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Hello, this is Jensen Franklin. And thank you so much for joining us for this week's podcast. Our goal is to provide you with biblically based teachings that will challenge, inspire, and equip you to live for Jesus. If you haven't already, I'd love for you to go ahead and subscribe today to this podcast so you can get the latest updates from us and you don't ever have to miss a new message. Let's go right into the service. Record it at Freechapel. I believe it's going to bless you today. Good morning, Free Chapel. We're so thrilled that you chose to worship with us today. As you know, we're in a series about the coming of the Lord. And when I got this book from John Breviere, the King is Coming, I thought he would be outstanding to put in this series and let him come and teach from his great book that is touching the nation and touching the world. John is no stranger to this ministry. He's preached here many times. His book, the Bait of Satan on Offense is just one of the classic teachings that has impacted the entire world. John's brand new book, the King is Coming, is already a best seller. It's about the return of Jesus Christ. Free Chapel, would you stand to your feet and would you give a warm welcome to our friend John Berde?
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Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Everybody stay standing. I want to tell you how happy I am to be here. This is, I feel like my home church in North Georgia, you guys, I absolutely love this church so much because I absolutely love, love, love your leaders, Pastor Jensen and Pastor Cherise, the entire Franklin family. You know, I'm going to tell you something. He's somebody that God's raised up, who feeds my soul. I'll be in, in the gym so many times just saying amen with Pastor Jensen. And you're so blessed to have a great man of God to pastor you like this. And it's, it's a responsibility because God's entrusted so much to this church. So remember, the church is not just one person. It's the body. Amen. Amen. Amen. And I, I know a lot of you have been coming for decades, but I haven't been here since I think 20, 18 or 19 before COVID So a lot of you don't know who I am. So relax. I've been coming longer than you are. Matter of fact, Don, call me a guest. Call me Uncle John. Okay. Uncle John's in the house. I. I think the best way I can Introduce myself is share with you the people I love so very much. And that's my family. This is a recent snapshot of our family. As you can see, we're a tribe. Lisa is my absolute best friend on the planet. We've been married 44 years this year. I asked her all the time, I said, will you marry me? She said, no, I'm already married. But anyway, these are our four sons, our four beautiful daughter in law and our G babies. You say, what in the world's a G baby? I'm way too young to be grandpa. So it's G Daddy and G for short. Okay? And seriously, if you ask one of my grandchildren who's your grandfather, he'll. He'll look at you like, that's G. So I know the more I've loved my family. And by the way, our 10th came last night. Little Lily came last night. But the more I love my family, the more I realize how much God loves us because we're his big family. Can you say amen? I am going to share with you out of this book that I've written, And it's the 24th or 25th book that I've written. And I have to say this, no book that I've written has impacted me personally more than this book. There were mornings I came down to breakfast last year and I looked at my wife and said, baby, I am so sorry. I'm so quiet right now. I'm so riveted by what the Holy Spirit's showing me. So I pray that God will do in you what he did in me. And maybe even more would be even better. I want to ask him to do it. I know we've got all our campuses. I know I'm talking Orange County, Spartanburg, all you guys, Many, many campuses. I want to pray that the Holy Spirit really opens our eyes to see Jesus this morning in a very fresh way. Can we do that? Because we don't have. Because we don't ask. So let's ask. Amen. Put up your hands and Heavenly Father, we come before your throne room and we're so grateful to be called your children. You could have made us slaves and we would have been so much better off than where we were. But you called us sons and daughter waters. I'm asking today, Holy Spirit, come into our sanctuaries and do what you love. Do the most. Exalt and glorify and magnify Jesus in a way like we've never seen him before. As you do this, may we go from glory to glory and from faith to faith, for I decree your kingdom has come. Your will be done on this earth in our different sanctuaries, as it is in heaven. And for this, we give you all the glory, all the honor, all the praise and the thanksgiving. And it's in Jesus mighty name we pray. And everybody that agrees shouts, come on. Give him praise in advance for what he's doing. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. So I believe the series is called Jesus is Coming. Something like that. Can I be really a little transparent here up front? I've been in ministry now 43 years this year, and I went four decades and did not talk about the Second Coming. As a matter of fact, I used to brag about it. People actually come up to me and they'd say, hey, and by the way, wasn't worship amazing this morning? And people. People would come up to me and they would say, don't you preach on the Second Coming? I said, no, no, no. Not called to. And there was a reason. And I'm gonna tell you the reason. I was totally wrong. The reason was I felt like if you preach on the Second Coming, you create escape mentality. Lazy people that are just looking for the Second coming, or, you know, argumentative people, they just argue about pre mid post. There is a millennium. There is a millennium. I was like, I don't want anything to do. So I stayed away from it. And in 2021, the Holy Spirit started dealing with me personally. And so I dove in, and I didn't dive in for hundreds of hours. I'm talking about thousands of hours. And I started noticing a change in my life. I became much more passionate for ministry. I mean, I was out praying early in the mornings and coming back with tears in my eyes saying, lisa, all I want to do is win souls and see people disciples. I started noticing my family were making comments like, dad, you're changing. You don't get upset about things as easily anymore. And my wife started saying, john, you're my favorite husband. And I'm like, wait a minute. What is that supposed to mean? She goes, I like 2.0 version better than 1.0. So all of a sudden, I realized something. If eschatology, which. That's a big, big subject. Eschatology is preached incorrectly or heard incorrectly. Eschatology means the study of end times. If it's preached incorrectly or heard incorrectly, it creates argumentative people that are argumentative people that are slothful and lazy. But if it's preached correctly, it creates urgency. All right, I Mean, think about a 5k race, 5000 meters, when does the person run the fastest, the last hundred meters, when he sees the finish line? Because what I learned in these thousands of hours of studying is that the second coming of Jesus is the second most written about subject in the entire Bible. All right, 318 verses in the New Testament alone. That's one out of every 30 verses. It is the second most written about subject by the early church fathers of the first three centuries. If you look at the prophecies of Jesus first coming in the Bible, there's about 300. The second coming, there's about 2,400. The seven year tribulation is the most written about time period in all of human history in the Bible, including the three and a half years Jesus ministered. So this is what goes through my mind when I see all this. Why does God speak about this so much? What's his wisdom behind it? And secondly, why aren't you speaking about it? John Bevere? And so I want to, I wanted to, I want to lead you on a little path on how the Holy Spirit led me. I, you know, because I saw so much controversy, ambiguity and even mockery about his second coming, I started thinking, wasn't that, wasn't that around in the first coming? And I thought, yeah, it was. You know, Winston Churchill made a really amazing statement to the House of Commons in 1948. He said, those who failed to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. So I thought, I'm gonna go back to the first coming and let's take a look at the people who got it and the people who didn't. And so the first group that didn't get it, it's pretty obvious it's the Pharisees. Now, before you stone throw stones at the Pharisees, let's talk about the Pharisees. In order to become a Pharisee, the Pharisees were like the pastors, the ministers of the day. In order to become a Pharisee, you had to memorize the first five books of the Bible and be able to quote them. Do you understand? What if we had to memorize Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in Acts, I think we'd have an eighth of the ministers that we have today. So these guys are really dedicated, yet they cannot recognize the Son of God. God manifests in the flesh when he's raising people from the dead. Then I look at this group of people called the Essenes. Now you don't see the Essenes by name in the Bible. We learned about these people from the caves of Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls that we discovered in 1948. The Essenes were a group of people. When they saw the corruption in the spiritual leadership of Israel, they went out into the desert, formed this community called Qumran. 150 years before Jesus was born. They were the ones that really took serving God seriously. And they preserved the ancient Jewish father's writings as well as the scriptures. Do you know this group, the Essenes? This is amazing. They predicted to the weak that Jesus would ride in Jerusalem on a donkey and be executed 150 years before Jesus was born. They did it through the prophet Zechariah and Daniel. Now a lot of Bible scholars believe that John the Baptist wasn't a scene. He was in the deserts until the day of his manifestation. Recall, a lot of Bible scholars believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus was an Ascene. And even more believe that this guy named Simeon was in a scene. Now who is this guy named Simeon? He's only founded one gospel. And I'm gonna set this up for us. Okay? The temple is in Jerusalem, which is in Judea. This young couple, Joseph is probably in his early 20s marrying her, late teens, come from Galilee. Now let me make it, let me modernize it. This couple come from Tennessee down to Georgia, in Atlanta, where the temple is, okay? So they're