"In All Points" - Ronald L. Dart

good afternoon it's wonderful to see you again so many old friends it has been a long time it's been well over 20 years since i last spoke to a congregation of the church of god in big sandy over 21 probably and there are a lot of cliches like you know a lot of water's gone over the dam that i could use at this time but it all seems so inadequate but what i was thinking as i was driving up here is on the day that i spoke last to a congregation in big sandy if someone had told us what would be happening in the years between then and now we would have taken him out and stoned him for a false prophet there is no way that any of us could have imagined the sequence of events that has led us around a circle to back to where we are today hello to all of you i'm i'm delighted to have the chance to be here and i'm grateful to dave haver for the opportunity and the invitation to come and visit with you again after all this time the passover is just a few weeks away it's not too early frankly for us to begin to prepare for it with a little personal reflection about what the passover means to us it it means one thing to the jews but it means something really altogether different to us i'm grateful in an odd sort of way to the corinthian church those poor people if they hadn't been so troublesome there are all kinds of things that we would not know it's because of their trouble their confusion they're getting it wrong that the apostle paul sat down and wrote first corinthians and in first corinthians he spoke to them about the passover which he wrote this at passover season and it's not entirely clear whether he wrote it going in or just after the passover before the days of unleavened bread were over but his it was very much on his mind and in first corinthians 11 verse 23 he makes this interesting statement i have received of the lord that which i delivered to you that the lord jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread when he had given thanks he broke it and said take eat this is my body which is broken for you do this in remembrance of me after the same manner also he took the cup when he had stopped saying this cup is the new testament in my blood this do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me now there were a lot of ways that paul could have referenced this particular occasion this evening he could have said for example it was on the 14th day of the first month at even and he would cleared up a number of questions for many of us probably uh if he had done so he could have cleared up a lot of questions he said it was on if he had given us the day of the week he could have referenced what night this was in a lot of ways but he didn't he called it the same night in which he was betrayed now i don't know why paul chose that expression i can't tell you why why he put it that way but what i can tell you is what it evokes in me personally many long years ago now when i was a much younger minister i was in the process of trying to console a young woman who had lost a child it was a terribly traumatic event in her life of course it was traumatic in mine too because i was not very experienced and i didn't really know what to say and how to do it and i made the made this statement to the woman it's sort of a trite saying and one that we often use i said i know how you feel and she looked me straight in the eyes and she said no mr dart you don't know how i feel i'm eternally grateful to that woman it was like one of those situations where you want to say thanks i needed that there's a lesson out of that that i have never forgotten it comes to my mind every time i sit with someone who is hurting every time someone who has gone through some terrible trauma in their life to realize no i don't know how they feel unless of course it's something that i have been through in my own life and have experienced which on some occasions that has been true as jesus last passover drew near jesus still had a lot of unfinished business in the i know how you feel category he had experienced a lot in his 30-some years of life i am sure that his frustrations with his disciples his his encounters with the jews and the synagogues many of the things that he experienced had taught him a lot of lessons about human feelings about the way humans respond to things as he examined himself and as he looked down inside of himself at the things that he had learned but as he came up to this last passover he still had a lot of unfinished business in this matter and all of that business had to be finished in the last few hours of his physical life and the very first item on his agenda was the feeling that comes from being betrayed i don't know who knows maybe maybe the apostle paul chose to reference this night by the betrayal of judas for the simple reason that it kicked off or that it was the opening event it was the beginning element in this moment of time when jesus began to experience that last sequence of human experiences that are common to mankind that he himself had not yet experienced that many of us have had to go through years ago when i was just a teenager i struggled a lot with the question of christ's suffering i couldn't understand it i i had gone to church a lot i'd heard preachers preach about the blood of christ i'd sung all the songs like there's power in the blood there's a fountain filled with blood and i understood as well i think as it can be understood i understood basically as well as i do today that the blood of jesus christ cleanses us from all of our sins and that it was in the death of christ that he died in our place and that it was his death that paid the penalty for our sins and will allow us to be saved to be in the resurrection to be with god for all eternity i understood all that stuff way back what i did not understand i remember oftentimes and this is a deep thinking for a 14 year old i remember sitting and thinking why did jesus have to suffer why didn't they just kill him outright why didn't the jew stone him maybe god could have worked that out why didn't the romans just cut his head off why why this incredible amount of suffering that he had to go