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Come, sing ye heavens and earth reply, Alleluia! Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia! Where, O death, is now thy sting, Alleluia! Doubting ones, behold the same, Alleluia! Where thy victory, O grave, Alleluia! Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia! Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia! Death in vain, forfeited rise, Alleluia! Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia! Sing we to our God above, Alleluia! Praise eternal man's his love, Alleluia! Praise him, all ye heavenly hosts, Alleluia! Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Alleluia! Oh, happy day, then mix my joys, I'll be my Savior and my God. When his loving heart rejoices, when hell is wretched, all are proud. Happy day, happy day, when Jesus touched thy sins of pain. He taught me how to watch and pray, and live rejoicing every day. Happy day, happy day, when Jesus touched thy sins of pain. Oh, happy bond that seals my vow, to give the fairies all my love, and cheer the lanterns to his house, all to that sacred shrine I give. Happy day, happy day, when Jesus touched thy sins of pain. He taught me how to watch and pray, and live rejoicing every day. Happy day, happy day, when Jesus touched thy sins of pain. He's done the great transaction's done, I am my Lord and David's son. We truly live and follow on, try to confess the force divine. Happy day, happy day, when Jesus touched thy sins of pain. He taught me how to watch and pray, and live rejoicing every day. Happy day, happy day, when Jesus touched thy sins of pain. On the last, now rest my love, he died in heart. He taught this blissful sinner rest, to never run like only fire. With him I'll never resist. Happy day, happy day, when Jesus touched thy sins of pain. He taught me how to watch and pray, and live rejoicing every day. Happy day, happy day, when Jesus touched thy sins of pain. There shall be showers of blessing, this is the promise of love. There shall be seasons refreshing, sent from the Savior above. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need. Mercies all around us are falling, but for the showers we cling. There shall be showers of blessing, precious, reviving again. Over the hills and the valleys, sound of abundance of rain. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If we can go ahead and find our seats, we will get started. And for tonight's first song, we will go to song number 258. Song number 258, Christ Receiveth Sinful Men. Song number 258. Song 258, everybody, let's sing it out. Christ receiveth sinful men. Come and eat, forgive your rest. Trust him, Lord, his word is plain. He will take the sinfulness. Christ receiveth sinful men. Take it over and over again. Christ receiveth sinful men. Christ receiveth sinful men. In the message we remain. Christ receiveth sinful men. Now my heart reveals me not. You're before the Lord's hand. He who blends, become a flock. Satisfied, it's last event. Sing it over and over again. Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receiveth sinful men. Christ receiveth sinful men. Eat and eat with all my sin. Birds from every spot is made. Every limb I enter in. Sing it over and over again. Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receiveth sinful men. Great singing, everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer. Lord, we love you. We just thank you once again for this awesome church that we get to gather here and sing unto you at. And Lord, we love you. And we just ask that you bless this service and fill it with your spirit. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, for our next song, let's go to song number 119. Till the Storm Passes By. Song number 119. In the dark of the midnight Have my arms in my face While the storm howls above me And there's no hiding place In the crash of the thunder Precious Lord, hear my cry Keep me safe till the storm passes by Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds no more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of my hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by Many times Satan whispered There is no need to try For there's no end of sorrow There's no hope by and by But I know thou art with me And tomorrow I'll rise Where the storm's never gone In the sky Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds no more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of my hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by When the long night has ended And the storms come no more Let me stand in thy presence On thy prime peaceful shore In thy land where the tempest Never comes, Lord, may I Well with thee till the storm passes by Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds no more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of my hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by We are really, really pressing hard towards that mark and hopefully we can just shatter our previous records Also on the right we have a list of our expecting ladies We have some upcoming events, the Spanish Soul Winning Marathon and Breakfast We have some upcoming events, the Spanish Soul Winning Marathon and Breakfast We have some upcoming events, the Spanish Soul Winning Marathon and Breakfast March 8th and 9th. If you do want to participate we'd love for you to come out for us 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. we'll be having just a meet up here at the building but the Soul Winning again is going to be in areas designated to be heavily Spanish speaking only so just keep that in mind Of course there's still Saturday Soul Winning time with brother Jason in Arlington for regular speaking, English speaking Soul Winning opportunities The kids choir is going to begin March 2nd If you have any questions you can ask my wife Avengers Urbanic is going to be preaching for us March 12th That's going to be a Wednesday night service I'm really, really asking for people to please come even if you don't normally come on a Wednesday just to support Avengers Urbanic That would be really special to have a big attendance and to have a lot of people In fact y'all might even break the attendance record and get a bunch of ice cream so it's just like a double win right? So you guys should try to come out and it would be pretty easy if everybody showed up Spring Recital March 22nd so if you want to participate in that Also church reminders down there on the back we have our prayer list I was hoping our missionaries would be back before the service started to give a kind of a testimony but I think that they might be in here just showing up a little bit later Maybe they can give it after so I'd like to hear I did get to talk to Evangeless Fur, they had already landed and he said that they ended up having 209 salvations for the whole trip and so that's really, really good, praise the Lord on that And even if they can't give a testimony today which I would prefer but if they can't then we'll have it for another service Definitely looking forward to hearing, he said that they have all kinds of amazing stories They actually, I didn't understand the itinerary exactly because I thought they were going to St. John but I guess they actually went to Antigua so it's a little bit different than we were anticipating but he actually said that he really enjoyed being there and that it was actually very receptive and so he has a lot of cool things that he wants to share about Antigua and I'm really looking forward to hearing about that as well Hopefully we'll get to hear from them soon Other than that we're going to sing our third song of the evening, Holy, Holy, Holy So then your special handouts, Holy, Holy, Holy Alright that was Holy, Holy, Holy Holy, Holy, Holy Let's all sing it out together Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty Early in the morning As God shall rise to be Holy, Holy, Holy Merciful Almighty God in three persons Blessed Trinity Holy, Holy, Holy Holy, Holy All the saints adoring Passing down their golden crowns around the classy sea Terrible and terrible Falling down before Thee His Word and our hand Evermore shall be Holy, Holy, Holy All the darkness by Thee All the eyes of sin open Thine glory may not see Holy, thou art Holy There is none beside Thee Perfect in marriage Love and purity Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty Almighty All my words shall praise Thy name In earth, and sky, and sea Holy, Holy, Holy Merciful Almighty God in three persons Blessed Trinity Great singing everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to the book of John chapter number one. That's John chapter number one. . . . . . . . . John chapter number one, the Bible says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave you power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bare witness of Him, and cried, saying, This was He of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for He was before me. And of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. And this is the record of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask Him, Who art thou? And He confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked Him, What then? Art thou Elias? And He saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And He answered, No. Then said they unto Him, Who art thou? That we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah saith. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked Him and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water, but there standeth one among you whom ye know not. He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes latch it, I am not worthy to unloose. These things were done in Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me. And I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him, and I knew him not. But he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same as he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God. Again the next day after John stood and two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, which is to say, being interpreted, Master, where dwelleth thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messiahs which is being interpreted to Christ, and he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jonah. Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone. The day following Jesus went forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and in the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the son of God, thou art the king of Israel. Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believe is thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these. And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. I want to thank you for the souls that were saved today. Thank you for the blessed Holy Trinity. I pray that you would please help Pastor Shelley as he teaches your word. Please give him clarity and help us to be attentive to the word. In Jesus' name, Amen. Before we get into the sermon this evening, I want to let both these guys that just got back on this missions trip give us a little bit of a testimonial. And so we're going to hear from Evangelist Fur about their trip and then also Brother Marcel. So why don't you go ahead and give us a little testimonial. Well, first of all, I just want to thank Pastor Shelley for giving us the opportunity to go. The soul winning, if you've never, first off, I have never been on a missions trip anywhere. And so this was kind of my first opportunity to get out there and experience that. And I have to say that at least the only litmus test that I have at this point is that the soul winning in the Caribbean is amazing. People are so receptive there. And I've heard so many great stories about the Bahamas. And the Bahamas did not let us down at all. That was the first island we ended up going to. And we had ninety five salvations that day between the four of us and then also Kenton. And so, yeah, I mean, we were at the college pretty much the entire time. And we happened to be there on a really good day because there was a lot of people and there was just constant traffic back and forth. We just kind of stood out in the open and it was just constant preaching. I mean, it felt like I was preaching the gospel just over and over and over and over again. And I pretty much lost my voice at the end of that first day. And I think the total amount of times I'd preached was nine times. I preached the gospel nine times back to back to back to back. But it was awesome. I mean, it was great. And then the second island we went to was St. Thomas. St. Thomas was a little bit more difficult, even though it was still very receptive. We found a college there and were able to get a ride to the college. The college was a little bit further spread out. And so it wasn't as easy where you just had constant flow of people to talk to. And so you had to work a little bit harder. Also, the people there were just not as the young kids were just not as receptive. I don't know really how else to put it other than they just kind of were, you know, there was a handful that were nonchalant about the Bible and God and just not really caring about afterlife and things like that. Whereas in the Bahamas, it's everyone cares about what the Bible has to say and they're interested in knowing how to be saved. They're very in tune with what the Bible already says about Jesus Christ and the gospel and how he came to this earth to die for our sins. And so getting them saved was so much easier, whereas you had to work a little bit harder in St. Thomas. Also, St. Thomas is very mountainous. So going anywhere on foot is pretty much out of the question. We went to that college. We spent several hours there. We came back to the port and Brother Marcel and I decided we're going to hike to this apartment that was maybe three or four blocks away from what we would typically think of a block. And it was like a real hike because we had to go up quite a bit and we were just exhausted by the time we got to the apartment just walking up there. And we've got some video of preaching and Brother Marcel, you could hear him just, and then I'm like trying to preach and I'm like, you know, trying to get everything out. But we got a couple young kids saved up there in that apartment and a lady and then we got another guy later on as we came back down. So all in all, we had 42 salvations there in St. Thomas. And then probably the funnest island or the one that is maybe more near and dear to Brother Marcel and I's heart, I think, is the last one, which is Antigua. Antigua was an adventure as well. It actually wasn't even the island we initially thought it was going to be. We were looking up and there's an island in the U.S. Virgin Islands right next to St. Thomas called St. John's. So we thought because we had, it was like back to back days, we thought that that was the island that we were going to. So none of our scouting even really mattered when we woke up because we figured out that we had actually sailed much further south to Antigua. And Antigua is a very poor country. I really felt like I was on the mission field there. You did not feel like you were in a tourist area. Now there were some shops and you could still experience that if you will. But we got, again we found another college that we, because we went to two already, had some success. We thought we'd go to this third one. It was not at all the same as the other first two islands. We got to the college and there was a building there and there was pretty much nobody there. And so we're like, great. Well we started walking and we just got, you know, where the spirit blows we will go, right? So we just started walking and we ended up coming upon a school. It was a school probably for junior high boys. And you know, brother Marcel, as bold as he is, he just walks up there like he owns the place, you know. And we're kind of following behind him as he's going through the gate and we're like, alright, well I guess we're doing this. So we get up in there and we're able to preach to pretty much every boy that went to that school and got so many people saved. I believe our total on that island was 58, but we were honestly only still winning for two to maybe two and a half hours. Because it started raining so much and I was pretty much sick the whole week, but I was really feeling bad that day. And I could not even go any further and it was going to rain, so we decided just we're going to cut it. And we had already talked to everybody at that particular school. And brother Marcel, he's got some good stories there as well. We got a lot on footage for that. But that place for sure is a place that I know both of us would love to go back to sometime and just spend more time on that island. Because there's also a lot of darkness on that island. A lot of spiritual darkness. Catholicism is really big, but also we ran into a lot of people that were Seventh-day Adventists or they've been influenced by Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses and just a lot of people hung up on some weird hell doctrine and able to get a mother saved that was kind of hung up on some of those things. And so yeah, it was a great experience. Highly recommend if you've never been on a missions trip that you have to go to a missions trip in the Caribbean. You have to. It has to be on your list. You know, the fact that we're going through the Bahamas as a church and going to make it very easy for all of us to be able to do that, I can't say it enough. You have to go. It is so much fun. It's the easiest soul winning you'll ever do in your life. It's great. It's amazing. How many people did you talk to that were saved already? Very few. Very few. I mean, I would say on Bahamas was the only island I remember running no, I did run into one person on St. Thomas. There was a girl she had the right answers and then I was going to preach to her friends and they had to go but she said there was actually a Baptist church there on St. Thomas. And she was saved. So they must be preaching the right gospel there. But outside of that there was very little. Well I just want to say thank you to Pastor Shelley and allowing us to do this mission trip. It was a lot of fun. It was better than I expected. I wasn't expecting to get so many salvations. I believe we got a total of 209 people saved within three days of soul winning. So it was a great turnout. I'll just go over a few things really quickly just about the cruise itself. So it was my first time ever taking the cruise. I'm not sure if anybody has ever done one. But the cruise was an experience. You know if you ever watch Titanic it's like I don't know if I want to go on a cruise so I had to have a lot of courage to do that. But the cruise is kind of like a hotel on a boat and it's like a small town on the boat where it's kind of like a strip mall. There's a lot of places you can walk and buy stuff. The greatest part for me was all the free food. I mean obviously it's not free because you got to pay to get on the boat. But it's breakfast, lunch and dinner, snacks, desserts, coffee all day unlimited. That's not good for me personally but I took advantage of it because I'm like you know what you only live once so I was going to eat, drink and be married while I was on the boat. What I think is really cool too is like the cruise trip I think is really ideal for families because a lot of times if you take your family on a vacation you have to like buy the hotel you got to get a ride, your wife had to make food, clean up the place. Whereas on the cruise they clean up after you, they clean up your hotel room, you get all the food you want so you can feed your kids as much as you want non-stop and they clean up after you, everything is taken care of. So I think it's definitely a great way to spend a lot of family time and even do some soul winning with your family or if you have a couple families go together just have the family go to the beach, you do some soul winning. So there's a lot of great options I think with the cruise trip it's kind of like you can have a good time just doing both so that was a lot of fun. Now I will kind of go over the Bahamas. So going to the Bahamas it was super receptive compared to St. Thomas and St. John's. I kind of just figured that St. Thomas you know just in the name itself is probably not a Christian nation to begin with in St. John's. So it actually made it was actually true because like when you go to the university in Bahamas everyone you talk to they pretty much already have a lot of the gospel figured out like we're literally entering into other men's labors and all we have to do is connect the dots for them really quickly and they get saved right away. And when I was over there I mean we were just there for five hours I mean it was literally non-stop soul winning. You're talking to one person right here as soon as you're done you're going to the next person right here and a couple things that I learned was like how powerful the word of God is and when the Bible says that the word of God is quick and powerful it's no joke. I kind of use this illustration as like if you see like a boxing match if you watch Mike Tyson back in the day he can knock people out in one round right. So like sometimes in the Bahamas all you have to do is show them John 3 16 Ephesians 2 8 9 and they're ready to get saved they understand the whole truth there's no hang ups whereas in St. Thomas and Antigua St. John's there was a lot of like doctrines you had to overcome so there was like maybe a lot of seven day adventures that was there so we had to overcome like you know there's one lady she was she didn't believe that Jesus was God. I was like you know I got a perfect sermon it's called Trinity views let me send you a new WhatsApp and here you go watch this. So there was a lot of doctrines and stuff like that we had to overcome and I kind of thought of this verse I thought it was pretty cool in 2 Samuel it talks about like David and all his mighty men and it says these be the names of the mighty men whom David had it says the Tachmonite that sat in the seat chief among the captains the same was a dino the ezanite he lift up his spear against 800 whom he slew at one time and you literally feel like you're in a like in the battlefield because when you're in the Bahamas talking to everybody nonstop you're just like killing one person killing the next person killing the next person getting the next person safe getting the next person safe for five hours straight I mean like I think we stopped maybe one time for water because now we would have killed ourselves and poor evangelist fur literally like lost his voice the first day just like Brent did last time in the Bahamas and then he's like sick the whole entire trip he's not going to tell you this but he was sick as a dog he was pale and I'm