and again, but born again. We're the children of God. We can't lose our salvation. It's everlasting life. It's eternal life. He'll never cast us out. He'll never leave us. He'll never forsake us. I mean, I'm not going to go on and on with that. You know the hundreds of scriptures we could turn to to teach salvation by faith and you know, we're reconciled by the blood of his cross, but there's a false doctrine out there that says it's your cross that saves you. That's basically what they're saying. That's what they're saying because look, if you're going to, now they're not going to say it like that, but that's what they're saying. If they tell you, oh, you got to take up the cross daily to be saved, then what they're saying is you're saved by your cross. You have to take up your cross daily and follow him. That's you saving yourself. So the question is, do we save ourselves or does Jesus save us? Is it the blood of his cross that makes reconciliation for us, Colossians 1.20, or is it our cross that gets us into heaven? Okay, that's what they're saying because here in this verse, it says whosoever will save his life shall lose it, verse 24, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. If that's referring to heaven and hell, salvation, then you're basically saying you save yourself by taking up your cross every single day. That interpretation is a false doctrine because it would contradict the whole message of the gospel, the whole message of the New Testament if it's all about working your way to heaven. If you have to work your way to heaven, then why did Jesus even die on the cross? I mean, if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Look, if we have to take up our own cross every day to make it into heaven, then he didn't have to die on the cross. No, taking up our cross daily is something that we do to please God, to do works for God, to follow in his footsteps, to earn rewards, and I'm going to get to that in a moment, but when it comes to heaven and hell, it's faith alone. It's one time that we're saved, okay? Now when I read this and I heard that bogus interpretation, it reminded me of in our film Marching to Zion that we made, where you have this Christ-rejecting Rabbi Abrami, remember the old guy? He basically taught this doctrine, you'd expect to hear this from a Christ-rejecting Jew, but there are so-called Christians who teach the same doctrine. This is what he said, because I can quote the movie, by the way, there's no such thing as salvation that changes a man. You do what is right and you save yourself at every moment. Remember that? He said you save, that's what they're saying, that you save yourself every day by doing what's right. That's their interpretation. Yeah, there's no such thing as salvation that changes, you know, you do what is right and you save yourself at every moment. God is not in heaven. God is not in heaven. And someone tells me that someone died and went to heaven. What do they know about the souls of man going, this is for children! You have to tell them this way. Oh, where's grandpa? He didn't come home today. Oh, he's in heaven. What about hell? Can you guys play your hell? I've been in hell. Alright, that's enough. Alright, you've got to watch the movie to get the rest. I told you I had the movie memorized. I can keep going. But the point is that, you know, that's the talk of an unbeliever. You save yourself at every moment. That's a guy who hates Christ anyway. You know, this is Paul's doing positive! There's another chapter in the Gospel of John where he says that the Jews are the sons of the devil. He hates the words of Christ. He hates the Apostle Paul. He hates the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can see the anger, you know. That's what he was preaching! The point is that, you know, is that the doctrine that people are going to get from this? I mean, that's crazy. It's crazy just to throw out the rest of the Bible. Now understanding that these are parables and dark sayings and sometimes things that Jesus says have double meanings and they're very deep and very profound because they're that way on purpose at that time. And then the doctrines get more clear when we get into Acts and Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians. It gets really clear. And when we see Jesus in the house with his disciples, the doctrines get really clear again too. But it's when he's speaking to the crowds that it gets more obscure. But you know, we like the fact that the Bible's deep. We don't want everything in the Bible to be super clear and super easy to understand because then eventually we're going to know everything and be bored. You know, the Bible is really deep. We can keep learning. And so, you know, we just need to be able to differentiate and rightly divide the word of truth, that which is clear and that which is a little bit deeper and takes a little bit more understanding. There's another perfect example of this literally in the next verse. And I'm going to get to this and what all this means. But look at verse 26. I'm sorry, verse 27. But I tell you of a truth. There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God. Now that right there is a tricky thing that Jesus is saying. Why is that tricky? Because of the fact, keep your finger here and go over to Matthew 16. And in fact, we're