[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I want to take a detour this week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was planning on getting into Romans chapter 10.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I was sitting down reading the passage for the first time and just working it through when I received a call from Sam Stelsel.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of our elders saying that his youngest Eli was not breathing and possibly dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I came to the hospital and met my wife there, J.T.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Caitlin, my son Luke was there and we were standing and support for them and doctors and nurses were pouring into that room, doing everything they could.
[SPEAKER_00]: At some point they figured that it would be better to fly them to Chicago, so around noon, Eli was transported to Chicago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: He made it through Thursday, and the wee hours of Friday he died, and Sam and Amy are devastated by the loss of someone so precious to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but they are leaning into the everlasting arms of God, the very arms that took little Eli all the way to glory, and this is the hope we have in Christ that this world is not all the risk.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, there is a temporary separation, but one day,
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll be reunited, it's not forever, but right now, you do see a lot of hardship and pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was Wednesday morning, it's when I got the call from Sam and I stayed that, again, until about noon and then
[SPEAKER_00]: I got back and I was like, okay, I got to get on my serving and not too long after, then you hear about Charlie Kirk's death, my assassination, no less, and like, oh man, something's different, so I felt like I need to go to another passage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you don't may not know Charlie Kirk or maybe you're starting to find out who he is, but he was a conservative political activist who was quite effective debating in college campuses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably the hardest place to speak your mind, believe it or not, and to stand for conservative values or stand as a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw many of his debates online, I mean, especially the one in Oxford, England.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was debating some people there.
[SPEAKER_00]: even professors there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he is like straightforward, unapologetic in his political views and courageous, especially when you go to a college campus.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, again, that's one of the hardest places and it was at one of these rallies.
[SPEAKER_00]: What he does is like this open air asked me anything kind of forum.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was at one of these at Utah Valley University where Charlie was assassinated by a sniper last Wednesday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wednesday, but his political visa side, which mere mine, not exactly, but preclos, Charlie was a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: On a shamed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he was just so fearless, which I greatly admire.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a huge influencer for the Christian faith, for Christian values like traditional marriage, raising children, husbands, providing for their families, and he would challenge young men.
[SPEAKER_00]: to stop playing around, get a job, get married, have a family, such a great message for this next, for this generation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, when he was 31 years old and Wednesday was a sobering day, I felt like a dark cloud just came over, my skies and many of yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am disturbed when calamity descends upon friends of mine, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am disturbed when I see Christianity being just a growing hatred toward Christianity and its ethics witnessed by Charlie's assassination about an hour before that event.
[SPEAKER_00]: His wife posted on her X platform, social media platform, Psalm 46 verse 1, it says,
[SPEAKER_00]: a very present help in time of need.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when tragedy strikes, you will be tempted to question God's care or his power to intervene.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might be tempted to isolate yourself from the hostility that's all around in our world or to run from society.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should not be surprised that Christ is opposed in our day and age.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should expect it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not coward, but we should rise.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should rise and be counted, because God reigns.
[SPEAKER_00]: God reigns.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will bring all things under submission to His rule.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will bring all people to justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: His kingdom cannot be stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to read just another verse, a couple more verses from Psalm 461, two, three.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is our refuge and strength, the very present and help of time and need.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, we will not fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need hear that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, it just like crumbles into the sea, though it's water's roaring foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, later on it says, be still and know that I am God, that's the same Psalm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because no one is going to extinguish the flame of the church, and the gospel message is getting out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of Acts 1A, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what happened, even in...
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I mean, like when an important leader gets taken out, God makes sure that seven more or five more rise, you know, or many more rise in their place.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what happened in Acts chapter seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Stephen was put to death, Saul, who later become Paul, he's ravaging the church, persecuting the church, and yet all that's doing is sending the flame further and further out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Judea, Samaria,
[SPEAKER_00]: into the most parts of the world so that the Ethiopian unit gets saved so that this Gentiles and Turian by the name of Cornelius get saved and it just keeps spreading because no one is going to stop you're not going to stop the spread of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anything should happen out of Charlie's death, the church must arise because every single
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me read Acts chapter 12.
[SPEAKER_00]: We go to Acts chapter 12.
[SPEAKER_00]: So turn there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll see why I've chosen this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: About that time, Herod, the King, laid violent hands on some who belong to the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: He killed James the brother of John with the sword.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he saw that it pleased the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter also.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was during the days of Unleavened Bread.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he had seized him, he put him into prison, delivering over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the temple.
[SPEAKER_00]: So bring him out to the people, excuse me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though he reigns, number one, expect conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: Expect conflict, as long as we're in this world, expect conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't expect this world to be your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mission now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone who's a Christian, we're on mission now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paradise comes later, not now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you seek it here, you're going to be very disappointed.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the early church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Acts chapter 12, persecution for the church is getting intensified when James gets put to death and Peter is jailed with the intention of executing him, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You just try to imagine that you're part of the Jerusalem church and you're hearing that James, oh man, he's one of the twelve, and now Peter, he's like the leader of the
[SPEAKER_00]: The church will be successful, but it doesn't mean it's coming without conflict and even martyrnum.