like you know I'm sick I like to be baby I like to be pampered I don't want to go nowhere and he was still walking around the whole island with us trying to get people saved you know blowing out snot but he's like I'm alright we're going to keep it going and you know what he definitely trooped it out and I thought of this verse about him because it says right here it talks about one of David's mighty men it says he arose and smote the Philistine until his hand was weary and his hand clave unto the sword so literally like we're out there just fighting until there's none left you know until your hand cleaves unto the sword the word of God and that's what we're doing I'll just kind of wrap up on the last time on St. John's the story he kind of mentioned really quickly actually I had to do two more stories so there's one more so St. John's was pretty cool because we were into the university that's typically like our main focus let's go to university try to see if we can find some younger age people to get saved but nobody was there so we were like well let's just start walking and just see where God leads us right so there was a school and there was like a gate but there's like a crack in the gate and there's like a bunch of people and I'm like let's just go so we like snuck into the back and like the guy there's like maybe eight kids in the front so we preached them the gospel we get them all saved right away and I'm like hey who's the security here he's like I am I'm like okay so like I was like well if anybody acts I'm gonna just say you let us in he's like okay whatever so literally like we're going inside we're preaching to kids and as we're talking to kids you have more kids just coming talking to us and it was just like nonstop action for a couple of hours kids playing soccer playing soccer we just stopped all of them got them all saved so that was really cool now the last plug he forgot to plug this what it was about the Baptist bias shirt I think he had about three four people stop him just because of his shirt they're like oh that shirt is nice so one time we're at dinner and there's an Indian guy and he's like he's like oh Baptist you followed John the Baptist he was like well you know we believed on the Baptist but we're Baptist and then he pretty much starts preaching him the gospel and this guy gets saved at the dinner table this Indian waiter and he gets saved because of the Baptist bias shirt so that is something we all need to wear whenever we go out in a missions trip so that way we can represent yeah and a lot of other people can stop them as well but yeah it was a lot of fun Bahamas if you haven't been on a missions trip I recommend Hali going it was the most receptive it was nonstop action I think with obviously with this trip we got about 200 people saved so if you divide that by four that's 50 people I mean if you do two missions trips a year I mean that's 100 people you could get saved a year besides just your everyday soul winning on Sunday so I recommend going to Bahamas check it out you know Pastor Shelley has a great zeal for soul winning so let's follow him let's do as much soul winning as we can here take this and give that to them for me thanks he has some great testimonials and of course we had two ladies on the trip as well Miss Miller and Miss Garcia and I know that they also had some great numbers some very zealous soul winners and honestly we had an all star team go on this missions trip and it's great to see people who even when they're not feeling good just stick it out and be steadfast and you know it's hard to match brother Marcel's zeal that's one of the things I just love about brother Marcel is he just has a genuine love for getting people saved and being a zealous soul winner and so if you ever get an opportunity to go on a trip or soul winning these are two great guys to go with and really appreciate the hard work you guys put into the soul winning efforts and of course we appreciate our church for you know of course the money that you give to our church we try to use in ways like this to go on missions trips and send people out on the mission field and get people saved and really appreciate also faithful word is kind of gave us the idea I'd never heard of this idea I personally like don't want to ever go on a boat but like I've seen Titanic alright so yeah but you know they try to make it a lot of fun and I've heard from a lot of people they really enjoy going on the cruise ships even if you're not going soul winning it's just a fun time and you can have a good opportunity to hang out I think some cruises they offer for your children under I think the age of 12 for free so I think like some cruises have special deals and special discounts we'll probably try to organize maybe another event at the end of the year that's going to be pretty similar to what those guys did so you've got plenty of opportunities I know other churches are doing cruise missions trips if you're interested you could always ask us and we could try to give you that information additionally our church is doing the Bahamas October 6th through the 11th that's going to be a direct trip so we're just kind of trying to target that one area and then we'll probably have another cruise missions trip that we at least recommend if people want to try and go of course you can always do your own thing you can always just grab a buddy grab a friend say you want to go there are cruise missions trips that focus in Spanish speaking countries as well so there's ones that leave from Galveston and kind of go down through Mexico and kind of target a lot of Spanish speaking areas so there's a lot a lot of opportunity really the harvest truly is plenteous it's just who's going to go and one thing that they didn't necessarily express but I want to reiterate is that you know a prophet is not without honor save in his own land in his own country and something you just don't really understand is how people just want to hear the gospel from someone that's not there it's just weird even America people sometimes want to hear from foreigners way more than someone that's from America but when you go to these foreign countries there's just something special about wanting to have a message and wanting to talk to people people often will give you more attention and more time of day and that's why it's such a unique experience that when you talk to people in these areas and so you know it's some of these numbers honestly they seem unbelievable like they just seem like they're not real but I'm telling you it is there's something special about the Bahamas I preach the whole sermon called Bahamas soul winning made easy and look I'm not just saying it by myself everybody that's gone there has given the same testimony and you know I don't know how long it's going to stay like that just because obviously you know once you get everybody saved there's not anybody else left to get saved but with 250,000 people I think there's still a lot of opportunity we keep hitting the schools every couple years so there's a new crop or new generation but obviously you know it's good to get the getting when the getting's good right so we want to try and work really hard and try to get a lot of people saved while we can so just pray even if you can't go on one of these missions trips just pray that our trips go well of course you know just being just someone that supports our church really helps us with those and we really appreciate the missions that we're doing down there and it helps us to try and compete with Evangelist Urbanic who's in another awesome spot the Philippines which is also a great place to go soul winning so thank you guys for giving that testimony thank you so much for going out there also the ladies that went out there they did a really good job and worked really really hard and so we appreciate that I want to preach a sermon now in verse number 14 I want to start in verse number 14 of John chapter 1 that we read the Bible says and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory is of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth now this sermon is kind of a culmination of the previous three sermons that I've already done so we've gone through a trinity series and we've established some really important doctrines number 1 that Jesus is God the Bible is extremely clear we see this in verse number 1 right in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God that shows that the word God can be used in a couple different ways because the first mention of God in verse 1 is talking about the father the second mention of God is talking about deity and so Jesus Christ is with the father and Jesus Christ is deity he is God that's what the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is God he's just not the father and that was of course the second sermon I talked about trinity views and how we understand the distinction of persons we have the father son and holy ghost three persons one God and in that sermon I lay out the evidence in the Bible for them having their own will self and witness which is constantly brought up in the gospel of John specifically now this morning I preached a sermon on old testament appearances of God and we see you know several different places we saw in the garden we saw Jesus Christ there with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua, Manoah and his wife and then Daniel we see him showing up now I'm not saying that's the only times those are the times that I see very clearly you could maybe make a few other arguments but those are some seven really clear examples of a Christophany Jesus Christ showing up in the old testament however here in John chapter 1 verse 14 we have the Bible bringing up something changed about the Lord Jesus Christ the Bible tells us in verse 14 and the word was made flesh so something has changed here and this is what's often referred to in a theological context the incarnation who's ever heard that term incarnation yeah ok so that's what I want to preach about this evening is the incarnation incarnation I'm going to read for you what the dictionary would say about incarnation that we're going to talk about it says incarnation is being embodied in flesh or specifically in human form especially a deity or spirit if you look this up on Wikipedia or other places it'll say quote the union of divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ so many times people will refer to the incarnation as the moment in time when Jesus Christ put on human flesh and became a man now the Bible is very clear about that that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us so I want to talk about what that looks like and kind of how do we understand then Jesus Christ appearing in the old testament and then how do we understand the incarnation how do these things work together now go over to John chapter 6 verse 62 go to John chapter 6 verse 62 and we're going to look at some different verses on this John chapter 6 verse 62 Jesus says this what and if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before so the Bible tells us and it's very explicit that Jesus Christ is not a created being Jesus Christ is God and Jesus Christ has eternally existed additionally we've seen many pictures of the quote pre-incarnate Christ where he appeared in the old testament in the garden with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and so on and so on so we have Jesus Christ appearing Jesus Christ was in heaven prior to him coming down from heaven entering into Mary's womb and putting on human flesh now the Bible says in chapter 3 go back chapter 3 look at verse 13 we're kind of just seeing some verses that talk about Jesus Christ look at verse 13 of chapter 3 and no man ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven even the son of man which is in heaven now this is a very very interesting verse the word even you always have to refer to it in my mind is specifically okay so Jesus is talking to Nicodemus he's saying no one's ever ascended to heaven no one's ever done that and then he says he came down from heaven and then he says specifically the son of man and then he says this which is in heaven now that's interesting because how is Jesus Christ on the earth talking with Nicodemus and then simultaneously stating that the son of man is in heaven I don't know but I do believe it right I don't understand how Jesus Christ can necessarily be in two places at the same time but this is evidenced by other verses in the Bible because the Bible tells us in the revelation in other places about the Lord Jesus Christ that people are going to be tormented in hell in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb so in some way the lamb of God is going to be there with those being tormented in hell I don't understand how that makes sense I don't exactly understand how that works but obviously he's transcending our human capabilities of only being in one place at one time now obviously humans can also be in multiple places at the same time in a different context because we can die and our body can be here on earth and our soul and spirit can be in heaven or in hell and so you kind of have a split of who we are but I don't think that's necessarily how we would define or explain these things I'm just saying you could technically be in multiple places at the same time somehow Jesus Christ can be in heaven and he can be on earth and talk with Nicodemus I don't understand that but we see that he transcends our capabilities he transcends our capabilities in a lot of ways in the New Testament and I want to show you those go to John chapter number 8 verse 42 John chapter number 8 verse 42 but what's special about John 114 is that Jesus Christ literally put on the limitations of humanity that he really humbled himself and he really became a man and he wasn't something that's like a hybrid where he has a supernatural flesh he's Hercules or something he really is just a man in a sense but we understand that he's 100% God and 100% man in the sense that he's still God and he's still 100% human there's nothing about him that's not human he really put on the limitations of our humanity while he went through that experience so he could experience exactly what we go through and what it's like he went through the full human experience somehow when he came to this earth and that's very special why is that special? So that he could be touched with the feeling of our infirmities the Bible says so that he could taste death for every man as the Bible tells us in the book of Hebrews and that he could learn obedience as the Bible says I mean just read the book of Hebrews and it really just kind of tells you why Jesus did what he did and why it was so special his experiences now John chapter 8 verse 42 says about Jesus Jesus said unto them if God were your father you would love me for I proceeded forth and came from God neither came I of myself but he sent me so I'm just proving very clearly Jesus Christ already existed he was already in heaven he was with the father but he came down from heaven and he put on human limitations mortal human flesh which we would call the incarnation now let's go to keep your fingers around here because we're going to go to Mark but I want to go to 1st Timothy 3 first I want to go to 1st Timothy 3 and then we're going to go to Mark chapter number 9 but we're just kind of proving some different things here and this is kind of a Bible study so we're going to look at a lot of verses and then we're going to make some conclusions here at the end 1st Timothy chapter number 3 the Bible says in verse 16 and without controversy great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of angels preached to the Gentiles believed on the world received up in glory now manifest means to appear or to be made obvious so we have God appearing and made obvious in flesh and of course we understand that to be the Lord Jesus Christ who is also justified in the spirit he was seen of angels he preached unto the Gentiles he was believed unto the world and he was received up in glory he literally ascended up into heaven where no other man has ever ascended they've been carried by angels okay that's what the Bible talks about is how we would be carried he actually ascended now go if you would back to Mark chapter number 9 Mark chapter number 9 now I don't want to get too far ahead of myself but I do want to just make this point and then I'm going to prove it a little bit further but the Bible makes it very clear that Jesus Christ put on mortal flesh put on mortal flesh when he came here but even though he had that limitation he apparently has the ability or God just decides at will that he could transform Jesus at any moment in time and even though he has mortal flesh while he was on the earth there was a moment when he went through a special transformation or what's called a transfiguration it happens in a couple places look what it says in Mark chapter 9 verse 2 and after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John and leadeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves and he was transfigured before them and his raiment became shiny seeding white as snow so as no fuller on earth can white them that's really confusing sentence it's just basically saying like a fuller is someone that's going to make clothes white he deals with garments and cleaning them and when it talks about making these garments white it's saying like think about the most bright white cotton shirt that Haynes t-shirt all cotton how white it is it's saying these clothes are somehow whiter than that which we think of that as kind of like typically at Haynes pack of white t-shirts it's about as white as you're going to get he's saying no one could put this white garment on Jesus no one could make a garment that white as the whiteness of the garment that Jesus had he was shining so bright says and there appeared unto them Elias with Moses and they were talking with Jesus so we have the Lord Jesus Christ is in human form but the couple of apostles here Peter James and John they get the special privilege of seeing Jesus transform back into his I believe previous state his previous state which would be a glorified flesh state so he's in a mortal flesh state but then he's transfigured you could say this is a foreshadowing what he will be I think is probably even what he had before but he's definitely capable of going in and out of a mortal state and an immortal state and that's kind of demonstrated here in verse seven when this happens it says there was a cloud that overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud saying this is my beloved son hear him so we talked about God the father when God the father shows up he's always with clouds or something he's always like clothed with fire or clouds again why because you can't handle him right so he always has to be shielded by clouds or by some fire or something like that and yet we have that voice coming from God the father saying this is my beloved son and so we have all these different confirmations of Jesus Christ to these apostles and this is very important because they were going to have to go out onto a very pagan heathen world preaching the gospel with the threat of death regularly and so I think that God privileged them to see many different confirmations throughout their life so they would have the boldness to endure through great tribulations and great difficulties and you know when God does miracles in your life or you see God really show up in your life in powerful ways you need to take hold of that and really get it in your memory banks so that when you go through difficult seasons in the future you'll remind yourself of why you're still serving God and that God is powerful and that God is real you know the children of Israel kind of forgot about that Passover lamb I mean the death angel passed over their house and did not take their firstborn that was a major event in their life and here's that picture it's salvation when you got saved that was a major event in your life now some of us got saved as a child who got saved as a child in here yeah a lot of people who got saved as an adult now for you that got saved as an adult some of you and I'm not saying all some of you might have had an actual transformation of your life like you might have been headed down a certain way of your life and then when you got saved you kind of made a major change that should be something that signifies you God is real and he's done miracles in your life so therefore you need to make sure to keep that with you and keep serving God you know maybe some people they made a major transformation when they got baptized like walking through the Red Sea maybe you started hearing really good preaching or going through difficulties in your life and you made some positive changes and God's really blessed you you need to really hone in on those changes and allow them to stick with you so you keep saying steadfast you stay with the Lord and you don't forget those experiences we definitely have the Lord Jesus Christ transfigured for them and God the Father saying hey this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased go over to Matthew 17 I want to show you this from another passage go to Matthew chapter 17 we'll see the transfiguration of Jesus again so apparently God can just do whatever he wants let's just be honest I mean he can he can take deity and he can cause him to be born as a baby and be completely incarnated to where he has human mortal flesh and the limitations of humanity it's mind boggling how that could even happen I mean just birth itself is mind boggling let alone to Jesus Christ which is deity clothed in flesh not only that while he's walking on earth he says the son of man is still in heaven additionally at any point Jesus Christ could just even be transfigured like in a moment to transfigure and then transferred back and of course God can just he can raise the dead I mean God can do whatever I mean God can do whatever he wants so we can understand those things we're just kind of getting an idea of what the Bible says about Jesus and his current state look at Matthew chapter 17 verse 1 three tabernacles one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias while yet spake behold a bright cloud overshadowed them and behold a voice out of the cloud which said this is my beloved son whom I am well pleased hear ye him and when the disciples heard it they fell on their face and were sore afraid and Jesus came and touched them and said arise and be not afraid and when they lifted up their eyes they saw no man save Jesus only so they get to go up to the mountain they see this special event Jesus is transfigured they see Moses and Elias and then a shadow over the cloud overshadows them or comes around them it's a bright cloud and of course it says this is