(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Once I was blind, but now I can see. The light of the world is Jesus. Amen. Brother Mo, would you pray for us? Amen. Amen. Next song is going to be 442, We Gather Together. Great song about Kirk. 442. 442, We Gather Together. We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing. He chastens and hastens his will to make known. The wicked oppressing sees them from distressing. Saying praises to his name, he forgets not his own. Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining. Ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine. So from the beginning, the fight we were winning. The Lord was at our side, the glory be thine. We all do extol thee, the leader in battle. And pray that thou still our defender will be. Let thy congregation escape tribulation. Thy name be ever praised. O Lord, make us free. Amen. Thank you so much for coming to Pure Words Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, just lift your hand real quick. Brother James, this can get you guys a bulletin in the front. We have our Bible memory passage, Romans 4. And we're on verse number 12. On the inside, we have our service and soul winning times, as well as our church stats. And then we have our list of expecting ladies. Definitely be in prayer for all of them. We also have upcoming events, our October 31st chili cook-off. And that is, of course, Hex's chili cook-off. Sometimes we have to clarify for our weaker brethren. We have to condescend them in a low estate and help them realize that Hex's chili means no beans. Also, November 10th through the 12th is the Matamoros soul winning trip. That's going to be, really, it's where Brownsville is. And so if you can get your way out there, please just send us your information if you'd like to participate. And we'll help assist with that prayer request. We have the Goodwin family. We've been praying for them up in the Valsport area. Brother Edward, we've been praying for his health. Ms. Liberty's family member, Catherine, praying for her breast cancer. Brother Joel, we've been praying for First Works Baptist Church. Rock Hill West and the Mohit family, praying for their travel and salvation for family and friends on the trip. When's your trip? Next week. All right, we'll be praying for their trip as well. Let's go ahead and just say a quick word of prayer for those that were mentioned. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for our church, for giving us this evening to be meeting together. Please just bless the preaching and the singing. I pray that you would also be with our expecting ladies, that you would help them during their pregnancy. Please give them a timely birth, help their children to develop appropriately. And I pray that you would also help our church family with their health concerns, that you would give them favor. Please, if possible, a miracle. I pray that you would just also give them joy and comfort in their tribulation. Please also bless our family members who are traveling. Please bless our soul winning and help our soul winners to go out and to be bold and to get many people saved and to plant many good seeds. And we just thank you for the opportunities you've given us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Church reminders, please don't let your children running in the church or on the stage. If they are being an distraction, please take them out of the sanctuary. The Mother Bay room is for mothers and their children at all times. Tonight we're finishing Esther. I'm in Esther chapter 10, the final chapter of this book. And then I'm not going to be preaching on a regular basis on Thursdays anymore. So this is going to be kind of a transition to Brother Duncan. And some people want me to leave already, apparently. No, I'm just kidding. And also, you know, really I don't know in the future exactly how I'm going to plan on travel arrangements here. I am already scheduled to come in December, December 4th. I'm going to be here that Sunday and preach in the morning and the evening. The morning sermon is going to be a special sermon because we're going to try and finish the filming for our documentary on the King James Bible. And it is a Pure Words production. So, you know, if you're going to make a Bible about the King James Bible, what better church to be at the forefront than Pure Words Baptist Church, right? And so we're going to make some final filming here. And really it's good to try and, you know, in the previous projects I've worked on, it's nice to kind of have your most important sermon be the last one because you kind of already know everything. You're going to have the film, all the things you want to say. So then you can kind of finally say it all. And then it can be in the film like polished and it makes sense and everything like that. So I've preached some previous sermons that we've used, but this one hopefully will help kind of encapsulate a lot of things that need to be said for the film. We've been working on this a lot and we already have a lot of the parts of the film done, but we still need to finish a few pieces and do some post-production work. And so I'm really excited about the film. I don't know exactly when it's going to be done, but we are trying to get it done as soon as possible. It could be a Christmas present. It could be early next year. I don't know. So don't tie me down to anything. But we are working on it really hard and I'm very excited about this project because I think it's going to be a very educational film. And again, we want to make them entertainment. I'm trying to make it entertaining, but it's really geared towards educating people on this subject and really proving, I believe, one of the strongest arguments of why to use the King James Bible and why we believe it's the preserved Word of God. I also think there's going to be a lot of information that even people that are very familiar with this topic, that is new to them and they're going to learn a lot with the film. And so I think it's going to be a great resource. Also, we're going to release a lot of information after the film. So we've got a lot of interviews that we've done, several different interviews, full interviews, with a lot of different people. We're going to be releasing a lot of that. We're going to make a lot of special clips and kind of talking about some of these other people out there saying a bunch of nonsense, proving how stupid the things that they say are. Rucktards, okay, is one group. But then even the anti-King James only crowd, the James Whites and other people like that that I'm excited to share why they're so dumb. Also, I have a nice kick in the pants for James White in the film that I'm excited to release, and I'm going to be preaching on that here on that Sunday morning. So I'm excited to share a lot of that information and to get it out there so we can start using it. And we can give them one-two punch with Preserve Bible and the Sodomite exception. And then we'll work on the next project, right? I had started a project, a soul-winning documentary for Pure Words a long time ago, and it just kind of had been on the shelf. And then I would try to get someone helping me work on it, and then it wouldn't pan out. So I've just constantly been putting new people on it, and so that's why it's been taking forever, but we've been making progress on that one as well. And so hopefully we'll get a soul-winning documentary out there as well that's also Pure Words Productions. We're kind of working on those two films to get out there. And then I still have other film projects that I'm working on, but not related to this church necessarily entirely. But we do have those projects that we're working on. I'm still going to be preaching here, just not as regularly. They may even still come on a Thursday, but not this year unless Duncan just goes AWOL or something like that. I don't know. But obviously I'm your pastor until we get another one, so nothing changing there. But Brother Duncan's stepping up, and we're empowering him and allowing him to really grow and preach a lot. He's doing a good job, and it's a little bit past due. We had this earlier, but we do have his formal ordination that we wanted to give him tonight. So if you want to come up here, we'll give Brother Duncan. Now, he's already ordained, but this is just the document to give to him. So congratulations again. All right, go ahead and lead us on our next song. All right. It's definitely a pleasure to be all those evangelists. Let's go ahead and take our hymnals again. It's going to be 402, our best. So always give our best to Christ, 402. 