going to go back and forth between Matthew 16 and Luke 9 for a moment. This is a tricky thing that Jesus is doing here. Because if you were to just read that and take it at face value, you're going to get the wrong interpretation. Now here's a rule of thumb when you're studying the Bible. We should always start out. If we read the Bible, we should start out assuming that the Bible just means what it explicitly says. I mean, if the Bible tells us something, that's always a good starting point is just to take it for what it says. But sometimes you're going to find out that when you read the Bible, not everything means exactly what it seems to mean on the surface. Some things in the Bible are deeper and more cryptic and take more study. Now we should always as a starting point assume that it just means what it says and says what it means. But sometimes we'll know that it doesn't. And how will we know? Because we compare scripture with scripture. Like here's a perfect example of this. If we were to just take verse 26, I'm sorry, verse 28 of chapter 16, everybody there in Matthew 16, 28. If we were to just read this verse, let's say we've never read the Bible before, right? We're on a desert island. Somebody gives us the Bible. We started in Matthew chapter 1. We read Matthew 16 and we get to verse 28 and it says, verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. What's just the most obvious interpretation of that just on face value is that the second coming of Christ is going to happen in their lifetime, isn't it? I mean if we just read that and just took it for what it said, face value, we're going to walk away thinking, oh, the second coming of Christ is in their lifetime. But here's the thing, we know that's not the case because there are plenty of other New Testament scriptures that explain to us how a day is like a thousand years and how in the end times people are going to be saying, where is the promise of his coming? Well, look, if it all happened in their lifetime, people wouldn't be saying that, would they? They're saying it because thousands of years have gone by and that's predicted that thousands of years would go by in 2 Peter chapter 3 and other places where they talk about it as being further out. So you have to get the context here. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. I believe that this is intentionally misleading, that hearing they would hear not, seeing they would perceive not, neither understand. Because look at the next verse. He said, there are some standing here. Now, look, if you just took that at face value, you know what you'd probably think? Well, he's talking about the young people, right? Like if I said, hey, there are some people here that are not going to taste death till the second coming of Christ, you're going to think to yourself, you know, brother Gregory Davis probably isn't one of them. You know what I mean? You're going to think to yourself that he's referring to a young, he's not offended by that. You know, you're going to think to yourself, if only some people are still going to be around, you know what you're going to think? It's little, it's children, it's the youngest people, they're going to be the ones, right? Because it's only some of them. That's what you'd think, right? But is that what he really meant? That is not what he meant, because look at the next verse. And after six days, Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And there, behold, there appeared unto him Moses and Elias, talk with him. Look, what he actually meant when he said, hey, there are some people standing here that are not going to taste of death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. What he meant is that six days from now, I'm going to take some of the people that are standing here, and I'm going to show them a vision of me coming in my kingdom. That's what it says in the next, that's why in the next verse, so after six days, he takes three people, which is some, and he shows them that. But atheists will look at this and say, well, the Bible said it was going to happen in their lifetime. No, it doesn't, because you didn't read the next verse, where he shows them the Son of Man coming in his kingdom with Moses and Elijah, probably the two witnesses of revelation. So it's him in his glorified form, it's a vision of him coming in his kingdom. Does everybody see that? So right before this, he says this other tricky thing, verse 24, then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, whosoever will lose his life, for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then shall he reward every man according to his works. Barely I stand to you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. This is a scripture that's going to require some in-depth study and things because it's not what meets the eye, just like his statement in verse 28 is not what immediately meets the eye because he's talking to the crowds in a cryptic way. That's why. Now this is all I'm going to have time to finish. I want to put some time into this scripture. So once I'm done with this, we'll close and go home. But I want to cover this scripture and we're going to go back and forth for the rest of the sermon here between Luke 9 and Matthew 16 here and look at this. Now first of all I want to point out something really interesting. Chapter 