through jesus was the lamb of god that takes away the sin of the world but the lamb wasn't tortured his throat was cut killed it quickly and painlessly well i came to understand in time that it was not only necessary that jesus died for our sins that it was also necessary that jesus suffer for our sins and that changed my thinking in a lot of areas and in time i came to realize that this was a whole lot more complex than i had ever imagined take the betrayal of judas as the first illustration that i want to talk about the scripture in question is in the 13th chapter of the book of john and verse 16. verily i say unto you the servant is not greater than his lord neither is he that sent greater than he that sent him if you know these things happy are you do them are you if you do them now all of you know i think by now he's talking about the foot washing which he has just completed with his disciples he then says i speak not of you all i know whom i have chosen but that the scripture may be fulfilled he that eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me jesus did not quote the entire scripture the entire scripture found in psalms 41 verse 9 one short verse yea my own familiar friend in whom i trusted which did eat of my bread has lifted up his heel against me you know it's one thing to be betrayed by a casual acquaintance it's one thing to be betrayed by someone you barely know but jesus uses the example from the psalm that talks about my familiar friend in whom i trusted well how could jesus possibly trust judas he knew from the beginning who was going to betray him right how could he trust the man oh well you've got to understand he placed his trust in judas it wasn't that he didn't know what judas was going to do it wasn't that he didn't know that judas was a thief the fact that you know these things does not keep you from putting your trust in them if you choose to do so which jesus did and i really honestly believe that when that jesus loved judas as much as he loved any of his disciples because he chooses the psalm that causes him calls him his own familiar friend for three and a half years these men had walked up and down the roads together he had commissioned him and sent him out to evangelize and he'd come back having cast out demons possibly for all we know this was a man in whom god had placed a trust and for all i know he may have been pretty faithful to that trust for three years or however long it took before he started stealing from the bag we just don't know but i do know this and i believe this is the core of my being it was painful for jesus when judas betrayed him but it had to happen it was foretold in the old testament it was necessary that jesus experienced betrayal when he was in the flesh when jesus had said this verse 21 of john 13 he was troubled in spirit and he said verily i say unto you one of you will betray me and i can only imagine that that must have settled like a lead balloon across the table where he was talking to the other men and it was obviously not something jesus took lightly it was very troubling and painful to him so the disciples looked looked at one another and they wondered they doubted who he was talking about they hadn't figured it out yet and there was one leaning against jesus muslim one of the disciples whom jesus loved and simon peter sort of made a sign to him ask ask him go ahead ask him who it is and john said lord who is it and jesus answered and said well it's uh it's he to whom when i take this sop and i dip it and i give it to him that's the man he took the saw dipped it and handed it to judas and after the sap satan entered into him and jesus said to him what you're going to do do quickly it's really sobering to think about this because just as sometime in the long far distant past lucifer hillel betrayed the father betrayed his trust and turn his back on him so now jesus experiences precisely the same thing from satan in the person of one judas iscariot satan had not entered judas at the time of the foot washing and judas appears to have been gone by the time jesus gave the bread and wine and symbols of his broken body and of his shed blood so we don't know many of the things that we might like to know about this now no man at the table knew for what intent he had spoken to judas for some of them thought because judas had the bag that jesus had said to him buy some of the stuff we have need of against the feast or that he should give something to the poor and he having received the saab went straight out and it was night now i think as we reflect about this last passover this is a place to insert a short passage out of the book of hebrews we'll come back in a moment to the account of from from jesus last night in hebrews chapter 4 and verse 14 paul i think it probably was in the end paul who wrote hebrews makes this interesting statement about jesus as our high priest he said seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed into the heavens jesus the son of god let's hold fast our profession for we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but who was tempted in all points like we are yet without sin now you're a fairly sophisticated audience i think in a sense and you are aware of the fact that when he speaks we are all tempted the word tempted also carries along with the meaning of test or trial and we are all tried he was to be tried exactly as all of us are tried i listened many months ago to an argument going on in another church about whether it was possible for jesus to commit sin but we all know that he did not sin but tell me this you go to the circus and you see a man on a high wire up there walking this tight wire does it make any difference to you as to how you're impressed with his act if there is a net or if there is no net there is a huge difference between walking a high wire with a net under you and walking a high wire way above the floor with no net at all well i don't know how you feel but to me i feel that if it was not possible for jesus to sin i know that you didn't but if it was not possible for him to do so if he was not at risk then he was not tempted quite like i am jesus was tempted in