virtually unknown. Now the temple isn't one building, it's buildings. And every single day there are crowds of people in the temple. So if you think about a cathedral today in Chicago, New York on a Wednesday, you may have two people in the cathedral. The temple was not that way. It had crowds of people every single day. Here comes this young couple with a 40 day old baby. And Simeon sees them and does a beeline, holds up the 40 day old baby and cries out the Messiah. It freaks Mary out. So here's a guy who recognizes Messiah when he's 40 days old. And here's the people that could quote the first five books of the Bible from memory, who can't recognize him when he's 30 years old. And I'm like, okay, what is it about this guy? And there's only one verse. God gives us one little glimpse and that's Luke 2, 25 where it says there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon who is now watch this. Righteous, devout, and everybody say this. Eagerly waiting. Say it again. Eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come. Now there's three indicators here. Number one, he was righteous. What does this mean? This Greek word means that he literally operated out of A constitutionally just character. In other words, living a godly life was very important to this man. Number two, he was devout. Everybody say devout. What does devout mean? The actual definition in one of the Greek lexicons is he took the word of God seriously. He's not just going, oh, when Messiah comes, he'll come. It'll just pan out. No, he's. He takes it seriously. It carries the meaning of reverential fear. In other words, the fear of God is not to be scared of God. It's actually being terrified of being away from God. Because God's number one priority is for us to be intimate with him. And you can't be intimate with somebody you're afraid of. So he. He walked in a reverential fear. In other words, he really knew who God was and he loved what he loved and he hated what he hated. Now look at the third one. He was eagerly waiting. Everybody say eagerly waiting. Now this is a key. The Greek word here is prostectomy. What does that word mean? It means this. To remain. Everybody say remain, not visit. Remain in a place of expectancy. Now, what's interesting is Simeon takes this child and he hands it, hands Jesus, the 40 day old Jesus back to Mary. And another one comes up. Her name's Anna. And Anna has been in the temple praying for 80 years. And Anna now takes the child and talks to not everybody in the temple, only everyone who was eagerly watch this, who was eagerly waiting for messiah to come. It is the same Greek word, prostectomy. Now let me take you forward to what Jesus tells you and I to do. To be ready for his second coming. Are you ready? Luke 12. Jesus makes this statement and you're going to notice similarities between Simeon and Anna and what Jesus tells us. Are you ready? All right. Jesus said, stay dressed for action. Everybody say, stay dressed. Now this is interesting. Prostectomy means remain. Notice. Jesus says stay dressed. Are you following this? Okay, what's the next statement? Keep your lamps burning. Notice the word keep. Remainder, stay. Keep. Are you seeing something here? Keep your lamps burning. And you be like men who are. I added the word in eagerly waiting. Why did I add the word in? Because it's the same Greek word. Prostectomy. You be like men who are eagerly waiting for the return of their master. I've been reading my Bible for 46 years. And it wasn't until just last year I realized how much we are told to be eager about the second coming of Jesus in the New Testament. I'm just gonna show you a Couple. Can I show you a couple? All right. Paul writes the whole Corinthian Church. And you know what he says? As you are eagerly waiting. Look at the Scripture. You're eagerly waiting for the what? The return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul writes to Timothy. You know what he says to Timothy? He says, timothy, the crown. The crown of righteousness is not only for me, but for. Can we see it up? The scripture? Not only for me, but no. Second Timothy. There we go. The prize is not only for me, but for all who are eagerly looking. Are you seeing this? All right, now look at Hebrews. Hebrews says, Christ will come again not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation. Who are all who are eagerly waiting. Are you seeing all of this? There's more. I'm not going to show them all, but are you starting to see a pattern? So the question we have to ask is, what creates eagerness? What causes us to be eagerly looking forward to something and remaining in that state? Well, think about if you're married, when you were engaged. We have a guy on our team right now. He's getting married this upcoming Saturday. Okay. It's a riot. If you get around him for just two, three minutes, he's going to talk about his wedding and his bride. He is so excited. Okay. And I was the same way. If you're married, you know what I'm talking about, right? All right. Think about when you were a kid and your parents, you were five years old and your parents set up the Christmas tree. Lights. The Christmas tree and the lights and all that stuff, Right? Now I remember when I was a kid, all we could talk about, me and my kid sister, was Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. Oh, my gosh. We counted the days. We talked about it through the wall at nights when we were going to sleep. I remember Christmas Eve. I hated it because I couldn't sleep. I was so excited about what was gonna happen at 8 o' clock in the morning. Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about. Right? Okay. So what creates an eager expectation? It's when you fix your sights on something happy that's about to happen in your future. Right? So now listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Colossians, chapter three. Since you have been raised in your life with Christ, everybody say set. Say it stronger. Set your sights on the things of heaven. Think about the things of heaven, not the earth. What you set your sights on or what you're going to think about. Are you saying this? The key word is set. Think about it. When you drive the car, where is your eyes set? They're set on the road. Does that mean you don't periodically look at their GPS or, Or the dashboard? Or you look at the person beside you or the. Or the view outside you. You glance at these things, but you, as soon as you're done, you go back to where your eyes are set. Think about what happened in January when, when the temperatures went down to single digits. I mean, it was tough with Nashville. We lost a lot of trees. And if you open up your front door in the house and leave it open, what happens? Your. Your house, like, within five minutes, drops from 70 degrees to 50 degrees. What happens if you shut the front door? It goes back to where it's set. 70 degrees. So here's the question you need to ask yourself. When your mind is not required for a task in front of you. Now you know what I'm talking about. Like, you're about ready to hit the pickleball shot, right? You've got a. You're busy and you're involved at a task at work or school. When your mind is not required for a task in front of you. Where does it go? Does it go to the NBA playoffs? Does it go to how many people liked my post yesterday? Does it go to about the girl I'm interested in over there? Your mind will go back to where it's set. Sure is quiet in this Methodist church. You still here? Okay, now I want you to show. I want to show you something. Look what Paul writes to the Philippian Church. He said, for I've told you often before, and I say again with tears in my eyes, that there are many, not some, many whose behavior shows they set their minds on earthly things. You ever wonder why it's so hard to resist pornography? Where's your mindset? Where's your focus set? You ever wonder why it's hard for you to resist that substance? Where is your mindset? Where's your sight set? Their behavior shows that their minds are set on earthly things. Watch this next verse. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives, and we are eagerly waiting. There you go again. Everybody say, eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. So here's the question of the whole morning. Why is being eager so important? Why is this. Why is this spoken about so much in the Scripture? John, the Apostle, who saw the whole book of Revelation play out right before his eyes, writes to us in his elder years, and he was either in his 80s or 90s when he pens these Words he said, when Christ appears, watch this. We will see him as he really is. And all who have this. Here we go again. Everybody say it. Eager expectation. Now watch. This will purify themselves. Even as Jesus Christ is pure. There is a power in your expectation that gives us the power to walk in godliness, in genuine holiness. See, when you were engaged, you didn't even think about another woman. Ten years after you got married, you weren't so eager to see her. And maybe you fell into a situation. There is a power in that eager expectation. God says, to pure ourselves, even as Jesus is pure. Now, what is the converse? What is the opposite of eager expectation? It's to put off something. Jesus Talks in Matthew 24 all about his second coming. Talks about wars, rumors of wars. He talks about the famine, the pestilence, the signs in the heavens. And then he tells a parable and he says, when? If the servant thinks, my master won't be back for a while. Other translation says, my master delays his coming. So this is not the sign of an eager person. He said he will begin to beat his other servants and to begin to party and get drunk. What does he mean beat the fellow servants? Well, he holds an offense against them. He's a keyboard warrior on comments on social media. He's offended with people, he slanders people. He's selfish with others, thinks only about himself. And if he doesn't get his way, he beats other people up verbally or she does. What does it mean to party and get drunk? It means you're yielding to the desires of whatever your instincts of your flesh want to do. I run across pornography. Oh, well, I'll just. Why not? You've put off his coming. See, let me tell you something. If you really believe he's coming today, you're not gonna flirt with pornography. You're not gonna flirt with talking to somebody like they're trash on their comments and social media. See, we're supposed to plan like he's not coming back for 200 years. We're supposed to live like he's coming back today. Now, now Peter mirrors the these words. Peter mirrors these words. You know, I spent an entire year on the John Bevere podcast with my son talking about second Peter. We were all