17 verse 1 there says after six days he takes them up into the mount. Look back at Luke chapter 9. I love this. It's pretty interesting. Look at Luke chapter 9. It says in verse 27 but I tell you of a truth there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God and it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings he took Peter and John and James. So one of them says after six days and the other one says about eight. Now let me ask this. Does it say eight days later? It says what? About eight. Now let me ask this. Is after six about eight? The number comes after six. And what's about eight? Seven, eight, nine, right? Plus you have to understand that when Jesus went up to the mount of transfiguration it was an overnight deal. Because in chapter 9 talk about how the next day they come down from the mount. That's why they're heavy with sleep. That's why Paul or that's why Peter wants to set up a tent. He says let's make three tabernacles. You know let's just make this a camping trip. You know one for you, one for Elijah, one for Moses. So the point is that it's an overnighter. So there's a couple days involved. It's after six. It's about eight. I love it when the Bible rounds numbers and estimates anyway. You know there are about 3,000 people baptized at Pentecost. Not exactly. There's about 3,000. So different times in the Bible estimates are used. Why? The Bible does not contradict itself. If it contradicted itself it would not be perfect. It would not be the word of God. But the Bible is both written by human beings and written by God. Both. It's both human and divine. That's what's so interesting about it. That's why when you read books that are written by John and we can see that John's books read differently than Paul's books or Peter's books. You see their personality but yet it's all written by God. It's all God's perfect word. It's not their private interpretation. So just as Jesus Christ is both human and divine. He's both God and man. The Bible is both God written and man written. Now it's perfect. It's without error. But it's still human. That's why we get Luke's perspective of yeah it was about eight days later. It was after six days. One guy has a more precise figure. The other guy rounds it off to about eight. But they're both true. So that's the way the Bible works. Everything in the Bible is always true but there's a human element that comes through of different people's perspective. So the Bible is an amazing book. So let's delve into this statement because if we compare scripture with scripture we can see what he's saying. Let's start with Luke and then we're going to come back to Matthew 16. Luke chapter 9 says in verse 23 and he said to them all if any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Now this makes perfect sense because of the fact that later in the scripture Luke 9 62 says Jesus said unto him no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. So he ends the chapter by saying look you don't have time to bury your father. Come follow me. You know hey I don't know the foxes have holes the birds of the air have nests the son of man have not where to lay his head. Hey if you put your hand to the plow don't look back. What's he asking them to do? He's asking people to forsake everything and follow him. So it makes sense for him to say if any man will come after me if anybody wants to follow me you've got to deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow me. What does it mean to deny self? It means there's things that you want to do. Like you want to go bid them farewell at your household. You want to go do this and that and the other and have this career or have this entertainment or whatever. There are things that you want to do. You want to sleep in a hotel every night. And Jesus is saying sometimes we're going to sleep outside. Sometimes we don't even set up a tabernacle. We don't even use a tent all the time. OK. So the point is denying self means that yourself says I want X and you say no. I want to eat right now. No. I mean think about it. If you were on a diet what would denying self mean? Hey I think I'll have dessert. No. Right? So let's say you're trying to get your finances in order and there's that impulse by you have to deny self. So when it comes to following Christ maybe there's some sin that you want to commit in the flesh and you want to deny self, follow Christ. Or maybe you don't feel like reading your Bible. You feel like doing something else. You deny self and you read the Bible anyway. Denying means to tell it no. So your flesh, you personally, carnally, you want something and you deny self and you follow Christ instead. Does everybody understand that? So if anybody wants to follow Christ they're going to have to deny self meaning you can't just give yourself everything that you want and follow Christ. You're going to make sacrifices to follow Christ. If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Now Jesus took up his cross to save the whole world and when he did that he said to the Father, not my will but thine be done. So what's he doing? He's denying self. He's denying self and doing the Father's will. So if anybody will come after him they've got to deny self, take up their cross, not literally but figuratively speaking we take up our own cross. What's our cross? Whatever