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Lessons and sermons from the Berclair Church of Christ in Bartlett Tennessee
All right, we are in the book of John.
Today I'm gonna only deal with just one verse.
That's John chapter one, verse 18.
Now, before we get started, again, the theme of this book is John is going to prove,
verses one through five, this book is about the deity of Christ.
So what John is gonna do, and he says in chapter 20 and chapter 21,
uh...
said that truly uh...
many other signs that truly jesus did in the presence of his disciples which are not
written in this book but these are written that ye may believe that jesus is the christ
the son of god now i said last week the book of john is not like the synoptic gospels
those are the three the book of john is a book of its own and in the book of john there
are no
parables in the book of John.
The book of John is one thing it's going to do.
It is going to definitely prove verses one through five.
Now, a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.
If you look in John chapter 10 verse 6, what you will see is in that verse it says this
parable.
Now, the Bible is not was not written in English.
Sometimes when we look at these words in the scriptures, what we have to do is, it's very
important that we go to and find out the original meaning of that text.
John 10, 6 explicitly says that these are not parables.
The word there is paro-a-mia, which means an allegory.
Parabole is the word for parable that's in the other three gospels.
There are no parables in the book of John.
There was not necessary for the parables to be in the book of John.
Now, uh paramea, that's uh a figure of speech.
When Jesus says, am, that's a direct explanation of what he is.
He's not using a story to define or to explain what he is.
He's saying it directly.
There are seven I ams in the book of John.
When parables start out, you ever notice they say, such and such, the kingdom of heaven is
like unto.
Jesus didn't do this in his book.
He's directly telling you exactly what he is.
But what he's doing is he's describing himself alongside something else, which is an
allegory.
He's not using a story, not using anything fictitional that you would have to try to
explain the story.
So that's why there's no need for an interpreting of that hidden narrative in the story.
Jesus said, outright, I am divine.
There's no story there to have to explain that.
So when we see that word parable, there are two different words.
It's parable amil, which is right here, which is an allegory in the book of John.
There was no need for parables in John, because he's going to use seven miracles, which is
going to describe exactly who he is and what he is.
So when you see that I am statement, it is a declarative statement of who he is.
There's no need.
There are no stories.
And if you would look carefully, when you look at parables,
Compare them to those I Ams in John and you will see they are completely different.
Paul would use an allegory when he interpreted Hagar and Sarah as covenants in Galatians
chapter 4, verses 21 and 31.
That's the same thing that Jesus did in John chapter 15.
1.
Historical figures like Moses are seen as representing Christ, while the promised land is
often viewed as a symbol of heaven.
Unlike a strict allegory which can ignore historical reality, typology focuses on how
historical events like the Exodus acts and types that foreshadow future events,
maintaining historical truth.
There was no need, again, for a parable in the book of John because what he's trying to
do, he's not explaining the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus is going to give directly that I am the son of God.
Those are the things that are written that we may believe that he's the son of God.
Look it up anytime you want.
And I know so.
What we see is, and it's easy to do that, because it says parables in John chapter 10,
verse 6.
But please, sometimes you have to go to the original language and to find out exactly what
that means.
Now somebody read John chapter 1, verse 18 for me.
Somebody give me Exodus 3320.
How is it that no man have seen God?
But yet Genesis 32.30 says, and Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen
God face to face and my life is preserved.
In Exodus 33.11, it says, the Lord spake unto Moses face to face as a man speaketh unto
his friend.
Numbers 14.14 says, and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land, for they have
heard that thou, Lord, art among this people that
Thou, art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest
before them by daytime in a pillar of a cloud, in a pillar of fire by night.
Deuteronomy 5.4, the Lord talketh with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of
the fire.
How is it that no man hath seen God face to face, but yet it says Moses saw him face to
face?
No man hath seen God at any time, but yet Moses saw him face to face.
This is not a country.
go ahead, bro.
He did.
But Exodus 33, 11 said, the Lord spoke unto Moses face to face.
The key is what he says after that, as a man speaking unto his friend.
That face-to-face is talking about, huh?
Yeah, but he was speaking to him through that bush.
Okay, so what this face-to-face is emphasizing that, he's speaking to as a man, speaking
to his friend.