laughing about it just recently. We thought it would take like six weeks. We spent an entire year three chapter book. It's so much deals with today. And I remember getting to chapter three cause we were going verse by verse by verse. And Peter goes most importantly. And I'm like, really? I just spent nine months on 1 and 2. What do you mean, most importantly? I mean, I really got my attention. Most importantly, I want to remind you the scoffers are going to come in the last days. Now listen to this. And you know what they're going to say? Where is the promise of his coming? Because ever since the fathers fell asleep, everything remains the same as creation. Stop right there. Do atheists call church fathers Fathers? Sure is quiet here. What's the answer? No, they don't. Do atheists call creation creation? Or do they call it evolution? He's not talking about atheists. He's talking about people in the church. People in the church are going to say, where's the problems? In other words, they're going to put it off. Just like Jesus said. The one who says, my master delays is coming. Are you seeing this now? Do you see the dot, dot, dot? Everybody see the dot, dot, dot? I left something out. You want to know what I left out? Watch this. Most importantly, I want to remind you the scoffers will come in the last days, scoffing, following their own desires, their own sinful desires. Remember, Jesus said, when you put it off, you're going to begin to beat the other servants and begin to party and get drunk. There is a power in having that eager expectation that gives us the ability to purify ourselves. If not, our behavior will show that our mind is set on earthly things. Still with me now? Peter goes on to say, watch this. This is amazing. But beloved, do not forget this one thing. I'm like, wow, you're using strong words. Most importantly now you say, do not forget. What is the one thing we're not supposed to forget? That a day with the Lord is a thousand years and a thousand years is a day. In other words, one of God's days is a thousand of our years. So a day is 24 hours. If you divide a thousand years by 24, what do you get? 42.6 years. So you know what that means. If you're 85 in here, you're only two hours old. If you're under 45 or 42. If you're under 42 in here, guess what? You're not even an hour old yet. Man, you and Lily, who my grandchild was just born, you're really close to each other when you compare it to eternity. Why does he say, you must not forget this one thing? It's interesting if you look at the comments that he continues through the apostles write in the first century. This is amazing. Let's look at some of the comments. Now, I cut half of these out because I don't want to read them all morning, but look what Paul writes in the Philippians. To the Philippians, he says, remember, the Lord is coming. What? Now, I didn't hear all of you. Do you remember when this was written? First century. We're in the 21st century. Okay, let's see what James writes. James writes, take courage, for the coming of the Lord is what? Okay, how about Peter? The end of the world is coming soon. Let's go one step further. Jesus himself, three times in Revelation. I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have. Look, I'm coming soon. Number three. I am coming soon, bringing my reward with me. Okay? Is God, like, deceiving us? No. Okay, first of all, let's deal with the time factor. I remember Lisa and I were engaged for four months. Far too long. I don't believe in long engagements. Okay? That four months was a long time. Okay? And especially the last two months, because the last two months, she had to go to Indiana to get the church ready. And I was in Dallas working. And I remember a day seemed like a week, and a week seemed like a month, and a month seemed like a year. I'm not kidding. It's two of the longest months of my life. And I remember two days before I flew up for the wedding, I was on the phone with her. I said, baby, I'm gonna see you so soon. It was soon compared to that, two months. Are you with me now? Why is that important? Is God deceiving us? Because, really, a thousand years is a long time for us. Is he deceiving? No, he's protecting us. Because, you see, the church in the 12th century, if they had that urgency of him coming soon, they had the power to. To purify themselves. It protected them from the onslaughts of their society, of their culture that would pull them in. So could it be that God kept this urgency in us kids for all these generations to protect us from being swept away by the culture? Do you see how important this is now? How much more in the 21st century where we know that Jesus says, our generation will not pass until everything comes to pass? Because we're the only generation that has seen. Is Jerusalem now ruled by the Jewish people again? We are the only generation. They couldn't say that in 16th century. They couldn't say in the 12th century, but we're saying it now. And Jesus said, as surely as heaven and earth exist and they will pass. Heaven and earth will pass away before anything. I'm Saying to you right now will not come true. And out of that same breath, he said, this generation will not pass until all this comes true. How much more should we be urgent now? How much more should we have eager expectation now to have the power to purify ourselves, even to see his pure? You