Participants: Chris Holland
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201533A
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00:00 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus
00:05 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus 00:12 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus 00:18 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus 00:24 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus 00:31 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus 00:38 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus 00:42 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus 00:47 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus 00:52 IIW-2015-33 - Confidence in Jesus 01:29 > 01:31 >>Announcer: It has stood the test of time. 01:34 God's book, The Bible 01:38 Still relevant in today's complex world 01:44 It Is Written 01:46 Sharing messages of hope around the world! 01:58 CHRIS: Friends, thank you so much for joining It Is Written. The Book of Revelation is a book 02:04 that we've been discussing, and we have seen that it is not a book that we need to fear. It is 02:10 not some mystical secret book, but rather, it is a book that draws back the curtain of God's 02:19 love toward us. We've been talking about the assurance that we have that God first loved us. 02:29 To help me unpack the book of Revelation even more, to help understand the context of the 02:35 Book of Revelation even more, I have with me again in studio Pastor Jon-Ross Ennest. Pastor, 02:41 so glad to have you again. JON-ROSS: Yeah, it's good to be here, Chris, thanks for having 02:44 me. CHRIS: You know, Pastor, we've been discussing the issues in the Book of Revelation in our 02:49 last program. And by the way, if you've missed any of our programs, I want to encourage 02:54 you to go to our website, itiswrittencanada.ca, or you can go to our youtube channel, 03:00 youtube.com/iiwcanada. There, you can find archives of all of our programs, but in particular, 03:08 the archives of this series, "The Gospel in Revelation." Now, Pastor, the last show, we were 03:17 talking about this love of God toward us, and we were looking specifically at Romans chapter 5 03:27 verses 1-11, because to be honest, when we talk about God's love for us, it just sounds too 03:32 good to be true. JON-ROSS: That's right. CHRIS: So as a little bit of a review and a 03:36 recap to bring us to where we want to go today, let's talk a little bit about this, and in 03:41 brief summary, just talk about, is it too good to be true? What does it mean that God first 03:45 loved us? JON-ROSS: Yeah, so no, it's not too good to be true. It's very true, it's very 03:50 good. The struggle we have is that sometimes, we think that maybe we've done something to 03:55 exclude ourselves from that love. But what we talked about last time - and it's such a 03:59 beautiful and profound point - is that God, from infinite past, He looked down through time and 04:05 He saw you, He saw me, He saw us at our lowest. He saw us when, as Romans 5 talks about, as when 04:12 we were enemies. He saw that, and He said, "I'll die for each one individually anyway." And He 04:18 wants to initiate that love relationship with us because He knows that we don't necessarily 04:22 have the strength to do that. And He loved us so much that He wants to initiate, to draw us 04:27 back to Himself. CHRIS: And that's what the Book of Revelation is all about. It 04:33 really traces - and in our series, we're not going to have time to unpack all the different 04:39 symbols and things like that - but the Book of Revelation, the beauty of it is, it's a book of 04:44 history. It tells us what God has done in the past. And then about mid-Revelation, Revelation 04:51 11, 12, 13, it makes this transition to things that will be coming in the future. But all 04:58 of it - you know, because sometimes we look at the trumpets, we look at the seals, 05:03 we look at the churches, we look at the beasts, we look at all these things, and we say, "Oh, 05:07 I'm confused." The overarching point that we've been talking about is, God has initiated a 05:14 relationship with us. And the bottom line is, from end to beginning, the Lamb Jesus Christ 05:22 wins. JON-ROSS: That's right. CHRIS: And He wants us to be with Him in that win. Now, we 05:29 have talked a lot about the peace, the comfort, the assurance, the hope that it can 05:34 give us right now, right now today. But we've also mentioned the Second Coming of Jesus. 05:41 Where does that lead us to? What's the Second Coming of Jesus? Why is that important to 05:47 us? And I know you don't know a date, but when do we look for the Second Coming of Jesus to be 05:54 happening? JON-ROSS: Yeah, and I think, if we could turn to 1st John chapter 2, there, there's 05:59 actually verse 28. We already touched on it once before. 