402, our best. Here ye the Masters call, give me thy best. For be it great or small, that is his test. Do then the best you can, not for a horn, Not for the praise of men, but for the Lord. Every work for Jesus will be blessed, But he asks from every horn his best. Our talents may be pure, his may be small, But unto him is to our best our own. May not for men too long heed not their sigh, Winning the smile of God brings this delight. Aiding the good and true, there goes our blast, All that we think or do, we do the best. Every work for Jesus will be blessed, But he asks from every horn his best. Our talents may be pure, his may be small, But unto him is to our best our own. Amen. While that offering plate is being passed around, if you'll take out your Bibles, we're going to finish up the book of Esther, Esther chapter number 10. If you flip your Bible open, your Psalms right in the middle of your Bible, right before Psalms you have Job, right before Job you have the book of Esther, Esther chapter 10, the Bible reads in verse number 1, And the king Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land and upon the isles of the sea, and all the acts of his power and of his might, and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai, whereunto the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Medea and Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was next unto the king Ahasuerus and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed. Go ahead, it's a word of prayer. Your father was thankful that you had your word before us, and I pray for Pastor Kelly, and bless him if he is here right now, and help that youth to be ready for a private speaking, to be with Christ when you pray. Amen. So we have one of the longest chapters in the Bible, Esther chapter 10, no I'm just kidding. And we're finishing the book of Esther, and it's a very short chapter of the Bible, but it's a nice conclusion to the story, and just as a quick reminder of the book of Esther is it kind of has a little interesting chronology throughout the series that kind of illustrates or takes the children of Israel as a whole from where they are at the beginning of God giving them the commandments and being his children all the way to the end of the world. We have Vashti who kind of signifies Israel, and how Israel is his wife, and it's kind of a picture of how God chose the children of Israel to be his chosen people, physically speaking, but because they rebelled and because they decided, or because she rebelled, she got replaced, and the same with the children of Israel. The children of Israel rebelled, so they ended up getting replaced by Esther. Vashti gets replaced by Esther, and Esther kind of pictures us, Christians, those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We replaced and became the new wife, as it were, in this kind of parable or this kind of story, yet we have the conflict between Mordecai, who is symbolized as the Lord Jesus Christ, and Haman, and Haman kind of signifies the devil or the antichrist, and his plan was to persecute the Jews and to persecute Esther, and that's kind of how the devil is. He persecutes Christians, and he goes after them, but the plans are foiled and turned on his head. Haman is destroyed, just like the antichrist will ultimately fail, and his plan will be foiled, and we see even in the book of Esther that there was this great day where there was this battle, and we had the enemies of the Jews and the Jews coming together in this epic battle, and the Jews slay all of their enemies and have great victory. Kind of a picture of, in my mind, the battle of Armageddon, and we kind of have the Lord Jesus Christ coming, and all the enemies are gathered together against the Lord and against us, but he slays them, but then you kind of have a reverb. You have the millennial reign, and you have a reverb of the battle of Gog and Magog, and we even see in the book of Esther you have one day of slaughter, and they bring the second day of slaughter. Well, of course, then you have the millennial reign kind of sandwiched there, but you also have, after that, the new heaven and the new earth, and you have God ruling with man, and I think that chapter 10 is kind of showing us that end times satisfaction or conclusion of the new heaven and the new earth where man is being ruled by God himself literally on the earth, okay? And if you keep your finger in Esther, but go all the way to the book of Revelation, I want to kind of show you Revelation 22. Go all the way to the back, and actually I want to look at chapter 21 for a second. Revelation chapter 21. We're going to see this, and so the book of Esther is a really incredible book. How it follows that perfect just kind of like chronology and shows all these different symbols, and you have the consistency of Mordecai picturing Jesus and Esther picturing the Christians and King Ahasuerus picturing God the Father, Haman picturing that antichrist devil figure, and at the end of the conclusion, we had Mordecai next to King Ahasuerus and how they're kind of jointly reigning in a sense. You know, obviously Ahasuerus is the king, but Mordecai is kind of his right-hand man and is really a ruler in the kingdom. It's similar to how God is the Father is going to be the king and the ruler, but yet we have the right-hand man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who's also the king and ruling simultaneously, and really it's God the Father is bestowing all his authority and power unto the Son, and the Son's ruling through his power is similar to how King Ahasuerus is kind of investing all of his power into Mordecai and allowing Mordecai to do the ruling. But it says here in verse 1 of chapter 21, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, but the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming down from God, out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. So the Bible actually concludes with death even being destroyed. Death is the last enemy. And death and hell were cast in the lake of fire. This is the second death. That was what we read in chapter 20, or what you read in chapter 20, and then you flow into chapter 21, and you get this new heaven and new earth, and for a thousand years prior to this, the Lord Jesus Christ was ruling and reigning on us. So it was a great time of peace. It's very wonderful, but there's still elements of rebellion. There's still people that are not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the battle of Gog and Magod is the one last time to just wipe every last bit of evil out of the earth and to really just eradicate everything. There's no more death ever again, and the only people remaining are just saved, born again, children of God. And so then we are going to inherit the earth, and we're going to be on the earth with God literally. God is going to descend from heaven, and He's no longer going to just be ruling in heaven. He's going to come down and be on the earth and dwelling with us. And of course, this is significant for a lot of reasons, but you have to understand that God desires this. God wants to, God the Father wants to be ruling amongst us and have a relationship with us on the earth, but the problem is God the Father is so holy and so righteous that He just can't have a relationship with us. This is why you see a consistent theme in the Bible where when Moses is speaking with the Father, He can't reveal Himself unto Him. He has to even cover shield Moses' eyes from even looking at the Father, and even by just looking at God the Father's back part, you know, God the Father basically covered his eyes and then turned around and kind of walked away and then left his hand. And so Moses just kind of saw God the Father's back parts, and the Bible says just from seeing that, his face shone and his face was so bright. Now Moses' face became so brilliant from just looking at the back side of God the Father that other people couldn't even look at Moses' face. So then Moses' face had to be covered with a veil like a bride would be on her wedding day just so that people could look at Moses because Moses was shining so bright. So that's the concepts that we have to wrap our minds around, and it's really not that difficult of a concept because frankly speaking, no one can just look at the sun. You know, with sunglasses or with something maybe, but like just the naked eye, you can't just sit here and just stare at the sun. You can go blind, or it's too brilliant, it's just too glorious, it'll hurt your eyes. It's not healthy to do so. You just can't quite do it. In the same manner is similar, not the same, similar to how God is in the sense that if we were to just look at God the Father, it would just kill us instantly because it's just too glorious, it's just too brilliant, and he's too holy that we can't handle it. So the only way for God to reconcile this problem is he has to eradicate the sin from us and allow us to have an immortal state, an immortal body, to then actually be able to hang out with him. So he has to make us stronger to be able to actually be in his presence. And of course that strength is not something we're capable of even doing. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ had to bear our sins and had to fulfill the whole gospel so that he could then restore us back unto the Father and we could have a relationship with God the Father that he so desires and not to have this kind of cloud between us or to have a veil between us or to have a mediator between us only but rather that we can simply even just have relationship with God the Father. And so this is kind of the whole essence of the Bible. You have to realize man sinned and put this separation between us and God and the only one that could bring us to God was the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the mediator who brought us from God to the place that we were in. He's the one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. But as the Bible is kind of articulating God still wants to be with us and to dwell with us. And notice what God's gonna do in verse four. He's gonna wipe away all tears from our eyes and there's no more death, there's no more sorrow, there's no more crying. You would almost think women can't even be here. No, I'm just kidding. Neither shall there be any more pain. So according to the Bible all the former things are passed away and it's really in my mind it's too difficult to understand these things. But it's similar to as a child. As a child if you're five years old, six years old you understand certain things about the world. I think when someone's five years old they kind of understand all the big picture elements of the world. It's just the details and a lot of other things that kind of go over their head. But as you grow up and you mature and you get older and older you start understanding things better. They make sense to you. This is kind of similar to how we are in this context of we are incapable. No matter how smart you are we're just kind of not mature enough. We can't understand what these things are really like. You know a little boy like my son who's even eight he still cries when he gets hurt or is upset about things. You know when you become a man you kind of stop crying. But as a little child you may not even understand what it's like to not cry because you cry about everything. You know you always are having these problems or whatever. But it's like somehow we're going to get to a state where there's just crying is not even a thing anymore. And the pain is not even a thing anymore. Which I can't even understand that. Because pain is a relative term. To some people pain is subjective because if you think about it it's like some people like certain foods like ranch dressing. But that would be painful for me to eat. Or there's other things like Indian food. That would be painful for me. Whereas a billion people in this world eat Indian food and they love it. So it's like I don't get it. But somehow even like back massages. I'm kind of one of these people that doesn't like the hard back massage. I like the gentle or whatever. But some people want that really gruesome stuff or whatever. It's like I don't want that. So again pain is so subjective I'm like I don't understand how we can live in a world without pain. You know like how does it even work? You never trip. You never fall. You never accidentally hurt yourself. I don't even get it. But here's the thing. I know that I won't get it. It's not like if I think hard enough I'll finally figure it out. I have to realize there's things too wonderful for me. And we look through a glass darkly. And just like as a child I didn't understand things about like marriage. And I didn't understand things about how the world works. And you know it always baffled me how my parents knew how to go anywhere. Because you know back when I was a kid there wasn't cell phones. So my parents weren't just piping in the GPS. My parents just get in the car and they just drive wherever we need to go. And I would always be like how do you know where to go? Like you know because they're just taking all these turns and going all these highways. And we lived in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And I mean man it's just like roads everywhere. And I'm just thinking like I don't know how my parents know where to go. Okay. But you know it's as you grow up and you start to learn all these things. And you start to realize how people make the decisions they do. And I believe once we get into heaven these things will finally start making sense to us. We'll finally be able to wrap our brains around them. But right now we're incapable. So it's okay. And you know when it comes to the new heaven and new earth the Bible doesn't have a lot to say. And I think it's because none of it would even make sense to us anyways. You know it's kind of like a foreign language a little bit. And so you know even the apostle Paul went to heaven but then he didn't really tell us much about it. And it's like probably because we couldn't understand it. And I relate this to like describing the color purple to a blind person. You know imagine someone who's never been able to see their entire life. And you say and they say what does purple look like? Well you know it's kind of like red and blue mixed together. Well what's red and blue look like? Well you know roses are red. What does a rose look like? You know explain to someone who's never seen and this is also explaining how to like anything in the Bible to someone that's not saved. You know it doesn't matter. It doesn't make sense. That's why you know if someone's not saved the only doctrine I'll talk to you about is salvation. Because let's first get some eyes. You know let's get some sight going. And then we can start. The second doctrine is the King James Bible. If you're not King James only again it's like describing a color to someone who's blind. There's no real point to it. And frankly speaking none of us have eyes to understand or a brain to understand the new heaven and the earth. So it's kind of pointless for us to speculate about what that's like. Or to really try to like concern ourselves with that too much. Because it doesn't change right now. And all we know is it's going to be wonderful beyond words that we could use right now to describe it. So we might as well focus on the here and the now. But go back to Esther's chapter. I just wanted to give you kind of that thought and now we're going to kind of move on to a different subject here. But Esther 10 verse 1 the Bible says, And the king Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land and upon the isles of the sea. And all the acts of his power and of his might and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai were unto the king advanced him. Are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and of Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus and great among the Jews and accepted of the multitude of his brethren seeking the wealth of his people and speaking peace to all his seed. So again it's interesting it's like all of this is really about Mordecai and Mordecai's greatness and how he succeeded and king Ahasuerus is obviously in charge. He's laying a tribute meaning they have to pay taxes unto him. But then verse 2 it's like all the acts of his power and of his might and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai were unto the king advanced him. It's like hey when we wrote about how great king Ahasuerus is we also in the same breath brought up how great Mordecai is. And again that just reminds me of how the Bible is where we bring up all this greatness about God the father but we also bring up all this greatness about the Lord Jesus Christ. We kind of have both mentioned in the book the Bible. In the Bible it's just a constant praise to the father and to the son. It's just all about the father and the son. And of course the Holy Spirit is the author of the Bible. And so we have what's unique about the scripture is kind of how all three of them are constantly complimenting and praising each other. Right? You have a consistent theme in the Bible where the Bible is kind of if you think about this it's kind of the father's voice and it's the Holy Spirit and who is the Bible just bragging about constantly? Jesus. And then when you get to the parts of the Bible where it's the red letters and it's Jesus talking who's he constantly complimenting? The father. He's constantly praising the father. And so you kind of have the three witnesses and really the Bible is the Holy Spirit and who's he always talking about. He's really constantly just bringing up the father and the son. And Jesus will sometimes sit here and compliment the spirit. He's talking about the comforter and it's more expedient that I go away. And so he's talking about how positive it is to have the Holy Spirit and how they're going to do even greater works through the spirit and things like that. So you kind of see how all of them don't really brag on themselves. They brag on one another. They talk positively about each other. And of course King Ahasuerus talks positively about Mordecai and his greatness and his praising and endorsing him. So really you have to understand that this is a lot about Jesus when we look at this story. It's really talking to us about Jesus and Haman was a picture of the Jews and how they hated Jesus and they wanted to destroy Jesus. But Jesus is going to overcome them and destroy them. The real Jew, the spiritual Jew. But I like these five descriptions that we have here in verse number three. And I think that we could take a second to kind of think about how they all relate to Jesus. What are the five things? Number one, he's next unto the King Ahasuerus. Number two, he's great among the Jews. Number three, he's accepted of the multitude of his brethren. Number four, he's seeking the wealth of his people. And number five, he's speaking peace to all his seed. Now all five of these are really pictures of things that Jesus are like and what he's going to do. Number one, he's next to the King. That's the same with the Lord Jesus Christ. How he's seated at the right hand of God the Father. Let's look at some verses on this. Go to 1 Corinthians, chapter number 15. Go to 1 Corinthians, chapter number 15. And we'll look at how we have this co-reigning aspect of the Lord Jesus Christ and the God the Father. 