my beloved son whom I am well pleased hear ye him and then they just like fall down because they're just terrified it's an awesome experience and then Jesus comes and comforts them and he's kind of back to normal it's kind of back to the normal situation but they see Jesus being transfigured before them now I want to take a moment here to talk about flesh in general and I want to start in Genesis chapter number 6 go back to Genesis chapter number 6 one thing that we know for a fact and let's just lay down some of the facts that we've already discovered number one is that something changed about Jesus Christ in John chapter 1 verse 14 something changed because the Bible says the word was made flesh something changed the second point that I'm kind of working on is the idea that that flesh was a mortal flesh meaning it was capable of dying it was capable of perishing and that's important because without him putting on mortality we could not have forgiveness of sins we could not have the death burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ so that was a major component of the transformation is that the transformation was into human mortal flesh then the third thing that we want to tease out and think about is how does that make sense then with how he appeared in the Old Testament but before I kind of answer that question I want to talk about flesh for a moment because the Bible paints this picture that human mortal flesh is a problem there's a problem with human mortal flesh and in fact it's actually described as an enemy in the Bible look at Genesis chapter 6 and look at verse number 3 and the Lord said my spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh and today shall be 120 years so the Bible gives this idea of us being flesh and there is multiple kinds of flesh we're going to go through verse Corinthians 5 in a minute but I just want to prove this point further go to James chapter number 4 and I want to go to James chapter number 4 and I want to show you another verse on flesh but when we think about the flesh that's often what we talk about when we think about someone being carnal or living worldly we say this person is in the flesh what do we mean by that we're saying this person is not really doing the things of God they're not really in the spirit they are in the flesh and the Bible talks about and we're going to get some of these verses how there's war between that flesh and that spirit James chapter 4 look at verse 5 do you think that the scripture saith in vain the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy the Bible says there's something about our human spirit that lusts unto envy and it's saying like do you think the Bible is saying this in vain it should be obvious it should be obvious that our human flesh has problems and what is one of the main problems the Bible says that our human flesh has envy you know when someone says like oh I don't struggle with envy they're basically saying they're a perfect Christian because what the Bible is saying is that almost like the biggest problem that we all struggle with and a thing that's very common is envy and anybody that's in the flesh is going to often struggle with envy envy is a major component and when you see someone being very envious just take it to the bank that person is being very carnal they're in the flesh they're not really thinking about spiritual things so the envy is a major component of our human spirit look at Jude we're right there just skip to the right look at Jude verse 23 let me prove again I'm trying to prove here something about flesh there's a problem with flesh Jude look at verse 23 others save with fear pulling them out of the fire hating even the garment notice this spotted by the flesh did you notice that the Bible is bringing up this idea of being spotted by what by your flesh there's a problem with flesh our flesh is what we call sinful now go back to Romans and let's look at a few verses here on this we're kind of proving now when Jesus Christ came in flesh he obviously never sinned he was without sin the Bible says he was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin but we are going to sin we don't do things perfectly and part of our problem is that we are in this flesh and we don't have the capability of always making the right decision overcoming that flesh and so we constantly are falling victim of the flesh even the apostle Paul relents that he's often a victim of the flesh Romans chapter 8 verse 7 because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God notice that the Bible there's a problem with your flesh now this is what's silly is the Pentecostals and the Charismaniacs they think that not wanting to serve God is just something they can slap you on the forehead and you'll magically want to serve God but the problem is you're always going to be tempted to not serve God while you're in the flesh because our flesh doesn't desire God our flesh is very sinful we're often failing we're often doing carnal things the carnal mind is at enmity with God that's war there's a conflict there's a struggle with us wanting to serve God because our flesh is so powerful the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and often our flesh is struggling to serve God because it has no desire for God it doesn't want to be with God it's our spirit that we have to walk into that wants to serve God look at chapter 6 verse 19 Romans chapter 6 verse 19 says I speak after the man or men because of the infirmity of your flesh for as ye have yielded your member servants to uncleanness and to iniquity and to iniquity even so now yield your member servants to righteousness and to holiness now the word infirmity just simply means weakness so he's just saying the weakness I'm telling you these things about not sinning because of the weakness of your flesh because you're so weak and you're so likely to just be lazy the chances of you being lazy are just so high most Christians are just lazy bums that will never serve God most Christians will never preach the gospel most Christians will not do much for the Lord it's like where are the nine nine out of ten didn't even say thank you one time I mean a lot of Christians won't even go to church a lot of Christians won't read their Bible let me tell you this a lot of pastors won't go out and preach the gospel and when they won't preach the gospel they become a forgetful hearer because they're not a doer of the work and so they invent false doctrine to excuse why they don't actually evangelize they come up with weird ideas like Calvinism to basically teach why they won't go out and preach the gospel and try to evangelize and so you see presbyterians having those beautiful churches you've ever seen your entire life because they don't spend a dime on cruise missions trips they don't spend a dime going out there and actually evangelizing and reaching people they just want to have a high tower few people you know high steeple few people and they don't really care about the rest of the world dying and going to hell you have people making dumb excuses to not go soul winning saying well if you're too sinful you shouldn't go soul winning that is a wicked satanic false doctrine I don't want to hang out with these people I don't want to allow them to influence me I heard someone say there's these certain soul winners who have the right gospel with their mouth but they preach a false gospel with their actions like what does that even mean first of all I could be as sinful as possible and that does not contradict my gospel presentation because you know my gospel presentation teaches that you can do literally anything and if you just believe one time you're saved I mean I'm at the door and I'm explaining to somebody hey salvation is such a free gift and they're like yeah are you super sinful yeah I'm super sinful but I believe in Jesus and I'm saved that doesn't even contradict my gospel presentation I heard this stupid pastor say this about like oh it's a good thing people don't know what you're really like when you knock on their door to try and give them the gospel and I'm thinking like yeah I'm glad they don't I'm glad no one does do you really think I want to walk around with a list of all my sins like here you go here's what I did this week that would be weird we would have respect for zero people I mean just think if your marriage would survive if for one day if your wife could hear every single one of your thoughts especially if she knew that and started asking you questions that would be really really dangerous you know it's just silly because we have to realize our flesh is very sinful we sin all the time the thought of foolishness is sin if you're not going to go soul winning because you're too sinful then no one's ever allowed to ever go soul winning ever no one's allowed to do it but you know what that's evil and that's wicked and that's satanic you know what I don't care how sinful you are preach the gospel period if you have the opportunity to get someone saved you know what just get in the spirit a little bit for that one moment and then just if you want to go back to the flesh whatever but you know what just get in the spirit for 10 minutes and preach the gospel and you have to realize that yeah our flesh doesn't want to do it so it comes up with all these excuses well I just feel too sinful you know that's a dumb lame excuse you know don't make excuses for not serving God you know that's your flesh talking not the spirit the spirit is willing the flesh is weak the flesh is lazy the flesh comes up with dumb excuses not to preach the gospel or to do things for God Romans chapter 7 this is Paul talking about it for I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing for to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not he's saying man I just really want to do what's right and I'm just struggling to figure out how to do it I'm so glad for these chapters it actually makes Christianity realistic where we actually think like man you like wake up one day and you have all these plans like I'm going to serve God I'm going to read my Bible for two hours a day and I'm going to do all these things and then like at the end of the week you're thinking like I failed you know you're like oh man I wanted to do these things or you give up some sin or you're getting something right and then a week later you feel yourself you find yourself falling back in the same trap making the same mistakes having the same dumb thoughts losing your temper whatever having envious thoughts being prideful being lazy doing whatever because we're flesh and the person that gets up and acts like well I serve God perfectly is a liar and a holier than thou OK no one is just this perfect little Christian that never does anything bad well I never cuss this is what I would like to ask this person what about in your mind because it's the same have you ever thought a bad word because that's also bad I guess you're not so perfect no one is perfect folks I mean the apostle Paul says I am carnal for we know that the law is spiritual but I am carnal sold under sin don't ever think like hey if I serve God long enough then I'll just stop wanting to be carnal no no the apostle Paul the greatest apostle doing great works for God he still feels like in his current state I am carnal the apostle Peter when confronted by the Lord Jesus Christ says depart from me Lord for I am a sinful man praise God that