06:11 CHRIS: Okay. JON-ROSS: So John has. he's saying, confidence. We can have confidence in that 06:17 return. And he's looking to the future. And that's where we look, is to the future. When we 06:23 go through the Book of Revelation, we take the time to look at the history, which we're 06:27 not doing here, but when we do take the time to look at that, we see that it's coming soon in 06:33 the future. It's an imminent coming. But it's still in the future. And so John is trying to 06:38 tell us, "Look with hope to the future." CHRIS: Yes. And you used a word there that I think 06:42 is an important word, and it's not necessarily a word we use often in our modern language, 06:46 and that is the word "imminent." We, of course - Jesus is very clear; we don't know when the 06:52 Second Coming will happen. No one knows the day or the hour. But you use this word 06:56 "imminent." That means it's happening soon. JON-ROSS That's right. CHRIS: Now, 07:02 again, I don't want to take us too far off topic, because what I want to get to, because the 07:07 obvious question in all of this is, "How can I make sure I'm ready for Jesus when He comes 07:12 again?" So I'm going to come back to that in just a moment. But when we use this word 07:16 "imminent", I think something that's very important to understand is that each of us on 07:21 this earth has been granted our lifetime. And that lifetime may be ten years; that lifetime may 07:26 be ninety years; it may be sixty years; it may be seventy years. And when we think about that 07:32 amount of time in the context of the infinite existence of God, the coming of Jesus is imminent, 07:40 because all we have is our lifetime. So that comes now to the key question: God is 07:48 relentlessly pursuing me. Jesus, through His death, made propitiation, a word we unpacked 07:55 earlier, but the bottom line is that He made atonement, he made the sacrifice for our sin. The 08:03 Book of Revelation is all about that love relationship which God has initiated. But there's 08:09 something more, though, because there's a response. So, Pastor, how can I make sure that I'm 08:20 ready for Jesus when He comes again? JON-ROSS: You know, that's really the key, is we 08:25 want to be ready. We want, when He comes back, like John, to rejoice, to have confidence, to 08:31 not shrink back. And how we do that, really, it's actually very simple. It's not a complex 08:37 thing. It's not a big long process, a drawn-out process, of things that we do, per se. What 08:44 it is, is it's responding to that love. How will we respond to that love? So what I'd like 08:52 us to look at, if we could, is in Romans 5 - we can go there - looking at how we respond, and 08:57 subsequently, how we're ready. CHRIS: And we've looked at the apostle Paul and his writing a 09:07 number of different times in our study. One of the things that I love about Paul is that God was 09:14 relentlessly pursuing Paul. And you know, Paul calls himself the Jew of Jews, so to speak. So he 09:23 had this context of a religious practice and a religious experience, and God is pursuing 09:28 him, so much so, that he's running from it. But ultimately, Paul responds, and he's writing 09:36 about that response. So where are we going to start in Romans chapter 5? JON-ROSS: We're 09:40 going to start in verse 15. So we had talked about peace with God through faith last time we 09:45 were together. And in verse 15, I just love the way Paul makes this statement. He says: 09:59 JON-ROSS: So immediately, that makes the reader stop and say, "The trespass? The trespass?" 10:03 Just before it, he's been talking about Adam, in verses 12 to 14. He's been talking about 10:08 Adam and looking at Adam way back when in his experience, and it's the disobedience that Adam, 10:14 you know, he chose, and how that's brought the trespass. And he says in verse 15: 10:31 So Paul is starting to do a compare and contrast between Adam and Christ. And here, he 10:38 talks about Adam's trespass. And so we have to ask, "Well, what is Adam's trespass?" Which is 10:42 fairly obvious: he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But how has it 10:46 affected me, is really what we want to unpack. CHRIS Absolutely. JON-ROSS: So in 10:50 order to do that, we need to go back to the beginning to Genesis, the Book of Beginnings, 10:53 Genesis chapter 3. CHRIS: Let's go to Genesis chapter 3. And you know, Pastor Jon-Ross, 10:58 one of the things I love about studying the Bible with you is, you're an individual that 11:04 doesn't take one or two favourite passages, one book. In order to understand the Book of 11:10 Revelation, what we need to understand is, actually - and not that we need to. we should 11:15 read the whole Bible - but we don't need to read the whole Bible to understand it. However, 11:20 it is throughout the entirety of the Bible that we have this story of the relentless pursuit 11:26 of God for