[SPEAKER_00]: Injustice will continue in this broken world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just a history lesson, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a history lesson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here are the great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, here are the great.
[SPEAKER_00]: He used the one that massacared the Bethlehem baby, he was a mad man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ruled under the shadow of Rome from 37 BC to 4AD.
[SPEAKER_00]: And out of jealousy and fear that someone would, you surf his throne, he put to death one of his wives, his her mom, and four of his sons.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how crazy he was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And surely before his death, he lowered these prominent Jewish leaders to Jericho and imprisoned them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he commanded that these leaders would be put to death after his own death, so knowing that no one would mourn his death, he wanted some mourning to be going on during his death after his death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And hered the king in this passage is not hered the great, it's his grandson, hered a grippa the first.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's who we have here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Herodah Grip was educated in Rome, but he was undisciplined, extravagant in his lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ran up a bunch of debts and then fled to Judea.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said some things that he shouldn't have said and the Emperor, Tiberius, imprisoned him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after the Emperor's death, he was released and he was also then in charge of the largest territory since his grandfather.
[SPEAKER_00]: But his relationship with Rome was always tenuous and not very stable, so it was important to keep the Jews in his favor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to a politician, needing a political boost
[SPEAKER_00]: He attempted to destroy the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he puts James to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sees that pleases the Jews and so he puts Peter in prison with the intention.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to execute him in front of the whole Passover crowd.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he considered Christians expendable so that his political career could rise.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to live, we do live in a broken-down
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to expect conflict because we're behind editing lines, we're in enemy occupied territory.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the king arrives, justice will be served.
[SPEAKER_00]: But until that point, we're going to experience battle, conflict, harm, some martyrdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's going to win, but some of the troops will get hurt and die.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, it doesn't mean that we're not going to be injured, hurt, ridiculed, marginalized.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian, as you rise to see the challenge of the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: be faithful to God, be faithful to God unto death, just like Charlie was, even if you're the target of ridicule, because you probably not going to get what Charlie got.
[SPEAKER_00]: Charlie was fearless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very few people would do what he did in a college setting.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you stand for Jesus, you will at least get ridicule.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you be okay with that?
[SPEAKER_00]: because you represent the King of Kings.
[SPEAKER_00]: You represent this eternal gospel that needs to reach out to a lot of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can't be quiet about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't be cowardly.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must be bold.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to stand firm and be faithful unto God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might get ridiculed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we can be okay with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Try to imagine what the earthly church face, though James is dead, Peter is the next to be executed, and they go, we gotta pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: We better gather to pray, and the church gathers to pray, by the way, which is why I want more and more of you and our prayer nights.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every the first Wednesday of every month we gather at seven and pray for an hour because we're saying together apart from him we can do nothing and there needs to be a great movement for God in this region.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's not going to happen because we're special.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to happen because God's special.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to happen because we are trusting and depending on the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, you get that opportunity tonight because we're going to be praying and praising.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be fantastic, and you know what, what a great way, like J. T. said in a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, thank you for filling out, you know, on that, those boards, times for us to pray and depend upon the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it was doubled up, tripled up, awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is hearing our prayers, and we are depending upon Him, and by depending upon Him, we're honoring Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the King, we're honoring Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just prayer, helps us remember who's in charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Prayer helps us remember that he has the power and authority, which is our second point, a firm God's power.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to expect conflict, but a firm God's power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because without that affirmation, why would you pray?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't think God can do anything, why would you even come to him and prayer?
[SPEAKER_00]: But we can't act as though there's nothing to be done, because we can't pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: And disbelief kind of creeps in the church sometimes and when we want to circle the wagons, hide out, pull back deeper into the Christian subculture.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We must rise.
[SPEAKER_00]: can't be just survival mode and you're witnessed silenced.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to affirm God's power to act, to save, to empower, to you say it, you pray it, you declare it, you sing it, we'll do that tonight, we'll sing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The church began to pray, earnestly, first five, now look what happens, verse six.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, when Herod was about to bring him out, that's Peter, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, centuries before the door were guarding the prison and behold, the angel of the Lord stood next to him and a light shone into the cell.
[SPEAKER_00]: He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, get up quickly, and the chains fell off his hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the angels said to him, dress yourself and put on your sandals.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he did so.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said to him, wrap your cloak around you and follow me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he went out and followed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did not know that what was being done to him by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the Iron Gate leading into the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those outside the city, it opened for them on its own accord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they went out and went along one street and immediately the angel left him.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Peter came to himself, he said, now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all the Jewish people, all that the Jewish people were expecting.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a demonstration of God's power.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, think about all the ways that Herod tried to lock him in.