all points like as we are and betrayal is a nasty little fact of life in the flesh isn't it i have no idea what kinds of betrayal you have experienced in your life but if you want to talk to somebody ask the woman who has three children and whose husband has just divorced her and run off with a new cutie leaving his wife behind with the children and all the bills and refusing to pay child support it's not the adultery alone that really hurts it's the abandonment it's the betrayal it's the broken promises it's the broken responsibilities and the turning of his back upon his own children and upon his own wife this is one of the most terrible betrayals a man can ever commit and it is going on wholesale in our society today jesus knows how that feels i don't i haven't been betrayed like that woman has i haven't experienced that i have had my betrayals but i've had nothing like that jesus had to apparently understand had to go through had to experience a betrayal but his betrayal was only the beginning of a very long night i'll take you now to matthew chapter 26 a different witness a different set of testimony when they had finished the passover service the new symbols had been given to the disciples they sang a hymn and they went out to the mount of olives and jesus said to them all of you will be offended this night because of me for it is written i will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad but after i'm risen again i'll go ahead of you into galilee and i'll expect to see you there and peter not really i guess paying any attention to what jesus said because they obviously did not get this peter said no though all men will be offended because of you i will never be offended do any of you have any idea what it's like to have friends make promises that you know they're not going to keep it's you know it's a part of the human experience of being let down by your friends and i guess it's also a part of the human experience to learn how to forgive your friends but here's jesus looking peter in the face knowing precisely the man's weaknesses his strengths his failures he says to him i'm going to tell you the truth peter this night before the crows you're going to deny me not once not twice three times you're going to deny me and peter peter said though i die with you i will not deny you likewise all the disciples said the same thing and i will guarantee you if you and i have been there we would have said it too no no no we won't deny you we won't turn away from you uh we'll stick with you we're with you all the way in we'll go to the death with you lord we'll be there sometimes all this bravado can make you grit your teeth especially when you know they're not going to do it and you know this is also common to the human experience broken promises strong commitments people who are going to say yes i'll do it yes i'll be there i will follow through don't worry and then when you're up against the wall and you're looking around try to find your friends they are nowhere to be found it's part of human life you know how that feels probably i do jesus also knows how that feels apparently it was something he had to go through then came jesus with them to a place called gethsemane and he said to the disciples sit you here while i go and pray over there he took with him peter and the two sons of zebedee and he began to be sorrowful and really heavy and then he said to me to them my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death stay with me watch with me now if you knew that you were going to be starting a course of severe chemotherapy tomorrow the worst the heaviest kind of that there is in order to deal with a case of melanoma would you be heavy tonight i think you would and they could be weighing you down terribly to think you had to go through that on tomorrow if you had had a diagnosis from a physician that you had maybe a couple of months to live and there was nothing left medical science could do for you would you be heavy tonight jesus knew what it was like to have sentence of death not because he was sick not it was not melanoma but he knew what way ahead of him on this particular night would you be afraid if you were going into the hospital tomorrow for quadruple bypass surgery yeah you would be afraid and so it was necessary that the son of god made flesh walking in the flesh should have to face the same kind of fear that you and i either have faced or will face before we get out of the flesh in the abstract in the abstract you can say to yourself well yeah but he was god he knew what the outcome was going to be he knew god was going to raise him from the dead it had to be easier for him than it is for me well you know it's true enough that he knew but then don't you know the outcome don't you know that god will raise you from the dead don't you realize what the end of it all is going to be sure you do why then are you afraid and the fact is if you're not afraid today it's because you don't know and when your turn comes and when you face the death sentence and when you're done on that on that short row down for whatever it is for your end you will be afraid now you may have the faith to overcome it you may have the faith to see you through it you may have the faith to give you strength but you will be afraid jesus was very heavy on that night this was unfinished business if jesus is going to be tempted in all points like we are it was necessary that jesus know what the cold fear of death felt like down in the core the craw of your being let me keep your place there but come with me to hebrews chapter 5. every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to god that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way because he himself is also compassed about with infirmities and truly it is so that those of us who are in the flesh we we all share the same kind of trials we all go through the same kind of problems and even though we may not know precisely how one another feel we are able to have compassion for one another so also christ glorified himself not verse 5 to be made a high priest but he that said to him you are my son this day have i begotten you also said in