he picked sinful man to do great things for him you know what Jesus didn't do is he didn't go find twelve holier than thou to go follow him around and be disciples he found people that felt like they were too sinful to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and even when they made mistakes which isn't so funny to me I mean think about the mistakes that the disciples actually made here's a mistake that Peter actually made he denied that he even knew Jesus Christ don't you think that's a pretty big mistake and yet sometimes Christians will crucify other Christians over things that don't even matter at all think that they should give up or try to demonize them when the apostle Peter literally denied the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus didn't give up on him Jesus still wanted him to go out and preach the gospel and do great works because you know what God uses sinful people he uses people that make mistakes and you know what we're a bunch of sinful people that are saved by grace and praise God I don't have to go and show a resume to people at the door before I give them the gospel of how awesome I am and how many sins I've repented of and how amazing of a Christian I am before I can convince them to be saved in fact typically I usually just say hey if I told you that I've never lied before would you believe me and they're all like no they already know me they already know I've lied before they already know that I can do things they're not sitting here thinking that I'm so amazing this is a silly silly silly doctrine we understand that the flesh is not good look at verse 24 oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of this death I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord so then with the mind of myself serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin how many more verses do I have to prove to you that the flesh is a problem with flesh I think the Bible is really clear there's a problem with our flesh now go to Job chapter 19 I want to also explain though that the Bible teaches while there's a problem with our flesh we will still have flesh again in the future we will still have flesh again in the future it's just going to be a different type of flesh right now we have a mortal flesh and in the future we will have an immortal flesh and there's an interesting verse in Job look at chapter 19 verse 26 this is Job speaking if you look at verse 1 then Job answered and said before you believe anything in Job let's ask who's talking this is Job it's safe Job chapter number 19 look at verse 26 and though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God so notice how in the world is his flesh going to be destroyed by worms and then in his flesh he's going to see God because he's talking about how he's going to be resurrected he's going to die worms are going to decompose his body but then he's going to be resurrected and he's still going to be resurrected in what? In flesh just like the Lord Jesus Christ when he appeared unto the 12 disciples he still was in what? In flesh but he was in glorified flesh he was in an immortal state so he has transformed let's uh yeah let's go to Luke 24 go to Luke chapter 24 actually before we get there go to 1 Corinthians 15 before we get there let's go to 1 Corinthians let's prove this before I get to this point number 1 we've learned that Jesus Christ changed in John 1.14 and the word was made flesh number 2 I'm proving that it's mortal flesh which is really important you understand this from 1 Corinthians 15 and in the book of Hebrews it makes it abundantly clear what we're going to prove here and then 3 we're going to talk about how he appeared in the Old Testament 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 39 here's a good verse all flesh is not the same flesh all flesh is not the same flesh now in this passage he's going to describe the difference between humans and animals and different things like that he says but there is one kind of flesh of men another flesh of beasts another of fishes and another of birds there are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial the word celestial means heavenly the word terrestrial means earthly ok but the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another now of course Jehovah's Witnesses I'm not sorry Mormons they'll take you here and they'll say that there's 3 different kingdoms in heaven there's like the celestial there's the terrestrial and then they make up a word I don't know what the other one is but telestial thank you telestial or something I don't even know what that is but it's like terrestrial is earthly so it's like funny there's 3 kingdoms in heaven and then like one's earthly it's just like they just don't even understand what this is saying ok because it's an interesting word we typically don't think of this but terra like terraform have you who's heard of terraforming Mars you heard that the terra is trying to make it like earth or if you think about in Spanish if you speak Spanish la tierra what does la tierra mean earth yeah exactly la tierra is earth so it's a lot easier for a Spanish speaker to understand we're talking about the terrestrial we're talking about the earth so the things in the earth are different than the things in heaven than the celestial bodies than the heavenly bodies verse 41 there is one glory of the sun another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars for one star differth from another star in glory so also in the resurrection so also is the resurrection of the dead it is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption so notice we're currently in corruption we have a corrupted flesh but then we'll have an incorruptible flesh verse 43 it is sown in dishonor it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power notice this it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body so notice will be changed from a natural to a spiritual body but of course the Bible uses the word flesh for both of these verse 45 and so it is written the first man Adam was made a living soul the last Adam was made a quickening spirit how bay it that was not first which is spiritual but that which is natural and afterward that which is spiritual the first man is of the earth earthy the second man is the Lord from heaven notice again Jesus is the Lord from heaven as is the earthy such are they also that are earthy and as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly as we have borne the image of the earthy we shall also bear the image of the heavenly now this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God neither does corruption inherit and corruption we cannot go to heaven in our current state of our flesh because it's corrupted it's corruptible so it cannot go up into heaven that's why when someone dies their flesh stays here and their soul and spirit goes up into heaven okay and the only person that's in heaven with flesh is the Lord Jesus Christ because he has been glorified and he has the incorruptible flesh that is in heaven okay so he is unique in that regard he's the first fruits is what the bible says we'll get to bear that image though at some point verse 51 behold I show you mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall be changed in a moment the twinkling of eye the last trump for the trump shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed just like Jesus think about it and the mount transfiguration Jesus just just just swapped right there in front of him right some people will never die there are some people that are going to at the rapture they are just going to in the moment of an eye and the twinkling of eye just bam just immediately into glorified flesh and then they're going to be carried up by the angels unto the Lord and will be gathered with the Lord in the air and so shall we be with the Lord forever is what the bible says so some people are just going to be immediately just bam we have a couple guys in the bible kind of like this you have Enoch was just translated is what the bible says the bible talks about Elijah and Moses we could have different opinions on that but you could at least say Enoch he walked with God and he was just translated whatever that means okay maybe you just I don't know what it means so you can come up with your own idea but it says he was translated right now let's keep reading because this is important verse 50 now this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot enter verse 51 behold I show you mystery we shall not all sleep we shall be changed verse 52 and a moment the twinkling of eye the last trump for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed for this corrupt almost put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality so the bible says that we are mortal we have mortal flesh and the bible is saying eventually we'll have immortal flesh so now we're in mortal flesh then we'll have immortal flesh verse 54 so when this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written death is swallowed up in victory oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory so here's the thing if you're immortal you can't die if you're mortal you can die it's that simple right what's the difference between mortal and immortal mortal you can die it's possible immortal it's not possible to die okay that's important to understand go to Hebrews chapter 2 go to Hebrews chapter number 2 so we've learned lots of different things number 1 Jesus changed number 2 he put on mortal flesh we've learned that flesh is a problem we've learned that our problem our corruptible flesh we'll have to put on incorruptible at some point we know that Jesus Christ has already done that and this is important because when we talked about the old testament appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ I believe that he was in immortality so something had to change if he can't die then he can't die so what would have to happen he would have to put on human flesh mortal flesh so that he could then die for the sins of the world so he could be touched with the feeling of R and firmities the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 2 look at verse number 9 but we see Jesus who's made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man the Bible is telling us that Jesus he was condescending but he didn't take on the angel the state of angels he had to be crowned even lower he had to become something lower than an angel so that he could be what so that he could die he was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death that is why Jesus Christ had to become a man so that he could die verse 14 for as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage for verily it took not on him the nature of angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham so Jesus took on the seed of Abraham verse 17 wherefore in all things that behooved him to be like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest and things pertaining to God to make reconciliation with the sins of the people for in that he himself has suffered being tempted he is able to succor them that are tempted in other words succor means help so it's saying when we struggle when our flesh is weak when we don't want to do the spiritual things or when we have temptations or we have trials we have persecution people are lying about you people are stabbing you in the back people are gossiping about you people are attacking