[SPEAKER_00]: four squads of, you know, a battalion and two right next to him and in chains and centuries at the door and all the Lord had to do was send an angel.
[SPEAKER_00]: All he had to do was send an angel and the chains fell off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never say never to God, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: God can do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where it's impossible for men.
[SPEAKER_00]: It isn't for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, no man is gonna free Peter, but God can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, see, guards are asleep, chains are, you know, they immediately fell, the doors are wide open.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you say to that church?
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen, our God reigns.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever situation you find yourself in, don't ever forget that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't ever forget that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't help but make a comment here, just, you know, here's Peter locked in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of you feel like your situation is like a lockdown, perhaps in guards on either side, centuries at the door, inescapable, impossible, what do I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, like habitual sins of thinking, that you are a victim.
[SPEAKER_00]: that it's inescapable.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're imprisoned because of the lies you tell yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you deserve to be angry.
[SPEAKER_00]: You deserve to be jealous.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least those are the things you tell yourself and you just lock yourself down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to break free of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord wants to break you free of those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or habitual sins of behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you men are in a lock down.
[SPEAKER_00]: and hindered for ministry to the church, to the family, because of alcohol.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are nursing yourself on a bottle then, and you never grow up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you need to put that aside.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord wants to free you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Poor anography.
[SPEAKER_00]: doesn't have to be that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't always know when you're praying for healing, whether it's in God's will to heal in that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But with porn, you know God wants to free you.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no question of the will of God in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: No question.
[SPEAKER_00]: So call upon His name and believe that the Lord through an angel, through the Holy Spirit, through His power will free you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need men to rise.
[SPEAKER_00]: fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is probably more in line with the passage, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Fear can imprison you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can incapacitate you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But couldn't the Lord free you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Couldn't He free you?
[SPEAKER_00]: In the case of Peter's imprisonment, the doors were flung wide open.
[SPEAKER_00]: In your case, you may have to face your fears head
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing to say, yeah, I'm fearful, yeah, if you're men and women, I fear what people think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, are you facing it down and moving forward?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's obedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the monsters under your bed and in the closet, well, they will, they will hunt you and tell you to turn the light on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see, it's just spooks and shadows.
[SPEAKER_00]: God wants to free you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look what God can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Change fell off a Peter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Door swing wide open and an angel comes and said, come on man, get up quickly, get your stuff on.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ain't coming back here again.
[SPEAKER_00]: God reigns.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's impossible for men is possible with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Conflict because of Christ will happen even in our day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, why Charlie Kirk, James is killed, Peter is rescued, and God has sovereign over it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is James put the death and not Peter?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but many more were put the death because of Christ in the years that would come.
[SPEAKER_00]: God reigns, and nothing is going to extinguish the power of God through the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking for his 12th, this is Peter.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, so John Mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: where many were gathered together and were praying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he knocked on the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Roda came to answer, recognizing Peter's voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: In her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate and they said to her, you're out of your mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she kept insisting that it was, so they kept saying, it is a zangel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gotta know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Peter continued to knock, and when they opened, they saw him, and they were amazed, but motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described how the Lord had brought him out of the prison, and he said, these things, tell these things to James, brother of Jesus, and to the brothers, the rest of them, then he departed and went to another place.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can you be praying for Peter and not expecting to be knocking at the door?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I mean, that is so funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can you pray for God's intervention and just refuse to believe that He could answer?
[SPEAKER_00]: But isn't that the way we pray?
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't always pray with a lot of faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God may answer even the prayer that doesn't have a lot of faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: or he may not answer a prayer that we pray with everything we could muster because your prayers for this situation do not contain the will of God, for that situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray for James.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened to James?
[SPEAKER_00]: He died.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're to pray for Peter.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do we pray?
[SPEAKER_00]: You see why they probably didn't believe it was Peter?
[SPEAKER_00]: They were probably praying for James, too, but that didn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for Peter, and they said, no, it's this guardian angel.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like, okay, James had a really lousy guardian angel then.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so did Jesus, but Peter, it's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ's death had purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so did James, and so did Charlie Kirk, and so did Eli.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though that purpose isn't revealed to us, if God is all powerful and good, you have no other choice than to say there is purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if He's all powerful and He's good, there's no other option.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has a purpose that we might not know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those who take up arms against God, like Herod, and his people find out eventually the danger in doing so, because God fights back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever comes our way, whether it's long life, short life, suffering, whatever it is, we live to make Christ know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like Paul said, to live his Christ,
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as we live, we must be devoted fearlessly to Christ, because that's what Charlie Kirk was all about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fearlessly lived for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So church, I want you to firm God's power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rise up in his name.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do what we can in this world to promote Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do what we can to mitigate injustice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when we can't fix it, one, number three,
[SPEAKER_00]: Leave judgment to God, God's a big boy, he will take care of himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leave judgment to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you're going to have to wait until Christ returns to see full judgment, full justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now with Herod, God had had enough of Herod.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 18, now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become a Peter.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the centuries, ordered that they would be put to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, and he went down to Judea to Cessaria and spent time there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre inside me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they came to him with one accord, having persuaded Blastis, the King's Chamberlain, they asked for peace because their country depended upon the King's country for food.