It's emphasizing the relationship and the communication between them more so than the
actual face-to-face.
You couldn't look at him face-to-face in God's face because you couldn't do that and live.
That's how powerful his glory is.
ah He said he's speaking to him not as a creator and the created.
but as a friend.
Speaking, as you said, through that burning bush, it cannot mean his actual face.
It's describing the intimate relationship that they have one with another.
Now, when we look at Jacob's case of wrestling with that angel all night long, uh we'll
see that uh Jacob had an issue where he struggled with his brother.
That's where he got his name from the beginning of the womb.
Jacob struggled with his father and deceiving him for the blessing.
Jacob struggled with his uncle Laban uh regarding his wife and his proper wages.
Now Jacob now is going to struggle with God.
Jacob been struggling his whole life.
Jacob's name, be careful what you name your kids.
His name means swindler or cheat.
That's the name of Jacob.
I know sometimes we like, hey, you Jacob be a good name for my child.
I don't know.
That's not a good connotation in the scripture.
But in Genesis chapter 32, there's this particular night.
It's dark as a man comes to Jacob and begin to wrestle with him and he's wrestled with
Jacob all night long.
Now,
This wrestling goes on all through the night and the man saw that he was not going to
prevail against Jacob.
So he strikes Jacob's hip and dislocates it.
Even still, Jacob hasn't given up.
The wrestling is going to continue.
So the man is going to tell Jacob to let him go.
Now, it kind of seemed like by this time Jacob's hip is dislocated.
He hasn't given up this fight.
He should have, he would have let him go by this time.
But Jacob said, I'm not going to let you go.
until you bless me." The man asked for Jacob's name.
That's in Genesis chapter 32.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Genesis 32.
oh He makes Jacob say his name then he gives him a new name.
He says, your name will no longer be called swindler or cheater.
Now your name will be called Israel which means he struggles with God.
Genesis 32 verse 28.
Somebody read that for me and look at the full explanation of that.
The is 32-28.
What he's saying, you have struggled with God and you have struggled with people and you
have prevailed.
The angel clearly showed that he was stronger than uh Jacob because he dislocated his hip.
He also showed him that he was superior because he was able to change his name and that
was the blessing.
He was blessed by being named Israel and no longer having that connotation of the name
Jacob on him as far as being a cheetah or a swindler.
That's a secure, divine protection.
that validated his new identity and promised a future for his descendants.
Now.
Jacob struggled with God.
He prevailed through him.
Verse 30, it says that his life has been spared even though he has seen God face to face.
He wasn't literally looking him in the face, but it was his direct encounter with God,
with that angel, which tells us how he saw him face to face.
It's like saying that you and I was in a bad car accident, and we came face to face with
death.
We never really saw death, but the experience that we had within that car accident that
brought us real close to death, where we were hurt, that's how Jacob saw him face to face.
He didn't actually literally see him face to face.
But that wrestling all night long with that angel, he being blessed, his name being
changed, and all the...
see, you know, all that wrestling that Jacob did in his life with people, who brought him
through that?
God
Jacob had been seeing God for a minute.
It took this final act, this final wrestling with God in order to realize that now I've
truly seen God face to face.
How many times have we been in situations in our lives and we just gone through it, but
God managed to pull us?
We somehow make it through all these situations, but yet we still somehow don't manage to
see God.
Somehow we'll think that maybe we did it ourselves, man.
Well, what happened was that
I just got a better job and that's how I'm able to come out that hole.
We don't see who gave us a job.
Well, I got counsel and everything and now I'm in remission.
You forgot about all brothers and sisters praying for you?
Who went to God on your behalf?
Well, I'm having problems with this individual at work.
And the individual just won't let me go.
having all these difficulties.
Then all of a sudden you get a new position, a new area, a new manager and all these
things and say, man, I'm so glad I got that job.
We have forgotten about God is the one.
who brought us through all those situations.
We've had struggles in our lives.
I guarantee you.
You in here over, oh I guess we don't have nobody but the two, oh your son and mine that
can't really confess to a struggle because they've been on our roof.
But just young men, this amount of time, you can have some struggles.
Don't forget God.
Don't make, don't have, you don't have to have your hip dislocated to realize that there's
a God.
Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom and just get toe down before we finally realize that
there was a God.
And this is what's happening with Jacob.
So now that promise to Jacob is going to come to him, that was promised to his father
Abraham.
Any comments or questions?
Now we look at Numbers chapter 14, verse 14.
Samantha Reed from numbers 1414.
God is personally leading them by day and by night.
He was not far from his people at any time and God is not far from us.
He's readily accessible with the same way that they were, that Israel had them, same way
that we are today.
But just like Israel, all the while he's leading them and they're coming from captivity,
instead of looking at the pillar of the cloud, they're looking back at where they came
from.
They still focus on what happened in Egypt.
And somehow they're thinking that we kind of had it pretty good back there in slavery with
this uncertain God.
But God proved who he was, especially when he destroyed Egypt one by one and all their
gods.
He dismounted Egypt, one god at a time, killed the economic system, and got rid of the
final god, which was Pharaoh.
See, Pharaoh had a son who seated upon the throne.
That final god he got rid of was Pharaoh.
God has said, I'm going to kill your son.
If you really truly God, let's see if you raise him.
Later on, God's son is going to die.
He's going to raise his on day three.
Pharaoh is truly a God.
Y'all cherish this man.
Let's see him raise his son.
Pharaoh's son never got up.
God dismantled Egypt's number one and top God, which was Pharaoh.
And now here they are.
He's leaving them.
uh to this new promised land and there's this this pillar this cloud that they see him in
and this pillar of fire by night.
So they didn't have streetlights at this time.
this reason it is dark.
Have you ever been out in the country and well you see all the stars.
This was darker than that.
So how do they find a way God is leading them?
God never left his people alone.
He's leading them.
Same thing he's doing with us.
But yet sometimes when it gets dark we just
We'll look for another light.
We'll try to find light someplace else in ourselves.
Might be finding alcohol and drugs, or we might even go to some other religion to try to
find that light to follow.
But we, is right there at the same time.
He was with His people Israel.
Now He's with His spiritual nation.
He has not left us alone.
they were face to face with God.
They had a relationship with God.
We come face to face with God also.
We should be coming face to face with him daily, numerous times daily.
Can somebody tell me how?
In prayer.
That's your relationship with God.
Our prayer life shows a great relationship with God.
Now, sometimes our relationship with God...
Yes, sir.
Right, Yeah, sometimes we do a whole lot more talking than we do listening to him.
I heard John D.
Barrett say this one time.
He said, you got two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth.
You should be taking in more than you putting out.
We have more receptacle receiving things than we do putting out, but we sometimes like to
let this go.
And so part of that relationship that we have to God is first listening to him.
So then when we come to him, we'll know how to come to him.
Now, a lot of times our relationship with God through prayer is only over a meal.
Thank you for this food.
Thank you for my lunch.
Thank you for the nourishment I got.
What about when you woke up this morning?
What about before you go to bed?
What about at work?
What about the problems you got?
What about I'm riding down this highway, here comes this traffic.
Just a little Lord be with me at this time because they're going to cut me out.
That's a prayer life for God.
Now, to my youngsters, same way that he's our father, we can go to him at any time.
I guarantee your parents tell you and your father told you, hey, you have a problem, you
come to me.
That's the relationship that we have with our parents.
It's the same one that we should have with God.
It should mirror that with your father.
That I guarantee you, and I know for a fact, because your father told me plenty of times,
I'm driving up to go see my boy and take him to school.
I'm driving up here to make sure he move here.
Alexander Rick, I'm finna go do this here, I'm finna go do this.
Your father is always there.
And if we look at the fathers that we had in our lives, were there.
Some of may not have been there.
So let's give you an example of your mother.
You can lean and go to them.
That's your parent.
We have that in God also.
But sometimes we'll abandon them and you kids gonna find out that whenever you get away
from what your father told you and the things that were taught, you gonna have problems.
You're gonna have problems every time.
And then what happens?
Like the product of the sun.
you go back to the Father.
That's what we have in God.
But you cannot have that unless you develop a real personal relationship with Him.
It's going to be through your obedience is where the relationship comes from first and
foremost.
A disobedient person don't have a relationship with God.
Can't be.
You can't even go to Him in prayer.