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, and verse number 23, the Bible says, But every man after his own order, Christ the first-roots, afterward they that are Christ's that is coming. Talking about the resurrection. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power, for he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, for he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is accepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him, that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. That was a lot of pronouns. What the Bible is saying here is it's saying God the Father put all things under the Son, except for himself. It's manifest that the one that put all things under him is not under him. But then once everything is put under Jesus, and what is the last thing to be put under him? Death itself. So the battle of Gog and Magog must exist before where we have the total wipe out and annihilation of all unsaved people and the devil and they're all thrown in the lake of fire after the great white throne judgment, then we have death eradicated. And so not only is all things in this life been put under him because he ruled and reigned for a thousand years, then all of the unbelievers are killed, then we judge everyone. Everyone's put in hell that didn't believe in him. And just death itself just ceases to exist because now Jesus is ruling over all of that. At that point, then the Bible is saying that Jesus himself even delivers the kingdom back unto the Father. And that's kind of where we get this picture of Revelation 21 that we talked about, where then the tabernacle of God is going to descend down from heaven and we're going to have a new heaven and a new earth and God the Father will even reign with us on this earth. And we'll at that point have no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain. And of course this makes sense that the pain and the sorrow and the tears will still exist up to that point because even in the millennial reign, you're going to see people die in the battle of Gog and Magog and then after this you're going to have the great white throne judgment. I believe that's going to be a very sad time because there's going to be a lot of people that I'm not even going to shed a tear for that's going to be thrown in the lake of fire, but there's going to be plenty that we would. A family member, a friend, a cousin, a neighbor, even people that you may not even know, but your heart goes out because it's like, man, this sucks that person didn't believe and is now going to spend all of eternity in hell. You know, I mean the Bible talks about us suffering loss. Even think about this, you know, you're like, well, I don't know if I'd feel that way. Look, even the rich man in Luke, he was upset about his brethren going to hell and he was in hell. So how much more us that are in heaven are going to feel sad about people going to hell than the people in hell sad about people going to hell. It's just going to be a sad event in the sense that, you know, honestly, I don't wish hell on anybody because if you understand how bad hell is, you wouldn't want anybody to go to hell. And here's the thing, God doesn't want anybody to go to hell. That's why he sent his son. That's why he allowed Jesus Christ to be the propitiation for our sins, not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. God truly loved the world. God truly loved every single person. Jeffrey Dahmer, Adolf Hitler, every Jew, every Muslim, every Catholic, every person. At one point, God loved them and he wanted them to be saved. It's just not everybody's going to be saved. And the one deciding factor is if you believe in Jesus or not. And those who've already decided in this life not to believe in Jesus, they've already sealed their fate. And those who've died and didn't believe in Jesus have already sealed their fate. At that point, though, there's no chance. You know, they're going to see God. They're going to see the Jesus Christ. Their belief isn't even going to be necessary because they're going to have sight. That's why it's important to believe now because you have to understand you're saved by faith. So you can't believe once you see him because that's no longer faith. That's sight. A lot of people say this, oh, when Christ returns, all the Jews will see him and then they'll believe in him. But wait a minute. That's not belief. That's sight. So in order to have faith, you have to do it now when he's not standing in front of you, when it's not readily obvious, where you have to just believe the Scripture. That's what saves you is faith in Jesus Christ now. Now, of course, there were people who saw Jesus when he was alive on this earth. You know, that wasn't him in his manifested, glorified, obvious God state. That was just a random guy, you know, to them. They're just looking at another random dude and he's the son of God. And they just didn't know that because he's veiled in the cloak of flesh. You know, in the Mount Transfiguration, he looked a lot different. And when Christ returns, he's going to look a lot different. It says, every eye shall see him and they which pierced him, they're going to mourn. When you see Jesus, it's not like you're going to be like, I don't know who that is. It's like, you're going to know. Like, everyone will just know that's Jesus. Okay, it'll just be that obvious. So, there's not a faith aspect anymore. And that's why it's important that you have to get saved now. Because, yeah, of course, you're going to believe in Jesus when you're standing at the Great White Throne Judgment. There's not going to be any question. You know, those people that have been burning in hell for a thousand years and then standing before God the Father, they're not going to wonder who Jesus is, okay? But, of course, no matter what they say, there is no getting off. There is no get out of jail free card. There is no getting off the hook. That's why it's important to believe now. Not only to get saved, but to help others to get saved. Because there will be a judgment. And everyone will be judged. Now, the scariest part about that is you will be judged. But, you know, what's not scary about that is when you're saved and you know that you have a propitiation and you have Jesus Christ that's going to be your advocate. But if I didn't have Jesus Christ to be my advocate, that would be terrifying. Because let me tell you something. Every single sin that you've ever committed will be judged. Every one of those bad thoughts you had judged. Every stupid thing you've ever said. Everything you took that no one you thought was looking, God saw it. Every horrible thing. You know, the Jeffrey Epstein client list that they won't release, it's going to be released. I mean, every evil work. You know, the more evil you are, the more motivation you should be to get saved. So you don't have to have that judgment day record be like, okay. And then on this day, you know, and then on this day it's just like, oh, man. That's going to be awful for some people. And just think about how sad it's going to be to hear about how many horrible things these people have done. I mean, Hillary Clinton might take a couple thousand years just to figure out all the bad things she did. I mean, we don't even know how horrible these people really are. But, you know, we're going to go through the judgment process and it's going to be, I mean, we've got nothing else to do. We've got eternity, so, you know, we're going to get the popcorn out or whatever. You know, however the situation is, it's going to be the craziest movie you've ever seen, the craziest documentary you've ever watched, you know, the craziest court scene. You know, it's funny how our society is really fascinated with court scenes, especially lately. It's like court, you know, everybody loves watching these trials and these cases and all these things are going on. You know, it's like you're all invited to the biggest trial ever, okay? It's going to be the craziest court scene ever. Every single, and think about how many people have existed. I mean, that's a lot, I mean, I don't know how it works. You know, I don't know if God's going to handle us one at a time and every single sin one at a time or if he's going to use like, you know, do a lot of people simultaneously, if he's going to have, you know, every sin categorized and so they're kind of broken up. I don't know how it's going to work, but it seems like it could be a long process, you know, in general. But, you know, I wouldn't want to be on the side that's not saved. That is so, it's going to