[SPEAKER_00]: On an appointed day, Harry put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne and delivered it an oration to them and the people were shouting.
[SPEAKER_00]: The voice of a God and not a man.
[SPEAKER_00]: immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give glory to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was eaten by worms, breathe this last verse 24, and the Word of God increased, and multiplied.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a little background, there was a famine during that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: and especially, I guess, Tyre and Sidon, because they were importing grain from Judea.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Herod was angry with them for some reason, so they had to come and kind of patch up the relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Herod decided that he was going to put himself on full display, dressed up to impress, and he did a pretty good job, because the crowd thought he was like a god.
[SPEAKER_00]: The voice of a god and not a man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And instead of rejecting those claims, Herod reveled in it, reveled in the spotlight.
[SPEAKER_00]: One way to deflate a godlike ego is for him to die like a man, which he did, instead of stopping the church, Herod was stopped, dead on his tracks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because every man and woman will have their day in court.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even in this room, all of you will stand before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of you will give an account before God your Creator.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you think, John, you always talk about the judgment day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I can handle a vengeful, wrathful God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What would you say then to James' parents?
[SPEAKER_00]: What would you say to Charlie Kirk's family,
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who have suffered serious injustice hope for justice one day.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't accept the God who would overlook so many injustices because many of us who pushed back at the justice of God or the judgment of God, it's because we live in this protected suburbia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can't imagine there's a reason for justice it, but if you live like, if you live in Somalia,
[SPEAKER_00]: And you saw injustice this is every day, you could not accept the God who didn't bring justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would reject that kind of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christians are called to leave the judgment to God, for sure, it's not in our power to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not our right to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to let go of vengeance, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because our justice is never perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: It always has us at the center.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is going to skew it, only God has perfect justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean that assassins don't deserve perfect justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will get their justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are consequences that the governing authorities have a right to enact even to the taking of their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans chapter 13 says that the government doesn't bear the sword and vain.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have the right to take life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Personal revenge, that's sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Governmental action, that's righteous when punishing the wicked.
[SPEAKER_00]: My point is this, we have to let go of revenge.
[SPEAKER_00]: We keep praying for hearts to change so that assassins may be forgiven by God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They might not go free, but they need to be forgiven by God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They need to be reconciled to God before they meet God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we pray for that, just like we pray for enemies.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray for those who persecute us and hurt us because we receive mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want other people to receive mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, cause like what if God wanted to save Herod?
[SPEAKER_00]: James's family would have to receive Herod as a brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause the apostle Paul, you think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hurt and terrorized many Christians
[SPEAKER_00]: as a changed man.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they were brothers and sisters in Christ at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the power of the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then later, Paul would stand before her at a grip as son, so her at a grip of the second in Acts chapter 26, and he pleaded with him to be saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christians lead the judgment to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We love our enemies, enemies may become brothers and sisters in God's family.
[SPEAKER_00]: We forgive the debts of others because God has forgiven us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, love injustice made at the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that God, you've heard that God's so love the world, yes, He does love the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He wants to forgive you of your sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: But your crimes,
[SPEAKER_00]: must be dealt with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your crimes against God, what are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Self-centeredness, bigotry, pride, self-righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if God were to judge you and separate you from all eternity from him, then there's no hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's why he's in his son.
[SPEAKER_00]: To take the full wrath, the full justice,
[SPEAKER_00]: perfect justice upon Jesus, diverting it from you and me, so everyone who trusts, relies, believes in the name of Jesus Christ, and the person of Jesus Christ will be saved from the judgment day.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has loved step down, and the offer stands repent, turn from your independent ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: you just ignore in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to turn away from that because there's a host of sins that you think are they're not that bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, they are according to God they are
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to turn from that and trust a Savior, repent and believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: God will protect the church's survival.
[SPEAKER_00]: More than that, it's triumph.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will triumph because God reigns.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love verse 24 with all of that going on, trying to persecute the church, putting Peter and prison, killing James, threatening more verse 24, but the word of God increased and multiplied.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want that for our church.
[SPEAKER_00]: That we're not going to count where we're not going to be fearful.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to stand for Christ as long as we draw a breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to stand for Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single one of us will die sometime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's make a count.