Your sins will separate you from Him.
Our relationship with God starts with our obedience.
And through our obedience, we can have that direct
spiritual connection with the most powerful being in the universe.
The one who spoke all this into existence.
I think that's the one who I need to have the best relationship with out of anybody else
on this planet.
Now, God doesn't allow us to see him directly.
John 1.14 said, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
We beheld his glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth.
God is the only one who, 1 Timothy 6.16 says, who hath immortality dwelling in the light
which no man can approach unto, whom no man has seen nor can see, to whom be honor and
power everlasting.
Amen.
We will not truly see God personally in this life, but the best view that we have of God
is whom he put forth down here, which is Jesus.
Now, we're gonna get to the good stuff.
People have this desire to oh know what Jesus actually looked like.
We have this thing there, I wonder what he looked like.
So we have this artist depiction that came in the fourth or sixth century that some guy
just made a picture of.
oh Some, was rumored, but this is not true that that was Michelangelo's boyfriend.
oh But there have been pictures of Jesus through the ages.
I'm asking a question, you don't have to answer this.
I just want you to think it in your head.
Was Jesus black or white?
I'll you a couple seconds to come up with it.
All right, everybody pick.
If you pick one, how did you know?
Well, the Bible doesn't say.
We can't say that conclusive.
I am so glad that it does not say.
Because whomever he looked like would have taken ownership of him and they would have
said, well, he's ours, he's mine, he's not yours, and he's mine.
I am so glad that the Bible did not give his description.
What's so interesting is the Bible never dealt with something as dumb as a skin color.
That then come to the year 1650 something.
Nobody was ever called a black or white.
Now Jesus said, and I came to my own, they received me not.
Who are they?
The Jews.
They were known by the nationalities.
Sometimes black people, we like to use Revelation chapter 1 verse 14 and 15, and say, this
description right here says that he's black.
On good times, J.J.
drew a picture of that description and it came out to look like Ned Winow.
If you go by JJ the way he took that, it would look like Ned Winow.
But if you look at this description carefully, you will see it's not talking about a skin
color at all.
It said his head and his hairs were white like wool.
That's not a texture.
Now, John Cheney got some good hair, and so does Melvin.
It's nothing like wool.
That's not a texture.
It said his eyes were as a flame of fire.
All black people don't have red eyes.
My eyes not red.
I used to drink back in the day and it would be red.
But other than that, no, that's why he wound up looking like Ned DeWineau.
His feet like unto fine brass as they burned in a furnace.
And his voice is the sound of many waters.
Fine brass is polished brass.
How much Vaseline did he have on his feet in order for them to shine like this?
His voice is the sound of many waters.
I don't have a voice like that.
My son's voice is deeper than mine.
So that's not necessarily, these things is not talking about an individual of a skin color
that you can apply to somebody of a certain descent.
The white hair symbolizes purity, wisdom, and his eternal nature.
His eyes like flame of fire signifies his omniscience, indicating that Christ sees all,
searching every heart and work.
This is Christ as a judge that's able to see the hearts of men.
Fire penetrates things.
It tests things.
Feet like fine brass, this burnish bronze.
This talking about purity.
In some interpretations, it says judgment of strength of his walk to redemption.
Voice like many waters is talking about his majesty, his power, and the authority of his
word.
This is not talking about the skin color of Jesus Christ.
I wouldn't care if he was polka dot with stripes.
What he did for me on that cross is what was important.
The color that we need to be concerned with is the color he was in Isaiah chapter 53
verses 2 through 5.
For he should grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground, he
hath no form of comeliness.
And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." Now, that kills
that picture of that Jesus with, you know, praying like this here, the blonde, that blue,
that kills that picture.
No beauty that we should desire him?
That's a pretty man in that picture.
That long-haired, that's not Jesus.
He is despised and rejected of men, man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.
And we hid it where our faces from him.
He was despised and we esteemed him not.
Surely he had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.
That blood red Jesus on the cross is the one we should be concerned with.
That's the color.
That blood that came out of him.
That's what saved us.
This idea that we need to have black unity, white unity, Asian unity, God never ever
designed your skin color to be unified in a skin color.
It's impossible to be unified in something as dumb as the color of your skin.
It's the church, it's God's word where the whole world was supposed to come together and
find unity.
You cannot find unity outside of God's word and the church and his son.
It's impossible.
And it was that blood shed on the cross that unified us into this one body.
God has no respect of persons.
We divided, we divided this whole world, not just this country, it's divided by
everything, short, tall, sizes, colors, dark, light, medium.
I mean, my goodness, then we use this thing to us that are the farthest away from the
spectrum that you can get.
And that's black and white.
That's designed to divide us.
That strictly came from Satan.
God never intended us to be divided over something as dumb as the color of your skin.
Yes, ma'am.
is the attributes of Christ is what we need to mimic.
It said as far as the woman, it said he wanted to see the inner Christ in the woman.
He don't even want to see this outward thing of the woman.
When we profess Christ, it's in our walk, it's in our talk.
That's how we see Christ in each other.
That's the only way you're going to see God, God of Christ.
It's that we adopt the attributes.
uh You know, all preachers have a theme of which
they preach from.
Everybody got an idea of where they come from.
You listen to Eric Ones.
The theme of majority of stuff that his sermons are, getting to know God, being like God.
Eric gonna tell you repeatedly that you can know him, you can be like how?
By adopting his word.
Those things that that so we look at Christ's attributes.
Tell me some things about Christ that we should be.
Humble.
Number one, he humbled himself.
You wanna talk about
He allowed his creation to kill him.
It don't get no more humble than that.
Somebody give me another.
Forgiven you talking about forgiving in the middle of him being murdered.
He said forgive them father for they know not what they do Somebody give me another He was
kind I just did a sermon on this Sunday Sometimes kind is just basic old regular knife
That's just the least you can be as kind.
You know, good morning.
Hey, you know, you can anybody kind.
Jesus was kind.
Jesus said, I can call twelve these angels to stop all of this.
I am doing this for the people.
You remember when he was going into Jerusalem and they said they prohibited they they
prohibit you from going into here into Jerusalem.
He said, you going to now reign?
Fire rimstone down on the people.
Jesus, I didn't come to destroy men's lives but to save them.
When Peter cut off Malchus' ear, he put it back on his head.
He's not our weapons of warfare.
This is kindness.
Jesus, they he's sitting at the table with public as his sinners.
He's trying to save them, that's being kind.
You know, we got acts of kindness repeatedly of Christ.
Anything else?
Anybody got another attribute of Christ we should take on?
We're going to stop right there.
Patients in long suffer.
Well, I hate 30 more minutes.
As soon as our brothers and sisters do the smallest little thing, boy, we ticked off.
We want patience and long suffering with us so much.
We say stuff like, God ain't finished with me yet.
I'm a work in progress.
But we do not apply that with nobody else.
Our brothers and sisters, we just, the smallest little thing that somebody do, that was an
individual that did something at a congregation.
That's why I spoke to that son.
And I mean, just immediately jumped this man and blasted him from out there in the
audience.
This very individual did that.
Didn't care nothing about his brother, didn't show no kindness, no long suffering.
The first thing he did, he jumped.
When God went out of an easy sin, how did God come to them and to God?
Did he come with lightning bolts?
Did he come yelling and screaming, what have y'all done?
He said, where are you?
He came gentle.
He knew exactly where they were.
long suffering.
Have we read the Old Testament?
Israel?
You talking about long suffer.
They were even wandering in the wilderness and he still fed them good.
They wandered in the wilderness and their shoes didn't wear out.
Long suffering.
Two of people who turned their back on them.
Two of people after he delivered them they'd have made two golden they'd have made a
golden calf.
They worshiped another god.
Long suffering.
That's how we should be.
with our brothers and sisters.
That is one of the fruits of the Spirit.
Kindness, gentleness, what y'all were saying are one of the fruits of the Spirit in
Galatians chapter five.
Those are the attributes of Jesus.
Those are the things that we should adopt and be like.
There's no way in the world that not us, of anybody.
See, if the world's gonna ask us for the reason of the hope that is in us, we gotta be
showing some hope.
Sometimes, and it's sad.
Regardless of whatever doctrine, whatever they believe, you know the world real good at
being kind and kind of long-suffering with people.