His children. So Romans 5 says, there's the free gift. The free gift is better 11:36 than the trespass, or better than - I think the King James Version uses the word "the 11:41 offence." So what is this offence? What is this trespass of Adam? What passages are we 11:48 going to look at here, Pastor? JON-ROSS: Well, we're going to look at verse 7, Genesis 3 verse 11:51 7. So Adam and Eve, they've taken the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil 11:57 and they've eaten. Scripture records: 12:08 CHRIS: Okay. So we have Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and again, we could spend a lot 12:17 of time, but just to help people with the context of all of this, the serpent, the devil, is given 12:21 access to the Garden. Adam and Eve have their loyalty kind of put to the test. Eve makes a 12:25 decision to partake of the fruit. She brings the fruit to her husband. Now, the irony of 12:35 all of this, the interesting thing about this, is Adam is actually never tempted by the 12:40 devil himself. Adam actually makes a conscientious decision. And again, we could spend a lot 12:45 of time talking about this. But he makes a conscientious decision not to trust God's 12:49 plan, because God certainly - and we can't speculate what God would have done - but he could 12:57 have trusted that God would have a plan on how to redeem this situation that happened with 13:01 Eve. But instead of that, he makes a decision, conscientiously, to join Eve in 13:06 her sin. And so now he's got this offence. And interestingly enough, it says that they sew 13:12 fig leaves. Why do they sew fig leaves together? JON-ROSS Well, Scripture says right 13:16 there, they were naked. And we can only. I don't think it's very difficult for us to reflect 13:22 on our experience and say if we're naked, we'd feel shame and we'd want to cover ourselves up. 13:27 So for them, as soon as they eat, as soon as Adam eats and there's this disobedience, this 13:33 separation that's now come in, immediately, shame enters the picture. There's shame. But it 13:39 continues on. Verse 10, Adam says to God: 13:51 CHRIS: Which, God has created Adam and Eve. God is Adam's friend. God spends time with 13:59 Adam. And now Adam says, "I was afraid." JON-ROSS: God's heart broke. You know, it's a strong 14:06 statement to make, but you could only imagine that love God has had. He's demonstrated it, 14:12 clearly. And then for the one that He's showered so much love on, "I was afraid of you." 14:19 CHRIS: "And not only was I afraid of You, I hid from You," which, you know, you have the 14:24 fig leaves sewn, you have the hiding from God. And I don't want to get away from the 14:29 literal aspects of the story, but understanding the spiritual context of this, it is often 14:35 what happens to each of us. As we separate from God, as we have shame in our life, we try to 14:41 cover it. We try to make everything look pretty on the outside, and we often hide 14:52 ourselves from the pursuit that God has. So God comes and visits. Adam says, "I was 14:59 afraid." God's heart is broken. What else do we have happen in this passage? JON-ROSS: Well, 15:03 verses 12 and 13 is a very interesting interaction that takes place, because you know, 15:07 God says, "Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I told you not to eat 15:11 from?" Then the man responds, in verse 12, it says: 15:27 CHRIS: So the blame game starts. JON-ROSS: Yes. But what's interesting is, that 15:32 blame is nothing more than hiding. They were just trying to hide. And I think it's telling, 15:40 is that in their effort to hide, the human relationship between Adam and Eve also became 15:44 separated. There was a distance that came in. All relationships were affected when sin came into 15:50 the picture. The relationship of human beings toward their Creator, the relationship of 15:55 human beings towards one another. And too, because of the fear and the shame and the 15:59 guilt, our own personal selves fragmented even within our own selves. And so we see, this is 16:07 really what we've inherited from Adam in his transgression, is we've inherited shame, guilt, 16:15 fear, hiding, a sense of, you know, shame. CHRIS Brokenness. JON-ROSS: 16:22 Brokenness. CHRIS: This broken relationship. JON-ROSS Absolutely. CHRIS: And you 16:25 know, the reality is, I mean, many of us have experienced it in our own lives, in our own 16:29 families, in our own journey, but there is a. when the relationship that is vertical, 16:35 our relationship with God, when that is broken, it fragments and breaks those relationships. But 16:41 what we have here is - reflecting back on what Paul was saying - is the gift of God is 16:46 greater than the offence. And the offence, or the transgression that occurred, is 16:54 where Adam breaks this relationship with God, and out of it comes shame, fear, 17:02 blaming. JON-ROSS: Hiding from God. Running. CHRIS: Yeah. It's so interesting that. you know, 17:11 and there may be somebody watching right now that has blamed God for a number of the 17:15 things that have happened in their life. And often, our blaming of God is simply just 17:21 our fear and our shame and our guilt coming out. And so these are all the consequences of 17:29 Adam's sin. So we've talked about, you know, we've been talking about love, we've been 17:34 talking about hope. This isn't very hopeful, Pastor, so bring us back to some hope. How can we 17:38 find some hope out of this trespass? JON-ROSS: That's right, that's right. And so Paul 17:42 is referencing this experience. So let's go back to Romans 5. Now that we have a better 17:46 understanding of what it is that we got when Adam trespassed, Adam sinned, we see that Paul 17:58 references that, because he's going to start comparing and contrasting with what Jesus has 18:03 done for us. And this is where the hope, this is where the joy comes in. CHRIS: Let's get 18:07 right into it. JON-ROSS: Yeah, verses 16 and 17, I can read them for you. 18:39 JON-ROSS: Big statements. CHRIS: Big statements. So let's unpack them just a little bit 18:43 here to help us. Just really startling statements that Paul is making here. JON-ROSS: Yeah. 18:47 So basically, Adam's sin has brought trespass to the whole world. But really, the biggest 18:53 thing that Adam's sin brought was death. Adam's trespass brought death and separation 18:58 from God, and that God's gift through Jesus Christ is the promise of life. It's the 19:05 promise of life. So we have justification, just as if I never sinned; we have 19:10 reconciliation, the restoring of. the renewal of this loving relationship. And then in verse 19:16 17, there's just that blunt statement, that death has control over us, or had control 19:23 over us, through Adam's trespass, but now life reigns. We reign in life with Jesus 19:30 Christ. But that's a really significant statement because, when death reigns, Paul says we 19:35 die. But when Jesus reigns, we live and reign with Him. CHRIS That is a powerful, powerful. I 19:43 mean, that's a game-changer in all of this. I mean, Christ is our substitute. He's standing 19:52 before the Father. The Father looks at Jesus, counts His righteousness. And I've talked 19:59 about this many times in my own preaching. The Gospel is such a win-win proposition, because 20:05 Jesus is there on our behalf. He's sacrificed. He's everything. So, you know, many 20:14 people live in fear of death. But Pastor, it doesn't need to be this way. JON-ROSS: 20:21 Absolutely not. Because Jesus is our substitute in all things and He stepped in for us and He died 20:25 for us and He intercedes for us, we can have hope for the future that as He raised from the dead 20:36 and lives forever, we can do the same. CHRIS: Okay. And so tell me, though, I mean, does the 20:42 Book of Revelation give us that hope that you're talking about? JON-ROSS: And that's it. And I 20:45 was just about to say, let's go to Revelation 20. CHRIS: Okay. So we're going right toward the 20:48 end of the Book of Revelation, going to the end of the story. And for those that have not read 20:54 the whole Bible before, it's good to know the end of the story before the beginning of 20:59 the story, because the end of the story gives us a great deal of hope. Talk to me, where are 21:03 we at, where are we? JON-ROSS: Verse 4, 5, and 6: 21:35 JON-ROSS: So this is beautiful, is it says right here in Revelation 20 that there are 21:41 some who will reign in life - because eternal life is truly life to the fullest - CHRIS: 21:47 Absolutely. JON-ROSS: There are some who will reign in life with Christ. Paul is saying that by 21:52 faith in Christ as our substitute, we reign with Him. So in other words, my ability to 21:58 reign with Christ, Revelation 20, is made possible by my faith in Jesus as my substitute. I put 22:06 faith in Him. I trust in His grace. And I have hope that when this first resurrection happens, 22:12 this thousand-year reign, when I sit on a throne next to Jesus, it's not by anything I've done, 22:17 but it's by the promise that faith in Him brings me there. CHRIS: So the bottom line is, 22:22 just so we don't miss it, so the viewer doesn't miss the picture, the bottom line is, we ask the 22:26 question, "How can I be ready? How can I be prepared for the Second Coming of Jesus?" You 22:32 used that word "by faith." JON-ROSS: Yes. By faith we receive the favour of God, and 22:38 this is the favour of God: to restore us to a right relationship with Him. CHRIS: 22:42 And so, He offers us that forgiveness. He gives righteousness to us because we 22:49 have placed our faith in Him. JON-ROSS: That's right. CHRIS And so we are able to face, you 22:55 know. and in our next show we're going to unpack a little bit more, because the books are 23:00 opened and there's judgment. We're going to peer into that in our next show. But let's end on 23:05 this note, though: We enter into the judgment. The books are opened. And we can have 23:11 confidence and assurance that we'll be ready by one thing, and what is that one thing? 