another place you are a priest forever after the order of melchizedek who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared though he were a son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered now we can enter into a long involved theological argument about god's perfection and how god already knows everything and how god has already arrived and how it's possible for god to learn how it's possible for god to become perfect let's just take what the scripture says though he were his son he learned obedience by the things he suffered and being made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation unto them that obey him he was heard because he was afraid because he feared he offered up his prayer that this would not have to happen with strong crying and with tears on this night and he was heard but he also had to learn through this process he had to be made perfect through this process because until jesus christ had suffered in the flesh he was not the perfect high priest until he had been tempted across the board like we are without sin he was not ready to be the perfect high priest now don't think for a moment that jesus tossed this thing off as a light thing he was deeply and profoundly troubled returning to matthew's account he went a little further and he fell on his face and he prayed oh father if it's possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not i will but as you will and after a while he came back to his disciples and found them asleep and he said to peter what what you couldn't you couldn't watch with me for one hour you couldn't stay awake and pray for one hour you know if you've ever really been in trouble if you've ever been really sick and kind of in doubt about whether you're going to make it or not and watch your friends trying their best and failing to understand to respond to feel like you do to really stay with you through the whole thing if you've ever found the friends just not able to reach up to the level you wanted and hoped that's where jesus was he just asked him to do a simple thing stay awake for an hour and pray and they just couldn't manage it switching momentarily to luke chapter 22 verse 41. he withdrew from them without a stone's cast he kneeled down and he prayed and he said father if you be willing remove this cup from me nevertheless not my will but your will be done and there appeared an angel from heaven strengthening him the very fact that there was a need for this intervention at this point of time tells us a lot about what's going on here that jesus christ was not you know he was a tower of strength but he was not a tower of strength that could just sail right on through this thing it could have gotten on top of him and god sent an angel to him and stood by him and gave him strength at this moment at a time when he desperately needed it and being in agony he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like great drops of blood falling on the ground is this a description of a man for whom failure was impossible who faced no risk automatic it's just going to click click click click right on through and i'll see you guys three days and three nights no it doesn't read that way what was this angel doing there his job was to see to it that jesus didn't fail this is really high drama in the garden of gethsemane on this night high drama and a struggle that you and i we understand little parts of it but we don't understand at all he finally came back to his disciples and said to them you might as well keep sleeping now and take your rest the hours at hand the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners then i don't know if there was a pause or not he said get up let's go then hand he is at hand that does betray me and while he spoke lo judas one of the twelve came and with him a great multitude with swords and staves from the chief priests and the elders of the people now he that betrayed him gave him a sign saying whomsoever i shall kiss that's him hold him fast and forthwith he came to jesus and said hail master and kissed him now i don't know if you know what's going on here essentially in legal proceedings you can't stand off behind a tree somewhere and point at somebody and say that's the guy you've actually got to if you've ever watched much courtroom television and so forth you know they'll ask you is that person in this courtroom yeah that person's in this courtroom well could you please point it out well it's the defendant sitting you have to very plainly and distinctly point this person out judas had to particularly and publicly identify jesus for these men even though probably they knew who jesus was he could have done it by simply going over and putting his finger out and saying this is the man he could have done it by putting his hand on him and saying this is the man but he didn't do that he kissed him which really it wasn't enough that he betrayed him he betrayed him with a kiss the hypocrisy the this is gross betrayal of the worst kind it's as though god created a little plan here and chose a man for this plan that would create the worst possible betrayal for jesus on this night that could possibly exist and so does jesus understand oh yeah jesus said to him friend he played out the little charade what are you doing here so they then came and laid their hands on jesus and took him and behold one of them that were with jesus stretched out his hand took his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and smote off his ear and jesus said put your sword away all they that take the sword will perish by the sword don't you think that i cannot now pray my father and he shall presently give me more than 12 legions of angels but how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled there has to be this way you realize what he has just told us this may have been the greatest temptation of all for which one thing to be arrested handcuffed carried off absolutely totally helpless and put through this this meat grinder and finally killed at the end when there's absolutely nothing you can do about it but think about the fact that at any moment in time with a snap of his fingers with a word from his