They're pretty good at that.
You can say, they're only doing it because of whatever.
Why are they doing it?
They're showing it.
And so we want to, man, they got all those people over there.
You go into congregation, everybody's just so kind and nice and this and that.
But long-suffering is something of an attribute we should have with our brothers and
sisters.
Now, we long-suffer, but we're not going to be forever suffering with
God is long suffering but one day his long suffering is going to end.
It's going to stop.
When Jesus come back long suffering is over with.
The moment that you take that last breath you are outside of long suffering.
That's it.
We need to be making sure that we are showing those attributes of God right here.
But God revealed to us Himself, not physically, what we look at in a face-to-face.
God revealed Himself through His Word.
Romans 1, 15 to 16, so as much as in me I'm ready to preach the gospel to you that I had
roamed also.
For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation,
everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, and is written, the
just shall live by faith.
The gospel is the mechanism by which God is going to save us and by which he reveals
himself.
And we reveal his righteousness.
That's how you're going to find out about God.
He's not going to put nothing on your heart.
You get anything in your heart, it's going to have to be through hearing or reading.
Now, salvation is made to everybody, to the Jew, first and then to the Greek.
Salvation don't discriminate.
It's for everybody.
That blood which was shed was made available to everybody.
Romans 1:18 through 23 says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
God's wrath, it don't discriminate either.
His righteousness and his wrath, they don't discriminate.
Everybody that won't submit to the truth, get ready for the wrath.
Everybody who submit to the truth, then you're going to get a chance to receive God's joy
and his blessings.
Nobody will escape one of the two.
That means that we serve a just God.
That's something that we should be also.
We should be just.
We should be truthful and just and right in all our uh judgments with one another.
We serve a just God.
God is fair.
God made himself evident to mankind.
Verse 19 says of Romans 1, because that which may be known of God is manifested in them
for God has showed it unto them.
God revealed himself to us so that we can have faith in him.
And it's impossible for us to have faith outside of him in the gospel.
Second way that God showed us is through creation itself.
Verse 20, for the invisible things of him,
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
God says these things are clearly seen.
But how can we see something that is invisible?
Somebody give me a couple examples.
What about wing?
Can't see it, but we can see its effect.
Leaves blowing, dust flying up all in your eyes.
What about germs?
What about gravity?
You don't think gravity real?
Go out there and climb up on this building, jump off.
It's there.
He might be invisible, but God's power and his divinity is visible through creation.
There is no way that a person can wake up in the morning, walk outside, and not see God or
the effects of God.
Yes, sir.
So it's saying that in the sense that creation is alive.
It's talking to us.
Well, most of y'all who talk to me at night, y'all know where I'm at at 930 at night,
don't you?
Top of the parking garage is St.
Jude.
And I'm looking at stars.
I'm looking at planets.
And I'm realizing we are out of space.
But yet in a few hours, the sun is going to come up in the middle of space.
Let's find it real quick.
The sun heats us up through radiation.
It's not the sunlight that's heating us up.
All right.
So notice that the closer you get off the planet and to the sun, the colder you get.
You get on top of Mount Everest, it's cold up there, 32,000.
It's through radiation.
Now, this is how radiation works.
Radiation only heats up something that it touches.
Space is negative 459 degrees.
That's just 50.
55 degrees, that's four degrees short of absolute zero, the coldest you can get.
If you are on the moon, no atmosphere, and you're standing in the sunlight, it is 250
degrees.
If you step right over here in one of those craters in the shadow, it's negative 120,
because the radiation for the sun heats up only what it touches.
In outer space, the biggest thing in space is dark matter.
That's all that blackness that you see, but yet the sun is shining because it's the
radiation that heats us up.
God designed it.
When that radiation heats this planet and our atmosphere in the daytime with the sun
hitting it, it's blue.
Why aren't the other planets blue?
God created that atmosphere for us.
We are spinning and moving.
The Earth is spinning at 1,000 miles per hour, yet it's moving at something like 33,000
miles per hour.
It's going around the sun and our whole solar system is trapped.
We have never, I don't care what you got, go get a string or anything and I want you to
spend it.
Y'all remember that thing called the hit back?
It's called powder ball, you know, we do a hit back.