be so embarrassing. That's what it's going to be. It's going to be embarrassing for those people to just hear every single one of their sins and every stupid thing they did, every stupid thing they thought and just, I mean, do you really want to stand before God Almighty and the great, and just every time these people said like, there is no God. And he's like, you said there's no God here, you said there's no God here, and he's just like, man, because it said, think about what Jesus said, every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account there on the day of judgment. That's a terrifying thought. And you sit here and you think like, oh, everybody's getting away with everything. That day, you won't think that anymore. You'll be like, no one got away with anything, nothing. Just every single thing they did. That's why it's important to get saved and to help other people get saved. But one thing that's clear is God, you know who's going to be right next to God the Father in this? The Lord Jesus Christ. And, you know, we have him here pictured. Go to Revelation 3. I'll give you even clearer verses on this. Go to Revelation, chapter number 3. What a scary day for the unsaved. And, you know, if you truly love your family members and friends, you'll just triple-check that they're saved, because you don't want them to go through this most embarrassing thing ever, the most shameful thing that could ever happen. You're going to shed so many tears on that day when you watch them and you think like, why didn't I go and try to talk to them more? Why didn't I try to get them saved? Revelation, chapter number 3, look at verse 21. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne. So, Jesus is saying, hey, I'm sitting next to my Father in his throne, and I'm even going to let the saved sit with me. You know, that's pretty incredible. I don't know how big this throne is. I don't know how it works. But, somehow, I don't know if it's like, it's probably in my mind that it's more like it's just an extra seat and just at times you get to come and you get the one-on-one counsel with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not like all of us are just going to be sitting right next to Jesus at the same time. It's just kind of like you have an opportunity to sit next to Jesus himself and you can talk with him and you can have fellowship with him, because those that overcame get this opportunity. And, of course, we overcame through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 5, look at verse 5. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not, behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb, as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. So, the Bible describes one sitting on the throne in Revelation 5, but then it talks about a lamb coming and taking the book out of the hand of him that sat on the throne. And we know this is the Lord Jesus Christ. So, we kind of see again, we have that right hand man to God the Father is the Lord Jesus Christ, just like Mordecai is kind of that right hand man with King Ahasuerus. And so, just like King Ahasuerus is next to God, Jesus Christ is next to God consistently through the Bible. Go to Hebrews chapter 13. Not only that, the Bible said that Mordecai was great among the Jews. He was great among the Jews. Now, of course, this is also the truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is great among the Jews. Now, of course, when we say Jews here in the book of Esther, this is the saved, chosen people of God in this context. And the same context is going to be applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. When we say the Jews, we're talking about the saved, spiritual Jews who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is great among us. We're not talking about Christ rejecting anti-Christ that say they are Jews but do lie and are the synagogue of Satan. Now, of course, I love that verse because you know why? They say they're Jews but they do lie, meaning that they're not actually Jews. And in Romans chapter 2, Paul makes it abundantly clear that being a Jew is not an outward thing. It's an inward thing. So the real Jews of the world are Christians. There is only one group that's Jews and they are the saved, born-again children of God. There is a group in this world that masquerade themselves and claim they are Jews but they do lie. They are the synagogue of Satan as the Bible describes them. So, of course, there's the real Jew, the spiritual Jew, and then there's the fake imposter Jew that tries to steal that glory. They will never think that Jesus is great. Who is Jesus great among, though? The real Jew, the Jews, okay? Hebrews chapter 13, look at verse number 20. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant. Notice how the Bible describes Jesus Christ as that great shepherd. When we look at the Lord Jesus Christ, we look at him as the great shepherd. You know, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. What a great psalm. What a beautiful song that we find in the Bible. One of the most famous passages of scripture. And, of course, we understand the Lord is our shepherd. He leads us, he guides us, and we think of him as being great. Look at chapter 7 and look at verse 4. Just flip back a little bit. Chapter 7 and look at verse 4. And chapter 7 is about tithing and there's an Old Testament picture of tithing. The Old Testament patriarchs tithe, according to the scripture. And to tithe is just simply to give a tenth of what you possess. And in this context, it's talking about how Abraham had tithed unto Melchizedek. And Melchizedek is a guy in the Bible that comes out of nowhere. It's like, who is this guy? And the Bible says that he's like the Lord Jesus Christ and the reason why he's like him is because he isn't, okay? Look at verse 3. Without father, without mother, without the sin, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth the priest continually. So, when he's talking about this Melchizedek guy, he's saying this guy is someone that didn't have a father and is saying physically, okay? A physical descendancy. Without mother, physical descendancy, without the sin. That's what it means, okay? So, it's just like, it just is. Now, who's the only man that just is? It's the man Jesus, okay? It's the Lord Jesus Christ, okay? That's the only person that doesn't have this. Now, you say, well, I thought he was born of Mary. Yeah, but Jesus existed before Mary. He doesn't have descent, okay? So, the only person that doesn't have descent, as the Bible describes, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but made like unto who? The Son of God. So, here's a question. How long has the Son of God existed? Forever. Because the Bible says he doesn't have a beginning of days, nor does he have an end of life. He has no descent. He just is. So, Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And, you know, there's a lot of meaning to that phrase. But, one is just simply being eternally existent, okay? So, this eternally existent being shows up, called Melchizedek, in the Old Testament, and Abraham gives him tithes. Now, the Bible explains this in verse 4. Now, consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch, Abraham, gave the tenth of the spoils. So, he's saying, Abraham was like the greatest person on the planet, but he paid tithes to Melchizedek, showing that what? That this guy's even greater than Abraham. Who's greater than Abraham? Only the Lord Jesus Christ would be greater than him. But, notice how we think of Jesus. He's great. He's greater than any man that's ever lived, because he surpasses just humanity. He is deity. And, that's why we believe in Jesus Christ being 100% man and 100% God. He's a unique being. And, you know, he's God in the flesh. You know, so it's incredible. We also think of him being great in chapter 4, and look at verse 14. Seeing, then, that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us hold fast our profession. So, notice, he's not just a great shepherd. He's not just greater than Abraham. He is a great high priest. And, a priest is a servant of God. A priest is one who performs the services of God, and Jesus Christ performs the services of God for us. You have to think about this. What did the priest do in the Old Testament? The Old Testament priest would slaughter the animal and spread the blood on the altar, and that blood gave them forgiveness of sin as a picture of atonement. So, what did Jesus do? Jesus also shed his blood on earth and then took his blood into heaven and then sprinkled his blood on the altar to then give us that reconciliation. So, just like the Old Testament priest was the one who used the blood as the atonement and did all that service for the benefit of the children of Israel, same with us. We get that same benefit of Jesus being our great high priest who, in heaven, is offering the blood, but not a bullion of goats, but his own blood, which was shed one time, and he put it on the altar, and that's what gives us the forgiveness of sin. And so, we see that he's the great high priest. Go to Titus. It's just to the left. It's really close to Hebrews. Titus, chapter number 2. Isn't Jesus great among the Jews? I mean, he's doing so many great things for us. Titus, chapter 2, look at verse 13. Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Notice how we describe God as being great. And, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ, when we see his appearing, it's going to be a great appearing. He's going to come in a glorious state. The heavens are going to be rolled back as they scroll, and he's going to be shining so brilliant that the wicked, reprobate, evil people are going to hide themselves in the rocks and say, Say unto the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and of the lamb. So, they can't even stand looking at him. It's just too brilliant for them. Now, go over to John, chapter 1. John, chapter 1. So, point 1 is that Jesus and Mordecai, you know, Mordecai was next to King Hazaras. Jesus is next to God. Mordecai was great among the Jews, but Jesus is great among the Jews. Number 3 is that he was accepted among the brethren. He was accepted among the brethren. And, John, chapter number 1 gives us a picture of being saved, but it says in verse 12, But as many as received him, to them gave you power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name. So, you know, a similar word to being accepted is receiving. And, of course, those who accept the Lord Jesus Christ are the ones who are going to be saved. Now, I don't typically use that in soul winning or describing it, but it is accurate. It's just the problem is it's a little vague. And, a lot of times people attach a bad definition to acceptance. But, I've met a lot of people that are saved and that's how they describe it. Sometimes you kind of have to dig a little deeper and ask them what they mean by that. Like, what do you mean by accept the Lord Jesus as your savior? What do you mean by accepting Jesus as your savior? What do you mean by that as far as salvation? If they say, I believe in him, I am trusting in his death. That person is saved. But, sometimes people say, I accepted him. And, they're like, I go to church and I work my way to heaven. And, you're just like, well, you didn't really accept anything, you know. The only people that really are saved are the ones that truly accepted him, okay. And, there's another passage I want to take you back to 1 Timothy. Go back to 1 Timothy and I want to show you another thing on the acceptance. But, you know, being saved, it's not just accepting that Jesus is real. It's not just accepting that he died on the cross. But, it's accepting, in a sense, his grace. Because, grace is him offering you a chance to be saved through no works of your own. That's what grace means. Grace means no works. So, by accepting God's grace, I'm saying, I'm not saved by anything I did. I'm accepted by what he did. You know, I'm accepting that. Also, salvation's not me giving. It's not my working. It's not me donating. It's not me surrendering. It's not me, you know, doing anything of myself. It's just accepting, receiving. You know, that's the picture of salvation, okay. And, it's interesting. Even today, when I was soul winning and talking to a young lady, I'm kind of pointing out, like, the receiving. And, she's just like, wow, you're right. Like, this is not me surrendering or giving. It's like me accepting and receiving. She's like, it was just like, she just said out loud, like, this is a, like a, you know, a light bulb movement or whatever. This is like, made sense to me all of a sudden, you know. And, it was kind of cool just to watch her kind of like, really see what that, that was. Because, she went to church a lot and heard a lot of these phrases. But, then it just finally, like, it clicked. You know, it finally made sense to her. First Timothy chapter one, look at verse 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all what? Acceptation. And, what are we accepting? That Jesus, that Christ Jesus came to the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. So, notice again, the definition of acceptance here, or what we're actually accepting is that you believe on Jesus to get life everlasting. And, now, Paul was a pattern of this that even the worst of sinners who decided to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ would be saved. Those that accepted the Lord Jesus Christ would be saved. Now, of course, if we're going to define acceptance according to scripture, what is it? It's those who believe on him. That's what it truly means. So, if someone has a different definition of acceptance, they're not saved. Okay, you know, you have to have the biblical definitions of these words. And, of course, false teachers and false prophets, they've heard the lingo enough that they know the right lingo. So, and the Bible uses that lingo consistently. So, in an effort to still trick people, they'll make up a different definition for these words. When they hear the word faith, they teach that it means works. And, so, then people say like, oh, saved by faith. And, you're like, oh, okay, so is that faith like a one-time thing or a lifestyle? And, they're like, oh, it's a lifestyle. That's how you know this person has the wrong definition of the word faith here. You know, they're thinking something completely different. You know, they've attached something unique that has nothing to do with the actual word. Or, they'll be like, I'm saved by grace. But, then, they'll teach that it's works. And, you're just like, what do you think grace means? You know, you have to kind of like educate people and use different wording and situations to help them understand what these words even mean. What is a gift? You know, some people, it's weird. But, you'll be like, hey, if I said, you know, mow the lawn and do this work, is that a gift? And, they're like, yeah. And, they're just like, no. You know, doing work is not a gift. And, it's kind of, it's mind boggling how people don't even understand what a gift is. You know, I blame Santa for this. Okay. The reason why I blame Santa Claus for this is because Santa doesn't give out gifts. No, you have to be good, right? Because, if you're naughty or nice, it's going to determine if you get a gift or not. So, it wasn't even free. He's rewarding you for good behavior. That's not a gift. Okay. So, he perverts everybody's minds in a thing like, oh, yeah, washing the car and doing good and doing the chores. That's a gift. That's not a gift. That's a reward. That's a recompense. Okay. So, Santa is a work salvationist and, you know, I don't believe in him. Okay. So, there you go. If you went to Hebrews chapter 4, go back to Hebrews chapter 4. So, point one, Mordecai was next to the king of Asherah, just like Jesus next to God. Point two, Mordecai was great among the Jews, just like Jesus is great among the Jews. Mordecai was accepted among the brethren, just like Jesus Christ is accepted amongst us and amongst the brethren. We are the ones who believe in him. Number four is Mordecai was seeking the wealth of his brethren. And this is also the same of the Lord Jesus Christ that he's seeking our wealth or welfare. Look at Hebrews chapter 4 verse 14. We read this already, but we're going to keep reading. Seeing then that we have a great high priest that has passed in the heavens. Jesus is the son of God. Let us hold fast our profession. We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So Jesus Christ not only is concerned with us going to heaven, he's concerned with every aspect of our life and he allows us to find grace in a time of need or to find help in a time of need. And so this is not only Jesus Christ procuring our salvation of going to heaven. He's procuring our just life right now. Just every moment he's wanting us to constantly have grace and does have a prosperous and a blessed life even while we're on this earth. And he's constantly seeking that by making propitiation for us and by interceding for us and helping us to go to God the Father because otherwise we can't even go to God the Father. You have to realize that our access to God the Father is not just granted. We can only get there through the Lord Jesus Christ because he is not going to hear us apart from that option. Go to Matthew chapter 11, go to Matthew chapter 11. So we're kind of looking around at a few different places. Here's the last point is not only is he seeking our welfare, he's also speaking peace. And the Lord Jesus Christ as the Bible describes him as the Prince of Peace. The word Prince means ruler. So Jesus is the ruler of peace. If you want to have peace, it comes from Jesus, it comes from the Bible. Of course, you know why our country's had a lot of peace is because a lot of it's based on this book. And the less your country's based on this book, the less peace you're going to have. The more peace you want to have in a society, it's got to be modeled after the scripture. The more Leviticus, the more peace. The more Deuteronomy, the more peace. The more gospel, the more everything, the more peace you're going to have in a society. The less Bible you have, the more conflict, the more struggle, the more danger is going to prevail in a society. And it doesn't really even matter, you