still with me? All right, now let's go to the next thing he says. Luke. Luke 12. Back to Luke 12. He said, Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning. Everybody say, keep your lamps burning. Okay. After he talks about the second coming, Matthew 24, he talks about the servant. But then the next parable he also talks about for a second coming is the parable of the bridesmaids or virgins. Jesus said, then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened. And 10 virgins. Everybody say 10 virgins. Everybody say, virgins. Not prostitutes. Not harlots, virgins. They took their lamps. Everybody say lamp. Did Jesus ever look at the atheists, the agnostics, and say, you are the light of the world? He looks at us. These girls got lamps which speak of light. He's making it really clear, because I'm going to tell you something else. Atheists and agnostics. Oh, can we go back? Because I haven't finished. Oh, yeah, yeah, we're there. Okay. You guys are doing better than I am. Okay. He said, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom? I don't know many atheists that are going out to meet the bridegroom. Now, here's the thing that has kept me up at night. What he says next, Five of them were wise and five of them were foolish. What has kept me up at night is Jesus. Why didn't you say nine of them were wise and one was foolish? I spoke to 10,000 people on a platform on offenses. 8,000 of them stood up. And I remember one of the ministers who was ministering that conference was in tears. And he looked at me and he said, God told me in prayer that only 50% of the church in America is ready for his return. I walked into a green room. Man was older than me. I respect him very much. And he looked at me and he said, john, I was in prayer, and God told me, 50% of the church isn't ready for Jesus coming. The reason I share those two encounters is because it's exactly what Jesus said. He didn't say nine were wise and one was foolish. He said, five. Now, what happens at midnight? Everybody say midnight. Okay? Midnight is when it's the darkest outside. Scientifically, we have been told that because the sun is directly down there. At midnight a cry was heard. Behold, the bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet him. And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil, because our lamps are going out. Now, when did their lamps start going out? Not at 10:15pm not at 11:10pm when it was the darkest hour. Right at the very end. You ever wonder why Jesus says repeatedly over and over and over, he who endures to the end shall be saved. Now my question is, who are the wise and who are the foolish? Paul tells us. Listen to what Paul says in the book of Ephesians. He said, you can be sure. In other words, you can go to the bank on this one. You can be sure that no immoral, impure or greedy person will inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God. Don't be fooled. Don't be a foolish virgin. Don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins. Now look what he says. Be careful how you live. Notice he doesn't say, be careful how you believe. Now, what we believe is important because it will result in what we live. But now look what he goes on to say. Be careful how you live. Don't live like foolish virgins, but like those who are wise. Now notice he says, don't be fooled. Everybody say, don't be fooled. Why does he say that? Because Jude tells us, in the last days, right before the second coming of Jesus, he said, there will be people that creep into our churches unnoticed. Now listen to the words creep in unnoticed. And you know what they're going to say? They're going to say, God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. They're not going to preach an empowering grace. They're going to preach a permissive grace. Now listen, I got a staff member who just went to a wedding six months ago. He's a young single man. He was there early and met one of the groomsmen. There was a big wedding party, and the groomsmen found out he worked for Lisa and I. And he was so excited. He was like, oh, I love them. I love Messenger International. And they were. They, you know, they bonded. And then he had to go back to the bride or to the groom's dressing room to get ready for the wedding. He goes back to the groomsman dressing room. Now, remember, there's a lot of groomsmen. And the pastor who is officiating the wedding looks at the groomsmen and goes, guys, have a great time tonight. It's all covered by grace. He said, that night. Now, he had no idea the pastor said this. That night, he saw that same guy so drunk he could barely dance. He pulled him aside. Once he got him sobered up, he said, what are you doing? And the young man shared with him what the pastor officiating the wedding wedding had said to them. They creep into our churches unnoticed because they have a title of a pastor or maybe a minister, or maybe they've been an elder, or maybe they say, I've been a believer for 10 years. They creep in unnoticed, saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. John the apostle makes a statement four times. Four times in 60 verses. He said, remain fellowship with him. Look at this. Remain in. Can we have that slide? Remain in fellowship with Jesus. Right? Okay. How do we remain in fellowship? He tells us, those who obey, everybody say obey. See, the grace of God gives