you even physical attacks the Bible talks about people being I mean we've had soul owners punched we've had people that have lost money lost jobs we've had threats we've had protesters coming to our church protesters showing up at our house people losing access to all kinds of banking and things online it's just saying Jesus knows what that's like and he can help us when we're going through those difficulties you know the loss of a loved one he lost Lazarus and he wept over losing a friend just a sickness he knows what it's like to have people betray you lose loved ones have to go through evil rejection Judas is all the things you can think of he knows what it's like and he can help us and that's why he wanted to come and experience that and have the limitations of humanity and have those feelings have those emotions one of the most powerful verses in the Bible Jesus wept he really did weep he really had that great sorrow and he had to go through that experience of loss and we understand that sometimes losing someone when someone dies there's really not much of a worse feeling it's pretty much the worst feeling look at chapter 3 verse 15 I meant chapter 4 I'm sorry I said verse chapter 3 I mean chapter number 4 verse 15 for 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 on the throne of grace that we may attain mercy and find grace to help in time of need so Jesus Christ experienced the things look at chapter 5 verse 7 this is a really interesting verse says who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard and that he feared now it's saying it was in the days of his flesh talking about a period of time well currently Jesus Christ is still in flesh and I'm going to prove that in a minute but in Luke chapter number 4 when he appears unto his disciples in his resurrected glorified state he says you know the flesh that you see me to have okay the flesh and bone as you see me to have so he had flesh but if we think about the word flesh as sometimes just meaning mortal then we're saying in the days of his mortality in the days of his limited human capabilities what is it saying when he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard and that he feared though he were a son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered and being made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation unto all of them that obeyed him so of course he actually went through the experience of the garden of Gethsemane not wanting to go to the cross and what that's like having to go through something difficult or being asked something difficult of the Lord and not necessarily wanting to but he says nevertheless not my will but thine be done I mean he asked God he said let this cup pass from me he does ask him if he can not have to go through that but he says nevertheless not my will but thine be done and we see the learning of obedience we see the subjection and we see him going through this difficulty he was praying and it was like the sweat coming out was as a great drops of blood is what the bible says he was sweating profusely knowing what was going to happen now it says in chapter 10 look at verse 5 chapter 10 verse 5 about Jesus it says wherefore when he cometh into the world he saith sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not but a body hast thou prepared me now some people would twist this and try to suggest that Jesus didn't exist or something or had no body prior to the incarnation but I believe what we understand what we've learned is is talking about that mortal that human limited capability body that was given to him that he was going to go into where great is the mystery of godliness God was manifest in the flesh where he had to put on those limitations for the days of his flesh but that doesn't mean that he didn't have a body prior to we're talking about the special mortal body that he had to experience that transfiguration of going into mortality now the bible says in verse 10 by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all so of course him sacrificing his mortal flesh is what gives us that sacrifice of blood and without blood there is no remission of sins is what the bible says so he came not by water only but by water and blood and then of course we needed that blood to be extracted but the only way to extract that blood without him sinning is for someone else to kill him and so someone else killed him as a perfect sacrifice to sprinkle that blood and have that blood shed so that he could take his own blood and ascend up into the mercy seat and sprinkle his own blood as our high priest and make reconciliation for us make atonement for our sins we believe in the blood atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ and that is a testimony and a witness to the sufferings of Jesus Christ and how his blood was shed for our sins so that for all of eternity God can be just for all of eternity we can say God did not just say you know what I don't care about sin for all of eternity God can't just say sin was never taken care of no we can always look at the blood and see no sin was paid for sin was taken care of whereas Allah the false God of Islam he just weighs his hand and just says like I forgive sins but there's no punishment no one has to pay for it you know that's a false you know that's a false religion and it doesn't have a just God Allah is not just our God is just some people make fun of Jesus Christ dying on the cross but you know what that proves that God is just and he does not allow sin to go unpunished he had someone else take that punishment for us so we can see that he's just and merciful so we can see the love of God and the wrath of God mixed in the persons of the Father Son and Holy Spirit what a beautiful picture verse 20 the Bible says this by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil that is to say his flesh so of course the flesh is important now I want to go to Colossians chapter number 1 go to Colossians chapter number 1 let's talk about things that we just know for sure the Bible just clearly teaches number 1 is that Jesus changed in John 1.14 something changed and that change was being made flesh number 2 that it was a mortal flesh so that he could die and that's what's clearly articulated in Hebrews the third thing that we know for sure is that Jesus Christ appeared in the Old Testament everything that I said just now is just Bible doctrine it's crystal clear that's what the Bible teaches I want to then just spend just a few minutes explaining though my just personal opinion on how that could make sense ok so what I'm going to say I'm not going to say this is like for sure what the Bible is saying but this is my interpretation of all the verses and all the facts that we've had so far because we have to ask this question how did Jesus show up in the Old Testament then right I mean we have them in the Old Testament walking talking wrestling with Jacob all kinds of different things now one thing the Bible does teach in Colossians chapter number 1 is that Jesus Christ has all of the preeminence look what it says in verse number 15 who is the image of the invisible God the first born of every creature for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and invisible whether it be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things are created by him and for him and he's before all things and by him all things consist and he's the head of the body the church who is the beginning the first born from the dead that in all things he might have the preeminence for it pleased the father that in him should all fullness dwell and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven so according to the Bible all things are created by him and for him and in verse 18 that in all things he might have the preeminence meaning that he is the first he says that he's the alpha and the omega he is the root and offspring of David so my personal interpretation of these verses and how I would explain it is that I think that Jesus Christ had an immortal flesh all the way back into eternity past and that when he created Adam he created Adam in his image but of course that difference is that Adam was made of the dust of the earth so he had a terrestrial body which is that mortal flesh but he looked like Jesus Christ who was in a immortal flesh state okay then when we look at the Old Testament appearances Jesus is showing up in his immortal flesh state just like he did post resurrection now go to Luke chapter number 24 let me show you this Luke chapter number 24 because we think about it he eats in the Old Testament he wrestles with Jacob in the Old Testament but notice something specific when he shows up with Daniel in the book of Daniel not with Daniel but when he shows up in Daniel with Shadrach Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace he's in the fire and there's no hurt he's like immortal in a sense there's no there's no harm that's done unto him or those people and so I would suggest he was still in that immortal state and that all the experiences he had of the Old Testament were not the experiences of the human mortal flesh but rather they were just him interacting with his creation in the state that he is in now it says in Luke chapter 24 verse 39 behold my hands and my feet that it is I myself handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have now there's lots of ideas out there for a second time I'm not going to go through all of them you can go through my trinity matrix and you can hear all kinds of weird ideas some people think that Jesus didn't even exist obviously you know that's false doctrine some people think that Jesus didn't exist until the manger that's obviously false doctrine some people would suggest that maybe Jesus Christ was in a spirit body and just a spirit and then he put on flesh I think that that's possible I'm kind of suggesting that I think he was in an immortal flesh and changed to a mortal flesh and then went back to an immortal flesh but in his immortal state in his glorified state he could still be handled and he describes himself as not a spirit but saying he has flesh and bones as ye see me to have now that's different than flesh and blood he has flesh and bone so in our mortal state again this is my opinion my opinion is in our mortal state we're powered by the blood that's what the Bible says that there's life in the blood in our immortal state we're not powered by the blood we're powered by what? By the spirit exactly so the Lord Jesus Christ has flesh and bone but he's not powered by blood he's powered by the spirit he lost his blood his blood's on the mercy seat that's where his blood is and when we lose our blood well we're going to be powered by the spirit in our flesh and bone body again these are just my personal opinions if you don't agree with this you can close your ears or something you know saying Jesus loves me or something you know hum it or something but what I'm saying matches these Bible verses I'm not just coming up with this randomly I've proven a lot of things already Jesus is God there's three distinct persons we see the Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ we see clearly that Jesus Christ put on mortal flesh at one point even in that midst he could just change whatever he wants back in that immortal state but I think that he had some kind of an immortal state prior now look at John chapter 21 go to John chapter 21 for a moment we're