mouth jesus could have ended it all and walked away whole clean safe fine carried off to heaven as the son of god but he didn't to be willing to suffer when you could get out of it when getting out of it would be dishonorable this is a trial that human beings will at times in their lives face and fact is some of us right here right now have had to face up to just the same kind of a situation we could have gotten out of it but getting out would have been dishonorable and therefore we had to go right on through with it jesus was tempted in all points like we are and yet without sin greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends and this was all the harder because jesus could have ended it at any time the same moment he said to the people who gathered around he said you come out against me like a thief with swords and staves to take me i said every day in the temple you laid no hold on me but this was done that the scriptures and the prophets might be fulfilled and then all of his disciples forsook him and fled and i don't have any really illusions about the matter i believe that had i been there and had i been one of those guys i would have been gone into the night as fast as i could have gotten out of there some of us know what it's like to have our friends abandon us when we need them most don't we we may not have been quite this dramatic but it did hurt didn't it jesus knows what it's like to see his friends running away into the dark even one of them running away in the dark but naked he knows they that laid hold on jesus took him away to caiaphas to the high priest where the scribes and the elders were assembled peter followed him way off and he went in and he sat with the servant so he could see this thing all the way through the end now the chief priests and the elders and all the councils sought false witness against jesus to put him to death but they didn't find any they got all kinds of witnesses they couldn't even get him to agree and finally at long last they found two liars who could get their story straight they said this fellow i am able to destroy the temple of god and build it in three days some of us know what it's like to have people lie about us don't we so does jesus and the high priest arose and said you're not going to answer anything what about this and jesus held his peace and the high priest finally answered and said i adjure you by the living god that you tell us whether you be the christ the son of god now this is a legal matter the aduration to speak and testify is one that cannot under law be ignored you have to answer in jewish law and so jesus said you said it nevertheless i say unto you hereafter you shall see the son of man on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven he tore his clothes and said he has spoken blasphemy why do we need any more witnesses you've heard his blasphemy what do you think and they said he's guilty of death and they spit in his face and buffeted him and others of them slapped him with the palms of their hand saying prophesy christ who smotes you you know put a blindfold on him and slap him and say okay now you tell us which one of us did that not many of us know what this is like not yet but jesus knows now peter sat on the outside in the palace and the damsel came to him saying hey you were with jesus of galilee and he said i don't know what you're talking about he went out on the porch and another maid saw him and said hey this guy was with jesus of nazareth he died with an oath and swore and said i don't know the man and after a while they came to him that stood by and said to peter i know you your speech betrays you you're one of those people he began to curse and to swear saying i don't know the man using fisherman's profanity and in luke's account it tells us that the lord turned and he looked at peter and i know peter saw him he was that close and jesus knew in that moment that peter had denied him when he heard that turned looked at peter because he knew where he was and he knew that peter had denied even knowing jesus some of us know what it's like to have people who were our friends act like they don't know us right well jesus knows what that feels like and peter remembered the words of jesus which said unto him before the crow you shall deny me thrice and he went out and he wept bitterly poor peter it's hard to imagine the shame and humiliation he felt this night it makes me ache just to think about it actually the reason jesus knew what he would do as much as anything else is because of peter's boldness that peter of all the guys was probably the most courageous of the lot he pushed himself in the closest and put himself at the greatest risk but jesus also knew that there was no way that peter had the backbone to face what he was going to have to face and so he told him and peter well he wept bitterly on this occasion through that long night jesus came to know what it was like to be falsely accused to be slapped in the face to be humiliated again and again to be spit on to have the beard plucked out of his face by people who were tormenting him he knew what it was like to go through all this he felt the crown of thorns he learned what it was like to be stripped naked in front of a lot of people to be then scourged and finally crucified and through the day he endured the indescribable pain of the stake and late in the day he learned what it means meant to be completely god forsaken the spiritual agony and the cry my god my god why have you forsaken me echoes in our ears 2 000 years later and the pain the these emotional the spiritual pain of being forsaken by god at the critical moment of life was a part of the unfinished business that jesus had to go through to be tempted in all points like we are but without sin none of us have experienced quite what jesus went through on that day but some of us knows what know what it feels like to think that god has utterly forsaken us to be totally alone you know the times when you have felt that way you should also know that jesus understands and knows and feels for you for he knows precisely what that feeling looks like is like and you can't say to him like that lady