cup that God gives us to drink that we don't want to drink. And Jesus said man if this cup may be passed from me, nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt, sometimes there are cups that we don't want to drink and we want that cup to pass from us but at the end of the day we have to deny self and drink what God gives us to drink in life. Whatever he sends our way we have to accept it. So if any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Makes sense. The next verse, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it but whosoever will lose his life for my sake the same shall save it for what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away. Now the problem here is when people try to apply this to salvation. That's the problem. Because if we apply this to heaven and hell type salvation then basically what you're teaching at that point is you save your, you know, then go have a Brahmi tell you how to get to, oh yeah, nobody goes to heaven, never mind. Not even God's in heaven according to, a Jewish rabbi told us that God's not even in heaven. Unbelievable isn't it? But do we save ourselves daily, no. But if you're going to apply this to heaven and hell that's what you're teaching at that point. Okay. So what he says here, whosoever will save his life shall lose it, whosoever will lose his life for my sake the same shall save it for what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away. Let's get some definitions here. First of all, let's compare this with Matthew 16. Okay. We're going to compare scripture with scripture because it's worded a little different in Matthew 16. Verse 25 of Matthew 16. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul. For the son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels and shall give and shall reward and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Okay. So let me start out by pointing out that when it says here in verse 26, what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul, you see that? That's stated in Luke chapter 9 as losing himself. Okay. So in Matthew 16 it says lose his own soul and Luke 9 it says lose himself. Now why is that? Because our soul is often just referring to ourselves. Like for example, when Isaac says to Esau, hey, bring me the venison that my soul may bless thee. What's he saying? I'm going to bless you. Now if we actually look up the word soul throughout the Old Testament, I don't have time to look at all the instances, but if you look up the word soul throughout the Old Testament, often it's just referring to a person as a soul. Okay. The first time soul is used it talks about God breathing into the nostrils of Adam, the breath of life, and then it says man became a living soul. The second time that the word soul is used is for example Genesis 12 13 it says say I pray thee thou art my sister, this is Abraham talking to Sarah. Say I pray thee thou art my sister that it may be well with me for thy sake and my soul shall live because of thee. What's he saying? I'm going to live. He's not saying my soul's going to get to heaven if you lie and say you're my sister. He's saying my soul's going to live meaning I'm going to live. Okay. Because the soul is the self. And then when Abraham goes to the promised land he takes with him the souls that he got in Heron. Those are just people that joined his entourage, the souls. Okay. Another mention real early on Genesis 19 20 says behold now this city is near to flee unto and it is a little one. Oh, let me escape thither. Is it not a little one? This is Lot. And he says and my soul shall live. What's he saying? I'm going to live. So there's a ton of I could show you scores of examples I'm not going to for sake of time But the word soul throughout the Bible is just referring to the self or that person. Like even when it says the soul that sinneth it shall die. It's referring to the fact you don't get put to death for what your parents did or for what your kids did. The soul that sinned, they're the one who dies, right, if you get the context. So if by comparing scripture with scripture we see that losing your own soul is equivalent to what? Losing your self. Look down at Luke chapter 9 there. And it says, verse 24, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged if he gained the whole world and lose himself or be cast away? This is not talking about whether somebody goes to heaven or hell or not. That's not what this is about. What this is actually talking about is that if a person lives a life to gratify self, they don't deny self, they don't take up the cross, and they end up losing self. They lose themself. Whereas if they lose their life, meaning their ambitions, the things that they want to do with their life, and they follow Christ, they end up finding their life or saving their life from being lost. What is this talking about? It's talking about the fact that if you don't live a life following Christ, you're living a worthless existence, and you're not being true to who you're really supposed to be. And look, the world loves to quote this verse about things that have nothing to do with Jesus. Do you think worldly people just quote this? Are you the only one, Charles? I mean, this is something that, you know, hey, what are we profiting if we gain the whole world and lose our soul? Have you