just seeing in his resurrected state when he appears unto the disciples he says like you see my flesh and bone and he's saying that's different than a spirit so he's not just in a spirit he's in a flesh body okay in John 21 we also see the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ eating look at John 21 verse 12 Jesus sayeth unto them come and dine and none of his disciples dares ask him who art thou knowing that it was the Lord Jesus then cometh and taketh bread and giveth them and fish likewise so Jesus shows up they eat they dine if you study the Bible the Bible talks about how the Lord Jesus Christ is going to literally serve us in heaven and we're going to eat in the new heavens and the new earth and so we're going to enjoy so even in our resurrected state we still get food right which is that's a Baptist doctrine I'll tell you what okay now what food I don't know well we can argue about that later I have personal opinions of what it won't be okay but I don't have to offend anybody right now go to Mark chapter 14 go to Mark chapter number 14 and look at verse 25 Mark chapter 14 if we don't have meat because we're not killing animals maybe you could just transfigure it into it for me just take some bread and just like make it into a steak or something for me you know it's the impossible burger but with God all things are possible you know what I mean? Mark chapter 14 look at verse 25 the Bible says verily I say unto you I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God so we have clear Bible verses talking about in the future the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ in his immortal state he's still going to eat he's still drinking he still has flesh and bone and again I think that it's because Jesus was always like that and his immortal state in the past now let's go to one more verse and I'll kind of just make a few more comments go to 1 John chapter number 3 but you have to at least say somehow this happened right Jesus Christ showed up in the Old Testament in my mind there's only kind of like three things that I've heard is the how to explain this and maybe there's others my opinion is that Jesus just already had glorified and mortal flesh that's pretty simple okay another interpretation would be that there was multiple incarnations right that Jesus is just he's in a spirit he's a spirit that he's just showing up when he shows up he just transfigures into mortal flesh every single time he shows up the reason why I don't like that answer that solution is it now makes the incarnation less significant because the incarnation what was the point of the incarnation again we've read a lot of verses tonight so hopefully you've been thinking about them the point was that he could be touched with the feeling of our infirmities so that he could die on the cross well if he could just zap into human flesh couldn't he just zap in and then they just kill him right away but no but he went through the whole human experience didn't he he was born he had to be raised he went through all of those different feelings and emotions being about 30 years old going out and preaching going through this experience was what gave him that knowledge if he was zapping into flesh in the Old Testament then he would have already known those things he would have already wrestled with Jacob he would have already gone through he would have already eaten he would have already gone through some things and you could say like oh he already knows what it's like to be human because he's done it seven times in the Old Testament right but it's basically alluding in Hebrews that he didn't know what that was like until the days of his flesh right and it's saying that this is a period in time well that doesn't really make sense if he's just zapping in and out since the beginning right in Genesis he's walking around so if we say the days of his flesh that sounds like the whole time but what are we talking about we're talking about that mortality state right in the days of his flesh which was mortal state as distinguished from the Old Testament so I think that if you have multiple incarnations that's a problem how do you that doesn't really make sense and it really undermines the significance of the incarnation I mean we really celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ there was angels singing you know about how magnificent it was glory to God in the highest you know and good will towards men because Jesus literally showed up in the flesh where this is significant God has limited himself and become a man whereas in the Old Testament I don't think he had those limitations I think he was showing up in his immortal glorified state I don't have this in my notes but I'm just thinking about some other verses you know the Bible tells us when Jesus showed up and the demons saw him they were like I know thee who thou art thou art the holy one of Israel how do they know him they recognize him because he looks like himself right they've seen him before so they're recognizing that's my interpretation there's so many verses that if you have my view they just make a lot of perfect sense so when it says when the word was made flesh and dwelt among us what does that mean in my view it just means he was made mortal right he put on the limitations of humanity and that was in the days of his flesh now he's put on that immortal flesh that glorified flesh and it's similar to John chapter 17 which he said the glory that I had with thee before the world was you know he was in glory in the past he put on he humbled himself and became a man and in the sense of how we're limited we have our human flesh and blood body he didn't come by water only but he came by water and blood so there's a lot of verses I could go to there's too much to go to this evening but there's a lot of verses to really think about here's the third approach that I've heard as a solution is that it's a time travel thing that when Jesus showed up in the Old Testament it's like his resurrected or future state time warping and just appearing because he exists outside of time so he's just like entering into his creation and we don't understand how time works I can't say that that's not true obviously you see in John chapter number 3 somehow Jesus is on the earth and in heaven and simultaneously so I can't say that that's not true I just think it's a more complicated answer and I just don't see any evidence of time travel in the Bible I don't really see any evidence of Jesus like time traveling and doing these type of things obviously he's capable he can do whatever he wants I would not want to suggest that that's not possible I just don't think that's the best solution to that appearance of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament I think you just say Jesus literally just showed up as himself in the Old Testament and then he put on mortal flesh in the incarnation and then he returned to a glorified flesh state when he was resurrected from the dead now no matter what though the good thing is we're going to all be like him in the future and think about this you know he gets all the preeminence from my view he was the first man in a sense and he created Adam and his image so Adam is not the first to be in flesh he is like Jesus right so in all things he has the preeminence that's what I really like about my personal opinion here but no matter what we will be like him look what it says in verse John chapter 3 verse 2 Beloved now are we the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is right now we're in a limited state we have limited knowledge we don't understand all these things work but we can study the Bible and we can try to glean some wisdom number one Jesus Christ changed for us he put on mortal flesh for us and then he was glorified for us and so not only we get to share in his death we share in his resurrection and I gave what I think is a reasonable explanation for the Old Testament appearances it really doesn't matter too much but at the end of the day what's great is that he is definitely in a glorified flesh state and we too will one day get a new body and as I age I appreciate that fact more and more every single day I'll tell you what you know it's great to know that one day all of our infirmities all of our the problems that we have the pain the sicknesses all the different things they will be taken away there will be no more pain no more crying you know there's no more anything that's bad and that's great comfort now we have to go through the difficulty now we go through the trials so you know what this is your time to cry guys this is your time to cry this is your time to go through pain so let's not let's not forfeit those opportunities this is our one time to go through it let's live the full human experience because one day we'll have the glorified state we get to be with Jesus and this is what I like it's almost like if someone gave you a rental car and said you know what it's yours you don't have to return it and no matter how much you use it or trash it it doesn't even matter I'm going to drive that thing hard you know what I mean like think about it and you know like as soon as you come back we're going to get you a brand new one I mean you're thinking like great so then I'm going to drive this thing like it's meant to be driven my body is meant to be used you know what I like the brother Fer spoke until he couldn't speak God gave you a mouth to preach the gospel God gave you feet to walk up a hill and give someone the gospel God gave you arms to hold a Bible and turn pages in your Bible God gave you eyes in front to hunt for someone that needs to hear the gospel and you know what we need to make sure that we're using the body that God gave us to serve him and use it until you lose it because guess what we'll get a brand new one anyways and you know praise God for his sacrifice and what he's done for us because we get to be glorified in the future let's close in prayer thank you heavenly father so much for sending your son and and causing him to put on mortal flesh and to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities thank you for allowing him to suffer death but to then be resurrected to give us hope hope of our resurrection and that we too one day will be changed and will be like your son we don't deserve such a great salvation as this but i pray that we would be a living sacrifice knowing that one day we too will be glorified and will be like him and it's in Jesus name we pray amen all right in closing let's go to song number 356 song number 356 i must tell jesus song number 356 let's sing it out on first i must tell jesus i must tell jesus all of my troubles he is a kind compassion and friend if i would ask him he will be delivered make up my troubles quickly and then i must tell jesus i must tell jesus i cannot bear my burdens alone i must tell jesus i must tell jesus jesus can help me i need a great savior one who can help my burdens to bear i must tell jesus i must tell jesus need all my cares and sorrows to share i must tell jesus i must tell jesus i cannot bear my burdens alone i must tell jesus i must tell jesus jesus can help me jesus alone i must tell jesus i must tell jesus i must tell jesus i must tell jesus i cannot bear my burdens alone i must tell jesus i cannot bear my burdens alone i must tell jesus i must tell jesus jesus can help me great singing everybody you are all dismissed music music music