you the power to obey. Those who obey God's commandments, remain in fellowship with Jesus and he with them. Are you saying this now? Notice those who obey God's commandments. Do you remember Jesus said, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Do you remember Jesus said, he who has my commandments and keeps them, it's the one who really loves me. Do you know there's over 500 commandments in the New Testament? So wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you trying to bring us back under the law of Moses? No, no, no, no, no, no. There are 613 laws in the Old Testament. You know what those laws did is they proved that we didn't have the nature to be able to keep them. It proved that we could never earn a relationship with God by keeping his laws. But you come into the New Testament and now God's given us a brand new spirit, a new heart. Now we have the grace of God that empowers us to obey what we couldn't obey in our own ability. Amen. So what does obeying the commandments do in the New Testament for us? It keeps us in fellowship. Okay, let me give you an example. You want to know why I don't commit adultery against Lisa? There is a reason. Okay, first of all, I fear God. Second, she's a sniper, and she said she wouldn't make it painless. But let's get to the real reason. Okay? The real reason is I don't ever, ever, ever, ever want to lose those moments when our heads are on the pillow looking at each other and she whispers something to me that she would Never say to somebody else. She whispers the deepest secrets of her heart. I don't ever want to lose that. That's the first thing I lose if I commit adultery. I'm not even in the same bed if that happens, and if I keep doing it, I will lose the marriage. Do you want to know why I don't want to commit adultery against Jesus? Because I don't ever want those moments gone. When he whispers something in my heart that I've never ever known before, I don't ever want to lose it. There is nothing, nothing, nothing greater than that. People ask me to say, how in the world have you written 24 books? There you go. He's whispered things in my heart. Do you know how much he whispered in my heart that I didn't even know on this book? After 46 years of reading the Bible, that's why I don't want to commit adultery against him. Now, why do we want to remain in fellowship? I'm going to show you. Look at what John writes in First John 2, 28. And now, dear children, remain in fellowship with Christ so that when he returns, everybody say, returns. You will be full of courage. Another translation says, confident. You will be confident and will not shrink back in shame. 2 Responses. Now, notice he doesn't say, and now, dear atheists, he's actually talking to us believers. So what he's saying is there's two responses by believers. When Jesus returns, one's gonna be shamed, ashamed. The other one's gonna be confident. I got it. Daddy's heart. I don't want you being ashamed, okay? I've been in ministry for 43 years. Listen, I don't want anyone ashamed. Let me give you an example. My dad never made more than $45,000 a year. And he lived such a frugal life in order to save. He invested, he saved so that all of his children could go to the university of their choice. I went to Purdue University. I played tennis there. And I remember I chose to study engineering. And on my freshman year, the very first day, I am in a hall this big, thousands of freshman engineering students at Purdue University, one of the best engineering schools in the nation. And I remember the dean of engineering stands up and said, look to the person to your right, look at the person to your left. They won't be here. At the end of the year, we will flunk 50% of you out. And he said, then next year, we will flunk another 50%. So by the end of your sophomore year, there'll only be 25% of you left here. That put a healthy fear in me. I started studying for the finals that week. Okay? And I mean, man, I worked hard. And can I tell you, I remember at the end of that semester when my report card came or was coming. Cause it was about 10 days, we didn't have phones. Remember, we get snail mail back in those days. I'm confident. And I remember when the report card came and I opened it up, it was better than I thought. I made the dean's list at Purdue University. And listen, I remember the delight in my dad's face. The delight. But then I joined a fraternity, and I'm not saved yet. And now I'm going to four keggers a week. I'm playing Frisbee football every day. I'm chasing girls. And I remember when that semester was over, I wasn't confident. And when our report card came, I was like. And my dad was like, let me see it, son. I handed it to him. And I'll never forget. I'll never forget the look on his face. And all he said to me. All he said, you could have done better. The shame I felt. See, I don't want you to feel shame. I want you to be confident. I'm going to close it with this. Luke 12:35. Look at this. Stay dressed for action. What does that word, dressed for action, mean in the Greek? It means to cause oneself to be in a state of readiness. Revelation 19:7, one of the most profound scriptures. I'm gonna put it up on the board. He said, let us rejoice, because the marriage of the lamb has come, and the bride has made herself ready. The bride? Who's the bride? That's you and me. The bride has made herself ready. Watch this. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright. For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Do you realize the bride makes herself ready? He doesn't make us ready. The bride makes herself ready. What was the number one thing every bride of every culture had to do up to 200 years ago? Make their wedding dress. There was no bridal shops. Make her wedding dress. God says, your material for your wedding dress is your righteous, obedient actions. I'm concerned the Western church doesn't have enough material to make a bikini, let alone a wedding dress. Now, I want to share this with you. And this is how I'm going to close. Two months away from Lisa in our engagement, I fly up and I walk into Covenant Presbyterian Church in Lafayette, Indiana, and I all of a sudden realize all the work she has done for two months, 40 hours a week. I'm looking at the gorgeous bridesmaid gowns. I'm looking at the flowers on all the pews, the runner that's going down, the beautiful arch of flowers. I mean, she made that place look beautiful. But nothing was as beautiful as when she showed up at that back door with that gown on. Oh, my gosh, I lost it. I mean, she's walking at me with those adoring eyes, and I'm losing it because I'd never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life. Now, can you imagine if when I was at that altar, she showed up at the back with some ordinary dress on with a bunch of dirt and grime stains on. It was wrinkled. She had unkept hair and no makeup. What would that have communicated to me? This day wasn't very important to her. This marriage is not very important to her. She didn't make herself ready. Now, listen, it might be important the day she shows at that door, and she's going to feel ashamed. It might be important, but it wasn't two months earlier. Do you understand why Jesus said, I'm coming soon? Your bridegroom Second coming isn't an event. It's the wedding of the ages. Do you understand? It is a groom that's deeply in love with his bride just waiting for his daddy, his dad, to say, go get your girl. And you're that girl. You don't want to be ashamed. You don't want to show up with a wrinkled dress and dirt and grime all over it. Matter of fact, you won't even see him. If you do, you want to be a bride that is made herself ready. Did you get something out of this? Today I want every. Every head bowed, every head bowed, every eye closed. Heavenly Father, I've preached in all of our campuses. I've preached what you've commanded me to preach. Now, I thank you for drawing men and women to the heart of Jesus with your heads bowed and your eyes closed. When a girl walks down. We're talking about wedding. I'm going to keep talking about it. When a girl walks down that aisle with that white dress on, what is she actually saying? She's saying Goodbye to about 3.9 billion guys. This is the one and only man I'm giving the rest of my life to. Can you imagine? I'm going to do a fiction here. Matt's dating Sarah. He knows she's the one. He buys the ring, he plans the night. He gets down on one knee at that special moment. Sarah, will you marry me? She squeals with delight. She jumps up and down. She grabs him with all fours, legs and arms. She this is the happiest day of my life. She's kissing him all over, all over the face, just kissing. This is the best day of my life. So then they Talk for about 20, 30 minutes about what life's gonna be, life being married. And she looks at Matt in that conversation, she goes, you know, Matt, I dated Kevin in high school, and we dated for two years. I'd like just a couple nights a year with him. And, you know, Peter was my college beau and we dated actually three years. I just want a couple nights with him a year. You're gonna be my favorite man. I'll be with you 360 nights a year. I just want three, three, four, five nights a year with Peter and Kevin. There's not one young man in the United States that would say yes to that. And I look at Jesus, our creator takes on a body, and he knows that by the time four regiments of soldiers get done wailing on him for 10 hours, that his face won't even look like a human being, that his backbone will be exposed from the scourging. And he could have called 12 legions of angels, but he didn't. Because his bride, the joy set before him, caused him to endure. Then he takes nails in his hands and feet. Our creator, he gives himself fully to us, and we think he's coming back for a bride. Says, let me sleep with the world a few nights a year. Let me entertain myself with the very things that drove the nails through your hands and feet. You believe that you're so deceived. You're as deceived as Sarah is. He's coming back for a bride that's given herself to him the way he gave himself to her.
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I really want to say thank you for joining us this week. If you haven't already, make sure you click on the subscription button button and leave us a review. It helps this podcast reach even more people when you comment, when you give us your feedback. For more messages and inspirational materials, download the Jensen Franklin app. Or you can head over to JensenFranklin.org I want to thank all of you who give generously to help us produce weekly content like this to reach the the world with the message of Jesus. God bless you and we'll see you next time.