ever heard people quote this in a totally non-Christian context? Put up your hand if you've heard it. All right, where were you guys like 20 seconds ago? But anyway, I was literally yesterday reading a book about running, okay? I was reading a book about running, and there was an autobiography, and this guy is not a Christian at all. And he said, and he's talking about like maintaining his integrity as a runner, you know, and doing the races that he wants to do, you know, and not giving in to the commercialization. And he says, you know, I really understood what Jesus said when he said, what does a man profit if he gains the whole world but he loses his soul? You know, I don't want to lose my soul here. I want to be true to my principles and have integrity. You'll actually hear people use that a lot. I think Bob Marley talked about it. Yeah, all right. I got a witness. What's that? You heard it from Bob Marley. All right. Thanks, Mon. So the point is like people use this statement all the time of don't lose your soul. They'll even say like, you know, don't go into business and just lose your soul where it just becomes all about money to you, and you don't really care about having integrity or being true to the principles that you believe in. So I'm pointing that out to say that this is being used in a figurative sense when he says, you know, what does a man profit if he gains the whole world and loses himself or loses his soul or is cast away? This is like when Paul said, I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest having preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. What's a castaway? A throwaway. Now look, obviously, we don't believe that running is the meaning of life. We don't believe that smoking pot is the meaning of life or that reggae music is the meaning of life. Okay, these people are misguided. They think that their soul or their purpose or who they are is to be this runner or musician or athlete or artist. We know that the purpose of our lives is to bring honor and glory to Jesus Christ. And we know that the moment that we believed in Jesus Christ, God created a brand new creature and that the new Steven Anderson, the inward man, the spiritual man, the true, real Steven Anderson was created for one thing. You know what I was created for? I was created for God's pleasure. I was created to do His will to bring Him honor and glory, not to please myself. I was created for Him. I exist for Him. That's who I am. And if I go out trying to seek meaning in my life outside of that and I say, I'm not willing to give up my life, I want to seek to save my life, I'm not going to put my life at risk. No, I want to have my career, my ambition. This is who I am. I'm actually losing my real purpose in life. I'm actually losing myself at that point. I'm losing my life. I don't believe that losing your life here means death because he says if you lose your life for Christ's sake, you find it. Why? Because you give up the life that you wanted to live and you know what you end up finding? The real life you were meant to live all along. So let's say you have this ambition. You're going to be a rock band and you're going to do all that, right? And then you're like, okay, now I'm saved. I'm not going to try to hang on to that and save that life. I'm going to deny self. I'm going to take up the cross and follow Christ. And then you know what? You end up finding your life. It's sort of like Jonathan Shelley with the PGA and all that, right? But he was out there playing golf for eight or 10 hours a day. That blew me away. I've never known him to even mention golf in my presence. But he preached that sermon where he talked about, yeah, I was out there golfing for eight or 10 hours a day because he wanted to be a professional athlete, a professional golfer. And he said that looking back, it was a lot of wasted time. I can barely even get through 18 holes of mini golf, let alone play for eight hours. I'm bored after about 45 minutes of mini golf. That's my attention span when it comes to golf. But the point is, he could have tried to save that, right? But you know what? He was willing to deny self and lose his life. He's looking at his whole life of giving Tyra Woods a run for his money and all the polo shirts and the Nike ball caps and the endorsements and the PGA and the vest and the jacket. And if he would have tried to save that, he would have actually lost it, his real life that Christ intended for him. See what I mean? But by sacrificing that life, he finds his life. Now that makes sense. Being a castaway is when God stops using you. He casts you aside. It's what he did to King Saul where he says, I'm done with you, Saul. Now Saul's in heaven, but he was a castaway. He got thrown out and David was chosen to take his place instead. So what the Bible is saying, let's look at it again. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Why? Because. You've got to deny yourself because whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall find it. Again, this is figurative. For what is a man advantaged if he gained the whole world? If he wins the PGA tour or whatever golf tournament, but he loses himself. He loses who he's supposed to be. He loses his integrity as a Christian. He loses his real life in Christ, his real mission, his real purpose why he's on this earth and he's cast away for whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words of him shall the son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory and in his father's and of the holy angels. Let's go back to Matthew 16. I'm almost done. Matthew 16. Matthew chapter 16 says in verse 24, then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me and for whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? And again, I don't believe that saying lose your soul as in go to hell because the soul is often just referring to the self and the Bible gives the exact parallel in Luke 9 without mentioning the soul. In Luke 9 it said what? And lose himself. And I showed you a couple examples. I could literally show you 40 examples where soul means yourself. It's throughout the Bible. Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works. So the context here of losing your own soul and gaining the whole world, the context is rewards because the next verse says because. Why? Because the son of man is going to come in the glory of his father with his angels and then shall he reward every man according to his works. So what he's saying is whatever you give up for Christ, if you sacrifice your life for Christ and that could be a literal sacrifice of your life where you do die for him or it could be a sacrifice of your goals, your ambition, what you want to do with your life. If you sacrifice it, you gain everything. Why? Because Christ comes and he rewards you. But if you hang on to your life and whether that means you refuse to die for Christ when called upon to do so or you refuse to give up your life, goals, dreams and ambitions, you lose everything because Christ comes to reward according to their works and you don't get anything. Now you're still saved, you're still in heaven, yet so is by fire. The Bible clearly teaches in 1 Corinthians 3 that even if you don't do any works for the Lord, all your works are wood, hay and stubble, yet he himself shall be saved. So you still make it to heaven but you don't get any rewards. You lose out on the rewards. And so that's what this is talking about and when the Bible talks about the soul, it's the self or it's who you are and that's why people in the business world when they talk about losing their soul, they're not saying, hey, we're going to go to hell when we die. What they're saying is we're not operating our business with the same integrity that we once did. And when an artist talks about losing their soul, they're saying we're not doing the art that we believe in, we're just doing what sells. We're not doing the music that we love, we're just doing the music that sells. We've lost our soul. That's why, you know, we're not running for the joy of running, we've been sold out. We've lost our soul. Now look, that sounds silly, why? Because those things aren't the meaning of life. We're not born again runners, we're born again Christians. And by the way, that is a term, being a born again runner. Who's ever heard that term? All right, nobody reads the books that I do apparently. My wife's heard it because I taught it to her. I mean, some people running is their religion and they become like a born again runner. That's what they call it. It's really weird. Wow, you really found meaning in your life, running. But the point is, yeah, it's silly, but the way they're using that word and the way that they're using that quote from Jesus, they're actually using it right, but they're just using it about the wrong things. You know, if we take that usage and actually apply it to the things of God, yeah, that is what it's about. You know what? Look, think about me for a second. I'm Pastor Steven Anderson, right? What if I just won't deny myself and I just start doing what I want to do? I start just gratifying the flesh. I quit preaching and soul winning and studying my Bible and I start just gratifying the flesh. You know what? I'm going to lose myself. This is who I am. I'm Pastor Anderson. I'm going to cease to be Pastor Anderson at that point. You know what? I'm going to lose my soul. Doesn't mean that I'm going to hell. It's not a salvation thing, but you know what's going to happen? I'm going to be cast away, meaning that God's going to take me out of my position as pastor and he's going to put somebody else in that position that's going to get the job done. Just like he did with Saul. When Saul stopped doing what he's supposed to do, he's removed and replaced. Replacement theology right there, brother. And you know what? It can happen to any of us. So we better be willing to deny self. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Help us to not just be saved, but to follow you. Not to just be a Christian, but to be a disciple. To come after you daily, Lord. Help us to be not one of the multitudes that got saved and baptized during your ministry, but help us to be one of the few that stayed with you through the trials and tribulations and was part of that early church in Acts chapter 1. Help us, Lord, not to seek to gain the world and gain everything that it has to offer because none of that is as valuable as our self, our soul, our purpose in you, Lord. Help us to be true to ourselves and not our carnal selves, but our new spiritual selves, Lord, that you've created. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.