So we hit the ball and you pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, keep popping, that string gonna
break or stretch.
We have never gotten one centimeter farther away from that sun than it did.
God set those things in order.
Now to think that just happened by some Big Bangs and stuff.
In fact, how do you know it made a noise anyway?
Big Bang Theory.
Can't God make something without making a noise?
He said, let it be.
Do I have to explode into something?
I mean, in our mind, that's that carnal mind.
But if you really know the power and the really true strength and power of God, that's
simple for him to make.
We exist in such a violent atmosphere outside this earth.
I don't know why we're trying to to Mars and places that violent.
We got to have suits on.
God made us the perfect habitation.
Another thing.
You don't have to worry about a global warming.
You don't have to worry about some catastrophic event that's going to destroy the earth.
God already knew man before it even got here.
This earth will.
We cannot destroy this earth because Jesus is going to destroy it when he come back.
if I'm not mistaken, he says it's going to be like in the day before, where there was
marriage.
There's nothing, not a happy occasion, in marriage.
That's a wonderful thing.
Men are going to be going along like ain't nothing happened.
So that lets me know.
that the earth haven't gotten too hot or too cold for us to exist when we still having a
good time.
Not to worry about global warming.
Man ain't gonna tell him something God made.
Man ain't good enough to tell this earth what.
We ain't that strong, can't do it.
What that means is that God didn't know what he was doing.
God like, oh man, I forgot about that.
They done told the earth nothing, can't happen.
He already had this plan.
already had all this.
knew what was gonna happen before we even got here.
And that was to save us.
He didn't put us in a situation where we cannot be saved and that somehow we're going to
have some type of doubt about God.
Man, when God come back, we'll still be in a situation where he have the opportunity to
accept that gospel message.
But you talk about the long suffering of God.
Before he destroyed earth the first time, it got down to one family.
Before he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the muddle three cities, it got down to one
family.
So we look around us and God coming back soon.
We got a whole bunch of families left.
God is long suffering because when this is, is.
Now I'm not saying that we're to be here for a million years.
I'm not saying we're going to be here tomorrow.
But there's a pattern in scriptures that we got a long-suffering God.
We ain't even as bad as the first century.
I don't care what street you got in Memphis.
We don't have a Jericho Road in Memphis.
I guarantee you.
I don't care how bad the streets are.
We're nowhere near that.
We might need to start counting our blessings and being content where we are now and start
focusing on God.
Start trying to adopt his attributes because no man have seen God at any time but I
guarantee you one day you're going to see him and when you see the Lord if you want to
know what Jesus looks like you'll get a chance to see him and but the problem is not what
he look like is what he's going to tell you.
Either you listen to him now or you listen to him when you're in that day.
When he say, job well done, that good and faithful servant enters into the joys of heaven,
or depart from me ye workers of iniquity, I never knew you.
If you wasn't faithful to Christ here and now, what good is it gonna do when he come back
and you're not ready?
You're not gonna wanna see him.
2 Thessalonians said, ye who are troubled, rest with us.
Flaming fire, Jesus coming back.
That's not gonna be a good sight for everybody.
Flaming fire, it's not gonna be some pretty little angels and little boys with wings on.
That's flaming fire.
Jesus is coming back.
He's coming back with judgment.
Now, that's gonna be a beautiful sight for all of us, us who died in the Lord.
We're be so happy, like, woo, that's gonna be magnificent.
But for those of us who did not obey him now, that's gonna be the most terrifying sight
you've ever seen in your life, that Jesus is coming back.
you open up the scriptures and you can see what God looked like through his son and
through his word.
When you go outside tonight, look up sometime at them stars and them branches and the ants
and stuff and you can see them then because you will be without any excuse.
Yes, sir.
That's That's right.
That's right.
That's how you see God.
Through what?
And God is what?
Love itself.
people come amongst Christians and and and and that's how they know that we're God's
children by the love we showed the brother and you'll know that God is in here.
God is a monk.
You you ever been to a congregation with God wasn't there?
Man, you're to be just like Abraham when he got to that city and he said, man, why did you
he said because the fear of God wasn't here.
That's that's a scary place.
But I say anymore come to the question.
My time is up.
Alright, we want to thank you for your attention