23:15 JON-ROSS: By faith. CHRIS: By faith. JON-ROSS: That's right. CHRIS: Faith in the promise of 23:20 His Word that Jesus has done it all and made the sacrifice for us. JON-ROSS: And as I said 23:26 before, we receive that as a gift offered to us freely. CHRIS: Pastor, that's powerful. 23:30 Let's end in prayer, and I'd ask that you pray for us. JON-ROSS Sweet Jesus, we want to thank 23:35 you for all that You've done for us and that You are our substitute in all things. We 23:39 thank You that we have hope for the future for when You return. Help us to receive it for the 23:44 gift that it is. In Jesus' name, amen. CHRIS: Amen. 24:33 > 24:35 Bev: Hi everyone. We've been focusing on the NEWSTART acronym that's: N, E, W, S, T, A, R, T 24:42 and today we are looking at "R" for rest. Are you tired of being tired? If you're like me, 24 24:48 hours is just not enough for one day. If I could purchase extra bonus hours, believe me, I 24:55 would! But, God, in his great wisdom knew that 24 hours would be all we could handle. How much 25:01 sleep are you getting each night? Research shows that 7 to 8 hours is ideal for most 25:07 people. And the old saying, "early to bed, early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy 25:13 and wise" appears to be so true. Studies indicate that getting to sleep a few hours before 25:19 midnight is quite important to the restorative growth and repair our bodies undertake 25:24 while we are sleeping. Furthermore, research shows that a chronic lack of sleep can be 25:30 very serious, resulting in a depressed immune system which, in turn, results in you being 25:36 more prone to illness and depression. Many people have trouble sleeping, though. If 25:41 you're one of them, here are some proven ideas for you to try: 1) finish eating your last 25:47 meal and also drinking any fluids at least two hours before you go to bed 2) go to bed at 25:54 the same time each evening 3) get all the clutter out of your bedroom and make it a serene 26:00 place to unwind 4) be sure to sleep in complete darkness 5) get adequate amounts of sunshine 26:09 during the day! 6) exercise regularly! Researchers at the Stanford University School of 26:16 Medicine studied 43 women and men, aged 50 to 76 who led a sedentary lifestyle and who were 26:24 experiencing trouble sleeping. After 16 weeks of 30-40 minutes of low-impact aerobics or brisk 26:31 walking four times a week, the group that exercised was able to increase their sleeping hours by 26:38 almost an hour. 7) eat foods that are high in melatonin Melatonin is a hormone that is 26:45 produced naturally by our bodies that, amongst other things, acts as a natural sleep aid. Foods 26:51 high in melatonin include corn, oats, brown rice, tomatoes, and bananas 8) and last, but 26:57 certainly not least, give God any worries you may have, and Psalm 127:2 tells us that He 27:04 will grant sleep to those He loves. Also, Psalm 121:4 tells us that God never sleeps and He 27:11 never slumbers, so we can rest assured that He's keeping a careful and loving watch over 27:17 us. I love that! If you want additional information on getting a good night's sleep, 27:23 visit www.pcrm.org and you'll find links to great resources. I hope you sleep well tonight. See 27:30 you next time! 27:36 > 27:38 CHRIS: The Book of Revelation, the gospel in Revelation, gives us hope. It gives us 27:43 encouragement because by faith, we can know with assurance that Jesus is coming soon, and we can 27:53 be ready for Him when He comes again. Friend, I want to give you something to put as a part 27:58 of your spiritual library to help you in that journey with Jesus, and that is the booklet 28:03 Daniel and Revelation: The Secrets of Prophecy. This book will delve more deeply into some 28:10 of the symbols and meanings that Pastor Jon-Ross and I have not been able to go into. It will 28:17 encourage you, though, to know that the Lamb wins and we can win with Him. Here's what you 28:24 need to get the offer. 29:23 > 29:27 CHRIS: Pastor Jon-Ross, thank you so much for joining us today. JON-ROSS: Yeah, it's 29:30 good to be here, thanks so much, Chris. CHRIS: You know, dear friend, the gospel in Revelation 29:35 is a powerful testimony to the life-changing ability that Jesus has in your own life. I want to 29:42 encourage you to follow Jesus, respond to His relentless pursuit for you. I hope you 29:48 enjoyed today's program. I want to invite you to be with us again next week. Until then, 29:53 remember, it is written: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds 30:01 from the mouth of God." 30:05 $$$$$$$$$$ |
Revised 2016-05-19