did to me so many years ago lord you don't know at all you can't know what this feels like because he does finally late on that long after noon jesus learned what it was like to die and all of us are going to have to walk down that lonesome valley one of these days each in our own way and jesus walked it before us and jesus though was a young man in the prime of life it's different for a young man than for an old man who's full of days in it you get a little long in the tooth and old in years and you've got a good life behind you and every had so much of what life has to offer and then you come to the end of your life when you face that lonesome valley of walking down it all by yourself to die that's one thing but when you're young and healthy in the prime of life a great mind and body and a willingness and loads of energy to lay it down at that time of life must be very hard indeed so in the end jesus had finally been tempted like all of us yet without sin now what are the implications of this for you oh for me it is cast john 13 in an entirely different light from what i had really quite understood it before it's a familiar passage of scripture to you we read it every year at the passover service the first thing we do we get you in we talk about what the services we come to the first ceremony which is the foot washing ceremony it's based on john 13. before the feast of the passover when jesus knew that his hour was come they should depart out of this world to the father having loved his own that were in the world he loved them right to the end and supper being ended the devil having now put into the heart of judas iscariot simon's son to betray him jesus knowing that the father had given everything into his hands knowing that he had come from god knowing he was going back to god with the full realization of who he was of his power his authority what he could ask for and receive with all that in hand he got up from supper he laid aside his garments he took a towel and he girded himself he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with a towel he had wrapped around his waist this is servant's work some gentlemen didn't do this was servant's work in verse 12 when he had washed their feet when he'd taken his clothes back taken his seat he looked around at them and he says do you know what i have done to you you call me master and lord and you say well for so i am if i then your lord and master have washed your feet you also have to wash one another's feet now i think there are a lot of people who believe that the foot washing service nowadays in the 20th century doesn't mean anything and we don't have to do that that they can just read this and they can understand and they can grasp from reading it the significance and the symbolism and what it was that jesus wanted us to learn from that these people don't know what it's like to wash someone else's feet most of us in this room do know what that's like because we have done it when jesus made this statement i certainly think he expected his disciples to follow through and to wash one another's feet as we do you know nearly 2 000 years later washing one another's feet but it also occurs to me when he says follows us he said i have given you an example that you should do as i have done to you verily i say unto you the servant is not greater than his lord neither is he that is sent greater than he that has sent him if you know these things happy are you if you do them it suddenly dawned on me that what he is talking about here is not just the washing of the feet but all of the things that i have done for you you should be prepared to do for one another that you have got to be prepared to endure betrayal you have got to be prepared to endure being forsaken by your friends and relatives you got to be prepared to endure that having your the beard plucked off of your face you've got to be prepared to endure spinning and humiliation and you've got to be prepared to walk that last long lonesome valley to death for my sake just like i have and you've got to be ready to do that for one another i expected of you what this says to me is that i must also learn what it feels like to suffer if i'm not greater than my master then what he has done i also must do and you know in this lies one of the great secrets of the universe you don't endure this sort of thing for the pleasure of it jesus didn't endure it just to make some kind of statement you endure this kind of thing because it changes you forever remember what the writer of hebrews said that he learned obedience by the things that he suffered i take him quite literally at that that jesus christ was changed forever by the experience of suffering and by death and that you and i also are changed forever by the enduring of suffering and death and the way in which we endure it has a great deal to do with the kind of change that it makes in us and in our character the way in which we suffer as an example to other people the way we give ourselves in the service of other people all of the things that we do to finish out this struggle to carry it all the way out to finish our last 24 hours with all the last unfinished business being taken care of before it's finished all this has to do with changing us forever and if we have the brains to see it god has a purpose in mind for all this character that he is building for us through suffering and it reveals to us one of the most precious truths human beings will ever encounter when this life is finished and when we have ruled upon this earth with jesus christ for a thousand years when we have rebuilt all the way cities we put all this stuff together we brought all the dead back to life and they've all been judged and those who've been given a chance at salvation have done so and they've all become sons of god and we have finished all this stuff out to the bitter end of everything and there is no more flesh even then the best is yet to come you

Channel: BornToWinCEM

Views: 935

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Born to Win, Ronald L. Dart, CEM

Id: obQDFnkrQa0

Length: 45min 33sec (2733 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 13 2021