know, it does matter. But even despite not being saved, even if you're just following biblical principles, you're going to still reap a lot of the blessings of the Bible. So there's cultures in this world that are very different, that are not Christian. And you see more peace in certain cultures, it's because they're more biblical. It's because they follow more of the biblical principles in them. You know, you could look at a Muslim culture and you could look at an Asian culture. And it's like, both are ungodly, neither of them are saved in general. But usually the Asian culture has more peace because they have a lot more biblical principles implemented in their system. Whereas Islam is teaching, you know, they don't even need to read and they're like educating people on how to like blow themselves up and kill people and be jihadists and terrorists. And it's just like all this nonsense. Whereas a lot of Asian cultures are teaching, you know, important family values and working hard. And just think about this, the Chinese proverb. Now, if you understand Chinese proverbs, really they're just ripping off the Bible. But you know why it's called Chinese proverb? Because at least it's a society that elevates knowledge and wisdom. And think about how much the Bible talks about get wisdom, get understanding. And you know, one thing that just permeates Asian culture is wisdom. Like they want to be smart. They go for jobs that are very highly educated jobs, doctors or lawyers or just highly skilled professions. And of course, they typically in general have a more peaceful life, you know, in their own little bubble. Whereas those of the least educated and those that don't strive for education are the most violent, are the most, have the least peace, the least conflict in their society. I mean the most dangerous cultures in this world are probably the Islamic cultures and the American black cultures. And why? Because they don't even really focus on education. They just, they shoot each other and kill each other and it's a violent culture and not a lot of peace. They're just not based on biblical principles. They're not seeking for wisdom. They're not seeking for understanding. And it's destroying them. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. You know, it's a scripture that's pretty well known. And so we have to understand that peace is going to come from Jesus. And you say, well, that just sounds cool, but what does that mean practically? It means this book. Okay, what does that mean practically? Leviticus 20, 13. I mean, you know, every, Leviticus is just 20. Exodus 20. You can just let the Bible just fall open in the Old Testament law. That's what you have to have in order to have peace. You have to have a society that is not going to lie. It's not going to steal. It's not going to cheat. It's not going to afflict people with usury and oppression and inflation. You know, inflation wouldn't exist without usury. I mean, why would the price of goods need to increase? You know, they'll always talk about, hey, we've got to raise interest rates to lower inflation. Notice that there's something tied to inflation. Interest rates. Whereas if interest rates didn't exist, you wouldn't have to worry about these weird things. You know, we always constantly think, if you've actually lived any amount of time in America, you've realized that the price of goods changes dramatically. And like my father would tell me when he was in college, they would get a burger and it was like 25 cents. And I'm not talking like just McDonald's. I'm talking like a legit burger. Like a burger that would cost 10 bucks today is like 25 cents back then. That's a major difference, okay? Whereas in the Bible, it's like, hey, this is just a half shekel. And it's like, well, what about inflation? It's like, there is no inflation. Inflation is a made-up Jewish game to just rip people off and to steal their money and to devalue currency because they just keep printing more fiat currency. That's a whole different economic sermon, okay? But just don't get me on this rabbit trail. It'll make me mad. But peace is going to come from the Bible, okay? And the Lord Jesus Christ wants to give us peace. Look at Matthew 11 verse 25. At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus Christ is saying, hey, my lifestyle that I want you to live is actually easy and my burden is light. Now, of course, there is a burden with Christianity. It's not like he has no work for you to do. It's not like he doesn't want you to still plow. I mean, think about this. He didn't say, for my yacht is easy. He said, my yoke is easy. Okay? Notice the difference between these two words, all right? Some people want to have a yacht life. It's still a yoke. What is a yoke? A yoke is an instrument that's put on the neck of an animal, typically an ox or some kind of like beast, some kind of cattle. And then that oxen is guided into plowing the field or to going through the field. You know, what's the point of plowing? After a growing season, the ground gets really hard. And the only way to get seeds into that ground that will actually germinate and produce crops, you have to tear up that ground in order to plant those seeds back into soft soil. But, you know, that plowing process is a hard labor. It's hard work. And even for a man to just try and dig up the earth takes a lot of effort. So that's why you want a strong animal like an ox or whatever, and they drag that plow through the ground. And they're just breaking up the soil and causing it to be fertile again. You know, it makes me think of preaching. Because who's compared? Sorry, there's a stupid fly or something. Who's the preacher in the Bible? It's the oxen. The oxen are compared to preachers. And just like the oxen has to sit here and tear up all the soil and to make it fertile, that's what a preacher does by preaching hard truths of the Bible. And, you know, the soil is your heart. So he sits here and he just sits here and he pounds you with the Bible. He's just like, stop being lazy and stop lying and stop quitting fornication. And he's just sitting here and he's just like, I don't like this, you know. But it's just that cow is just constantly just coming plowing. He's just plowing your heart and just saying, go sowing. Sing louder. Read the Bible. Obey your parents. Obey your husband. You know, wives make a sandwich already. He's just like, hey, whatever it is, you know, don't believe the Jew. The Jew's a liar. It's just this constant plowing and it's hard work. But you need that to break up all these problems in your heart to make it tender soil so then that the seed, the word of God will be planted and they'll actually produce fruit. You know, you won't let the cares of this world, the thorns of this life and the deceitfulness of riches enter in and choke the word lest you become fruitful. You know, you have to have that constant, that preaching. And if you don't plow the field, you know, the seeds won't germinate. They'll just bounce off. They won't really do anything to you. So you need church and you need that preaching. And what happens is he's going to be speaking peace in your life. You know, you think that this is bad, but you know what? The plowing of the ground is good for the soil. Just like the preaching is good for you and this Bible is good for you and it's going to give you peace in your life. Don't think like, oh, I don't want to go and hear that or whatever. It's going to bring peace in your life. It's going to be peace in your marriage. It's going to bring peace in your children. You're going to have so much better of a life. You know, I don't meet these people that don't go to church and I'm thinking like, man, I wish my family was like your family. I wish my family was like the Kardashians where the dad's wearing a dress and the daughters are whores and everybody knows what they look like because they've all been posted their bodies online for everybody to see. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry can see what every Kardashian looks like. Whenever he wants, just go on the internet and just look up the whole family and the wife is just a train wreck and a loudmouth and bossy and she's become the man of the house now because there is no man in that house. You know, it's like is that what you want your life to turn into or would you like to have a family modeled after the Bible? Because I know who has more peace in their life. It's not the Kardashians. They don't have any peace. Their life is full of all kinds of weird drama that they're inflicting upon themselves. Okay. I wouldn't want that train wreck for five seconds. I don't want to watch it either. You know, I'm not interested in rubbernecking in that accident zone. Okay. That one you just don't look at. You need blinders. Okay. But you know what, if you want to have real peace in your life, it comes through the Bible. And of course it's still a yoke though. Hey, you got to still go soloing. Hey, you still got to read the Bible. Hey, you still have to teach your children how to do the things of God and you have to take them to church. But you know what, that's so much easier than what these other people are having to deal with. Than have to deal with all the bastard children to drag themselves to the clinic to get their STDs, you know, treatment or whatever weird nonsense they have going on. Or they're on all these drugs, antidepressants, because they're not happy. You know how many people are on antidepressants? It'll boggle the mind. And yet they claim that they're so much happier than us or whatever. And it's like, oh, y'all are so miserable. It's like, why are you taking so many drugs then? You know how many drugs I take for my happiness? Zero. You know how many drugs I take for anything? Zero. I on very rare occasion will take ibuprofen or Tylenol for a headache. That is it. I have happiness. I have joy in my life. I am not like these clinically depressed freaks that have to watch our sermons and gnash their teeth. You see what he said? I gotta take more Xanax. You know, it's like, look, they don't have peace. I have peace. I have joy. I have happiness. You know, and you know speaking peace to me every single day of my life? Jesus. In the Bible. And you know we want to constantly be feeding ourselves with the Bible and hearing the word of God being preached and showing up at church. Go to John 17 and you know it's great that we get to read some of the prayers that Jesus had for us while on this earth. I can't even imagine some of the prayers he's making for us in heaven. But you know the Bible says he's constantly interceding on our behalf in heaven. So just like Jesus was praying the Father, which means asking the Father things on this earth. He's doing that same thing in heaven right now for you and me. Do you know why he would do that? Because we're asking him. Because we're talking to him and praying to him. You know if you want these great prayers in the Bible to be prayed about you, you can have them right now. Pray to the Father. Now through Jesus and Jesus will pray the Father for you. And Jesus will be interceding for you. John chapter 17, look at verse 11. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world. And I come to thee, Holy Father. Keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was, you know, I love this verse because it's just like this stupid oneness doctrine. They're like, oh, Jesus is the Father, they're one. And I'm like, oh, so we're the Father too? Because notice what it says, that they may be one as we are. It's like, oh, we're the Father too. Like you're an idiot, okay? One in the Bible typically just means unified, okay? So that's what it means. They're unified and we're unified too, right? Verse 12. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. What could sound more peaceful than that? Jesus is saying, hey, I want to keep them from evil. Hey, Father, keep them from the evil. You know, if there's any person on this planet or in the universe that I want praying that the Father will keep me from evil, it's Jesus Christ. And he prayed that for you. You know what? He might even pray it for you right now or in the near future when you go to the God the Father in your prayer closet and you say, hey, keep me from the evil. Jesus is going to intercede and say, yeah, keep that guy from evil because he's going to speak peace for us. Just like Mordecai is the right-hand man at King Ahasuerus. And you want to be buddies with Mordecai because Mordecai is going to talk to King Ahasuerus for you and be like, hey, I like this guy. And I want that with Jesus because here's one thing you have to understand. Not only is Jesus Christ ruling and reigning right now, he's going to rule forever. And he's going to rule on this earth. And you know, if there's one person that I want to be on my side, it's Jesus. And the only thing that matters is the things that are eternal. And let me tell you some things that are going to happen for sure. The God the Father is going to rule on this earth and Jesus is going to rule with him. And you know what? I want to be on their good side. And the best way to be on their good side is to be pals with Jesus. And you know how you do that? Serve him now in this life. Why would I not? You know, think about if your company, the company you're working for right now, you were just told, hey, actually, FYI, in two months you're getting a new owner. New leadership. All new people. All new managers. All new CEO. All new ownership. And the current ownership is going to be burned alive and nobody cares what they think anymore. It's like, who do you really care to please at this point? Do you really care to please that old boss? Or do you care to please this new boss that's coming in? Like, I got to figure out what that guy likes and start doing what he likes. It's like, that's what we live in this world. Everything in this world, all the leadership now is going to burn in hell probably, virtually speaking. I don't care what they think. I don't care what Joe Biden thinks. I don't care what Greg Abbott thinks. I don't care what these worldly leaders think. Because most of them are going to go to hell. I should care and figure out what Jesus wants me to be doing in my life and start doing that. And start trying to please him. Because eventually he's going to be in charge and that's the only thing that matters. Just like these Twitter employees are freaking out about Elon Musk coming in. And it's like, I think he made a post and he says like, hey, if you're really critical to the company you have nothing to worry about. And it's like, hey, pretty soon Jesus is going to be in charge. But let me tell you something. When you're critical to the kingdom of God, you have nothing to worry about. You know, you're a lazy Christian that's doing nothing. You should be afraid when Jesus is going to show up. You know, the Bible even says that some of those that are saved are going to be ashamed when he comes. You know, you don't want to be caught sleeping on the job when your boss walks in. How embarrassing would that be? The new boss walks in and you're going to sleep at the desk. You think he's going to keep you? Elon Musk is going to be like, you can go home and sleep. I saw Elon Musk put another post. He just said, hey, all of y'all are free to work from home. Just not for Twitter. He's just like, hey, you want to work from home? He's not big on remote work. I'll just tell you that. You know, and I understand why because a lot of people are lazy when they work from home. But, you know, it's just why would I want to just be lazy in this life and do nothing because eventually I'm going to have to pay the piper. Eventually judgment days come and eventually Christ is going to be in charge. And, you know, the only thing that's going to matter is serving him. There's a lot of people in this life that are going to have almost nothing. They're never going to have a great job. They're never going to have a great house. They're not going to have any money. They're not going to have two nickels to rub together. You know what? They're going to have tons of riches in heaven. Think about the poor widow woman who cast in her two mites and Jesus said that she gave more than they all. She's going to be one of the richest people in heaven and she was a nothing in this life. You know, that shouldn't motivate people that have nothing in this life to say, like, it doesn't even matter. I could have great riches in heaven. You know what? It takes a big faith to believe in it. It takes a big faith to go out solely in it. It takes a big faith to not invest in this life. You know what? That's what God wants us to do is to have a big faith. To realize, look, just like Mordecai came into power, Jesus is coming into power. And our goal in this life is to serve Him. Let's close on prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for giving us this wisdom and this knowledge that comes from the book of Esther. And thank you for giving us such a great King, the Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, to rule and reign and that we get to share in His inheritance. I pray that we would see the inevitability of your Son reigning and we would accept that deep into our hearts. And we would live our lives trying to please Him, not to please ourselves, not to please this world, not to please anyone but you. And I pray that you would help us as we go on our ways to see the importance of preaching and reading the Bible and drawing close unto the Lord. As we realize you are going to reward us according to our works. And I pray that you would just help this church to be humble and to seek you first and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's go ahead and say one more song before we head home. You'll take back out your hymnals to song 13, Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone? Song number 13. Everyone, here's the cross for me. The cross I'll bear till death shall set me free. And they will hold my ground to bear, for this the crown for me. Upon the crystal pavement down, let Jesus be set free. Joyful of death, my golden crown, and His big name remain. O precious cross, O glorious crown, O resurrection day. Ye angels come, the stars come down, and bear my soul away. Amen. Thank you all for coming. God bless you.